Pots, Pans & Spoons

By Kehinde Kamson

Pots, Pans & Spoons is the intriguing story of how a popular Nigerian food business was started at a small backyard shed with nothing but determination, passion and faith; nurtured in relative obscurity for about 10 years and painstakingly grown into a successful brand. It is the story of the birth of Sweet Sensation, one of Nigeria’s leading chain of Quick Service Restaurants and its unassuming founder, Kehinde Kamson.

In this interesting and full–of-lessons -to–learn memoir, Kehinde Kamson splendidly combines some of her more personal early life experiences, thoughts and dispositions with the recount of the earliest days of Sweet Sensation to deliver a brilliant book.

This is a must-read-book for just about anyone who has a business idea, dream, or desire to succeed, particularly anyone living in a challenging socio-economic clime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483507231

Book preview

families.

Forward

It is a privilege to be asked to write a forward to a truly outstanding story of a very wonderful lady. I first met Kehinde Kamson (nee Adelaja) around October 1982, when we both trained at the then Price Waterhouse (now Price Waterhouse coopers) in Lagos after we had both entered as Youth Corpers. This book, Pots, Pans and Spoons tells the story of how she dropped the accountants’ green pen and pencil for pots, pans and spoons which led her to a journey of destiny and is still leading her to a rich and fulfilling life.

This book is typically of Kehinde: very open, very real and very human. She has used this opportunity to let us into her world, her ideas, her values, her business philosophies, the movies and books she likes, her heroes, her motivation and the amazing story of how Sweet Sensation, one of the most successful brands in Nigeria’s Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry, started from the small backyard shed of her matrimonial home.

We learn how she starts her day, her routine, her ambitions, mistakes and of course her triumphs as she kept giving herself to nurturing Sweet Sensation.

She tells us about her deep love for God and the foundation that her parents laid in her life and also expressed her wish for her children that they may all serve God.

She also tells us how she wishes to die in a ripe old age, surrounded by her children grand and great grandchildren and acknowledges that her life would have been a mess without Jesus.

Each chapter of this book is written in easy prose and has interesting quotations. It teaches clearly the dos and don’ts of business, how hard work, dedication and focus can result in great results, the effect of God’s hand on human life and how God can make things happen at every turn.

This book is simply a must read!

To Kehinde, I say congratulations for writing this wonderful book and sharing your life with us.

To the readers I say read, learn and enjoy.

Ituah Ighodalo

Partner, IS AO,

Publisher, TIMELESS Magazine

An Opening Word

Sweet Sensation has come a long way from the small shed at the back of an apartment where my husband, Olayinka Kamson, and I resided with our first three children early in our marriage, to the chain of Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) it has become today. I suspect that knowing the ‘small- beginning’ story behind Sweet Sensation will encourage you to believe more in your own ideas, work harder on them and trust God to actualize them.

Personally, I have come a long way too. Sometimes when I sit in my office on the 4th floor of the head office of Sweet Sensation, at Opebi, Lagos, I remember when I was a newly married, young accountant with three children. I had just quit my job to undertake an entrepreneurial journey that held no guarantees for my professional future. It took a long time for the decision to leave my lucrative accounting profession - for pots, pans and spoons- to make any sense.

In this memoir I attempt to share with you some of my personal experiences as well as the story of the early days of Sweet Sensation. The reason for the ‘story mix’ is understandable when you consider the fact that in owner-manager companies, it is difficult to separate stories of such companies from those of the owners.

I did not write this memoir because I feel I have ‘arrived’ or Sweet Sensation is there yet – not at all. I live my life constantly knowing that God has taken me thus far and I still have a long way to go. I have also not written this for money. I still prefer my good old food selling business as far as making money is concerned. Moreover, someone once humorously said that if Agatha Christie had written and sold her famous detective series in Nigeria, she probably wouldn’t have become rich!

I have written this memoir with the hope that my personal experiences coupled with the story of Sweet Sensation’s small start, will encourage and inspire you to pursue your own dreams and ideas despite all the obstacles that may stand in your way or at the very least, I hope you will simply enjoy reading all the ‘gists’

Part I

BACKGROUND

Don’t think too much of yourself....

Charles Elliot

Getting Real: Life As I Live It

I like to think that there is nothing too unusual about me. I work hard but sleep well. I seem to sleep more deeply than the average business person. I always say humorously that I’m abundantly blessed with the ‘gift of sleep’ because even in difficult circumstances I tend to sleep soundly. I know that you are probably thinking, like I have always thought, that world class, Bill Gates-like-entrepreneurs are supposed to be people who work 24 hours a day and hardly ever sleep but fortunately, I’m no Bill Gates.

Though my sleep hours do not exceed six hours a day, they are always six hours of sound sleep. I also enjoy my short naps between travels to several work-stations. Some people talk about their inability to fall asleep in their homes or on airplanes, not me. I can sleep standing, especially after a hard day’s work.

I enjoy good music and I love to sing. Sometimes I wish I’m a singer but something tells me that judging by the quality of my voice, becoming a singer would only remain a wish for the rest of my life. I still look forward to writing songs though, even if I don’t sing.

I maintain very few friends and I do not go out to parties except when absolutely necessary. Moreover I do not like the format of the average Nigerian party, especially the ‘Owambes’. You just sit around, eat and listen to praise singers who sometimes hail societal mishaps. We then debase the naira when we indulge in the tradition called ‘spraying’.

I was embarrassed sometime at a wedding party in America, when a white American asked me why I was spraying the bride and groom and what it symbolized; it took two good minutes to attempt an answer to his question. Moreover I sort of mumbled the answer and left him confused. Some call our naira spraying ‘redistribution of income’. Others will tell you it is a ‘show-off’. I call it Nigeria’s version of a gift registry.

I watch movies and TV though I admit that church and sleep have a bigger slice of my away-from-work time. Like the average girl (yes, I still say I’m a girl at 50. For some reason, the older a woman gets, the more she wishes she were still a girl.), romance movies still remain my favorite type of movies. I have watched the Titanic over three times. I remember that I sat down one night, a long time ago, watched it from start to finish and replayed it to watch it all over again. Of course there was no 7:30 am meeting to attend to the following morning. The Titanic is a moving story; the kind that sticks to your memory forever. For me, it had a message about making the right choices and letting go of things you may consider important but which are in actual fact detrimental to you.

My love for romance and real-life-drama type of movies dates back to my teenage years. I remember a movie titled, A Star Is Born which made a huge impression on me. It’s a 1976 American rock music musical film telling the story of how a has-been rock star falls in love with a young, upcoming songstress played by Barbra Streisand. It was a love story that intrigued my young mind.

I don’t enjoy action movies because they make my heart race and that’s bad because managing Sweet Sensation is heart racing enough. Ironically, I do like watching investigative and crime channels because they open my eyes to the realities of human nature. I also enjoy watching gospel television channels or programs.

As a kid, I watched the popular locally produced TV programs every other Nigerian boy or girl watched with their parents and siblings every evening of each week days. I watched Tales by moonlight, Village headmaster, Cock Crow at Dawn and the likes. I’m not sure I understood much of what I watched though, but I did have a few laughs while watching them. I also watched many of the foreign series that had gradually started to become popular in Nigeria in the sixties and seventies.

I enjoy reading although my work schedules don’t permit me much reading time. Half of the books in my library are still unread. Maybe I’ll get to read them at retirement or perhaps when God’s day turns to 48 hours! However, my favorite authors are people who have an unusual story to tell about real life experiences. That’s why I like to read autobiographies of exemplary people.

I read a lot of Christian books and listen to gospel messages like those of Bishop David Oyedepo. I also listen to the sermons of Paul Adefarasin - whose preaching style I admire - during my daily exercises which is always a mixed grill of keep fit and spiritual uplifting sessions. As I brisk walk or dance and listen to uplifting messages, I’m kind of killing two birds with one stone. Although getting started is often a struggle, when I’m finally through with those sessions I feel really good inside out.

I am not a fashion freak so I do not invest in time dated fashion. This makes me conservative in my choices but I do love quality. Though I have a big frame, I try to be smart. I cannot stand a sluggish carriage or posture. Sometimes I surprise my children with a few funky choices. I am more of an accessory person and I think I have a subtle love for jewelry.

Like most people, I have my heroes and those I admire. They include Faith Oyedepo for her attitude to marriage, Hilary Clinton for how she stood by Bill Clinton during the most difficult times of their marriage, Oprah Winfrey for her charity and social responsibility initiatives, the late Mother Theresa for her love and passion, the late Bimbo Odukoya for her philosophies on relationships and Pastor Enoch Adeboye because his integrity is attested to by all.

When I was young, I admired my father and my mother. Someone once asked that if I had the chance to trade places and live someone else’s life for one day, who would it be? After saying that I was perfectly fine with mine, I allowed my imagination to run wild and finally said, Either Lady Diana or Margret Thatcher. But I quickly added that I would gladly chicken out within twenty four hours if any trouble erupted because for those two, trouble was as common as air.

My typical day starts with a to-do list. I do this before everyone wakes up in my home and even before I pray so I would know what to place before God. Without that I often don’t achieve much during the day. I exercise about three to four times a week so my body is ready for the work ahead.

I am no Superman (or woman in my case) so when people say they wonder how I cope with all the roles I juggle, I always raise my eye brows and wonder what the big deal is about coping if you plan smartly, have a supportive husband, a capable work force and above all, God, to balance it all. Left to myself, I could get as confused and overwhelmed as anyone else when saddled with my kind of work load.

Someone I once reluctantly granted an interview said that I should confirm if, in line with rumors, I was indeed one of the wealthiest business women in Nigeria. Wow! How do they reach such conclusions? Nigerians are very good ‘raters’ of other people’s wealth. So far, no formal rating has confirmed such claims so I do not know or care to know where I fall.

People are misguided about the profitability of quick service restaurants. All I