The other day I went to buy meat from the shopping center in my hood. It was an early morning but the butchery was already open.
The butchery is very small. In spite of this, he confidently told me that he sell the greatest quantity of meat per day in the entire shopping center. There are a few lessons that I learnt as I interacted with the butcher.
- Cleanliness is next to godliness. He told me that he cleans the butchery very meticulously every day to keep away flies.
2. Customer service. He was patient enough to slice the meat into small pieces. Have you been to a butchery where the butcher sliced the meat and on getting home you had to slice again?
3. Honesty. The scale was balanced before he placed the weights of the meat. If you are keen, when your butcher is about to weigh your meat, he will always have a weight on one side. This is because the scale is defective in favor of the butcher.
4. Product knowledge. The butcher knew a lot about the various parts of the cow and which part is best for what purpose. He could even explain to me how red meat is healthy. He had a very enlightened argument. This was impressive.
5. Market knowledge. He knew the politics around meat. There are many factors that determine the price of meat. Let me mention a few. The leather dealers….the more the animals slaughtered, the more leather they get, the butchers…the fewer the cows, the higher the price of meat per KG. The “mutura people”, the farmers, the weather….if it rains, the farmers are not willing to sell their cows.
6. Location. From the highway, you can see the butchery. The French windows (big windows) are a perfect display for the lean meat. The meat “calls” you from a distance. When investing in real estate, we say that location is everything.
7. Display. He hasn’t displayed all the meat. It creates a sense of limited supply and also the buyer will feel like he needs to buy from this butchery that has already sold most of its meat….
This butcher is not your every day “mtu wa nyama”. Are you about to invest in something you don’t understand? If you want to invest in real estate in Kenya this year, start by ordering a copy of my book, The ABC of REAL estate Investment in Kenya, to understand how to invest in real estate in Kenya.
To buy the book, please email info@kariukiwaweru.com
Kariuki Waweru