Meeting the Wilson brothers for the first time especially Seun leaves no impression as to who they really are. For me, I would say humility is the key word to define the personality. EM’s DAMILOLA SHOTE recently held a chitchat meeting with seun and certainly one can feel the zeal and passion burning with joy derived having met consumers’ needs and still meeting them with a “win-win” kind of offer.
SEUN ABOLAJI is the co-founder of Wilsons Juice Company. He used to be a pharmacist before moving back to Nigeria but since establishment, he has been heading the sales department of the company; with the brother doing more of finance and administration. The opportunity seen gave room for choosing the line of business that is making waves in the drink industry. Initially Wilson lemonade wasn’t the core focus but with getting a lot more constant demand for it than the regular drinks and products made by them .i.e palm kernel cakes etc they decided to concentrate, build and focus on the juice bar as both brothers loved freshly squeezed juices, smoothies and then lemonades. The demand for it got extremely high which led to the rebranding of the bottling package.
He believes competition is inevitable even more so with the production of different lemon drinks for consumers, as well as the regulations made by NAFDAC in reducing/stop the importation of foreign products. The Unique selling point (USP) for them is using real lemon juices to make their products available as natural as possible and still very affordable.
WILSON lemonade produces all drinks from scratch using all locally made available resources except for the bottling suppliers that mould the bottles imported. Amidst the general economic issue affecting the country, it has slightly affected the financial value of all products which unavoidably is a major challenge but it hasn’t affected the level of quality they tend to deliver to the consumers. Seun says “you have to pair your margins because it is a chain of users; no credit supply except for a stipulated number of days if need be. Until complete payment is made, no supply”.
Asides business, he still does business. Unwinding to him is hanging out, going to the beach, listening to music. He loves playing basket ball, doing outdoor events; festivals as well as small (low keyed or private concerts) are what he does as his hobbies. Seyi can define is style to be like RMDs’ (RICHARD MOFE DAMIJO) as he loves his fashion style.
His advice to young start ups is to have courage, not to be deterred and to just start. “Just start and wait for people’s correction along the line if need be as no one is perfect at the initial stage. Starting created room for our previous packaging from the previous as people misinterpreted for something else especially soaps in the market. It affected slow sales and delay in stores”.
DID YOU KNOW THAT SEUN IS THE OLDEST STAFF IN THE COMPANY, CAN BE A LITTLE THOUGH ON PEOPLE TO GET THE BEST RESULTS AND USED TO PLAY GUITER AS WELL AS DO MUSIC. Thanks for reading.
