Glam Africa: The Revolutionary Edition (2019)

ADVERTORIAL
Built an Empire
BY BOIPELO JEAN CHABABA
“Speaking from experience, when you
DIY, you are putting the health of your
hair in the hands of someone online who
recommends a process that hasn’t been
tested in a controlled lab. You take risks
based on their lucky strike that might
not necessarily work for your hair. Also
dosage is everything, with hair salons,
something I graduated to, over a long
time of trial and error, you know and
can trust that the treatments are tried and
tested - some scientifically. Each dosage
is measured and based on your personal
requirements.”
KL's Naturals, the first all-encompassing
natural hair salon in Lagos pioneered
by Kemi, blew up soon after its doors
opened in 2013. Kemi recalls how she
had underestimated the demand for her
services and had to quickly adapt.
“Although I had a great business plan
for KLS Naturals, I was so excited about
it after chatting to my friend that I would
read and perfect it every night for the
5 months before I opened it, however I
wasn’t ready for the influx of customers
and hadn’t strategized massive growth
so soon. I thought we would start slow
and gradually build up like the market
reflected at the time. But because we
were one of the very first natural hair
salons, once people started to hear
about it, our phones were ringing all day.
We now had more clients than we could
cater to - a good problem to have, but a
problem nevertheless! We had to think
bigger and looked at areas we could
invest in that already had a client base.
One of them was a location that was a
long drive from our first salon and we’d
often hear our clients complain about
the lengths they took to get to us. So we
listened and opened our second salon
and have been growing into other areas
since!”
Part of the reason KL's Naturals became
sought after was the sense of cooperate
culture that all the stylists have. Kemi’s
secret was to instil pride into her team,
creating in-house brand ambassadors
that would take the gospel of KL's
Naturals everywhere they went.
"Indoctrination," she says with a laugh.
"If you can create a cult out of your team,
no one can poach them, no one can tell
them anything negative about the brand,
because they ARE the brand.”
This was what sparked the academy
project. Natural hair enthusiasts from
around the world were knocking on
KL's Naturals’ doors, wanting to know
how they too could achieve success,
whether for personal hair care at home
or to start their own business.
Klshairacademy.com was born as a
response to many complaints from
women who didn’t know what to do
with their natural hair. It’s one thing to go
natural, it’s another thing to confidently
wear and style it every day. Kemi Lewis
knew that once you teach people how
to find inspiration in technique, then you
open doors for more inspiration. The
growth of social media soon became an
integral part of her business model.
“Instagram was such a huge blessing for
my business, because I could just take
a picture and upload it, then suddenly
it’s, ‘OMG! How did you do that? How
do you get your hair to grow that long?’
And then I could easily lead them to one
place to learn all about who we were
and what other services we could offer
them.”
The impact of KL's Naturals has reached
as far as the US, Europe, South Africa
and the UK, a reach that Kemi attributes
to the professionalism of her entire
company.
REACH KL'S NATURALS
Address: 11A KAYODE OTITOJU, OFF
ADMIRALTY RD, LEKKI PHASE 1, LAGOS,
NIGERIA
Telephone: +2348093308866
Website: KLSNATURAL.COM
Instagram: @KLSNATURALS
21