THE Mission Vocation Training Centre, consisting of professionals from various fields, is a missionary body established in 2000 with the aim of empowering people with the requisite commercial skills that will make for a life of wealth and self-sufficiency.

With this aim, the centre has organised a series of training workshops in different parts of the country to train on how to establish small-scale industries engaged in the production of items like detergent, washing-up liquid, petroleum jelly, candles and confectionery, among several others, recording more than 100,000 trainees so far.

In June, the Missions Vocation Training Centre commenced its training workshops in the South West, covering cities like Ibadan, Akure and Lagos after an extensive coverage of some northern cities including Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Niger and Nasarawa.

The General Coordinator of the centre, Reverend Stephen D. Praise, believes that anybody can break out of poverty, just like he did, provided that they have the right skills and ample knowledge on how to sell, which he shares later on, in this report.

Last Saturday, SaturdayTribune visited the venue of the centre’s workshop taking place at St. Anne’s Secondary School premises, Molete, Ibadan, Oyo State, where hundreds of participants were in attendance. One of several skill acquisition trainings on offer was one on paint making.

The process of paint production
The paint industry remains a lucrative one in a country like Nigeria, where houses are constantly being built all around  the country.

According to the syllabus the centre provides, the materials needed for paint production are: water acticide, calgon, silicate, titanium dioxide, calcium, genepor, defoamer, PVA, formalin, nitrosol, ammonium solution and coloured paste; each of these ingredients is mixed according to a prescribed industrial formula.

The process of turning these constituents into regular emulsion paint takes place in a few simple steps. It begins with pouring about 40 litres of water into a mixing tank. Some water should be set aside for diluting the other chemicals.

Measure the calgon into a separate bowl, add water and stir to dissolve. Then pour it into the mixing tank as mixing begins. Add water to the silicate, stir and pour into the mixing tank. This same procedure is carried out for titanium oxide and calcium, and both are added into the mixing tank.

Add the genepor, formalin, ammonia solution and diluted PVA and defoamer. Pour the nitrosol into the remaining water; stir vigorously and pour it into the mixing tank. Allow the mixture to get well blended and the paint is ready.

Different colours are formed by different choices of colour paste.

Making mentholated balm
Another training the centre has on offer deals with the production of mentholated balm. This product is  quite lucrative to produce and sell, seeing that a large proportion of the nation’s population are aged people, among whom body pains are a frequent malaise, for which this product can provide quick relief.

The chemical ingredients needed here include: petroleum jelly, paraffin wax, menthol crystal or peppermint oil, methyl salicylate, turpentine oil, eucalyptus, tincture of capsicum and camphor. The equipment needed are a boiler, a heating system, packaging containers and a weighing scale.

Place the boiler on the heating system and pour in the petroleum jelly and allow it to melt. Then, add the menthol crystal, allowing it to melt also. Add the following ingredients in this order into the boiler: methyl salicylate, turpentine oil, eucalyptus oil and the tincture of capsicum.

Stir and add paraffin wax. Finally, add the camphor, rectified stirring properly and empty the entire mixture into the containers. Allow to cool and the product is ready.

How to market products succesfully
“The ability to break into the market is one of the most important aspects of wealth creation. No matter how good a produce is, it cannot be sold, that product becomes a failure,” said Reverend Praise.

“It is not always who knows it best, or who has the best product, but who can sell best.”

With this in mind, it is pertinent for one properly understand how to market the products one has learnt how to produce. Therefore, the general coordinator of the centre gave some key points on how to succesfully market such products:

1.    Readiness to pay attention to marketing: Give the product the best acceptable quality. But it would be a grave mistake to give 90 per cent of the capital to the product and 10 per cent to marketing. It should be 50-50, or in some cases, 40 per cent to the product, and 60 per cent to marketing.

2.    Product/Market Research: Reports from questionnaire are not always reliable, as people tend to respond based on their moods when one meets them. Instead, employ the use of undercover agents. Send them into the target group and they will bring you useful results. In doing this, you must establish three things: What is the target group? How relevant is the product? What is the strength and weakness of the competitors?

3.    How to get the customer’s response: Proper study of what will prompt the response of your target group or how they get excited is important.  What elicits  response would differ from one locality to another.

4.    Branding: This has a lot to do with giving the product an image, style and packaging. Packaging is not all about giving a book, for example, the best cover or designing of good package for items. It also has to do with the marketer’s dressing and style. If adverts are done, but the products and outlets are left without style, one would only attract customers who would be disappointed.

Having gathered all this information, one should be quite prepared to execute a successful production enterprise. As Mrs. Oketade who learnt baking and soap making at the centre said, “With knowledge about production coupled with information on how to sell these products, I find it very enlightening and educative.”

Oyediran Abiola, another participant, said that he found that he had indeed learnt to produce good quality products, after he had sampled the views of his first few customers.