Bpeace in Afghanistan (Again)

What 25-year old do you know who holds down a full-time admin job, and owns her owns and operates her own women-only fitness studio?

If you follow Bpeace mission blogs, you first read about Nargis and her Venus Gym during last December’s Bpeace mission when Kate Buggeln connected with her and also tapped her own trainers in Nyack, New York, as Nargis’ mentors. Jeff and Julie Castaldo sent along work-out videos with the mission team to give to their highly entrepreneurial mentee.

Nargis' beauty is slightly marred by her worry over her business. She would like to quit her day job to focus more on the gym, but doesn't want to give up her salary yet. Nargis’ business struggles are the same as any fitness studio owner. Bringing in clients and keeping clients. She is thinking of making new customers sign up for a minimum of three months so they have a realistic period of time to see results. But some of her marketing issues are different than those faced by Jeff and Julie in the USA. It’s difficult for Nargis to get her message out to women because other than work or shopping, there is nowhere that Afghan women, even in Kabul, “hang-out.”

Most of Nargis’ initial customers came in through flyers she posted in the neighborhood. They are Afghan housewives and teachers, who never before exercised, interested in weight loss and firming up their bellies after having 5-7 children. While we were interviewing Nargis at her gym, a woman entered from outside, whipped off her burqa and went in the back to don her work-out outfit. (Although fitness is not totally unknown to Afghan women. Rahima, another Bpeace associate, said when she was a young woman, years before the Taliban, she used to go jogging with her husband. And Najib, our guide, said women used to run around their enclosed backyards. We can't imagine where even a man could jog today given the bomb-ravaged sidewalks and crater-sized holes on most streets.)

Nargis recently built a beauty salon area in the front of the gym and hired a hairstylist to woman it. The beauty salon is a good cross-selling tool. It captures a greater share of wallet from her customers. And Afghan women come in to check out the salon, which is a concept they understand, and then go on to visit the gym.

Via email, Jeff coached Toni to advise Nargis to use her limited marketing budget to educate her potential customers, not target them. Jeff said Nargis has a great opportunity to make awareness/knowledge her real business and convince Afghan women they need fitness. The more she gets out there the more she becomes a resource for fitness, health club, trainer, videos, books, articles, journalist, columns.

At Toni’s request, Nargis prepared a $500 marketing budget. Nargis included 20 radio spots, 6 TV spots, posters, flyers and brochures. (Guess you get a big bang for your media buck in Kabul.) Bpeace will cost-share that marketing budget with her. She has used radio before, but plans on using TV for the first time with a client before/after approach. Just think, fitness infomercials coming to Kabul TV. What a world.

Nargis would also like Bpeace’s help with getting her Venus Gym logo on work-out wear for her clients, and pens she could distribute in her neighborhood. She thought about logoed T-shirts, but then thinking out loud she said women would wear the shirts at home, not on the street, so their marketing effectiveness would be limited. Smart cookie, our Nargis. Now does any Bpeacer or friend reading this know anyone who could produce these items pro bono?