Temi Ajibewa: ‘A lot of women have no idea that tt’s possible to work from home, on their phones, laptops and make money’

KNOWLEDGE-driven Temi Ajibewa is the Founder of Millionaire Housewife Academy (MHA), a foremost education-tech platform designed to help African women launch and grow successful businesses from home by leveraging on the Internet. The award winning and highly-sought-after global business coach in the business and personal development niches in Nigeria is a two-time Amazon Bestselling author, Certified John Maxwell DISC Trainer, Results Coach, NLP Practitioner, and Peak Performance Consultant. With her B.A Degree in English Language from Lagos States University, Ojo (LASU), and LLB Law from University of Lagos, Akoka, Temi lends her expertise as a digital products and marketing consultant to HINIs and organisations who want to increase their impact and create wealth from knowledge.In this interview with GuardianWoman, Temi who is popularly called ‘Electric Temi’ talks about the necessity for women to make success a birthright and thrive under whatever circumstance life throws at them.

Why did you decide to be a development personnel coach?
Growing up, I had a bit of rough challenges. My mother was a single mother because my father refused to accept responsibility for her pregnancy. So I grew up not knowing my father until I went to seek him at 17 years old. As you can imagine, I didn’t have a perfect upbringing because I only had a mother who was playing the role of both mother and father, so I had a bit of instability and insecurity. So when I was able to overcome that through coaching, mentoring and personal development, having to forgive him and all of that, it became an assignment for me to also help other people who I believe may be suffering from such rejection or peculiar background and circumstance.

I come from a place where I help you to master yourself. So it’s more of self-mastery for peak performance. So when you know yourself to a large extent, you will not define yourself by people’s acceptance or rejection of you. The moment I had a new identity, I had a better understanding of who I was, it became obvious that I’m not the labels of rejection I got from my father. So that was what prompted me to go into personnel development. I have seen what it could do for me, and so today, I’m a John Maxwell Certified Disc Coach, which means I major in personality analysis in order to build a more robust life as a person.

Tell us about The Millionaire Housewife Academy, what is it about and what did you aim to achieve?
With that academy, my hope is to actually further the number one goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is to alleviate poverty. According to statistics in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, we have more poor women than men. And according to the given statistics of occupation for the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, we have over 60 per cent of women whose occupation was housewife. So that means, we have more women at home than not, and because women are caregivers, they want to take care of the family; they tend to do better when they are in the house.

So even when they have careers, they are forced to stay at home. What we seek to achieve with the academy is to help these women start online businesses that would not require them to leave their homes. Such that while they are in the house, they can start businesses by leveraging on online platforms, social media, others, and they can do well for themselves. I began my business from the house with N10, 000 by selling data bundles for MTN. I buy in bulk and sell in bits, and I would make as high as N20, 000 in a day and in about four months or more, I had done over N1million cumulative profit. Then I was also working as a Virtual Assistant (VA) for a number of small businesses. So I could handle their small administrative duties, based on my knowledge of Microsoftword, social media, others, and I was making money from it. So at Millonaire Housewife Academy we train women to become VA so they can work with SMEs, corporate organisations and even monetise their skills without necessarily leaving their home.

How many women have you trained so far?
So far we have trained over 2,000 women in the last four to five years. We are bringing in more women into the Academy to train them. A lot of women have no idea that it is possible to work from home, on their phones, laptops and make money. We educate them on the possibilities, we ask them to check the skills they have. Some have worked in the bank and laid off after maternity leave, many of them have worked in several established companies and are forced to be in the house to raise their children. So we help them see what is possible online and also hire them for small corporations that need their services. And you can render services to a number of companies at the same time and earn all around. It’s all about empowering women through the Internet to make money.

You are a two time Amazon bestselling author; tell us about the books you have written?
The first book I wrote is titled ‘How to Make Millions in Your Nightgown.’ Basically I was writing about my experience, having to work from home and I was showing other women the opportunities possible for them as well. So when I released the book it became a bestseller. The second book, which is also a bestseller on Amazon, is titled ‘How To Make Million Doing What You Love’ – here it is not just about survival but how to pursue your passion and make money from it. So I wrote this book to help people to monetise their passion. I took them through a process of 5Ps – the Problem your passion solves, who are the People it’s solving the problems for, what Product you can create from this passion, how can you Package it and how can you Promote it. I talked about how to find your passion, purpose and how to marry all of that into moneymaking.

Tell us about the significance of the word ‘million’ in your academy and two bestselling books?
Million for me signifies a place where you can be able to afford some good things of life. But literarily, if you think in Naira, million is water, you can’t even buy a house with N1 million Naira. So for me N1million on a monthly basis is a good and financially safe place to be, it gives you comfort but not financial freedom.

For the woman who is still struggling but makes far less than N1million a month, should she see herself as an underachiever?
Of course not, we all began with zero, unless if you were born into a rich family, I wasn’t. I was homeless at 21 after I lost my mother who was my only parent, I was staying with friends, had my things in an uncompleted building, so I have tasted hard and terrible times. If you’re at the stage where you have zero or still struggling, I think my life should be an inspiration to you. Most times the problem is the ability to even think. I was washing clothes for people in the university to pay my school fees, at UNILAG I hawked bread in the hostels, made toast bread and sold. I even sold sachet water at Madam Tinubu hall at UNILAG when I was studying Law. I have been at the bottom of it. The trick is in possibility thinking. How much is N1million? Solve 50K problem for 20 people and you can make N1million. I made my first million online; I trained people on a WhatsApp group how to run the MTN data sharing business and I had huge number of people in the room, I made N2.6million in three weeks from that training and that was when it dawned on me that you can make a lot of money online.

As a business and personal development niches coach, what are the basics of your teaching?
There is something in your hand, there is a voice, talent, gift that you were born with, discover it, productively use it and promote it shamelessly. I prefer knowledge-based products like books, masterclasses, others, and see how you can promote it to sell to the right people.

Who are your target audience and why?
Primarily I focus on thought leaders, experts who have a body of knowledge and skills they want to monetise. Also organisations that want to increase their company’s peak performance. Women who want to work from home with skills they can monetise online.

If you were not doing this, what else would you be doing?
I will be an actress, I love to act, and I love to be in the media. I have a diploma in the Mass Communication.

What motivates you to strive for success?
The quest for significance motivates me. I strongly believe in my heart that I am too small to be the only reason I am alive. I believe that there are nations of the world who need to hear about me to be liberated. I don’t believe I was made for just me, but for the world, to better people’s lives. When people say, because of me they are better, their marriages are restored, women who have been looked down as nothing now brings money home and proud of themselves.

What are the challenges in your profession?
Most people expect that things should be free. They assume that once you’re doing anything that comes from using your knowledge, it should be free because it is not a physical product. They ignore the fact that it is a profession and so much money was invested on certification.

Do you have a role model?
When it comes to my profession, Tony Robins is my role model; I love what he does, I see my future in him. I also admire people like Udo Okonjo of ‘Fine and Country’, Ibukun Awosika, Folorunsho Alakija.

Tell us about your best moment, the peak of your career?
The first was when I won the Business Coach of the Year award in 2018 because I didn’t expect it. There were a number of nominees who I thought had the crowd and name, so when I was announced as winner, it was amazing. The second was when I won overall Coach of the Year 2019.

Who are your mentors?
Pastor Sam Oye, he owns a church in Abuja, Olakunle Soriyan, we call him PK, and Niyi Adesanya. These three men are my mentors, I hear their voices in my head, and they direct me.

What’s your advice for young ones who want to make a career and thrive in your field?
Connect with top 10 people in the field, bridge the gap of your knowledge by enrolling for programmes and courses in the field in order to reduce your ignorance and better serve your clients. If you want to hack into the top 10 in any industry, you must be able to beat the number 10 and bump him or her out of the list and put your name. So know your competitors, study them, get their email list, buy their books, attend their programmes and events, find them on social media and connect with them. Most importantly, increase your capacity, your knowledge to be able to compete with them fairly.

What is the most difficult thing about your profession?
When your clients are not implementing, you give them task, they don’t implement and they want result. It’s a big challenge for me.
Considering how much effort you put into your career day in- day out, at what point do you take a break to relax?
I have been hiring people in my organisation to fill in for me and handle things for me. I have seven people who work for me. So I outsource things in order to have more room and time to do other things. For relaxation, I try to watch a movie every week, dinner date with my husband every Friday; we sleep out in a hotel once in a month just to take a break from all the work. I do my spa sessions to relax my nerves.

How supportive is your husband towards your career?
At the beginning it was difficult because he could not understand why I was pressing my phone every time but when the result began to show, he became more receptive towards me following my passion, he began to see the thank you notes, the gifts, testimonies and income. My husband has been very supportive I call him my archangel.