Advancing the Business Development and Sales of Fabretto Youth Centers in Nicaragua

By Andrés F. Varona, Farmer-to-Farmer Program Officer 

 

In September 2017, Johnson Ndi traveled to Nicaragua, to support our Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) host, Fabretto Foundation, with multiple seminars on business development and sales. As part of this F2F assignment, Mr. Ndi visited and led trainings at several of Fabretto’ youth centers in Managua as well as in northern town of San Jose de Cusmapa. At these centers, he delivered a series of youth-focused workshops meant to train Fabretto staff, tutors, and students on various aspects of merchandising and e-marking for small agricultural enterprises. He also led some hands on trainings on effective sales techniques and strategies, negotiation skills, and the use of digital tools to increase the market presence and customer base.

The key goal of this assignment was to strengthen ability of participants to launch successful sales operations tailored to agricultural crops and value-added products in the Nicaraguan market. In addition to training Fabretto youth, over his two week visit, Mr. Ndi also had the chance to work with Fabretto in order to strengthen their organizational systems and programs related to business development and sales. As part of his efforts, he supported Fabretto’s commercial manager in putting together a realistic and actionable business and marketing plan. This document will serve as a blueprint that the organization can use when promoting their various agricultural products at trade fairs and exhibitions within and outside Nicaragua.

Mr. Ndi concluded the assignment by developing a series of recommendations that Fabretto Foundation can use to make their business development and sales-related activities more impactful and far-reaching. These practical suggestions include:

- Enhancing coordination among Fabretto’s various units (e.g. Coffee crop and beekeeping, and the three strategic program areas: Early Education, Primary Education, and Technical Vocational Education) so their activities complement one another.
- Leveraging exhibitions as fundraising platforms for the Fabretto youth center in San Jose de Cusmapa. Profits from exhibitions can be used to organize more activities for students and promote hard work, as well as expanding and improving the facilities of the center.
- Using the Fabretto website to cross-sell and cross-promote all the other resources that the foundation currently offers. The website should highlight the most recent issue of Fabretto’s monthly e-newsletter, annual report, survey results, press releases, articles, statistics, benchmarks, information about upcoming events and other data that is critical to the organization’s audience. The more information provided, and the more current it is, the more likely it will be that visitors will be encouraged to return.