On earning the title: “I solve (Business) problems”

When people ask me to introduce myself, I don’t say “strategist.” I don’t say “designer” because the list of things I do keeps growing, and reciting all of it would make me sound either unserious or arrogant. So I keep it simple.

I say: “I solve (business) problems.” I didn’t invent that line. I earned it.

It comes from a long, long line of businesses in trouble, and me deciding to try to fix it. Most of what I know how to do, I learned that way. A problem showed up. I didn’t have the skill to solve it. So I picked up the skill, and solved it when I could.

This is the story of one of those problems and one of the consequential things I have done

A picture of said Hotel, Located in Lagos Nigeria. Shot by Wakafire Photography using a TECNO Phantom 5

One of the projects in Wakafire’s portfolio is a full shoot of a 98-room hotel.

Shot entirely on a phone. The TECNO Phantom, by TECNO Mobile Nigeria.

People are always impressed when I say that. Almost nobody asks how it happened.

The year was 2015. The Sojourner Hotel, Ikeja needed photographs: for banners, for calendars, for everything a hotel uses to sell itself. Photographers were invited to send in quotes.

The cheapest one came in at over ₦1 million. About $5,000 at the time.

The Chairman and GMD looked at that number and declared the project too expensive. It was going to be shelved. The meeting ended. The problem didn’t.

Afterwards, I went to one of my directors, Mr. Ope Ajayi, with a proposal.

I would buy the TECNO phone myself, ₦80,000, about $400, and shoot the hotel with it. If the pictures were good, the company would refund me. If they weren’t, the loss was mine. He agreed. Reluctantly.

Understand what that meant: I had never shot a hotel. I had never done a comprehensive shoot of anything. This wasn’t a confident bet. It was a real gamble, with my own money on the table.

The phone arrived. The following weekend, a friend and I walked into the hotel and started shooting. The manager at the time, Amaka Amatokwu-Ndekwu, made sure every room looked its best before we stepped in. Ninety-eight rooms.

When it was done, I didn’t send the pictures to anyone.

I wasn’t sure they would be approved. So I did the one thing I knew how to do. I started posting them on social media. A while later came another company review.

The GMD asked a question: “Who approved the photography budget?”

Every director said they hadn’t. Then he asked another: where had all these fine pictures of the hotel on Instagram come from? Mr. Ope Ajayi spoke up.

“Femi is behind this.”

Of course, nobody believed a phone had taken them. Not until I showed them.

That’s how a project that was too expensive to do got done anyway.

A ₦1 million problem, solved for ₦80,000. Roughly $5,000 saved with a $400 phone, a free weekend, a willing friend, and a hotel manager who cared enough to make every room shine.

Here’s what that taught me:

Most problems aren’t stopped by a lack of money. They’re stopped when everyone in the room accepts “too expensive” as the final answer. Sometimes the solution is simply being the person willing to try, and to carry the risk if it fails.

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Since then, I’ve solved many more problems, and helped organisations save millions of dollars along the way.

That’s how the title stuck.

I solve (business) problems.