 Thank you for staying with us on Y25 for Business Tuesday. If you're just joining us tonight, we have M.C. Seifer in our studios is going to talk to us about his career in the business world, who rather as an entrepreneur is going to talk about some of the challenges probably that he has faced as a young person. And also, how does he get to balance between schoolwork and all the projects that he has taken up? And be part of this conversation, talk to us across our social media platforms that is at Y254. Channel you can also reach me at Patricia Morioki. Thank you, Seifer, for joining us. So Seifer is the founder of The Scoop, that is a blog, and also a marketing agency. He's also the founder and CEO of M.C. Seifer event solutions. So most young people are thinking and are sitting somewhere right now thinking about, I want to go and finish school and wait for the government and get this nice office job, probably a very good salary and all that. Why did you choose to probably not sit and wait for that and run to other young people, government create jobs and all that and choose to take the path that you chose? First of all, thank you for hosting me. You're welcome. I remember the last time I was a valentine and I'm back here on an official duty. I would say that one, taking the initiative to start up my own company or my own initiative to maybe gain some, and I live in using it, is basically motivated by the fact that we all have dreams to achieve and we all have things that we want to do in our career before maybe we are done working or maybe we retire. And they all depend on different lines of, some depend on education, some depend on how you plan your life. So I felt like starting a company for me would be the best way to go in terms of achieving the dream that I have because I want to be part of an event organization that is big as I studied the event organization. And also about the marketing, I feel like it's part of what I'm passionate about. So it's all about passion other than sitting down and waiting for maybe employment, just taking part and starting your own career. Okay. Yes. You've started this while you were a student. Yes. Probably how are you able to go in between, make sure that you're doing well in your school projects? Yes. And we've talked not only about one project, but three, how do you create the balance literally? Because probably there's someone watching us tonight in school and they feel I cannot manage to hack all these, let me wait probably and graduate and all that. So how do you balance? I think if you're able to start a project which aligns with your career choice that is in school, you'll be able to line it up like I do media, I'm a journalist. So I chose something that one deals with media, that is the scope whereby we're doing videos on media. We're trying to do like live shows and feature young people who are trying to maybe make it in life out there. So it's aligned to what I do in terms of my career. So it's something that I'm passionate about. And it's something that I can juggle between work and all that. Yes. With the MCSERFA event solutions, we know since COVID in the country that is in March, events has not really been very successful or the business has not, you cannot say has thrived as it was before COVID. So how have you been able probably to cope with that and probably make sure that the business is still making new profits and what strategies have you adopted during this pandemic? Well, I'd also say maybe to give advice to other people who are also doing events. It's not been easy for anyone. People have maybe gone down their drain, especially people who did not have maybe a second option in terms of earning a livelihood. But I would say that if you're able to study the market right now, the president moved the number of people who can attend maybe an event from 15 to 100. So they can maybe take advantage of that and maybe come up with packages which entail that. And also market themselves as maybe focused on being very safe in terms of corona safe, focused on selling a package that is very safe to the clients. So you sit down and come up with strategies to package your services to your clients. I think it will serve basically. Okay. We know that most young people, we want, you want to start a business and you're making thousands. You want to probably get a job and you're getting the same salary with someone who has been there for 10 years. And we're not saying that young people don't have the right to be paid or to earn a living. But what patients, what values, what principles have you been able to adopt? Because I'm sure when you start in the business, it's not like you are making these very big profits that made you want to stay there. But regardless of how that's probably the beginning was, you've made the decision every day to still choose your businesses, to still give your time and commit yourself to them. What has made you probably be successful in that way? Yes. I think the first part is understanding that success is not a destination. It's a journey. You don't get to a point and say I've reached maybe the pinnacle or the crescendo of my success. It's a journey. You keep on moving, making steps every day. And if you believe in that, you tend to also believe in the art of process, the processes in life. And if you know that process is tech time, today you start as a small business entrepreneur, then the next day you've made steps and move forward day by day. So I would say that most people these days don't believe in the term process because there's so much influence out there. People want to raise, to run races that belong to other people. They want to maybe compete with you and maybe you are not gifted the same or maybe we're not passionate about the same thing. So I feel like if the youth try to embrace the aspect of processes and learn to take it one day at a time and understand that you're never going to reach someone and say this is the pinnacle of my success, it's always going to be a journey. We're always going to be making steps day in, day out. So I think that's the best way to go about it. And take life as a journey other than as a destination you go into. Or competitions. Your own passionate life and what you're passionate about. Okay. Yes. With all your projects you're able to work, I'm sure you work with young people. Yes. And you have a team and probably you're able to get to places where you want to because they share your vision. What is it that you've seen in your employees or people that you've gotten to work with and they're young people. Yes. That you can probably tell a young person watching us tonight. And may it be a value that probably the camera person who does a scope with you has. May it be the person who makes sure that they're following up on clients and at the MCCFA event solution. What characters or what values have you seen in your members that you can share with us tonight? One I would say that I appreciate my team and I appreciate the people that I work with. And one is that anybody who is working with a team they need to treat them equally. I've always been told to treat the genitals the same way you treat the CEO. If you treat people like that you tend to go far because you respect people because somebody who is working for you is also a dad to someone out there and they're respected in their household. So I would say that one that you need to be very strategic. People is during our time growing up who is to be told that we need to work hard. But this time you might work hard and maybe not be very strategic. You need to be very strategic. The people I work with maybe the team I've worked with over the years are people who understand how to strategize their career and maybe their system to make sure it works for us. To make sure you can put things in order in a way that it can work. So that you don't use your chest always. Sometimes you can just use your brains and it works. So if you're strategic you'll be able to know what you're good at, what you're not good at, what is selling, what is not selling, how to approach a client, how not to approach. So I think that's the best way. Their growth, if somebody's working maybe with me right now, my joy is that one day they will have their own brand. Because I'm not all that yet. It's a process. When we are up there maybe they will be also starting their own brand. That will be my joy. So I think being very strategic is very important when it comes to business. What would you say is the greatest challenge that you faced for the time that you've been in business. Probably something that you never really thought of and this didn't happen and you're like, wow, and how did you manage to beat it or go past that? It's very interesting that we were talking about the same thing the other day. When you're doing business, maybe you're running an agenda and you're not well known. Mostly in Kenya people tend to have that notion that they suggest that the guys try to push the agenda and maybe they don't have the influence or maybe they don't have the ability to push for events or big events or do those big events or big shows and all that. But people tend to discriminate you or maybe look down upon you by face value. They tend to look at you and say maybe this is a young guy or maybe make sales in my company or maybe market my company. I think that's one of the biggest challenge and maybe tell people out there who are trying to make a career in business and all that. Don't be discouraged by such things. People will tell you things. You'll go to places and be chased away and you'll go to places and they will say no, we'll get back to you. Don't call us, we'll call you. Those things happen. People tend to think that on your first job you're going to be accepted or maybe on your first try it will work out well. You'll go to places where it won't work out. We go to events. I've done events and I've been paid. They pay you, they roll up some money then they pay you like this, like they're greeting you and they tell you we'll talk stronger. And they never get back to you. I think it's a process. You need to appreciate the growth and sometimes people start to respect you when they see that maybe you can command some influence and you can push some agenda. They tend to respect you. As you wind up branding, branding is very important and as you tell us how probably branding has helped you I'd like you to touch on social media. Young people have taken social media and they put anything that they want and we've seen these cost many people opportunities. Just the other day, Ezekiel Motua was talking about how a very young person reached out to him and he wanted a support to start a business and he was willing to give him 50,000 care shallots to start the business. But when he went, he found this person as a very funny name as his name on Facebook. He just puts artist and very, very funny things and so what can young people do or adapt to as far as branding is concerned and the use of social media? I think that we all take different lines in life. We all take different lines in terms of careers and livelihoods but we tend to be brought together by social media. Social media brings everybody together. Whether you're doing maybe an office job another person is doing entertainment we all brought together by social media but we need to respect that platform. There's a reason why our parents or maybe there are people looking before us the older generation are not very welcoming to the aspect of social media because they know what it means to maintain that image. Many people don't think about what you'll be tomorrow where you will be tomorrow they want to entertain people or maybe they want to create an outlook out there that I'm cool or maybe I know about this and this and this it doesn't work in the line of business you want to get into it's actually going to defame or maybe spoil your brand so I feel like such things people need to be very careful when it comes to such things I was looking at a friend of mine was telling me to try and help them get a job in the media but the kind of content they post and they applaud is very shaky so nobody will give you a job when you've posted such things they won't in the corporate world people don't consider your personal or this is what I believe in we come here we work ethically so people need to consider that and they will be able to move forward that is your advice to young people watching us tonight what is your final thoughts I think I've already said much of it but life is a process respect your elders gain or maybe protect your sanity make sure you don't get influenced by the world or the way in the world make sure you always believe in what you believe in and move with it thank you very much Sefa you've heard from Sefa a very young person just like you is watching us tonight go after your dreams pursue your passions as much as you want and as Sefa said be very careful about social media whatever you put up there be sure and people ask you for your social media probably pages that you're going to be so confidently giving that thank you very much for joining us my name is Patricia Murioki we'll meet again tomorrow same time on Y254