In this interview, Mr. Adaralebge Akintayo, the MD/CEO of T Pumpy Concept shares the story of how God raised him from a recharge card seller to real estate mogul.
He also talks about his ongoing promo where he intends to reward his loyal customers with Honda Cross Tour, a trip to Dubai and N500,000.
Excerpts
About me
My name is Adaralebge Akintayo. I’m the MD/CEO of T Pumpy Concept.
The birth of T. Pumpy Concept
I think I’ve explained this before when someone came here to interview me here and the person was asking me what is the meaning of T Pumpy, how do you come about T Pumpy.
I came about the word T Pumpy about 10 years back when I was doing a petty business of selling recharge cards.
So, as it’s happening now in the housing setting and people are saying; do you make gain at all?, you’ve done a promo of 1.5, you come up again with another one of 1.9 you buy a plot take one thousand plot and hundred bags of cement now you are coming out with another concept, I always tell them, it has been in me. I have passion for it, when I was selling the recharge card I take cognizance of off peak and peak period, so people are were making call to 50 naira the cheapest then was 40 naira but I discovered that MTN had what they called off peak period.
So, I took advantage of the off peak period and I was making call for N15 per minute.
That was how we started then and do you know that off peak time I have close to 10 different phones and I was using to make call. People would be on my phone, hundreds of them would be waiting for somebody to finish before they could make theirs.
In fact, it has been in me. So, when I wanted to register the company, I now called the barrister that this business I’m doing I want to register it. And he told me, you are pumping money so now lets put T Pumpy so we register.
So, when I decided to venture into property business, we adopted the name, T.Pumpy.
From recharge card business to managing one of the most successful estates in Abuja, the challenges
I won’t deceive you, there are challenges, the first thing we were facing before was land marketers. Some people even came up with some documents and they will be fighting over your land but we are glad some of them went to where they belong.
And again, real estate business was not rampant when we started T Pumpy.
Genuineness of land
All these lands I’m telling you, I do buy them too. I don’t have direct allocation any where, before I buy, I make sure I do a normal search not a window search that people do, before I buy, I write an application for an official search and they will reply us the status of the land so by the time we get the status and how genuine is the land we buy from the real owner of the land so that has never been giving us problem and that has been a very good strategy.
Expanding T Pumpy concept
As God would have his way, we are working on Lagos even my state capital, Ado-Ekiti we are still working on them, you know every state has its own scope of land and location.
We are hoping to expand beyond Abuja. I can tell you I was discussing with my manager some days ago and even some of my staff that I’m living within the job I’m doing. Like 10 pm yesterday, I carried my wife and my children, we went to the sites and see how the sites look like in the night.
We went there; and it’s a passion that is in me, it has been within me. Like this morning, I woke up from 6 am going from one place to another I don’t see it as if I’m working, it’s part of my life I might live within the job.
Connect or Buy and win promo
Some times, if I come to office here, the requests I get from friends, family and associates for help is overwhelming. Normally, if you being a buyer, we’ll give you commission. So, I decided to come up with this idea on what with motivate them to do more.
If you go out now, you would see a Honda Crosstour. There is still free trip to Dubai and 500k cash.
Apart from getting percentage, this can establish one for life that is exactly what we are trying to do.
Plans for buyers
Yes, many of our marketers would come to me and say, sir, what if we bring someone and he buys a plot of land, what is his own benefit, I told them, if you being a buyer, one the person pay, we have rice or ram to appreciate them.
Motivating factor
I discovered that that most important thing in Islam and Christianity is faith and sincerity. You need to have faith in God and be sincere in whatever you do.
I have a lot of people working with me. I don’t discriminate; I can tell you that there is no geo-political zone that I don’t have staff in Nigeria.
Final message to Nigeria
In everything that one does, sincerity and faith remain the key.
