A prominent Nigerian sales expert, Fajimokun Kolawole, is advocating for a new artificial intelligence (AI)-driven offline sales strategy designed to help startups and small businesses grow faster across Africa. Kolawole, a former Vice President of Offline Sales at Moniepoint, disclosed the details of the model in a statement on Tuesday, stressing the need for startups to reconnect with customers on the streets.
Kolawole, who has worked with some of Nigeria’s biggest fintech companies like OPay, PalmPay, and Moniepoint, said his strategy combines AI tools with a human-focused, field-based sales approach that leverages offline distribution networks. According to him, while technology is important, successful businesses must start with people first.
“The market does not begin with technology; it begins with people,” he said. “To succeed, startups must reconnect with the streets.”
Kolawole explained that his model involves building structured field sales teams made up of agents, business managers, state coordinators, and regional leads. These teams operate directly within communities, building trust, engaging customers face-to-face, and driving both customer acquisition and long-term loyalty.
He referred to these teams as “street armies,” noting that they played a major role in the success of Moniepoint and similar fintech firms. He shared that during his time at Moniepoint, over 14,700 business managers were deployed across the country, generating thousands of leads daily and contributing to trillions of naira in monthly transactions.
Kolawole recently published a book titled Conquering the Streets: Your Lean Blueprint for Massive Sales in Africa, where he breaks down the new strategy. The book focuses on how businesses can scale using lean operations and performance-based compensation models. He said businesses should only pay when agents produce real results, such as onboarding new customers or driving usage of services.
“We only pay when results are delivered, when someone is onboarded or uses the service,” Kolawole explained. “It’s a lean, scalable, and effective model that keeps costs down while boosting reach.”
He added that field agents don’t just drive sales—they also act as valuable sources of market intelligence. According to him, these agents can collect real-time feedback from customers, uncover gaps in product offerings, and provide practical insights that help shape future innovations. Kolawole believes that this information, gathered directly from the market, is often more valuable than what is found in analytics dashboards.
While the model has proven successful in fintech, Kolawole said it can be adapted to other sectors. He encouraged traditional small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as startups in different industries, to adopt this sales approach.
“Any business can adopt this framework. The key lies in a transparent commission structure, localised training, and active community engagement,” he said.
Kolawole stressed that in Nigeria, relationships matter more than anything else. Field agents who live and work in the same communities as their customers understand the local culture and speak the language. This connection, he said, creates trust that money or flashy advertisements cannot buy.
“Relationships are currency in Nigeria,” he said. “Agents who are part of the community speak the language, understand the culture, and can build trust that money alone cannot buy.”
He also contrasted this approach with traditional banking systems. According to him, the street-focused model offers a faster, cheaper, and more intimate way to grow a customer base than operating in formal banking halls.
Kolawole said the reason Moniepoint rose to become one of Africa’s fastest-growing fintech firms was because it understood the power of human connection, not just digital tools. Drawing on his background in both traditional banking and fintech, he believes Africa’s future unicorns will emerge by focusing on the streets rather than copying foreign models.
“The street-based model is the opposite of what you find in banking halls. But it works faster, cheaper, and more intimately,” he said. “We can build billion-dollar businesses not by copying Silicon Valley, but by understanding our streets. That’s where the real market lives.”
As African startups face increased pressure to show real growth and profitability, Kolawole’s AI-supported, human-first model could offer a practical path forward for companies struggling with customer acquisition and retention. By blending technology with on-the-ground relationships, businesses may be better positioned to scale sustainably while reducing operational costs.
