Ama Duncan
Corporate Trainer | Business Coach | Author | Speaker
Welcome to my blog! Here, I share valuable content on BUSINESS & MONEY to help new women in business to plan, execute and achieve their business goals.
WHAT’S HOPE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Hello everyone. I had a fabulous time sitting at the feet of Lady Aba Cato Andah on Mind Your Business. May it give you as much inspiration as it did to me. Here is a summary, definitely watch the video though… Ama Duncan (AD): Hello Lady Aba. I’m so excited to have you here today
I HAVE A STORY TO TELL
On 14th February, 1996. I had a date with the Late John Samey (may his soul rest in peace). We had dinner at Afrikiko Restaurant. That was where he made his intention known to me. John was my friend from school. He was in Bishop Herman College whiles I was in OLA Ho (A Gem).
WHAT TO DO SO YOU DON’T GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS
I once had a dear friend who had a clothing line idea. I thought it was great because the particular market segment she was looking to serve was under-served. She had some clothes made and then a photoshoot. The idea was to create a social media page to advertise. This she did. After a couple
DO THESE TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN YOUR BUSINESS
Hello there! Did you know that happy customers will tell 3 others about your services? This is great obviously. But did you also know that unhappy customers will tell pleeeenty others, as in thousands? Well, thanks to social media, it is super easy to reach that many people within two shakes of a dead lamb’s
YOU’RE NOT MAKING THESE 5 + 1 MISTAKES, RIGHT?
Over the past ten years, several corporate bodies have reached out to my team and I to train their staff on customer services. In almost all these training sessions, I hear this sentence ‘Ama, you should train our managers too’.
HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET MARKET
Hello! Surely, your Easter was restful, lovely and you are re-energised for the new week. Last week I wrote about how to test if your business idea is viable. In today’s blog post, I will continue this series with how to identify your target market. What is your target market anyway? In simple terms, it
My Story
Dealing with low self-esteem
I was born in Sekondi to a nurse and a farmer. When I was about 5 years, we moved to Komenda, a small town in the Central Region of Ghana. Even though I was one of the best students in primary school, I always felt ‘little’ when we travelled to cities like Cape Coast, Accra and Takoradi.
I felt everyone there was more beautiful, more intelligent, spoke better English and was generally better than me. I had a similar experience in secondary school, always looking down on myself and feeling I was not good enough. Oh, how I wished I were an ‘Accra girl’ because I thought they were so cool! Yet, when my family finally moved to Accra, I still didn’t feel cool. On top of this, I didn’t even have a boyfriend! If only I could get a boyfriend, then I will be cool like the other girls… I thought.
In University, I met some really wonderful friends, some of whom were from ‘rich’ families and I thought being friends with them will make me feel cool. I didn’t. I had the opportunity to start travelling abroad, and I was certain that when I returned, I most definitely will feel cool and belong in a ‘cool girls click’. Well, I did have cool friends before and after travelling; still, I didn’t feel like I was cool and ‘there’ yet. Oh, by the way, in my third year, I finally had a real boyfriend (now my husband). Not only that, but he also lived abroad, and hence, I occasionally went to visit him, which should have made me feel cool, or? Well, guess what, I still didn’t!
Even as a career woman working in an international four-star hotel as a manager, I looked down on myself. Once my General Manager called me into his office and asked why I never came asking for a pay raise and promotion when other managers always came to him with such requests. My response was ‘I want to earn it, not ask for it’. That was a half-truth. The real reason was that I felt I was not good enough to deserve more. I convinced myself that ‘I was not there yet’. I used to look at my friends who were lawyers, doctors or pursuing something big and wished I could do that too. I also wanted to be ‘somebody’.
To make matters worse, I was just getting pregnant and fat! After having my two kids, I thought getting an MBA will make me finally feel cool and ‘important’, yet I felt no different after completion. Even with a handsome husband and two adorable kids who doted on me, I thought I had very little value. Interestingly, at various stages in my life, I would meet people who were so impressed by and thought highly of me, yet I never saw what they saw. Mostly when people even complimented me, I doubted them and thought they were just trying to be nice.
How I found my ‘cool.’
Read the rest of my story in Yarns of inspiration II