Pope bets on niche services to fuel business growth

Car­ol Quash

Three years ago, when Kei­th Pope in­her­it­ed the com­pa­ny at which he had worked since 2014, he de­cid­ed to make a few changes to the ser­vices he would of­fer.

Look­ing back on those years, he told Guardian Me­dia he has no re­grets, as he is now see­ing growth in the com­pa­ny.

Pope said that orig­i­nal­ly, the Ari­ma-based Jor­dan’s Man­age­ment So­lu­tions Ltd of­fered ser­vices in busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion, man­age­ment of com­pa­ny files for small com­pa­nies, jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, and prop­er­ty man­age­ment.

When his un­cle, Philbert Cal­liste, died in 2023 and Pope be­came man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, he de­cid­ed to fo­cus on­ly on cer­tain as­pects of the busi­ness.

“I shift­ed things around. I start­ed work­ing with what’s work­ing for me; what I liked and what I knew I could man­age,” Pope said.

He con­tin­ued with jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, busi­ness reg­is­tra­tions and prop­er­ty man­age­ment, and added oth­er ser­vices to the com­pa­ny’s of­fer­ings.

“So with the jan­i­to­r­i­al part now, we now of­fer com­mer­cial jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, and I’m now in the process of start­ing events clean­ing; pre-event clean­ing and post-event clean­ing be­cause I’m al­so in­to events (plan­ning and man­age­ment) as well,” Pope added.

He said that, giv­en the scale on which events are now held, this is con­sid­ered big busi­ness, with costs vary­ing based on fac­tors such as venues and types of events.

“Whether the venue is a paved area or it’s a grassy area, if it’s a cool­er event or an all-in­clu­sive event. These are some of the things that are tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion when de­ter­min­ing cost,” Pope said.

De­spite the ad­di­tions to the com­pa­ny’s port­fo­lio, some as­pects re­main par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant to him.

Pope said one of the first things his un­cle taught him - and one he knows in­side out - was the process of reg­is­ter­ing a busi­ness, even be­fore every­thing was done on­line.

“That is when you have to fill out your forms man­u­al­ly and walk in­to le­gal af­fairs. That is how I learned to do it,” he said.

As the process tran­si­tioned to a ful­ly on­line sys­tem, 35-year-old Pope said Jor­dan’s Man­age­ment So­lu­tions had no choice but to adapt if it want­ed to re­main rel­e­vant.

How­ev­er, he said there is cur­rent­ly no sig­nif­i­cant threat to the com­pa­ny’s rel­e­vance, as many peo­ple still strug­gle with the on­line busi­ness reg­is­tra­tion process, and there re­mains a strong mar­ket for his ser­vices.

He added, how­ev­er, that be­cause so many oth­ers now of­fer the same ser­vice, the mar­ket is be­com­ing sat­u­rat­ed.

“There are a lot of peo­ple jump­ing on it, and many of them don’t quite re­al­ly know how to do it,” Pope ex­plained.

He said his job is to make the process eas­i­er for clients and, as a ges­ture of good­will, he does not ac­cept pay­ment un­til they have their reg­is­tra­tion cer­tifi­cates in hand.

“Be­cause this is 2026 and there’s a lot of scam­ming go­ing on, es­pe­cial­ly if you’re see­ing an ad­ver­tise­ment on so­cial me­dia and you don’t know the per­son be­hind this page,” Pope said.

He said he cov­ers all costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the reg­is­tra­tion process - from name reser­va­tion to cer­tifi­cate pay­ment - even though it is a risk that some­one may de­cide they no longer want the cer­tifi­cate at the end of the process.

“The thing is, in busi­ness you have to take risks some­times. But then too, they are tak­ing a risk be­cause when they start the process, they have to send me all their de­tails – full name, ID cards; so I have all their de­tails,” Pope shared.

Pope is proud of what he has achieved since tak­ing over lead­er­ship of the com­pa­ny and is op­ti­mistic about the fu­ture.

“From 2023 to now, I would say I’ve done pret­ty well. I’ve ac­com­plished a lot of things. I still have far to go, es­pe­cial­ly with the events clean­ing. But I see a bright fu­ture with that part,” he added.