The rate of
unemployment in every country of the world is increasing drastically. Every
Government has seen, despite their campaign promises before they came to power,
that they cannot keep up. They have resorted to entrepreneurship. Many
Government have allocate Billions of dollars to help small and medium businesses.
One thing I
have observed is the difficulty involved in starting up a business, ranging
from the capital initiative, labor, lack of innovative ideas, etc. Many start-up
has gone into bankruptcy or cannot keep up with the competition in the industry.
Above all, I believe that success has explanation and failure has no alibis. I
decided to write about these 7 habits that is helping me manage my Start-up.
If you have
an idea that you want to materialized into a structured business or you have a
small/medium scale business, I believe this 7 habits, if developed, will help
you in your business and will guarantee speedy return on investment.
The Habits
are:
Self Confidence:
This is
perhaps the most important habit an entrepreneur should develop. If you are not
confident in your abilities, how do you expect to success in business? Research
has showed that people that believe that the will success has more chance of
success than those who don’t. This has been my problem many years ago when I
lunch a small scale Brain Training Program for secondary school or high school
students. I was only 17 and have left high school a year ago. I saw the
intellectual decadence in my neighbourhood and decided to do something about
it. The best way I thought I could help is to train people, especially, young
people how to use their enormous brain power. I secured a hall, and printed ad
to circulate. At that point, fear engulfed me. I lost my motivation; fear took
over and confidence was lost. Well, the summary is that I didn’t succeed in the
program because the most essential ingredient of success was gone; and that is
the self-confidence.
To success
in any endeavor, you have to believe in your abilities. You have to understand
that the desire to do a thing means that you have the ability to accomplish the
task.
Fear of Failure:
I have not
seen a successful man that hasn’t failed multiply times. In fact, study shows
that most success people has recorded more failure than the success they are
enjoying. The truth is the fear is faith. Just like what faith does. It
guarantee success, the same with fear. When you afraid of something, you unconsciously
believe that what you fear will come to pass or the task you want to embark on
will not come to pass. Personally, I see fear as faith in the negative
direction. So, if faith is this powerful, why entertain fear?
A story
goes that Thomas Edison, the founder of the renowned General Electric – GE, the
famous and most achieved inventor of all time, tried the light bulb experiment
for 9999 times before he succeeded at the 10000th attempt. If he was
afraid that he does not have the ability to create such an invention, he wouldn’t
have tried. He believed in himself to the extent he was not dissuade to give up
on the experiment till its success.
This reminds
me of a business I started some years ago. It is mini importation business. I
was not familiar with eCommerce and I have no idea of how to pay someone
oversea for a product he will send to me next month. What if he didn’t send it?
What if it was scam? I have a lot of questions. But what got me started was
what I did to get all my questions answered by researching and reading people
experience with the site I want to use. That was what convinced me to invest my
money in the mini import. At the end, do you think I failed? NO! The return on
investment was over 300%. You can read How I Made $245 (NGN50,000) in a Week Importing Product From China.
Be a Voracious Reader:
There is a
saying that says “leaders are Reader”. There no success in any endeavour without
appropriate knowledge. Knowledge is the key and this is acquired by looking
into the pages of books. They said we are in the social ago. But I believe we
are still in the information ago or, more correctly, modified Information age.
When enough is gathered and use accordingly, success is inevitable. To be successful
in any business, you have to know you onion well in your field. You need to
read always.
Personally,
I have great collection of books. Recent I ordered for Bill Gate’s “Business @
the speed of thought”. My eyes were opened at the depth of knowledge the man
possess and how far he can see. Today we hear a lot about paperless office;
before it came to be adopted like it is now, the man – Bill Gate – saw it. How can
he possess such wealth of knowledge if he does not read a lot? No wonder he
keep maintaining his status as the riches man on Earth over 20 years period.
Always Seek for Opportunity:
When I was
in the penultimate year in the university, a friend of mind was awarded about 226
million Naira to capitalize his start-up. That wasn’t his first attempt. He has
been writing proposals to many investors and competing in entrepreneurial
contest. He has recorded many failure but when this one was awarded, it was
enough, not only to boost his start-up, but made him a millionaire. This is
what opportunity can do to you.
There many organisations
and firms that encourages start up by providing fund for then. You can search
them out and apply. The two which are of note is the TONY ELUMELU ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAMME,
and Total startup fund. You can click on the link to apply.
The Power of Belief:
Understand
this: Anything is possible. If you study history and look into the achievements
of great men and women in various industries, you will see people that never knew
that they could reach the height they attained. Bill gate didn’t build
Microsoft to be the richest man in the world. Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple to
be a billionaire. Jack ma didn’t build Alibaba to be the richest man in China.
Even Aliko Dangote never knew he will, one day, be the richest man in Africa.
But one thing is such, all these men and many more have this belief system. I
knew without doubt that they will success. That is why, bill Gate, Steve Jobs,
Mark Zuckerberg, and countless others left the university. This is why Aliko
Dangote never bothered to seek university education. This is the reason Jack Ma
drop his teaching Career.
All this
men and many women just followed their passion, and it landed them in the ocean
of wealth, affluence, influence and worldwide recognition. If you want to catch
up with these men, it is not easy fate, you need to tighten up your belief
system. You need to acknowledge the fact that all things are possible. Then,
you are on the right track.
Learn to Collaborate – Teamwork is the Key:
Yes! Teamwork is the key. I happened to be
attached to one of the facility of Schlumberger in Nigeria during Internship.
That firm taught me a lot about teamwork. I saw how great things can be
achieved through uncompromising collaboration.
It might interest you to know that the word
Team means Together Everyone Achieves Much. Yea! Even the Bible says that one
shall chase a thousand but two shall chase ten thousand. Now, look at it this
way: No matter how hardworking you are, there are limit to what you can achieve
in a given period of time, but with teamwork and what I called uncompromising
collaboration, efforts are multiplied.
The same goes in business. You need to find out
those who has the same direction as you are and seek to collaborate with them.
You don’t need to have them seek you. Seeking them will enable you to create
the like-minded team you need on your road to success. Teamwork pays you really
need to tap into it.
Be Innovative.
Innovation is what is driving big company
higher. Even the 500 fortune company has recognise the fact that innovative is
what will keep them at their current position and even higher. Everything is
dynamic – things keep changing – and if you don’t join the trend and develop
ways you could be better than you were, that is how failure, bankruptcy starts.
You have to always be in the drawing table charting out plans and developing
ideas that will help you grow your business.
In your personal life, endeavour to see ways
you could improve. If you are already enjoying some level of success, there is
no way you could maintain that success without consistent growth. Even in plant
kingdom, for trees to keep flourishing, they need to main a consistence growth.
When a tress stop growing, it start demineralising, and that leads to death.
Always make innovation a core value and a philosophy in your daily life and
business practice.
These, among many others, are my core habits
that have been transforming the small scale business I started some years ago.
I hope this help.
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