Get your business concept right, by Ola Emmanuel

The foundation of a successful business is in the conceptualization; and the only way you can get your business concept right is by answering the fundamental question, “which needs of customers is my business coming out to satisfy”. Once you are able to answer the questions, it will be easier to get other areas of planning correct. This is what will sustain you as value-giving brand. Therefore, to keep giving and receive value, you must maintain your brand and content standard by staying constantly in touch with your market so that you can remain valuable.

The story of a father who handed a used car to his daughter (a young graduate); but first to discover the true value of the car, came to mind here. The father said to his daughter, “you have graduated now. Here is a car I bought many years ago but before I give it to you, I want you to take it to the used car lot for sale and see how much they offer for it. The daughter went to the used car lot, returned to her father with an offer of a thousand dollar. The car, to them, looked pretty worn out. The lady was directed to a pawn shop to dispose the car; and the response was a hundred dollar  value for the old car. Lastly, the father directed his daughter to take the vehicle to a car club. She got an offer as high as hundred thousand dollar from some club members who knew the true value of the old car. The lesson is simple enough: the right place values you the right way. The right customers will value your products the right way if you can really identify them and approach them with the right business concept.  If you are not getting true value for your goods and services, perhaps you are focusing on wrong customers in the wrong business location. Therefore you need to reappraise and go after those who can really appreciate the value you are offering. It is not a matter of getting angry or disillusioned, you simply focusing and/or targeting the wrong people.

Quite a lot of people, in a slapdash fashion, pick on just any business to run with because they have money to start business. They are less bothered about looking at the business concept. Also, there are those who, without thinking, jump into a business ring because they see a man or woman doing a particular business which appears to be doing well. This group of wannabes want to copy, but they don’t know how to copy right. They want to be in the image of but they hardly understand what it takes to be in the likeness of what they covet to be. Likewise we have some people who have just move out of paid employment with retirement benefits, severance pay, pensions or gratuity payment and, without proper planning, venture into businesses they intend to do. You owe it a responsibility to do a thorough due diligence and get your business concept right before you announce your presence to potential customers.

But a lot of people are never patient enough to first carry out the concept-diligence. It never occur to them that failure to do this can lead to quick destruction of good idea and failure in businesses, wasted time, wasted efforts, losses in terms of money, discouragement and, sometime, untimely death cause by stress. You owe it a duty, therefore, to do the right thing first before you launch out.

Ola Emmanuel is a business planning and cooperative consultant