In 1979, Ross Perot, through business acumen, knew that Bill Gates was on his way to building Microsoft into a large corporation. So Ross offered to buy out Bill Gates. One was claimed to be asking for up to $60 million while the other party was said to be interested in paying $15 million at most. The deal fell through as the two couldn’t come to terms, and Perot walked away. The buy-in opportunity was allowed to pass, Perot left empty-handed, and today we know what Microsoft is worth in dollars. Doing business is more than seeing opportunity and just identifying a money spinner. It goes deeper to bringing out who you really are. Nigeria is at present passing through a phase.
Notwithstanding high unemployment rate, several businesses are repackaging and human capacity needs are being reworked.
The outcome of these exercises will fast-forward the retirement of several career men and women while many will be shockingly confronted with decisions to look elsewhere if they want to make lives meaningful to live. So a lot of people by fate shall continue to gravitate toward starting their own businesses.
Businesses do succeed and/or fail owing to internal and external factors. But it is in the hand of a budding entrepreneur – as well as those with years of enterprising experience – to shoot up internal factors that can lead to better success and reduce to the barest minimum the factors within control that can lead to collapse of his or her business.
The first call is to discover who you are and what makes you thick or thin? For instance, are you an out-going person or you enjoy sitting down for hours to work? It will be a serious aberration if you are someone who love being indoor and you want to go into a business that will keep you on the road almost always. If you find yourself in a business that stands quite opposite of your personality, before long the passion for the business may disappear and you find yourself looking for something else to do – not minding the amount of money you may have sunk into the business.
There are quite a number of people today who had tried their hands on businesses but are now looking for who will employ them again. By reason of my work, I do meet a lot of people who gleefully announce they are into this or that business. Three months down the line when I ask them about the business, or when opportunities come and I remember them, sadly I hear something like, ‘I tried the business but I just discovered I can’t really pull it through.’ ‘No money; no customers.’ ‘I am now doing something else or trying to go back to paid employment’.
Quite frankly, this people failed to do the right thing first; that is matching their business choices with their personalities, and counting the cost (proper planning) before they start to build. I have a word or two here for those who are trying to abandon their dreams and are ready to go back to becoming employees in other businesses: know that some individuals started the companies, big corporations, and the multinationals you are running after. If such persons had failed to push through, will you gleefully be chasing such corporations today to become an employee there?
You must analyse your mental make-up: Before deciding on what business to do, you have to first find out whether you what it requires to make the business succeed. If you don’t have what it takes, you can’t make it happen. You must realise that there is a big difference between leading and managing. Many people who are super business managers at times turned out to be woeful business leaders. Why? Because such people are configured to manage what somebody else facilitates.
Likewise we have excellent business facilitators who used to turn out to be poor managers. So also it is in his or her best interest that a good business facilitator allows super managers to handle the day-to-day management of the business without undue interference. So you need to understand who you are, whether you are suited to start a business or you should be satisfied with managing other’s business.
To launch a business successfully, you must possess skills that are peculiar to starting and running a business. For instance, firmness in decision making is very key to business success. A man or woman that vacillates may not be good in entrepreneurship; otherwise, he must have reliable hands whose business judgment must be sound. Also you must possess requisite technical skills in addition to business management skills. Knowledge of the line of business and sharpened negotiation skill are very important.
. Ola Emmanuel is a business planning and cooperative consultant. He works with a team of international consultants to conceptualise and plan agribusiness and housing projects. As a certified trainer authorised to use the International Labour Organisation’s enterprise development modules, he trains entrepreneurs and organises workshops and seminars for potential and practising entrepreneurs as well as business managers and cooperatives. He also speaks and facilitates at leadership and management workshops on invitation. His book, Business Planning Made Easy: Step by Step Guide On How To Turn Your Idea To Profitable Business’ is the latest of the books authored by him. Tel.: +234(0)9068602954 (call and sms), +234(0)8023257707 (whatsApp only).
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