How not to do your business so wrong
Hey family, I know that you aren’t familiar with getting business nuggets from me but I feel it’s important I remind you of some things pertaining to doing business right. You will get to thank me later.
We are in a world driven by creating ideas to proffer solutions and this ideation time has birthed so many businesses with the aim of making profit by solving human problems.
A recent blog post explained that about 64 percent of startups do not scale through to the next level. I want to believe that one of the businesses I once started is part of that record and I would like to share with you some of the lessons culled from it.
Why are you in a business? Often, I get to consult for people’s businesses and this is usually my first question. I must say that there are a certain number of reasons that appear to be the same from these persons I have asked the why are you in a business question.
· To make Profit
· To cover one’s concealed source of income
· To drive solutions to contemporary problems
· To simply get the CEO tag (doing it because others are doing it)
· To create a niche from one’s interest/ to turn my talents into a source of income
· An escape from the poverty zone
Identify your ‘why’
It might interest you to know how important it is for every businessman to have a near end discovery of what they want. When I discuss about business goals, I tell my clients not to place a definite end to their business ideas as sometimes, the end goal satisfaction might not be enough when we get there. Understanding your why in any business will give you a sense of direction as to what to do, when to do it and how best to carry it out.
Sadly, one hard lesson I learnt from my experience is the inability to understand my why before I got into the business. After a deep thought one day, I realized I just wanted to make money without necessarily putting my heart into it. I wasn’t passionate about the line of business, and I didn’t have partners who I could have shared my ideas with to scale it up even better.
Know your market
When I started off, I didn’t do enough research, I just plunged into it and when the real market players decided to swing action into the very path I chose, I was left with no choice than to leave. I didn’t understand quite much what the market demands were, what could keep me in the business for long, what the trends were, and this greatly affected my turnover.
Every market thrives on VALUE. What Value are you creating?
Making Profit will always be a reason to be in business trust me. On the contrary, if that is your only reason for doing a business, then you must have a rethink because sooner or later the business might collapse. Yes, you read that correctly.
I can sell a product at a little lower than the cost price to attract customers and increase the basket size of what they buy. Beyond being in a business for just the profit, we need to start creating values via our products and services. You will meet with different people and that might just serve as an avenue to pass on the right values to them. You should change the narratives of a business norm especially if those narratives aren’t valuable. For example, you must not tell lies to your clients in a bid to gain their interest while advertising because that’s what business people do normally. For your own integrity and that of your business, say things the way they are and don’t promise what you cannot accomplish. I can offer to add a good value to a service that would make it irresistible, imagine a photographer who takes portrait informing her client that she can also frame the picture, sounds like an added value.
Business should never be a frontier to cover up one’s source of income, this attitude I have seen and over the years I have seen such businesses crumble because they pay little or no attention forgetting that it affects the branding perception from consumers.
As a budding entrepreneur, whatever business I am going to be associated with must be a business that offers solutions to contemporary problems, and that’s on period!
I hope you learnt a thing or more. Don’t forget to share these nuggets that I share with you weekly as it applies to you and those in your inner circle. The idea is for us to remind ourselves of these things as often as possible.
I will keep rooting for you!
Olajide