Last Friday (15th August 2014) a.m., at Mr. Biggs’ Maryland outlet in Lagos-Nigeria, I met – for the FIRST time ever in 2 years – with Enuenwemba Chukuyenum (Chuks) – a past buyer of my Ration Formulator app.
We shook hands, hugged, then held each other like old friends (see photo below), while my 15 year old son (who accompanied me as part of coaching I’m giving him) took a photo of us!
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"It should be encouraging to know that practically all great fortunes began in the form of compensation for personal services, or from sale of ideas. What else, except ideas and personal services, would one not possessed of property have to give in return for riches?" – Napoleon Hill in "Think & Grow Rich"
Business marketing is more competitive today than ever before! Except you are a monopoly or you enjoy exclusive distribution/sales rights, you WILL have to compete DAILY with others who do what you do for every NAIRA the customer wishes to spend.
Would it be reasonable to expect customers to choose to buy from you, when NOTHING significantly differentiates you – in a positive sense that is – from competitors who offer similar products and services? I doubt any CEO will say "YES"!
Let me use an analogy to drive this home. Think, for instance, about why YOU as a person typically choose to buy groceries from a particular store, and not another one. Even when the price and quality are the same, the fact that you get more courteous and personalized service from the former, could make you prefer to keep going back there. AND you would even refer others to the same place!
As a business owner, becoming the preferred choice of potential customers will naturally appeal to you. But you are NOT likely to achieve that desirable goal if you keep doing the same thing your competitors (and/or others in your industry) are doing – especially in terms of marketing and advertising.
Discounts, promos and other incentive programs are not bad, but it is only when creatively combined with unique offers that potential customers find useful, (and which competitors find hard to duplicate), that you GAIN a competitive advantage – leading to increased sales leads!
The unique offer I refer to will be one that gives buyers in the market place a COMPELLING reason to buy from you, even when your price is higher than that of other sellers!
Without the above, most of your marketing/advertising will amount to calculated gambling with limited chance of yielding sustainable results.
One proven way to build the needed credibility that will make buyers prefer you is to embark on diligent provision of accurate and HELPFUL information that:
a. Empowers potential buyers to make better informed buying decisions.
b. Simultaneously demonstrates you have the expertise to facilitate that process, should they choose to buy from you.
It’s so obvious, that I often wonder why many business owners out here still do not see it!
Once people come to ASSOCIATE your name and/or that of your company with such helpful information and other resources you provide, they are more likely to think of you when eventually they have a need related to your products/services offer.
To get started using this strategy, simply decide on the channel(s) you will use to reach out to potential buyers, with your HELPFUL information. Communication media like print newspapers, TV and radio readily come to mind and are often preferred by most people.
The truth is however that compared to a "web marketing system", those traditional channels are not just expensive, but they also have much shorter shelf-lives.
The above combine to help you achieve your goal of getting name/brand credibility.
The best part is you do NOT have to part with money to make use of them. All you need is an Internet Connection!
So, I urge you to try them before spending your hard earned money on more expensive alternatives.(Googling each of the aforementioned phrases could yield some ideas – but I also offer some of my own further down.)
Note that if you set up your web marketing system FIRST, any other communication channels (TV etc) you choose to use, will benefit from that. This is because your listeners, readers or viewers can be referred to your online system, increasing your chances of having those of them who go there, become customers!
LEARN MORE:
1. A Massive Blind Spot That’s Making Some Facebook Business Page Owners Miss Getting NEW Fans
2. Potential Benefits of Promoting Your Business Online Via Articles, Newsletter and Facebook Marketing
3. To Make More Profitable Sales, Educate Your Prospects and Clients
4. Make a Greater Impact – Improve the Quality of Your Facebook Conversations
5. Start Controlling Your Site and Saving Money, Using the Joomla Content Management System
6. Does Your Website JUSTIFY the Money You Spend
1. This article was first published online on 7th February 2011, in Issue No. 59 of the Self-Development Digest Newsletter, which has since been replaced by my Self-Development (SD) Nuggets blog.
2. The author (Tayo K. Solagbade)’s byline in the above linked syndicated articles may still have URLs pointing to my former 9 year old spontaneousdevelopment.com primary domain name. Work continues to update such links following the loss of that domain on 4th May 2014.
As I said in the research paper I presented at the Center for Management Development, a dangerous craze to acquire paper qualifications in order to secure jobs or higher positions has overtaken many in today’s Nigeria.
They have lost sight of so many things they can learn through diligent application of self-development. By “things” I refer to knowledge and skills, which can enable them achieve superlative performances on their jobs (and in their lives).
Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie etc have started the revolution of the self-help and self-development culture. We need our managers (in fact everyone!) in Nigeria to join in like those in the USA have already done.
You can buy countless certificates to get others to "respect" you (or at least say that they do) and give you recommendations for promotion or employment. However, one thing that you will not be able to buy, is the knowledge and skills that will ultimately be required to deliver satisfactory levels of performance on that job after you may have arrived there.
If you are lucky to be in a place where mediocrity reigns, this might not pose a major problem – since no one would notice any difference! Otherwise, it would only be a matter of time before someone starts asking questions about how you got the job in the first place – when she notices how inept you are on issues relating to doing it to the required standards!
Stop focusing on acquiring paper qualifications, and begin to invest time/effort in developing (in addition to formal qualifications) REAL LIFE knowledge and skills.
One area where this is of crucial importance is your attitude to money – especially spending of money! To succeed in ANY area of endeavour, you will need to manage your spending more consciously for instance.
This is because they often spend with the "assurance" of another inflow of salary to replace whatever they spend.
Hence, they never bother to be "thoughtful" about money issues.
I was like that too. I now know better and act differently. Years of severe lack of money, which caused me major pain, humuliation and heart break REALLY taught me a hard lesson.
To learn my lesson, one of the things I did was to buy a little book titled "The Millionaire next door" from Amazon.com (in addition to Kiyosaki’s books).
I discovered from reading it that many wealthy people keep detailed WRITTEN records of their daily expenses. They also regularly review those records, and plan subsequent spending more prudently based on what they learn.
That is one of the secrets of their wealth accumulation!
You will find it useful to do the same, and to also teach your kids to emulate you.
Do yourself a favour today. STOP thinking the future will take care of itself. STOP assuming things will always be as good as they currently are.
DON’T allow yourself to be taken by surprise when the inevitable down times come.
PREPARE yourself now.
START living in the real world – TODAY!
One morning in 2009, I heard the following quote (credited to a famous American celebrity) on radio:
"Success is the result of good judgement. Good judgement is the result of experience. Experience is the result of bad judgement".
The moral according to the radio presenter, is that FAILURES we go through in life (as a result of bad judgements we make) actually TEACH us THE useful lessons we need to learn in order to make better judgements that will ultimately enable us achieve success.
This is not the first time I have heard or read these kinds of powerful truths.
(a) Many people refuse to view failure as offering any positive benefits. Evidence of this shows in how they look down on those they observe to be failing.
And also in how they AVOID it or HIDE all evidence of it when it happens to them.
(b) Fewer people these days are willing to put in the needed time and effort to acquire relevant EXPERIENCE which is an essential requirement for becoming MORE capable of making good judgements.
So many people seem to be in a hurry – no time to apprentice. They want to jump in and get made INSTANTLY. If necessary, they’ll cut corners.
But long term authentic success does not come that way.
Like the radio presenter (Femi Sowolu) pointed out, a lot of successful people we know actually started out by recording a lot of failures, till they learnt enough to succeed.
Fearlessly applying the wisdom from success quotes CAN help us achieve seeming miracles in our lives over time.
And by the way, it is very often those people who have done it the right way. That is. those who have achieved authentic success by following the rules mentioned above.
They are the ones who are able to DRAW from their wealth of experience based knowledge and wisdom to utter quotable quotes about how to do what they have done.
They are always full of experience based wisdom, which they effortlessly volunteer for use by others.
We can start this process by forming the habit of APPLYING the wisdom of success quotes diligently in our daily lives.
NB: This article was first published online on 15th October 2009 by Tayo K. Solagbade, via www.spontaneousdevlopment.com
Every January, many people announce new year resolutions, but by December achieve little or nothing. I’ve had some intriguing characters PAY me to teach them web design, or Excel-VB, ONLY to leave wondering why I’m chasing them to attend agreed sessions: Funny world indeed! This article explains why you must make procrastination your enemy, and how to defeat it.
Back in school, many of us learned sciences. We drew pictures of the butterfly’s life cycle as it occurs during metamorphosis. But how many actually got to see the entire cycle take place IN REAL LIFE?
I’m not sure about you, but I never got to see a real-life butterfly’s metamorphosis(i.e. from the eggs to the larva – or caterpillar – to the pupa, and then into the adult butterfly) take place, till I left school!
And when I did learn it, it was by accident. Briefly, I took a caterpillar into my bedroom one day, and placed it on a leafy branch(broken off the adult orange tree from which I picked the caterpillar), which was set in a bottle of water.
Upon noticing this, I searched all over the table on which the bottle was placed thinking it had fallen off. Until I discovered, under the table top, in a corner joining the table top to the frame, the butterfly pupa covered in its cotton like cocoon!
I promptly put a mosquito net around the table, so that when the adult butterfly hatched/emerged from the pupa, it did not fly off before I was able to see it.
My apologies to the reader if you did not do much biology or Integrated Science in school, where the reproductive cycles of some lower animals might have been covered.
The point I made in the first paragraph is that sometimes, in our conventional schools, learners are forced to memorize photos, diagrams and sketches of the animals or organisms they are taught about in class – without being shown real life examples.
Is it not funny that this learning should have happened for me the other way round, considering that parents send their kids to school to acquire knowledge that they can then come to apply in the real world?
I honestly believe that is why Robert Kiyosaki’s ideas for educational reform are so worthy of consideration by any serious parents or educational practitioners.
Question is how many of us will take action to use those ideas to make a difference in the lives of the kids we raise, teach or coach?
The children in many conventional schools are seldom taken outdoors into the real word (nor are they encouraged or challenged to go out of their way after class) to see the real thing.
Instead they are made to read about the activity, and learn to say it as they read it, instead of describing it as they felt while they DOING it. Now, the irony of this poor teaching method is that when one DOES make effort to get a “real” life experience, recalling all the important aspects of that particular process becomes considerably easier. Thus the need for “cramming” is more or less removed.
The answer I always get every time is “No”. The reason: “You’ve done it many times before”.
And there lies my point. Once we get into the habit of gaining real-life experiences relevant to any new area of knowledge we wish to explore, we will find that our resultant understanding would be comprehensive – and we would no longer need to do so much “cramming”!
Back to goals achievement. Some people attend seminars or workshops, and read books on starting up their businesses but never really start anything worthwhile. Such people in effect become professional students.
They keep attending seminars, reading books, “start” to make the plans, then stop. They never really begin.
Then there are those who do start, but learn from a book/seminar that they need to make some changes in order for their business to move to the next level. However, instead of doing it, they keep procrastinating – and end up never achieving their full potential.
It is the same thing for people in paid employment who desire career advancement, but fail to take the needed actions to improve themselves. Ditto for the one who wants to lose weight but cannot find the will power to deny THAT urge to eat between meals or “miss” exercising regularly etc.
For those able to take action towards achieving the desired end, they ultimately “grow up” to reach higher levels. And go on to achieve authentic success. That’s why some entrepreneurs always seem to be growing in their ability to take their businesses to a higher level, while some others always appear stagnant.
“There is a great deal of difference between having knowledge and applying it. The teacher asked. “What is Agriculture?” The pupil replied, “Agriculture is just like farming, but farming is doing it.” – W.F. Weiherman
In a separate article, I wrote about people who record a measure of achievement, and promptly assume they have arrived at the pinnacle of success in their chosen area of endeavour.
Not only is this a faulty notion to have, but it is also potentially damaging, because it leads directly to mediocrity – a state of mind whereby ability and performance that can STILL be significantly improved upon, is continually celebrated as if nothing else is left to be done.
Any one who wishes to achieve goals that are worth celebrating, and that others will acknowledge as worthwhile, needs to rid him/herself of mediocre thinking. The mediocre is the one who does a little, and thinks there is nothing left to be done.
Also, a person who desires success needs to perpetually HUNGER for knowledge that will better equip him/her to achieve that success.
In other words, s/he cannot be averse to LEARNING new things.
“Once at a public gathering, Einstein found himself sitting next to a teenager who failed to recognize the world-renowned theorist at his side. Delightedly Einstein engaged the boy in conversation, and after a while, the boy naively asked: “What do you do for a living?” With typical modesty, Einstein replied, “I study physics.” “What, at your age!” the boy responded incredulously, “I finished that two years ago!” – Edward Hoffman, Editor, The Book of Fathers’ Wisdom Birch Lane Press
Some people – like the boy in the above quote – learn a little bit about something, and immediately assume there’s nothing left to learn. In our society, we have people who finish from university and conclude that they’ve done all the studying they need to do.
One amusing thing they do to show this is to throw away their university notes!
I have never regretted keeping my university notes for instance, because most of the stuff I wrote in the management research paper (Statistical Process Control and Target Setting) that got me to the National Finals of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s Young Managers’ Competition in 1997, (5 full years after I left the university) came from studying some of the concepts in those books.
You need to decide to stick with the target dates you set for achievement of each objective.
Use a checklist if necessary (e.g like my Planned Activity Tracking Sheet), and tick off each item as you achieve it. You will get a good feeling just from seeing a growing number of ticks on it! That feeling, over time, will encourage you to do more.
And before you know it, you will have a string of successes behind you, that can be a source of inspiration to others around you, who procrastinate, to break the habit once and for all 
This week, I continue my call on experts-who-speak in the education “industry” to offer programs to influence school curriculums towards better equipping students to succeed in the real world.
I offer a FREE preview of my new book, which is based on the same theme, for interested experts to review.
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The use of Joint Venture Marketing Partnerships to boost sales is a time tested strategy. Sadly, not many people understand how it works, and/or how to use it successfully. This article offers explanations and insights interested persons can use.
This gentleman is well known for what he does, and I’ve studied his model quite closely.
Let’s call him Mr. S.
He periodically brings a variety of experts under one roof, to share their know-how with paying attendees (mostly readers of his magazine) in a week long series of workshops and seminars.
Basically, what happens is that individuals or groups who have specific areas of business expertise approach Mr. S to explain what they offer, and how it can help the magazine readers.
Note the italicized reference to “his” readers in the preceding sentence.
Majority of those who will attend many of the seminars during the week will often be readers of his magazine.
This is because all the seminar offerings will be advertised in Mr. S’ business magazine some weeks before the event is due to hold.
The business magazine’s readers are most likely to be people who own their own businesses or plan to start theirs.
As a result prospective seminar facilitators are sure that the right people will be reading the adverts they’ve placed. And they are likely to be interested in attending the events.
Mr. S in effect “endorses” the resource persons to his list of trusting readers who “believe” that anything they read in the magazine must be useful to them.
According to Marc Goldman, who calls this technique “The Most Powerful Marketing Method Ever Invented”, the norm in terms of percentage of the profits one could expect for doing something similar to what Sunny does is 50%.
But he adds that the person giving others access to his network of buyers has the right to demand whatever percentage of the sale s/he wants.
The reason for that is that the “seller” being endorsed by you, to your buyer list or network is going to gain new customers. And s/he will go on to make MORE money from them in future that you will NOT get a piece of!
Just in case you’re already challenging the above, let me quickly help make the point even clearer.
Let’s imagine you are one of those experts intending to offer a seminar to Mr. S’ readers.
And even if you did find a medium like Mr. S’ magazine, would the readers readily attend your seminar/hand over their hard earned money to someone they do not know (i.e. YOU) – and have no reason to trust?
Do you see why Mr. S’ endorsement is worth a hefty sum of money now?
You see, Mr. S offers you the “unfair advantage” of instant credibility before the readers of your advertisement in his magazine.
That’s one of the benefits you’ll pay for, by giving up as much as 50% of what you make through him.
It would make you quickly gain good ground and acceptability in the market place with your product and/or service.
Also, and depending on the kind of business you go into, you will find that at a point, you will be able to offer another person access to your own customer list, and in the process make good extra income for yourself, almost without lifting a finger – like Mr. S does!
You can learn even more about this technique by doing a search on the Internet!
Yesterday, I arrived my home in Lagos, from Cotonou at 11.30 p.m. There was no power, and I learnt the "small" generator “ (I pass my neighbour) stopped working days ago". Asking “Has the plug been cleaned?” would however lead my 13 year old son to SHOCK ME by servicing and starting the generator successfully within 45 minutes!
I had never felt more proud as a father, than I was yesterday, to watch this young man do what he did.
NB: His 11 year old brother has displayed similar initiative, countless times in solving real "electrical" problems, and even building contraptions that work e.g. a rechargeable lamp made from scraps and carton).
When I asked that question about the plug, he simply got up and went into the house, to get the tool kit, and also bring out the generator.
Within minutes, he’d unscrewed the plug and (not finding the wire brush) scraped off the deposits on it using a screwdriver. Then he fitted it back in place.
That did not surprise me. I’d taught them to do that many months back, when I came home, and it would not start.
That was all I expected him to do really, because it was all I knew how to do, all I’d taught him to do.
Then, sitting on the floor, he proceeded to painstakingly scrape off the hard dark deposits on the inside, using a flat screwdriver mouth.
When I saw this, I asked “Why did you uncouple the combustion chamber, and why are you scraping the inside of the separated pieces like that?”
He said “Yes. That’s what I see the mechanic who comes to service it doing each time.”
I asked: "But have you done it before?"
He replied: "No"
Now concerned, I quickly asked: “Are you sure you will be able to couple it back properly when you are done?”
To my last question he answered in the affirmative without hesitating!
After scraping off all the visible deposits, he proceeded to use small quantities of petrol to wash the scraped surface clean. Once that was done, he re-coupled the combustion chamber.
By this time it was about 15 minutes past midnight.
Normally, I would have asked him to go to bed because it was late. But I really needed power to be on because I wanted to finish off some work. (And he was going about it so confidently, in a way that strongly suggested he knew exactly what he was doing.)
I had 2 Farm CEOs in Port Harcourt who had paid courier fees to have my Feed Formulation Handbook and Software, delivered in print and on DVD (with video tutorials) respectively, via FedEx.
So I needed to prepare the CD labels, and cover letters for each person’s package.
That meant my only hope of getting those tasks done was either that PHCN would restore power for long enough, or he would fix the generator. I chose to hope on the latter. So I selfishly let him continue.
You can therefore imagine how excited (and proud) I was to actually witness him (with help from his older brother) start the generator (which had not worked for days), successfully, minutes later!
I always knew the deliberate “suggestive” coaching I had been doing would work. But I never really anticipated this powerful impact would happen in such a short period of time.
When the generator failed to work, they’d simply put it aside days ago – waiting for the mechanic to come and service it. That showed they had not yet fully imbibed the mental attitude I advocated.
It’s the way we human beings are wired.
We get so used to having others solve real life problems for us, that we forget we may also have the ability to do it ourselves, if given the time and proper training.
As it turned out, he actually knew more than I knew, because he had repeatedly watched an expert do it.
But it never occurred to him that he could put what he had learned by watching to use!
Thankfully, my simple question, triggered his critical thinking – thereby changing his mind set.
Most parents would simply let their kids stay in the house and wait for the "hired" person to finish work and leave.
But I’ve always challenged my kids to pay attention to their environment.
My decision about what to ask them to focus on is often dictated by realities faced by the family.
In other words, I have always deliberately tasked them to think of ways to solve problems affecting us financially and otherwise.
For instance, due to the constant lack of steady power supply, they know we spend often about N300-500 daily, to buy petrol to power the generator.
However, the heavy usage, and related wear and tear, also makes us periodically pay N500 to service the generator as well.
I told them I did not have the time or patience to do stuff like that. And that they would be better off learning to do it themselves.
The truth was however that I could have made out time to do it.
But I knew it would be better to “stir” up their interest in taking personal action, to explore ways to solve their own real life problems, by themselves, as often as possible.
And I knew that one good way to achieve that end, was to use problems that really touched and made them uncomfortable e.g. lack of electricity.
And that was why they paid so much attention to the man who came to service it.
I’d planted the idea in their minds, that if they could learn from him (without telling him), how to service the generator by themselves, the N500 we paid the man could be used to buy more fuel, so they would get to enjoy longer hours of electricity!
This is a powerful confirmation of what I’ve said for years about coaching people – especially kids.
Find what interests them, and expose them to it, you will find you do not need to push them to learn. They will, on their own, pay diligent attention, and learn what is essential and useful from it.
I hope you can put the above ideas to use in helping your child become an independent minded thinker, and self-directed learner.
If you do it right, s/he will become a powerful force to be reckoned with in your family (and even the larger society), when it comes to finding solutions to real life problems.
Not just power supply or electricity generation. It also goes without saying that only small generators like the one referred to here, may be handled by a teenager in the manner described.
But having said that, even when a heavy duty generator is concerned, a teenage child can still pay enough attention to useful controls on the machine, while "hired hands" operate it. You just need to get them to be curious about things. To go around and asking questions. That way, they’ll get familiar with things you may miss because you’re too busy.
Then, in the event that the hired hands are unexpectedly "indisposed", s/he may prove useful in helping you, the parent, find a solution to a simple problem e.g. starting and stopping, opening the fuel tank, changing over etc.
Believing you need to have your own office/staff from the start could be a BIG mistake.
With only a few exceptions, most businesses can be prudently started up on a small budget, in a way that would increase their changes of achieving long term success.
The problem seems however to be that certain individuals come into self-employment with faulty preconceived ideas about how they should start.
Many times, they will ignore readily available wisdom on offer from a myriad of sources to devote scarce financial resources to creating a lavish image for their new business.
By the time they realise that the business is struggling to earn needed income at a rate that will allow quick enough recovery of expended capital to cover cash flow requirements, it would be too late.
This article provides common sense justifications for starting small and offers examples drawn from real-life occurrences and personal experiences of entrepreneurs who have achieved success by following a similar route.
In many cases, nothing could be further from the truth than the assertion many people make, that one needs an office to operate from when starting-up. In my early startup days, many times after people had excitedly engaged me in discussion about my work, they would ask me – “Where is your office?”. My prepared answer was always I work from home. A lot of individuals as soon as they heard this, simply got turned off and never got back to me. As far as they were concerned, if I did not have an office, I could not be a serious business person!
From the time I started my business, I had promised myself – based on a detailed analysis of the nature of products and services I aimed to deliver – that I wasn’t going to spend ANY money on an office space – talk less of staff. I believe that my conviction has now proved to be well based. I say this after extensive reflection, over more than four years. It is obvious that it was not my lack of an office that prevented me from doing more business than I have done! People who wanted me called me up, sent me e-mails, came looking for me at my SOHO (Small Office Home Office) – including the Center for Management Development!
The fact is that if you have a product or a service that people really want and need, they will find a way to get to you and pay good money to get it! Find the right price for your product or service that you offer, and then make yourself accessible – either by going to the customers or strategically locating yourself where they can get to you.
So this issue of having an office for your business to start-up, as far as Im concerned, is just a joke. For most types of businesses, having an office will not guarantee that you will get taken any more seriously than if you do not have one. If anything, it would add to your overheads in so many ways, as one additional, related expense or the other would creep in over time.
As a matter of fact, a seasoned entrepreneur and highly successful Independent Consultant Herman Holtz once wrote – in his book “The Concise Guide To Becoming An Independent Consultant”(John Wiley and Sons, Inc, 1999 – that even his big corporate clients expressed approval of his efforts to keep his overheads low when they visited his home based office!
Having said the foregoing, I must not fail to add that the corporate clients referred to in Holtz’s case belong to a culture in which clients predominantly look for professionals who can deliver results and not those who devote needless time and money to creating an excessively impressive appearance. In the environment where I have had to operate as an entrepreneur, the “thinking” of clients or prospects very often is radically different and you will find yourself getting penalised by way of rejection simply because your office does not look “flashy” enough – or worse, you use a home office!
Despite the foregoing, I still believe people who keep looking for start-up entrepreneurs with flashy cars, tastefully furnished office spaces etc before they patronize them will probably end up engaging incompetent persons who cover their lack of proficiency with lavish expense on office space. Very few REAL and financially intelligent entrepreneurs will go investing that heavily in overheads-generating items before theyve been able to make good money to show decent profitability. Many of those who tried to do so in the past, do not have good tales to tell today.
Ill give a quick example. I know someone who started her business by getting an office space, furnishing it tastefully, putting in phones, air-conditioning etc. Then she recruited an assistant, a secretary and an office boy. After everything was set, they began looking for business. Letters were sent out, meetings held, follow-up calls made etc. Unfortunately, not a single account was secured. Six months passed and this lady had been paying her staff salaries even though no business had been coming in. Power outages repeatedly ate into her rapidly depleting funds as fuel had to be bought for the generator.
Then there was the issue of the personal expenses she was incurring on her side – domestically. She had a housekeeper and a cook who also needed to be paid! To cut the long story short, she got to a point when she could no longer pay her staff on time – both in the office and on the home front. This led to repeat instances of friction between her and them. Some sudden resignations happened, but she (stubbornly) replaced the deserters with others (who would accept less pay than those before them). Eventually, she had to give it up.
The lesson here is quite obvious. You need to hold on to as much of your money as you can in those start-up days/months. Most entrepreneurs will find that they can combine many of the jobs for which others choose to recruit staff quite effectively. We have heard the stories of how many successful people started their businesses on their kitchen tables. It only makes good common sense to do this. When youre more able, you can gradually add to your numbers – but at the early stages, start small and conserve your resources as much as possible. You have been warned!
Read my article titled Practical Guiding Philosophies For Entrepreneurial Success, in which I explain (under the subheading “Procrastinate When It Comes To Spending”), why when you want to do any heavy businessrelated spending, you may need to stay off doing it for at least another 24 48 hours, or for as long as reasonably possible – till you’re convinced it is inevitable.
Nigeria has wonderful talents that can add great value to the world. But they need a favourable environment to flourish. Today, I paid for a nice apartment (photos below) that -post refurbishing – my family will soon join me to live in here in Cotonou.
That’s the truth.
If I’d not felt stifled while based in Nigeria, I would not have moved here in April 2013.
Unfortunately despite trying hard to patriotically build my brand from within my own country, I eventually had to admit to myself, that nothing was going to change anytime soon.
I had to put my wife and kids into consideration – as well as my dreams and ambitions.
It was that bad.
Click here to read the article in which I outlined the combination of unfavourable factors that forced me to relocate.
When I muted the idea of moving next door to Benin Republic, in 2013, someone told me the problem was not Nigeria, but my attitude.
He was about twice my age, and he had run his own business for decades.
My insight came from years of carefully analysing my experiences, and comparing with what others reported in their societies.
Also, I had access to powerful books that articulated timeless success philosophies that had been proven to work regardless of geographical location.
All of the above pointed, very clearly, to the what I chose to do for a living, and my attitude of rejecting how “business” was done in Nigeria was not the “problem”.
Instead, the socio-economic environment I chose to work in was actually a major limitation to my ability to progress.
Thankfully, those books I read also proffered a solution.
And it was that sometimes one would need to change the environment from which one was trying to achieve success.
My answer would be that what I do is different from what they do. And how I choose to achieve my goals may not be how they opt to pursue theirs.
I once read a wise quote which went thus:
“To be well adjusted to a sick society is no sign of good health.” – Anonymous
My experiences confirm the above to be a very accurate statement.
It is possible that not all of them want to do business that way. My interactions with them certainly suggest that they are willing to admit that giving “bribes” or other inducements to win contracts is not right.
However, most have convinced themselves there is no alternative.
Instead, I simply avoided going to places where I would encounter “requests” to do such things to get my products and services purchased.
Since the majority of people did not believe in my approach, that meant I got less patronage than I needed.
I was consequently often just limping along financially.
But “they” again told me I was wasting my time.
That Africans were not ready to do business that way.
And all that.
When I was still in Nigeria, it appeared they were right.
I found I was not getting as much attention as I needed, despite stepping up my web marketing efforts.
In other words, if I got a client project, finishing it to the agreed deadline meant I had to run almost exclusively on generator power, as PHCN, Nigeria’s wonderful power company remained as unreliable as ever.
As you can imagine, fuelling and servicing the generator was no small expense. Apart from the hefty spending I had to do in that regard, there was the wear and tear, as well as the air and noise pollution to consider.
What was worse was that Internet connectivity was also both expensive and periodically expensive.
It was hard to take on multiple projects, out of a fear that one would be unable to deliver as promised.
But that had nothing to do with my abilities. Instead, it had everything to do with the resources available in the environment I chose to work from.
Since relocating to Benin, I have demonstrated just that with my achievements!
For instance, I have repeatedly handled multiple Web Marketing Systems development and Excel-VB Software development projects.
And in between, I’ve travelled to give talks, and write research papers that I got paid for.
Not once did I miss any of the agreed deadlines. Indeed, I have consistently exceeded my clients’ expectations.
Most interesting however is the fact that nearly 90% of sales I make for my products and services today, are to buyers based in Nigeria.
That is the SAME country I had to relocate from, in order to reach my full potential!
All of the above makes it clear that my environment was really a major limiting factor on my ability to excel while I was in Nigeria.
Just yesterday, I published my latest print/physical book.
It is over 80 pages thick but I only began writing it just 6 weeks ago.
If I had been in Nigeria, I really doubt I could have finished and put it online in 6 months, with confidence in the content QUALITY!
Another reason is the massive difference in cost of living.
Cost of food here continues to amaze me here. I spend over 4 times LESS for a plate of food, compared to Nigeria.
Now, you can imagine what that means for my family’s upkeep.
I still earn income the same way, but I’ll be making HUGE savings when they get here.
Even getting a hair cut, transportation, photocopy, electricity, water etc costs so MUCH less in Benin. I offered some price comparisons in this article that explains why I relocated.
Even housing is much LESS expensive!
For my nice new apartment, which only needs painting and slight refurbishing, I paid 6 month’s rent, plus a one month “refundable security deposit”, and the agent’s commission (one month’s rent).
Now, at the expiration of the 6 month period, I only have to pay monthly.
Despite that fact, the space, and finishing of the property here in Cotonou is way better!
Also, in Nigeria, you pay for 2 years and afterwards you pay annually. People have to run around to raise funds to pay rent. Some subsequently struggle to feed their families for weeks, before they recover. Life is made needlessly harsh in Nigeria!
So far, the only major exception – in terms of costs – is my Blackberry subscription.
Here in Benin, I pay the equivalent of 1 month’s fee in Nigeria, for a week’s access.
But that is well covered many times over, by the multiple savings I make in virtually all other areas.
The Nigerian Factor stifles Nigeria’s ability to make it’s gifted citizens willingly come – or stay – home. Here’s how I define it:
“The Nigerian factor is what makes things that work elsewhere fail to work in Nigeria. It is also what makes doing the wrong thing acceptable and doing the right thing condemnable” – Tayo Solagbade
I believes that anyone who truly loves Nigeria will want her to develop to the point where many individual Nigerians will no longer feel a need to flee for Europe and America (and in the case of people like me – Benin, Ghana or even Togo!) in order to achieve worthwhile goals.
Perpetuation of the Nigerian Factor currently makes this development process difficult, if not impossible.
Why?
Because I believe every business organisation will find her chances of survival and profitable existence threatened, if negative influences that prevent stabilisation of political and economic conditions persist.
Individuals are also guiltly of making the problem worse in Nigeria!
The irony is that those responsible for cutting corners in Nigeria for personal monetary gain are NOT all in government.
Some are individuals in society who think it is smart to exploit the existing loopholes.
Maybe that is why many Nigerians seem incapable of insisting that things be done as expected. They can ask for a while, but they soon give up and accept anything they are told hoping that the problem will resolve itself.
The following quote reinforces this:
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them” – Frederick Douglas
Even though I have chosen to work from outside Nigeria, I continue to make myself available to add value to Nigeria and Nigerians using my products and services.
I do this because I LOVE my country and want to help her develop.
My experiences have taught me that people willing to let Nigeria develop are in the minority, both in and out of government.
The majority have found a way to exploit the chaos in the country for personal gain. And so they don’t want things to “change for the better”, for obvious reasons!
So, I know this is not a battle that will be won quickly.
Howeve, with help from the creator, I know we who are of like mind, will join forces, over time, until we win!
