It my pleasure to bring to you another series in our bid to encourage/inspire our generation to dream and achieve lofty feats. In this series we will bring to you various lessons from men and women who have gone through this road. Their experiences will be our lesson and then we will find srength in our wings to fly.
Enjoy the rest.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
By Leke Alder
The number 4
The number 4
· 4 represents the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
· 4 represents the four Matriarchs (foremothers) of Judaism - Sarah,
Rebeccah, Leah, and Rachel.
· 4 represents the four chambers of the mammalian heart.
· 4 represents 4 parts of a day: night, morning, afternoon, evening.
· 4 represents 4 cardinal directions: north, south, east, west.
My entire presentation today is in 4 chapters.
Chapter One
My name is Leke Alder. I have two lives. By day, I am a consultant working for
corporations and Government on brand strategy and development. And while
many of you know me for this, some are only now just becoming acquainted
with my second life - my nightlife. No, I do not prowl nightclubs. That's not
what I mean by nightlife! By night I am a weaver of life's riddles - writing,
thinking, meditating, and working to understand this animal called Life.
I have meditated and documented life in many genres in books, poetry and
photographs. I have meditated on ambition, and vision, and relationships,
and depths, and happiness, and joy, and purpose, and the universe; on God,
and the Bible, politics, and power… Life is a riddle full of question marks,
quotations marks and punctuation marks.
In the course of life I became a storyteller, writing books and yawns.
Sometimes I write lyrically in prose and poetry, and sometimes I write straight.
I write to acquaint my readers with the paragraphs and syntax of life, and I
seek to pass on my knowledge to the next generation. When I write I speak
on paper. Today I speak to you in person.
I will distill wisdom to you. I will re-present the riddles of life in digestible
chunks, using parables and analogies.
_______
Wisdom walks in the streets, Solomon says; I therefore watch men and
women, boys and girls, as they take a walk on the streets of life in order to
gain wisdom. To be honest with you, some don't walk. They run, with
urgency. They know that the time is short, and that youth is a deceptive
quantity. It is a speeding train pretending to be a tortoise. Life runs out on
youth and before you know it, you are an adult, fully responsible for yourself
and others. Youth soon passes by, and the wise embrace adulthood earlier
than most.
For some, youthfulness makes a train wreck of their potential, through
irresponsibility. It leaves a trail of smoke behind. They wheeze and cough in
fits and starts as they grapple with smokes and mirrors, lurching from one
misadventure to another in the name of youthfulness.
Some take casual strolls through life, believing they have all the time in the
world. Tomorrow will never come they think, not knowing that the ability to
contemplate that thought is a signal that adulthood is already knocking at the
door of their lives! Nothing is urgent. These people take their time with
everything.
Some others sit down, disconsolate and conquered by their environment.
They face the predicament of life by blaming everybody - the blamable and
unblamable. They blame the past in their parents. They blame the present in
Government. And they blame the future in their wives and mates. Everyone is
to blame except themselves. They are subscribers to the notion that their
karma is tied up in their conjugal association; and they turn on the head the
divine benediction that he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains
favour from God. Having discovered that their lives are inversely proportional
to that blessing they refuse to pause and think.
A variant of these people are those who blame their nation for everything. If
only they were born Americans they say. They forget that there are many poor
unsuccessful Americans even in “God’s own country”. They lose sight of
purpose, and the fact that providence is not prone to mistakes or error. By
divine calculus, they were born here, in this time and in this place. And the
circumstances of their birth is the impetus for their ascension on the ladder of
life. It may be tough going, but with life’s difficulties come strength of
character, virtue and nobility. Without difficulties, we cannot learn patience
and endurance. Without difficulties we cannot learn faith. And no man has yet
possessed the future without faith. Without faith, we become complainants
and consign ourselves to the dustbin of history marked “Irrelevant”.
If truth be told, these people do not really wish to succeed. They just need an
excuse for failure. And there is a difference between reasons for failure and
excuses for failure. We are bound to fail at some attempts and ventures. All
life’s heroes, from David to Abraham Lincoln, to Winston Churchill, to Nelson
Mandela, to Obafemi Awolowo did. When we sit down to analyse and ponder
why we failed, then we can learn the lessons to take forward and try again.
But when we blame others for our lives, then we’ve found excuses. The man
who understands the reason for failure moves forward. The man who finds
excuses for failure is only consoling himself and compensating for his lack of
drive. He never moves on. Instead he turns his failure into a song, telling
stories in lyrics of death. When a man lacks ambition, he is dead yet he lives.
We are chartered liberties. We make our own choices, and we are ultimately
responsible for our lives. Life is not always fair. Some are born rich but many
are born poor. When the poor, with determination, take life by the horns and
refuse to be sacrificed on the altar of circumstances, then life seeks a
substitute to sacrifice - just like the ram became a substitute for Isaac on
Mount Moriah. When we make something out of our lives, the stories of our
hardships become legends and an inspiration to many. We must never stand
at the bus stop of life, comatose. A bus stop is never a destination. It’s always
a transmission point. Problems and situations are not destinations. They are
the bus stops of life!
But some don’t understand this simple truth. They sit idly at the bus stop,
without any destination in mind. You must have a vision. It may not be clear
but you must have an idea of who you want to be and what you don’t want to
be. Some people never know which bus to take. They are confused. Some
others jump on any bus especially the bus they see others taking. They are
the ones who embark on the latest business idea in vogue even when it’s not
their inclination or aspiration and does not align with their skills. They stumble
from one idea to the other until we are all confused. Their business should be
called ‘Flavour of The Moment Ltd’. They lack self esteem and resolve. Don’t
jump on a bandwagon. Know yourself and pursue your abilities, interests and
inclinations. It’s the only way to sustain interest in what you do.
But perhaps the most pathetic are the people gisting their lives away at the
bus stop. They love to impress others. In school they never face their studies.
They forget that the primary reason for school attendance is graduation, with
a certificate. Some are Year 7 Part 2! They have a truckload of re-sits and
carry-overs. They grow old on campus. Post campus, they usually gather in
watering holes in other people’s offices. They gist from morning to evening.
And young men love to tell tall tales! The latest conquest of the female
species… the latest encounter with a very important dignitary that they met
casually at a function, though from their retelling of it you would think they just
had a two-man dinner at a fancy Chinese restaurant… the latest get-richquick
investment scheme… They are experts in everything except the
important things of life. They talk grand, citing stories and dropping names till
the corridor becomes cluttered with alphabets. Empty barrels don’t make the
most noise. Empty barrels full of hot air make the most noise. These people
are full of gas. They suffer from a complex the type of which is
indeterminable, and they seek to compensate by telling tales taller than a 25
storey building. They are strategic analysts on every subject, from football to
business to politics, but they are never beneficiaries of their analyses. They
know everybody but nobody will put faith in them. They are the life of the
party in any gathering and never grow up. May your father never allow your
sister to marry such!
And there are those at Life’s intersections who have refused to move
because they do not want to pay the cost of achievement. They have
contemplated what it would take to achieve and just gave up! They
disembarked before embarking on the bus! Their faith fails.
You must never take life in gulps. You can only sip it. No young man’s faith
can accommodate his tomorrow. The vistas of pain and toil will discourage
him were God to show him what it would take to get to the top. That’s why
God hides the future from us and reveals it to us in snippets – line by line,
precept upon precept, a little here, a little there... As we prove ourselves
faithful on one level, we are moved unto another. It takes a psychological leap
of faith to move from poverty and hopelessness to success and prosperity.
It’s not as easy as it seems.
You must believe in yourself and believe in your future – a future you cannot
see. You have to trust the invisible arms of Providence.
It is written: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD,
thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end”(Jeremiah
29:11). There is a destination for you. Don’t abandon your future by giving up
on it!
· 4 represents the four Matriarchs (foremothers) of Judaism - Sarah,
Rebeccah, Leah, and Rachel.
· 4 represents the four chambers of the mammalian heart.
· 4 represents 4 parts of a day: night, morning, afternoon, evening.
· 4 represents 4 cardinal directions: north, south, east, west.
My entire presentation today is in 4 chapters.
Chapter One
My name is Leke Alder. I have two lives. By day, I am a consultant working for
corporations and Government on brand strategy and development. And while
many of you know me for this, some are only now just becoming acquainted
with my second life - my nightlife. No, I do not prowl nightclubs. That's not
what I mean by nightlife! By night I am a weaver of life's riddles - writing,
thinking, meditating, and working to understand this animal called Life.
I have meditated and documented life in many genres in books, poetry and
photographs. I have meditated on ambition, and vision, and relationships,
and depths, and happiness, and joy, and purpose, and the universe; on God,
and the Bible, politics, and power… Life is a riddle full of question marks,
quotations marks and punctuation marks.
In the course of life I became a storyteller, writing books and yawns.
Sometimes I write lyrically in prose and poetry, and sometimes I write straight.
I write to acquaint my readers with the paragraphs and syntax of life, and I
seek to pass on my knowledge to the next generation. When I write I speak
on paper. Today I speak to you in person.
I will distill wisdom to you. I will re-present the riddles of life in digestible
chunks, using parables and analogies.
_______
Wisdom walks in the streets, Solomon says; I therefore watch men and
women, boys and girls, as they take a walk on the streets of life in order to
gain wisdom. To be honest with you, some don't walk. They run, with
urgency. They know that the time is short, and that youth is a deceptive
quantity. It is a speeding train pretending to be a tortoise. Life runs out on
youth and before you know it, you are an adult, fully responsible for yourself
and others. Youth soon passes by, and the wise embrace adulthood earlier
than most.
For some, youthfulness makes a train wreck of their potential, through
irresponsibility. It leaves a trail of smoke behind. They wheeze and cough in
fits and starts as they grapple with smokes and mirrors, lurching from one
misadventure to another in the name of youthfulness.
Some take casual strolls through life, believing they have all the time in the
world. Tomorrow will never come they think, not knowing that the ability to
contemplate that thought is a signal that adulthood is already knocking at the
door of their lives! Nothing is urgent. These people take their time with
everything.
Some others sit down, disconsolate and conquered by their environment.
They face the predicament of life by blaming everybody - the blamable and
unblamable. They blame the past in their parents. They blame the present in
Government. And they blame the future in their wives and mates. Everyone is
to blame except themselves. They are subscribers to the notion that their
karma is tied up in their conjugal association; and they turn on the head the
divine benediction that he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains
favour from God. Having discovered that their lives are inversely proportional
to that blessing they refuse to pause and think.
A variant of these people are those who blame their nation for everything. If
only they were born Americans they say. They forget that there are many poor
unsuccessful Americans even in “God’s own country”. They lose sight of
purpose, and the fact that providence is not prone to mistakes or error. By
divine calculus, they were born here, in this time and in this place. And the
circumstances of their birth is the impetus for their ascension on the ladder of
life. It may be tough going, but with life’s difficulties come strength of
character, virtue and nobility. Without difficulties, we cannot learn patience
and endurance. Without difficulties we cannot learn faith. And no man has yet
possessed the future without faith. Without faith, we become complainants
and consign ourselves to the dustbin of history marked “Irrelevant”.
If truth be told, these people do not really wish to succeed. They just need an
excuse for failure. And there is a difference between reasons for failure and
excuses for failure. We are bound to fail at some attempts and ventures. All
life’s heroes, from David to Abraham Lincoln, to Winston Churchill, to Nelson
Mandela, to Obafemi Awolowo did. When we sit down to analyse and ponder
why we failed, then we can learn the lessons to take forward and try again.
But when we blame others for our lives, then we’ve found excuses. The man
who understands the reason for failure moves forward. The man who finds
excuses for failure is only consoling himself and compensating for his lack of
drive. He never moves on. Instead he turns his failure into a song, telling
stories in lyrics of death. When a man lacks ambition, he is dead yet he lives.
We are chartered liberties. We make our own choices, and we are ultimately
responsible for our lives. Life is not always fair. Some are born rich but many
are born poor. When the poor, with determination, take life by the horns and
refuse to be sacrificed on the altar of circumstances, then life seeks a
substitute to sacrifice - just like the ram became a substitute for Isaac on
Mount Moriah. When we make something out of our lives, the stories of our
hardships become legends and an inspiration to many. We must never stand
at the bus stop of life, comatose. A bus stop is never a destination. It’s always
a transmission point. Problems and situations are not destinations. They are
the bus stops of life!
But some don’t understand this simple truth. They sit idly at the bus stop,
without any destination in mind. You must have a vision. It may not be clear
but you must have an idea of who you want to be and what you don’t want to
be. Some people never know which bus to take. They are confused. Some
others jump on any bus especially the bus they see others taking. They are
the ones who embark on the latest business idea in vogue even when it’s not
their inclination or aspiration and does not align with their skills. They stumble
from one idea to the other until we are all confused. Their business should be
called ‘Flavour of The Moment Ltd’. They lack self esteem and resolve. Don’t
jump on a bandwagon. Know yourself and pursue your abilities, interests and
inclinations. It’s the only way to sustain interest in what you do.
But perhaps the most pathetic are the people gisting their lives away at the
bus stop. They love to impress others. In school they never face their studies.
They forget that the primary reason for school attendance is graduation, with
a certificate. Some are Year 7 Part 2! They have a truckload of re-sits and
carry-overs. They grow old on campus. Post campus, they usually gather in
watering holes in other people’s offices. They gist from morning to evening.
And young men love to tell tall tales! The latest conquest of the female
species… the latest encounter with a very important dignitary that they met
casually at a function, though from their retelling of it you would think they just
had a two-man dinner at a fancy Chinese restaurant… the latest get-richquick
investment scheme… They are experts in everything except the
important things of life. They talk grand, citing stories and dropping names till
the corridor becomes cluttered with alphabets. Empty barrels don’t make the
most noise. Empty barrels full of hot air make the most noise. These people
are full of gas. They suffer from a complex the type of which is
indeterminable, and they seek to compensate by telling tales taller than a 25
storey building. They are strategic analysts on every subject, from football to
business to politics, but they are never beneficiaries of their analyses. They
know everybody but nobody will put faith in them. They are the life of the
party in any gathering and never grow up. May your father never allow your
sister to marry such!
And there are those at Life’s intersections who have refused to move
because they do not want to pay the cost of achievement. They have
contemplated what it would take to achieve and just gave up! They
disembarked before embarking on the bus! Their faith fails.
You must never take life in gulps. You can only sip it. No young man’s faith
can accommodate his tomorrow. The vistas of pain and toil will discourage
him were God to show him what it would take to get to the top. That’s why
God hides the future from us and reveals it to us in snippets – line by line,
precept upon precept, a little here, a little there... As we prove ourselves
faithful on one level, we are moved unto another. It takes a psychological leap
of faith to move from poverty and hopelessness to success and prosperity.
It’s not as easy as it seems.
You must believe in yourself and believe in your future – a future you cannot
see. You have to trust the invisible arms of Providence.
It is written: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD,
thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end”(Jeremiah
29:11). There is a destination for you. Don’t abandon your future by giving up
on it!
Chapter Two
I want to tell you a story. I do hope that in the telling of this tale I shall be able
to teach you business lessons having laid the philosophical foundation in the
first chapter of my lecture.
Three young men walked into my office on the 23 rd of November 2008.
Of the three, one was a fresh graduate and two of the numbered were in
school hoping to graduate soon. The three came into my office burning with
the passion of an entrepreneurial idea. The idea was an internet based
business. They had gone on that famous TV program, Dragon’s Den, but
they were told to refine their idea and come back. The idea was already up
and running but it was not generating the anticipated response.
The father of one of these three kids, of whom I am well acquainted had
called me and asked me to intervene in the ideation of the business. I do
know how to do that having birthed businesses. Moreover I consult on
businesses and have written books on entrepreneurial pursuits. Daily I work
on ideas and turn them into brand propositions and market success. This
father had also seen me build up from scratch. There must be something I
had learned along the way that I could pass on to his son he reasoned. It
thus made logical sense to send the son to me. But the son showed up with
two partners.
I got a buzz from the reception: “Three people are here to see you Mr.
Alder… They do have an appointment. They actually look very young”. The
receptionist added the last bit to warn me of the demographics of my waiting
party.
And so it was that three ruddy-faced gentlemen showed up in my office. They
sat in the meeting room nervous with anticipation, not knowing what I looked
like or what I would say. I knew they would have rehearsed what they would
say to me but everyone sweats a bit in trying to present an idea to a skeptical
and unpredictable world. Sweat is good. It makes you cover all your bases.
Better to sweat than to be cocky and ignorant!
As I walked into the meeting room, my right arm stretched out in anticipation
of handshakes, I noticed that they were all suitably attired, meaning that they
dressed for a business meeting. One was actually in a suit. The second, the
one who incubated the idea as I would soon discover, had no suit but wore a
tie. The third wore no suit and no tie but he was neatly dressed. That
impressed me. Always dress for the occasion. It’s a sign of respect, and
seriousness. If you want others to take you seriously, take yourself seriously.
It turned out that they were dressed in their order of perceived importance.
They had formed a small corporation. The suited gentleman was of course
the CEO (Chief Executive Officer). He looked most important. The young man
in a tie without suit was, I guess the COO (Chief Operating Officer). And the
gentleman without tie was the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).
But while I appreciated the fact that they turned out well dressed in business
attire, I noticed something troublesome in the group dynamics. And I noticed
it almost immediately. The gentleman CEO had an air of self-importance. He
carried an I-take-charge-I-know-it-well-These-other-guys-are-not-saying-itwell-
attitude. He asserted himself as spokesperson, no doubt buttressed by
his attire and the pocket square jutting from his coat breast pocket like the
plumage of a peacock. The pocket square I noticed was just one of those
‘Made in China’ cotton handkerchiefs with the patterned end hanging out of
the coat with shyness. But he carried himself with such braggadocio like it
was silk!
As is my custom, I took time to listen to their business idea, trying to find what
I call “line of simplicity”. I needed to understand what it was they were selling
from an average man’s perspective. I couldn’t get it. The product had a lot of
whistles in it but the core idea was lost on me. And if it’s lost on me, how
would an average man get it?
I knew in my head that I was dealing with a group that was very excited about
their idea but failed to see that unless people understand it they can’t buy it!
They were enamoured by the possibilities of what they had undertaken, and
the sheer audacity of trying to do such a thing at an early age in life. They left
the consumer behind. They were more excited about their technology!
The simple moral from this is, if the consumer can’t get it you’ve lost it!
Something was wrong with the idea and when I asked a pointed question
about the product, they sought to answer me by shoving papers in front of
me to read. How many consumers are they going to shove papers at?
Products must be intuitively simple to understand and use. And services
must be easily understandable and not needing long explanations. And if you
must seek professional counseling, you must have your facts at your
fingertips. Don’t shove papers at people.
The papers presented had a lot of creative design but they were
professionally deficient in presentation. Always be professional in your
presentation.
The proof that the product was deficient was the fact that patronage was
poor. And when I examined the business fundamentals, I noticed that the
income modeling was wrong.
In business, the first question to ask is, “Where is the money?” Directly or
indirectly, a product must be pitched at the person who can pay or get
somebody to pay. If it’s not going to generate income, it’s not business. It
may be philanthropy, or a promotional piece, but a good business idea
always has a viable income model.
In this case, the income model was convoluted by the fact that they were not
only targeting the wrong audience to pay, they were trying to sell the primary
market what they didn’t ask for or want or need! You cannot sell the market
what they don’t want or need. You are wasting your time and energy!
I asked some other questions and to my shock and horror, they had no
written strategy or business plan. They told me they had a vision, which they
wanted to recite, and a mission and values. I knew from just talking to them
that they did not realize how these are business drivers and not just
something you recite to impress people. I was beginning to sense that they
seemed more interested in impressions than substance, though the
gentleman who conceptualized the business seemed to have a different
attitude. The “CEO” was all about whistles and bells. He was acting like a
“CEO”.
Business is not child’s play. It’s your life! And you must get it right. You can
only do so by seeking knowledge. No matter how expensive knowledge may
seem, ignorance I assure you is terribly more expensive; and it may cost you
a substantial portion of your life with frustration as icing.
These young men’s business was suffering from what is technically referred
to as Failure Cost, which is the aggregate cost of not doing things right from
inception. They hadn’t thought through on their idea. They even launched
without proper testing. The first set of people who flocked to the product were
disappointed. The technology failed. Your first set of customers are your most
important. If you disappoint them you’ve lost your early believers and you will
need to work very hard to woo them back. It’s even worse when you
disappoint those who believed in you enough to give you money to start.
Don’t defraud your believers or take them for granted. Business history
shows that your road will be hard if not crooked and impossible.
But then something curious happened as the meeting progressed. This
“CEO” tried to appeal to African sentimentalism by telling me that things have
been hard and how difficult it was to raise money to take transportation down
to Lagos to see me! And so they are appealing to “our fathers” to help. He
then went on to cite the name of one of my friends as a member of the Board
of “Advisors”. It was then that I realized that these “fathers” he was talking
about weren’t their biological fathers. I was now a surrogate father because of
finance.
If the fatherhood theme was meant to elicit the milk of human kindness from
me, it did exactly the opposite. It actually made me annoyed, and dried up
my breast in an instant. I felt the young man was being cunning.
Firstly, you cannot embark on a business venture and begin to complain
about the rigour and pain. You should go for employment if that is your
attitudinal course. Business when handled properly gives disproportionate
reward. But it will only reward the committed and faithful. And business will
seek to prove you to know if you’re committed and faithful.
Secondly, you cannot be seeking help and go about it in a cunning
manner. You insult the intelligence of others and they will wonder about your
character. I pointedly asked the young man if and when he’s successful, and
driving a fanciful car, he would share the reward with me? The smile that
emerged from the corner of his mouth was obviously my answer. If he wasn’t
going to share the reward, why should I share his pain? Why was he
complaining to me about his effort to better his life, become rich, influential
and affluential? He started on a business footing, now he was slipping into
emotional blackmail of the African variety, and seeking to profiteer my kind
nature. I’m suddenly now his “father!” He had obviously rehearsed that line
in his head.
Thirdly, hardship is a paragraph of your legend, not your history.
The hardships of your business progression are your memoirs in the making
for when you become successful. Success cannot be easy. If it were, even
the indolent will be rewarded. I have been down the path and I cannot
remember complaining to anyone about the hardships. If you complain about
the cost of your future you probably don’t deserve that future. I cited the
example of an 84 year old man I once knew who used to trek 20 kilometers to
go to Church and another 20 kilometers back. Took some time before
anybody realised it and we all rallied to correct the situation but the old man
paid the price. If it is important to you, you will pay the price.
Chapter 3
I recommended some of my books and publications to the young men. And
the “CEO” was trying to get them free, or in the alternative offering me
services I don’t need as barter. A culture of handouts and unwillingness to
invest in one’s personal life is a sign of devaluation of life. You’re not really
smart if you expect others to invest in your future for you. It’s your life!
I could have given these young men the products but I would not be helping
them. In life we must not seek an enablement that disables us for our future.
There are no easy routes in entrepreneurship. Those who seek shortcuts
often end up not building any proper businesses or they become more
crooked than a snake in convulsion! Entrepreneurship is a long grinding road
that requires our life commitment. You must go into it purposefully and be
committed to succeed. The future cannot arrive without commitment!
Incidentally when I mentioned the fact that entrepreneurship properly defined
will require a commitment of at least ten years to yield significant returns, the
CEO guy quickly detached himself from the group and said he wanted to see
me personally! That rubbed me wrongly in a sore place. I saw disloyalty and
a lack of commitment. The young man saw the fame and the glory but was
not prepared for the grind. More importantly, he lacked ethical scruples. He
came to see me on the equity of his friend on a specified business project. In
less than 30 minutes, he was pushing a personal agenda. Some will view that
as “smart” and it may be, but I worry about such a person as a business
partner. Values are the glue of business relationships. Those values must be
shared among partners or else the partnership will fail. Two cannot work
together except they be in agreement (Amos 3:3 NKJV).
Choose your partners carefully. And many times you don’t need the
partners you team up with. Everyone must have a stake in a partnership.
When things go right everyone benefits. But when things are rough ever
partner must be a partaker. Don’t go into partnership on whimsicalities.
Friendship is not the basis of business partnership. Contribution and
commitment are.
Chapter 4
The enterprise mandate is enshrined in the Book of Beginnings, the book of
Genesis. Gen 1:28 states:
" Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth." KJV
This is not just about biological procreation. The charge to Mankind goes
beyond this restrictive interpretation. Scriptures are multi-dimensional
containers and taken together they constitute a working manual of human
existence and endeavour, be it political, economic or spiritual.
The Message translation of that scripture is as follows:
"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea
and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."
There are 5 capitalist commands in that scripture:
1. Prosper: Generate wealth
2. Reproduce: Multiply wealth.
3. Fill the Earth: Expand your enterprise
4. Take Charge: Take the lead and define the agenda
5. Be responsible: Take care of the less fortunate by being socially
responsible and being responsible for political outcomes in your
environment. You must also be responsible to God with your income.
That is the evolutionary progression of business. And the 5 th mandate, being
responsible to God and man, is the ultimate aim of enterprise. To grow the
business and move from one stage to the other, you must plan, wisely. That’s
what successful organisations do. They do strategic planning. Solomon,
history’s most astute and consummate business mogul said:
Any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong through common
sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts. (Proverbs 24:3-
4)
There’s such a thing as common sense in business! And profitability comes
by being factual.
But what business should I go into you ask? I don’t have an idea, you say!
Oh yes you do!
Do you have problems? If you do, that’s an idea. Every business is a solution
to a human problem. Because the world is in a hurry, we have fast food.
Because Lagos lacks accessible potable water, there’s ‘Pure Water’. The
problem is that most people are more problem focused than solution
thinking. We wallow in our problems, seeking help and pity. And the hard
truth about life is that nobody owes you anything. You’re responsible for your
life. You cannot blame anybody for your circumstances. Even if you can,
then what?
You must rise up to the challenge of creating a future for yourself and start
working towards your vision of your life. The just shall live by faith. The Just
believe in their future and start working towards it. If you believe in your future
you WILL work towards it.
Problems are the raw materials of businesses. The Scriptures tell us that
there is no temptation overtaken you in life that is not common to man. In
other words, there’s a ready market for the solutions you create to cure your
problem!
But it’s going to take a lot to get to that future. The indolent cannot get there.
The ignorant cannot get there. Those who will not invest in knowledge cannot
get there. Those without drive or lacking in the faculty of initiative cannot get
there. And if you’re looking for life’s handouts you will not get there. Neither
will the complainants. The future belongs to those who seize it. Will you?
Thank You. God Bless!
I want to tell you a story. I do hope that in the telling of this tale I shall be able
to teach you business lessons having laid the philosophical foundation in the
first chapter of my lecture.
Three young men walked into my office on the 23 rd of November 2008.
Of the three, one was a fresh graduate and two of the numbered were in
school hoping to graduate soon. The three came into my office burning with
the passion of an entrepreneurial idea. The idea was an internet based
business. They had gone on that famous TV program, Dragon’s Den, but
they were told to refine their idea and come back. The idea was already up
and running but it was not generating the anticipated response.
The father of one of these three kids, of whom I am well acquainted had
called me and asked me to intervene in the ideation of the business. I do
know how to do that having birthed businesses. Moreover I consult on
businesses and have written books on entrepreneurial pursuits. Daily I work
on ideas and turn them into brand propositions and market success. This
father had also seen me build up from scratch. There must be something I
had learned along the way that I could pass on to his son he reasoned. It
thus made logical sense to send the son to me. But the son showed up with
two partners.
I got a buzz from the reception: “Three people are here to see you Mr.
Alder… They do have an appointment. They actually look very young”. The
receptionist added the last bit to warn me of the demographics of my waiting
party.
And so it was that three ruddy-faced gentlemen showed up in my office. They
sat in the meeting room nervous with anticipation, not knowing what I looked
like or what I would say. I knew they would have rehearsed what they would
say to me but everyone sweats a bit in trying to present an idea to a skeptical
and unpredictable world. Sweat is good. It makes you cover all your bases.
Better to sweat than to be cocky and ignorant!
As I walked into the meeting room, my right arm stretched out in anticipation
of handshakes, I noticed that they were all suitably attired, meaning that they
dressed for a business meeting. One was actually in a suit. The second, the
one who incubated the idea as I would soon discover, had no suit but wore a
tie. The third wore no suit and no tie but he was neatly dressed. That
impressed me. Always dress for the occasion. It’s a sign of respect, and
seriousness. If you want others to take you seriously, take yourself seriously.
It turned out that they were dressed in their order of perceived importance.
They had formed a small corporation. The suited gentleman was of course
the CEO (Chief Executive Officer). He looked most important. The young man
in a tie without suit was, I guess the COO (Chief Operating Officer). And the
gentleman without tie was the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).
But while I appreciated the fact that they turned out well dressed in business
attire, I noticed something troublesome in the group dynamics. And I noticed
it almost immediately. The gentleman CEO had an air of self-importance. He
carried an I-take-charge-I-know-it-well-These-other-guys-are-not-saying-itwell-
attitude. He asserted himself as spokesperson, no doubt buttressed by
his attire and the pocket square jutting from his coat breast pocket like the
plumage of a peacock. The pocket square I noticed was just one of those
‘Made in China’ cotton handkerchiefs with the patterned end hanging out of
the coat with shyness. But he carried himself with such braggadocio like it
was silk!
As is my custom, I took time to listen to their business idea, trying to find what
I call “line of simplicity”. I needed to understand what it was they were selling
from an average man’s perspective. I couldn’t get it. The product had a lot of
whistles in it but the core idea was lost on me. And if it’s lost on me, how
would an average man get it?
I knew in my head that I was dealing with a group that was very excited about
their idea but failed to see that unless people understand it they can’t buy it!
They were enamoured by the possibilities of what they had undertaken, and
the sheer audacity of trying to do such a thing at an early age in life. They left
the consumer behind. They were more excited about their technology!
The simple moral from this is, if the consumer can’t get it you’ve lost it!
Something was wrong with the idea and when I asked a pointed question
about the product, they sought to answer me by shoving papers in front of
me to read. How many consumers are they going to shove papers at?
Products must be intuitively simple to understand and use. And services
must be easily understandable and not needing long explanations. And if you
must seek professional counseling, you must have your facts at your
fingertips. Don’t shove papers at people.
The papers presented had a lot of creative design but they were
professionally deficient in presentation. Always be professional in your
presentation.
The proof that the product was deficient was the fact that patronage was
poor. And when I examined the business fundamentals, I noticed that the
income modeling was wrong.
In business, the first question to ask is, “Where is the money?” Directly or
indirectly, a product must be pitched at the person who can pay or get
somebody to pay. If it’s not going to generate income, it’s not business. It
may be philanthropy, or a promotional piece, but a good business idea
always has a viable income model.
In this case, the income model was convoluted by the fact that they were not
only targeting the wrong audience to pay, they were trying to sell the primary
market what they didn’t ask for or want or need! You cannot sell the market
what they don’t want or need. You are wasting your time and energy!
I asked some other questions and to my shock and horror, they had no
written strategy or business plan. They told me they had a vision, which they
wanted to recite, and a mission and values. I knew from just talking to them
that they did not realize how these are business drivers and not just
something you recite to impress people. I was beginning to sense that they
seemed more interested in impressions than substance, though the
gentleman who conceptualized the business seemed to have a different
attitude. The “CEO” was all about whistles and bells. He was acting like a
“CEO”.
Business is not child’s play. It’s your life! And you must get it right. You can
only do so by seeking knowledge. No matter how expensive knowledge may
seem, ignorance I assure you is terribly more expensive; and it may cost you
a substantial portion of your life with frustration as icing.
These young men’s business was suffering from what is technically referred
to as Failure Cost, which is the aggregate cost of not doing things right from
inception. They hadn’t thought through on their idea. They even launched
without proper testing. The first set of people who flocked to the product were
disappointed. The technology failed. Your first set of customers are your most
important. If you disappoint them you’ve lost your early believers and you will
need to work very hard to woo them back. It’s even worse when you
disappoint those who believed in you enough to give you money to start.
Don’t defraud your believers or take them for granted. Business history
shows that your road will be hard if not crooked and impossible.
But then something curious happened as the meeting progressed. This
“CEO” tried to appeal to African sentimentalism by telling me that things have
been hard and how difficult it was to raise money to take transportation down
to Lagos to see me! And so they are appealing to “our fathers” to help. He
then went on to cite the name of one of my friends as a member of the Board
of “Advisors”. It was then that I realized that these “fathers” he was talking
about weren’t their biological fathers. I was now a surrogate father because of
finance.
If the fatherhood theme was meant to elicit the milk of human kindness from
me, it did exactly the opposite. It actually made me annoyed, and dried up
my breast in an instant. I felt the young man was being cunning.
Firstly, you cannot embark on a business venture and begin to complain
about the rigour and pain. You should go for employment if that is your
attitudinal course. Business when handled properly gives disproportionate
reward. But it will only reward the committed and faithful. And business will
seek to prove you to know if you’re committed and faithful.
Secondly, you cannot be seeking help and go about it in a cunning
manner. You insult the intelligence of others and they will wonder about your
character. I pointedly asked the young man if and when he’s successful, and
driving a fanciful car, he would share the reward with me? The smile that
emerged from the corner of his mouth was obviously my answer. If he wasn’t
going to share the reward, why should I share his pain? Why was he
complaining to me about his effort to better his life, become rich, influential
and affluential? He started on a business footing, now he was slipping into
emotional blackmail of the African variety, and seeking to profiteer my kind
nature. I’m suddenly now his “father!” He had obviously rehearsed that line
in his head.
Thirdly, hardship is a paragraph of your legend, not your history.
The hardships of your business progression are your memoirs in the making
for when you become successful. Success cannot be easy. If it were, even
the indolent will be rewarded. I have been down the path and I cannot
remember complaining to anyone about the hardships. If you complain about
the cost of your future you probably don’t deserve that future. I cited the
example of an 84 year old man I once knew who used to trek 20 kilometers to
go to Church and another 20 kilometers back. Took some time before
anybody realised it and we all rallied to correct the situation but the old man
paid the price. If it is important to you, you will pay the price.
Chapter 3
I recommended some of my books and publications to the young men. And
the “CEO” was trying to get them free, or in the alternative offering me
services I don’t need as barter. A culture of handouts and unwillingness to
invest in one’s personal life is a sign of devaluation of life. You’re not really
smart if you expect others to invest in your future for you. It’s your life!
I could have given these young men the products but I would not be helping
them. In life we must not seek an enablement that disables us for our future.
There are no easy routes in entrepreneurship. Those who seek shortcuts
often end up not building any proper businesses or they become more
crooked than a snake in convulsion! Entrepreneurship is a long grinding road
that requires our life commitment. You must go into it purposefully and be
committed to succeed. The future cannot arrive without commitment!
Incidentally when I mentioned the fact that entrepreneurship properly defined
will require a commitment of at least ten years to yield significant returns, the
CEO guy quickly detached himself from the group and said he wanted to see
me personally! That rubbed me wrongly in a sore place. I saw disloyalty and
a lack of commitment. The young man saw the fame and the glory but was
not prepared for the grind. More importantly, he lacked ethical scruples. He
came to see me on the equity of his friend on a specified business project. In
less than 30 minutes, he was pushing a personal agenda. Some will view that
as “smart” and it may be, but I worry about such a person as a business
partner. Values are the glue of business relationships. Those values must be
shared among partners or else the partnership will fail. Two cannot work
together except they be in agreement (Amos 3:3 NKJV).
Choose your partners carefully. And many times you don’t need the
partners you team up with. Everyone must have a stake in a partnership.
When things go right everyone benefits. But when things are rough ever
partner must be a partaker. Don’t go into partnership on whimsicalities.
Friendship is not the basis of business partnership. Contribution and
commitment are.
Chapter 4
The enterprise mandate is enshrined in the Book of Beginnings, the book of
Genesis. Gen 1:28 states:
" Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth." KJV
This is not just about biological procreation. The charge to Mankind goes
beyond this restrictive interpretation. Scriptures are multi-dimensional
containers and taken together they constitute a working manual of human
existence and endeavour, be it political, economic or spiritual.
The Message translation of that scripture is as follows:
"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea
and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."
There are 5 capitalist commands in that scripture:
1. Prosper: Generate wealth
2. Reproduce: Multiply wealth.
3. Fill the Earth: Expand your enterprise
4. Take Charge: Take the lead and define the agenda
5. Be responsible: Take care of the less fortunate by being socially
responsible and being responsible for political outcomes in your
environment. You must also be responsible to God with your income.
That is the evolutionary progression of business. And the 5 th mandate, being
responsible to God and man, is the ultimate aim of enterprise. To grow the
business and move from one stage to the other, you must plan, wisely. That’s
what successful organisations do. They do strategic planning. Solomon,
history’s most astute and consummate business mogul said:
Any enterprise is built by wise planning, becomes strong through common
sense, and profits wonderfully by keeping abreast of the facts. (Proverbs 24:3-
4)
There’s such a thing as common sense in business! And profitability comes
by being factual.
But what business should I go into you ask? I don’t have an idea, you say!
Oh yes you do!
Do you have problems? If you do, that’s an idea. Every business is a solution
to a human problem. Because the world is in a hurry, we have fast food.
Because Lagos lacks accessible potable water, there’s ‘Pure Water’. The
problem is that most people are more problem focused than solution
thinking. We wallow in our problems, seeking help and pity. And the hard
truth about life is that nobody owes you anything. You’re responsible for your
life. You cannot blame anybody for your circumstances. Even if you can,
then what?
You must rise up to the challenge of creating a future for yourself and start
working towards your vision of your life. The just shall live by faith. The Just
believe in their future and start working towards it. If you believe in your future
you WILL work towards it.
Problems are the raw materials of businesses. The Scriptures tell us that
there is no temptation overtaken you in life that is not common to man. In
other words, there’s a ready market for the solutions you create to cure your
problem!
But it’s going to take a lot to get to that future. The indolent cannot get there.
The ignorant cannot get there. Those who will not invest in knowledge cannot
get there. Those without drive or lacking in the faculty of initiative cannot get
there. And if you’re looking for life’s handouts you will not get there. Neither
will the complainants. The future belongs to those who seize it. Will you?
Thank You. God Bless!
As I will always say;
Now that you know!
ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!!!
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