MY EXPERIENCE

Experience is truly the best teacher. It sums up all the theoretical aspect of life teachings in one practical experience. If only our educational system can encourage practical form of teaching or activity based learning rather than the “copy and paste” approach where the teachers and students cram to achieve their purposes; teach and pass exams respectively. The students and the nation would have been better for it. Unfortunately, nothing is retained afterwards.

Using myself as a case study, straight out of paid employment which happened suddenly, I decided to venture into business. I knew what I wanted to do, passionate and all. I decided to get an office, decorations, furniture, staff, etc. believing that I need to brand myself with the false notion that that is all I need drive business and necessary traffic without taking into consideration three key elements:

1. Revenue generation
2. Operating Cost
3. Nature of business

Irrespective of the amount of financial resources available at the start of a business, ability to generate revenue is an important factor. This is closely related is the driving customer base, understanding their preferences and buying patterns, sustainability of patronage and identification of a need is crucial before initiating the journey. Business is long distance race and not a sprint.

I quickly discovered that I had put the cart before the horse. I had built up cost before building up clientele base who are meant to provide the revenue from service rendered to defray the operating cost. How lovely and well decorated my office was also did not count. For my line of business, most customers don’t bother coming to the office as most of the transactions were handled off-site. The size of the office and the decorations did not count much if at all in securing deals.

Over the years, I have discovered that this is one of the major mistakes start-ups make. We focus on creating and driving our image (cost) rather than driving clientele base. We build up cost before the clients that should provide the needed revenue to cover and defray the costs. This singular factor accounts for the early death of most business as the business begin to suffer from lack of liquidity, default in paying stakeholders and meeting obligations. Most of the big corporations and businesses started from garages or home office and grew steadily to their present size. “Never despise little beginnings”.

In starting your business, focus on the following:

1. Have a clear understanding of your target market
2. Identify a need that your product or service will be addressing
3. Start small and grow gradually to avoid losing steam prematurely as this is a long distance race.
4. Drive customer base rather than cost. In essence, focus on revenue generation instead of expenses
5. Focus on acquiring knowledge, develop the right attitude and habit and lately always seek to enhance your skill set; soft and hard skills.
6. Be flexibly and dynamic
7. Be willing to ask for help and seek advice or input from those more knowledgeable.

NEVER GIVE UP! Failure is the fuel to success and vehicle that drive experience. You can as well learn from other people's mistakes, its easier and less expensive. What do you think?