Tips for starting and achieving success in business from —
Sunny Elem a real estate consultant and the Managing Director, Nature Hero Limited – a network marketing firm. In this interview with Okechukwu Nnodim, he says young entrepreneurs must realize that failure usually comes before success in business.
What is the basic challenge of a prospective entrepreneur?
The first problem usually is funding because every great idea must have some kind of financial backup to put it to the marketplace.
But in Nigeria we don't have adequate access to funding for small scale or medium scale businesses. As an entrepreneur, borrowing money from friends and family sometimes may not be enough to meet your target in order to make it out there. Also this issue of not having good statistics in the country is a challenge to entrepreneurship. You know when you are planning for a business you would want to rely on statistics in order to do your research very well. But as it is now there seems to be no particular place you can go to get information to aid you in your planning and I faced that challenge too when I was starting.
In Nigeria, if you are starting newly, you don't get the support of the government unlike what is obtainable around most economies of the world. In the United States where I have some businesses, their economy is based on small scale businesses and that is why they don't play with them. They give them all manner of support to make sure they succeed. Basically these are the problems here. However, it is important to say that in Nigeria we have the market and we are very resilient people and we are hard working despite these confrontations. I've been an entrepreneur all my life and I started selling from the age of seven when I supply brooms to buyers at the train station close to where we reside then. So, I've come to realise that the easiest way to succeed is to work for yourself and not for somebody else or to make other people rich by using a better part of your life for them.
Some successful businessmen say the fundamental challenge of a prospective entrepreneur is the inability to come up with a sellable idea, but you just said it's funding. Are you, in anyway, at variance with their views?
Basically I will say yes, and, no. We have what we call 'the Achievement Cycle,' and it starts with a dream or an idea. You have a dream and there are a whole of things you have in the picture. After dreaming it becomes a goal by the time you put it down and from there it gets to the next level, which is planning. From this stage it goes to execution, and of course, idea comes first. But go out there on the street, we have millions of people with ideas and so many come here with their ideas or proposal seeking for somebody to help them to push it in the marketplace. So, I'm not saying that funding comes first because if you look at the cycle funding comes last, but eventually you will get to it. And when you get to it, you will understand that it is where you either become successful or not. So if you ask me, I will still say it's funding because by the time you go through the cycle you will come to it.
What are your three key investment principles?
Knowledge is first. Is just like you want to go to Benin, but you don't know how to get there. Then basically you cannot get there until you are knowledgeable enough on how to get to your destination. So, you must have the knowledge of the business you want to go into. Some people may say Mr. Elem is making money in network marketing and as result they will want to jump into the business. That is what a lot of people do and most times they get their fingers burnt in the process. Secondly is passion. Do things you love. Do things that when you wake up in the morning you will be excited to go to work. If your business is not like a job to you, then there is no need being in that business. So your business should be able to wake you up excited in the morning to go out there to make things happen. The third is resilience, you must be able to endure, persist and you must be able to say to yourself that you will not go back despite the daunting challenges.
Initially, when I started in business, I used to think that I'm at the middle of success and failure and that I had the option to choose between both. But after reading the biographies of successful business people and after my experience in business over the years, I come to realise that that my initial formula is wrong. The right formula is I am behind, followed by failure and trials then success at the end of it. So for me to get to success I must pass through failure and trials and there is no how I can jump trial and failure before I meet the great success. It is often times not possible. That is why when some young entrepreneurs come into business and first meet with failure and disappointment they will say, 'hey, I think I'm driving on the wrong route,' without knowing that they must pass through failure before getting to success.
Tell us about network marketing and why is the sector misunderstood by Nigerians?
This is an industry that is very well misunderstood and there is a whole lot of misconception about it. Some people confuse pyramid schemes with network marketing; they are two different things. Pyramid is illegal and was designed from the beginning to rip people of their funds. You see many of them online and initially we saw people make money and this is because it has been designed that way so that the news of them making money will spread and a lot of people will join. But so many people have burnt their fingers in this business. However, in network marketing the reverse is the case. It is a business where you have all professionals and it is the only industry which stood the five great global recessions since inception in 1930. You can be involved in network marketing part time or full time. Nature Hero uses the platform of network marketing to distribute its products and this is because of the gains and returns which network marketing is celebrated for.-Punch
