Entrepreneurship is not for the thin hearted, it involves discipline, and the strong/motivated individuals keep moving forward when the chips are down. Renowned business coach, Abolaji Idowu was on #WakeUpNigeria to talk about the reasons why business fail.
Firstly, he explained that running a business and being good at your service are two separate things.
“Everyone starts a business for many reasons, most reasons its economy or they have a product or service that they’re good at. But running a business and being good at your service are two separate things. One way or the other, people just go into the business because they are very good at something and go ahead to start a business. For example, a chef being able to bring that food out is a different skill set to actually running the business and that is the first problem we find with most business. For a business owner, it is a different thing to have the passion and another thing to understand how to run a business.
He went further to give out fundamental questions business owners should have the answers to using restaurant owners as example;
– How many customers walk into your doors every week?
– How many repeat customers do you have?
– What is the average transaction value your customers send.
He also gave the clear difference between an accountant and a business owner.
“For an accountant, its about profit or loss and for a business owner, its not just about profit and loss only. There are numbers you need to understand. No business survives on new customers alone, its about how many customers you are bringing in and what your retention for customer is.”
Talking about what successful businesses were doing right to achieve their success, he said;
“When starting a business, you have to know where your business is. The businesses that are doing well are able to identify their market, their product and also understand their customers. Most businesses have the tendency to be successful if they have the right skill.” Abolaji also addressed the issue of going for business training, saying;Getting business training is good but many people experience short term effects and go back to old business habits. What you need is an accountability partner, get a business coach!
In conclusion, he said;
“Failure is a step in success. You need to fail hard and fail fast. There is nothing wrong with failing.”
