Understand the position of money in business Someone once told me that he wanted to start
a business but money is what was stopping him, so I asked him if you want to be a soldier,
what do you think you need first, a weapon or the military skills? He answered, “The military skills”. I then explained to him;
You see, if you see a 25-year-old man who wants to be a soldier today and give him a
rifle and ask him to go to the war front, you can be 100% sure that such a man will
not come back.,The man who goes to war with a weapon but without
the military skills will not come back because though he has weapons, he lacks the skills
to fight in a war.,The same thing happens in the business world. It doesn’t matter how much money you have
if you don’t have the skills and mindset it takes to build a business you’ll fail
and that’s why most businesses fail. What’s my point here? Don’t overrate the importance of money when
it comes to building a business. Ask Yahoo!, Nokia or Blackberry. Ask MySpace or Segway. These were companies with millions and billions
of dollars yet they failed.,If money is the most important in building
and sustaining a company, Yahoo! Will still be the King of the Internet.,If money is the most important thing needed
to build a business, Facebook will not kill Myspace. If money is the most important in making a
business successful, Blackberry and Nokia would still be relevant today, so don’t
overeat the importance of money. Focus instead on building the important skills
needed to build and sustain a business. Read tens of books on marketing, learn everything
you can learn about leadership, negotiation, human relationship, business system, and cash
flow management.,If you’ve not read at least 200 books about
business, who told you that you can build a business even with a million dollars?
Connect hungry men with food seller I have an Agriculture Technology company that
connects those who want to start Agricultural business with those who are already in the
business, for training and consultancy. We connect the hungry people with the food
sellers and get the commission as an intermediary and this whole operation cost us almost nothing
to get started. We started with a website and a cheap phone
both cost us less than $100 though we had to invest a lot of time. Even now that we’ve grown our operation
is still very cheap. Our present assets are; a website and application
a YouTube channel, two mobile phones, and some laptops and we operate across more than 20
states in my country. Get your head thinking;
“How can I connect a hungry man with a food seller and get the commission as an intermediary?”
If you can connect a seller with a buyer
the seller will be happy for getting a customer and the buyers will be happy to get what
they want, then you can make money in-between. countless people have built
companies around this cheap model. Some of those companies are today
making billions of dollars in annual revenue.,Google, Uber, even YouTube are using this
model and you don’t have to be as big these giant companies before you can do what
they did, just as my company’s story shows you. Think How can you connect the hungry people with
the food sellers and make commission along the line?
Start with services
I’ve heard several people saying, “I want to start producing XYZ. I’ll need $200,000 for factory and equipment
and &100,000 for office and marketing” When you’re getting started in business
and have no money the best place to look is yourself. Look at the services you can sell. A consultancy service could be started with
only your laptop. Other service businesses cost little or no capital. Put your product manufacturing on hold. Brainstorm about a service business you can
start and if you succeed you can easily start a product business.
Think about how to connect hungry people
with food sellers.,Connect people who need a product or service
with people who sell such a product and make a commission as an intermediary. Start with services because it’s easier
and cheaper Get into partnership with someone who
has money, this usually requires that you learn how to negotiate with people so master
negotiation skills. Don’t try to buy or pay for everything. Focus on only important business assets
Sell your knowledge online Be willing to crawl before you’ll walk
or run. Don’t be deceived Every great thing takes time hustling and
persistence If it was easy everyone will do it.