GROWING BUSINESSES CLINIC with Kola Owolabi
We started the series in the last edition on how to convert your ideas to money. We are not talking about how to just convert an idea to money, but how to quickly do it.
The speed of conversion of an idea to money is of utmost importance. The reason is simple. You tend to lose the fire in you to work on the idea if nothing is done about it immediately you are inspired with the idea.
So the first thing you must do about the idea immediately you have it is that you capture and properly articulate it in writing. Whatever is written down is half done. Merely writing down an idea and fleshing it out into smaller pieces that will aid implementation is the greatest service you can do towards making the idea yield money for you at the end of the day.
In the previous edition of this series, I recounted the story of the Tower of Babel project, whose account was extracted from the Bible. It was the most ambitious idea that any human being could have come up with, even till date. The people who were living in the world wanted to build a tower, a skyscraper whose top will reach heaven.
The idea was extremely ambitious and the steps taken by the people were also legendary. As far back in history that account was, when everything was still primitive, the people came up with materials that were strong and tough enough to sustain a building whose top will reach heaven. In addition, the determination of the people was so compelling. With all the preparation and the unity of purpose employed by the people, God in heaven looked down and saw that the feat was going to be achieved and if nothing was done, heaven was going to be bombarded by earthlings that could upset His plan for everything that He made. The answer was that God introduced confusion into their midst. With the confusion, they lost track of the details of the project and that would have caused a lot of conflict and fighting and the project was abandoned.
Upon reflection, I discovered that the people who came up with the Tower of Babel idea missed it on one point. The idea was not captured and properly articulated in writing. Therefore, when God introduced confusion into their midst and they abandoned the idea, that was the end of the idea forever.
There were no written plan or statement on the structure of the building. No details drawings on how they wanted it done. No written description of the type of materials, the properties of the materials, their strength and other details. They had planned to use mortar as cement and other powerful materials that would carry the stress of a building tall enough to reach heaven. Every detail was in their heads. Since nothing was captured in writing, when God confounded their language, nobody could remember anything about the project again. The world and humanity had lost the benefit of what would have been the greatest project of all time, because nothing was captured in writing.
That is the first thing you should do about that wonderful idea that you have. Have it captured in writing and properly articulated in a detailed format. That detailed format is what is called a business plan.
Kola Owolabi(FIMC) Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, 08023203198.
Kola Owolabi is the Principal Consultant and CEO of David Richard Associates, a company he founded in 1998. He is a Business Plan and Feasibility Study preparation expert and has been very active in the Business Development landscape in Nigeria in the past 23 years To receive more information please text”SEND MORE INFO on your Business Plan Preparation service” to 08023203198. You can also send reactions to the contents of this post or any question you may have to the same telephone/WhatsApp line.
