BUSINESS ADVISORY
Akinyele Aluko
THE FIRST HORSE
Why would you want to remain in a company that in the year 2005 is still using Olympia manual typewriter and duplicating stencils? No matter how brilliant you are, never cast your lot with a looser. Paratroopers when they are on civil flights do not wish for plane crash so as to display their knowledge of parachuting. Your first horse to help position you therefore is your Company. You are advised to put your bets on growth companies, not the laggard or sunset companies. Strive to be in the innovative and upcoming sectors of the economy.
A friend told me his life history briefly last weekend. He qualified as a chartered accountant while working in the state ministry. He immediately started looking for an outlet in the banking sector. This did not go down well with his boss. He taught the young man was foolish. He wondered why on earth the man should leave where he would be sharing money as an accountant for a place where he would be sent out to search for money. But he left the ministry eventually. Today he is a successful banker, with three other professional qualifications and very knowledgeable in matters of the money market.
THE SECOND HORSE
The second horse you have to ride is your boss. Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “Hitch your wagon to a star”. If your boss is going places, be sure there are chances that you too would go. Ask yourself, is he or she going anywhere? If not who is going? Always try to work for the smartest, brightest, most competent person you can find. Crawling up the ladder of success right behind someone else can be very rewarding. Some people actually want to work for incompetent people because they think that they will standout, forgetting that one sour orange in a basket may lead to throwing out the whole basket.
THE THIRD HORSE
Many of us have a large number of personal friends but hardly any business friends. In the business world today, many of the deals that happen come through because a business friend made recommendations. The third horse therefore is the friendship horse, and the best way to ride it is to keep in touch regularly with all your business friends. When you see massive advertisement and congratulatory messages in newspapers and on television, do you think it is just for fun? Know the things that interest your business friend and work into his/her heart.
THE FOURTH HORSE
Victor Hugo on the night he died was said to have written in his diary, “Nothing, not all the armies of the world, can stop an idea whose time has come”. Idea is therefore the fourth horse to ride on our entrepreneurial pathway. An idea is that miracle ladder that can take you to the top like a magic wand. However there is a mistake made by people. They want ideas that are not only great but everybody accepts that it is great. If you wait until you have such ideas, that wait until an idea is acceptable to people be sure that someone else must have preempted it. To ride the idea horse, you must be ready to be exposed to ridicule and controversy. You must be ready to go against the tide.
According to Psychologist Charles Osgood, “One indication of the validity of a principle is the vigour and persistence with which it is opposed. In any field, if people see that a principle is obvious nonsense and easy to refute, they tend to ignore it. On the other hand, if the principle is difficult to refute and it causes them to question some of their own basic assumptions with which their names may be identified, they have to go out of their way to find something wrong with it” An idea or concept without an element of conflict is not an idea at all.
THE FIFTH HORSE
According to Al Ries and Jack trout in their classic, “Positioning”, “Faith in others and their ideas is the fifth Horse. The importance of getting outside of yourself, of finding your fortune on the outside, is illustrated by the story of a man who was a failure most of his life. His name was Ray Kroc and he was a lot older than most people and a failure to boot when he met two brothers who changed his life. For the brothers have an idea but no faith. So they sold their idea as well as their name to Ray Kroc for relatively few dollars. Ray Kroc became one of the richest people in America, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The brother? They were the McDonald brothers, and every time you eat one of their hamburgers, remember it was the vision, courage, and persistence of the outsider who made the McDonald’s chain a success. Not two guys named McDonald.”
THE SIXTH HORSE
This is the last horse to success. It is mean, difficult and unpredictable, but people try to ride it howbeit with very little success. That horse is yourself. It is possible to succeed in business all by yourself, but it is very difficult. Be ready to tame yourself until you can ride it without hitch or without the fear of tripping over.
Akin Aluko was Consulting Manager(SMEs), Business Service Unit, Lagos Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He can be reached via eyealuko2002@yahoo.co.uk
