BUSINESS!
January 18th, 2009
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
–Abraham Lincoln
If something has been done a particular way for 15 or 20years, it’s a pretty good sign, in these changing times, that it is being done the wrong way.
–Elliot M. Estes
On this space I will share with you information from my informal PhD program on Success in small business.
The internet has changed everything, sorry let me rephrase that to read the internet is changing everything so fast. This is a paradigm shift so let’s welcome all those people that are prepared for this shift.
Notice I did not mention companies or countries as Friedman pointed out in his book ,The world is flat’, ‘We have moved from globalization 1.0 to globalization 2.0 and we are now at Globalization 3.0′
1.0 was about countries dominating, 2.0 was about companies dominating, 3.0 are about the individual dominating! Yes! You and I!
This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man-if man is not enslaved by it.
–Jonas Salk
The above quote is food for thought, for us to get our most precious ‘resource’ time back from the time stealers “Television & the internet’. Hanging out as well and all the things we do to eliminate boredom
Very sad in deed is the way we use the internet (minimally) which brings us profound capabilities and all we can still use it for is just to send email or chat with friends.(think of what Obama did with it, as well as Seun Osewa of Nairaland)
We intend to burst a couple of myths out there about business. Maybe a definition of what business is would guide us and keep us on track. We are constantly researching and as we do that we will bring our results to this page so please watch this page.
We are going to be looking at the relationship that exists within business and the event management community.
I read some place that common sense is not so common, how true. Little things like referrals are the most powerful form of advertising and also the cheapest campaigns to run. How sad and frustrated we can get as we try to work against laws such as this one. I define a law as a thing that is true every time and everywhere. Somewhere in the biology of a woman she does this(refer good service/products) naturally. So you may be leaving money on the table by ignoring women & referrals in your business, and further spending your scarce resource on very inefficient ways of spreading word about your business.
My story about referrals may intrigue you. I remember a time I used to sell USB flash discs.This was when they had gradually began to get popular. Brian Tracy, in one of his audio cd’s, said to meet one of your clients and ask him for referrals. I met this man, I can’t remember his name and asked him to have this flash for free. At the time this flash was sold for eight thousand naira. In exchange I asked him to give us a list of 10 of his friends from the same industry (advertising). It took a month to get to the 10 and sell to all 10 and each one bought. Each one also referred more business
This move took us to tho hundred and fifty thousand naira monthly on profits and kept up for over 6 months.
Also of note is the fact that we earn more as we know more. High earnings correlate directly with higher education -Marti Barletta
Let’s use the term education lightly, I take the term to mean to draw out from within which means whatever we want to be, we can be, so we only have to work on whatever it is we want to know or learn(self development). This is me not accepting that formal education is the only way to go to learn.
As some author I don’t remember his name pointed out: Google has democratized information.
It took a man born in the mid part of this century in Nigeria to go the university ,which used to be the repository of information for him to have advanced knowledge over his contemporaries but now the internet especially through Wikipedia and Google has made almost all information available to all women and me. So we need to take control over our education.
As we know more we can do more and as we do more we can earn more. Think about it how many people sell recharge cards around you at work or at home? To sell this cards is not exactly a rare skill & chances you will get paid well for something so many people can do is not high.
We have to constantly strive to be exceptional we need a full scale war on mediocrity, I think it is not safe to play safe (what did I just say?) I mean playing safe usually means you are spreading your options, which also means you are not able to focus & at best deliver mediocre results across a broad group of things you attempt. Think about it; Okocha plays world class football and he may know next to nothing about investments but I’m sure if he were to open up his portfolio to us he will have a very fantastic one. He surely has the means to put to work the knowledge of those whom know about investments, Dangote may know nothing about building websites yet he may earn many billions from his website monthly!
Also advances in technology has made the flow of goods around the world more efficient and cheaper which in turn means just around the corner we can get books on almost any topic from many parts of the world.
I must say we definitely don’t live in times our parents lived. What it takes to start and run a multibillion dollar company seems to be ever changing. The company facebook was started and run by a 23 year old boy! Microsoft was founded and run for a while by a young man, also of note is the example of Michael dell.
In all cases this people challenged more traditional rivals.
I quote Marti Barletta ‘The business is there where are you?’
Time magazine or Newsweek magazine, I can’t remember which one had on its front cover the man of the year. It had a very interesting ‘man of the year’.
The man of the year was YOU Yes, YOU! The man of the year was you or me or him or anyone that had the magazine in his hands was the man of the year.
This was a declaration that we now have the tools to do anything we want, we could face off governments, win elections, raise money, collaborate and so many other things only possible by the great countries and company a little time past.
The magazine put a computer monitor as the head of the man then the body of the man. With all of the powerful technology out there don’t stay in that corner like a victim, get up and go out there and achieve something.
Let me stop my musings here and I would love so much to hear from you reading this.
Respectfully,
Kayode Ajewole PMP
February 16th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
:) Wow. nice arcticle
February 17th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I think you did a great job writing BUSINESS!. Bravo.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I love this blog! Give me please more arcticles