WHEN YOU ARE PREGNANT WITH A BUSINESS IDEA.
By Ayo Emakhiomhe
When
that big announcement comes, when your spouse announces that she is pregnant,
you immediately step into action mode (especially if you have long been
expecting this baby) and start making plans-the nursery, the child birth,
labour, child’s sex, clothes, care givers, etc.
This
same scenario runs when your mind announces that it is pregnant with an idea,
it’s just that some of us abort that pregnancy immediately or freeze it for the
future or simply just don’t understand the language our mind uses to speak to
us.
For
those of us that want to swing into next mode when our mind makes the
announcement, let’s consider the following action plans:
- Do a
SWOT analysis of yourself
- Do a
SWOT analysis of the business idea
- Identify
your market, product/service
- Prepare
a business plan
- Determine
start-up costs and marketing plan
SWOT stands for Strengths Weaknesses
Opportunities and Threats.
-
Doing
a SWOT analysis of yourself entails true self discovery. It means knowing your
true character, likes and dislikes. What are those things/values that make you
tick?
By doing this you would know for
example if you are more of a sales person or a research person. If you are a
sales person then you would be a good distributor or a good product marketer
and if you are more reserved you would be a good consultant/counselor.
Knowing this would help you to
decide which business to follow of to know if you are in the right business/job
presently.
When you have done your personal
SWOT analysis you will know what area of business to indulge yourself in.
I
am stating this because as a person, research has shown that you have a minimum
of five hundred (500) talents, that is, there are five hundred different things
that if you do, you will stand out, but the challenge now is which one do you
go for?
The rule is to pick the one you are
most comfortable with considering the amount and the kind of resources you have
available to you presently.
More formally, you can start as
listed below:
- Identify a need.
- Find out ways to fill the need.
- Find simple ways to fill that
need
- Start the wheel of change and
run with it.
Identification of a need:
Our economic gurus say that human
wants are insatiable, so are human needs. If we could easily fill this needs
then there would have existed no commerce by now.
For every process and every product
there is always a way of doing it better, for every society there will always
be a need, for every strata of life, there will always be a need to fill.
The secret is to be aware of your
environment, notice the man sleeping by the road side, notice the colour of the
houses around you and how long it takes for them to be changed and how long it
takes for the colours to fade on the walls. This requires practice and
deliberate efforts but it costs barely nothing and is worth the wait, the guy
that passed you today by the staircase or the lift or by the roadside, what was
he wearing or what was he carrying, who made it, how did he get it, what would
you envisage it costs, can there be a less costly or better way of doing it
still at a profit?
What kind of makeup does the lady
next door use? What is it your friends and neighbors complain about on their
jobs, schools, food, gardens, and so on? Have a heart for the next person and
the person would have a prize for you from his pocket. Money comes with value,
if you have no value you will have no money, do not look for money, look for
how to create value, and money like a humming bird to flower will come to you.
When you find a need you can truly
fill, a need you are passionate about attending to, money will come to you.
But to find a need you need to be
able to answer the questions in the paragraphs above and many more, but there
are so many needs out there to fill, go find your own.
Find ways of filling the need;
There is usually no one best way to
solve a problem, there can only be the hard way, the easy way, the long way and
the short way. Careful research will always show you a better way of solving a
problem and filling a need.
Ask questions, get books, talk with
experts and consultants, check the internet, take courses on ways of filling
that need and you are in business.
Find simple ways of meeting that need;
You know its one thing to find a way
of solving a need and it’s another thing to find simple a way of meeting that
need.
Sending a mail could simply be by
doing it on the web through your email or by post, both simple but one simpler
and less costly to both parties- you providing the service and the person
paying for the service.
-
Do a
SWOT analysis of the business idea.
Having found a need and the most
cost effective and simple way of filling that need, you have before you a
business idea. Great, right? But now you have to identify the following to know
if it’s a business you can go into or an idea you can package and sell to
someone else.
i.
How
much do you know about the business
ii.
What
is your knowledge of the industry the business belongs to
iii.
What
do you know about the competition in that industry? Is it a monopolistic
market, is there few competitors in that line of business
iv.
What
are their products and services
v.
Is
it a market that allows free entry and exit or a restricted market
vi.
Who
are the consumers of that product/service
vii.
What
is the government legislation about that kind of market? Is there any signs of
that changing soon
viii. What is the size of that market, how
saturated is it,
ix.
If
there is no market presently, how can you create a market for that
product/service
x.
Who
will be your clients
xi.
What
will legislation be towards this business?
We have introduced you to the business idea generation process(conception to birth) make that move today.
