WHEN YOU ARE PREGNANT WITH A BUSINESS IDEA

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:

1. Identify a need.
2. Find out ways to fill the need.
3. Find simple ways to fill that need
4. 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.

Success is yours!

emakhiomheayo@yahoo.com

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