What are the laws of entrepreneurship?

All entrepreneurs create businesses, but all entrepreneurs are not created equal.

The business mastery series is a collection of unusual articles that will take you through the essential skills necessary for successfully starting and running a SIGNIFICANT company –a business that is changing the world and profiting from purpose.

The world of business is characterized by intense competition. Meaning, there’s very little room for mediocres. If you must go into business, you must be prepared to learn and apply the required skills.

There’s a funny trend amongst many entrepreneurs starting out in business. They often have this wrong mentality that business is simply common sense. So they go into the world of business with only this mindset – to apply common sense.

How I wish business was that simple. If it were, there wouldn’t be a high rate of failed businesses.

Common sense is an inadequate skill for running a business successfully. Even your life is too complex to be handled with common sense talk less of a business.  The major reason for this erroneous approach to business is this; the acquisition of technical skills.

Technical skill is the required body of knowledge for practicing a particular profession or career.

For example; the technical skill required for being a musician is singing and song writing. In other words, you cannot be a musician if you don’t know how to sing and write songs. Also, the technical skill required for being a doctor is the knowledge of how the human body functions and knowledge of the medicines to correct any malfunctioning.

 Why Common Sense Is NOT Sufficient To Run A Business

In business likewise, common sense is insufficient. That you have been trained and equipped with a particular technical skill which qualified you to operate as a professional, doesn’t make you a savvy business person. I‘ve been in business for over 5 years now and I’ve been observing many a business as they  come and go due to the  incompetence of the founders.

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The Extra-Ordinary Jon Morrow!

Here’s another edition of the Unusual Entrepreneur Interviews and today I am very honoured to have gotten this Unusual Entrepreneur in question. His name is Jon Morrow, the Associate Editor of one of the greatest blogs on earth, Copyblogger.

If you are just joining us for the first time, this is the second interview of the unusual entrepreneur interview series. It is a parade of unusual entrepreneurs who are changing the world and profiting from purpose. Profiting from purpose by changing the world isn’t an impossible dream as many tend to think of it, but a realistic one as many unusual entrepreneurs have extraordinarily proven. It is my life mission to understand the unusual qualities of such unusual entrepreneurs and inspire as many others to profit from purpose by changing the world.

This is the purpose of naijapreneur and the essence of this new category of information tagged “Unusual Entrepreneur Interviews”. In these interviews, I’ll be profiling several unusual entrepreneurs who are changing the world and profiting from purpose. The interviews are divided into 3 parts;

• Part 1: ENTREPRENEURSHIP – these are questions that focus on how these unusual entrepreneurs awakened the Spirit of business within.

• Part 2: STRATEGY – these are questions that focus on the unusual execution of business best practices adopted by these unusual entrepreneurs.

• Part 3: MISCELLANEOUS – these are resourceful recommendations, tools, books, and ideas necessary for unusual entrepreneurs.

If you’re just joining us here and is not yet familiar with our philosophy of unusual entrepreneurs, kindly download our free ebook: The Entrepreneur’s Journey. This is the official manifesto for anyone who wants to change the world and profit from purpose.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

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Kristin (L) Shannon (R)

Profiting from purpose by changing the world isn’t an impossible dream as many tend to think of it, but a realistic one as many unusual entrepreneurs have extraordinarily proven. It is my life mission to understand the unusual qualities of such unusual entrepreneurs and inspire as many others to profit from purpose by changing the world.

This is the purpose of naijapreneur and the essence of this new category of information tagged “Unusual Entrepreneur Interviews”. In these interviews, I’ll be profiling several unusual entrepreneurs who are changing the world and profiting from purpose. The interviews are divided into 3 parts;

• Part 1: ENTREPRENEURSHIP – these are questions that focus on how these unusual entrepreneurs awakened the Spirit of business within.

• Part 2: STRATEGY – these are questions that focus on the unusual execution of business best practices adopted by these unusual entrepreneurs.

• Part 3: MISCELLANEOUS – these are resourceful recommendations, tools, books, and ideas necessary for unusual entrepreneurs.

If you’re just joining us here and is not yet familiar with our philosophy of unusual entrepreneurs, kindly download our free ebook: The Entrepreneur’s Journey. This is the official manifesto for anyone who wants to change the world and profit from purpose.

This is the very first edition of the Unusual Entrepreneur Interviews. In this edition, I present to you 2 women [Kristin and Shannon] who are profiting from purpose by changing the world through clothing.

Since this is an interview and not an article, I leave these two unusual women entrepreneurs to speak for themselves.

Let’s begin!

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What kind of business should Entrepreneurs go into?

This is yet another unusual article under the “Business Mastery Series“, a collection of unusual articles that focuses on helping entrepreneurs answer highly fundamental questions on how to successfully manage both themselves and the businesses they run profitably.

If you are new to naijapreneur or probably haven’t been following this series, I really wouldn’t want you to miss out on any of the unusual articles previously published. So, below are the links to them, the smart thing to do, if I were you would be to read them first, before coming back to finish reading this.

Business Mastery: The Unusual Qualities Of Highly Successful Entrepreneurs

Business Mastery: How should entrepreneurs be spending their time?

Business DNA: Why Your Company’s Success Desperately Depends On It!

Business Mastery: How Should Entrepreneurs Be Profitably Marketing Their Business?

Business Mastery: 4 Smart Ways Of Getting More Profitable Customers Always

How to be your own boss

As the day goes by, more people are realizing that the allure of a secure employment is just a fantasy; one that is often short lived. The search for the next alternative which in most cases is entrepreneurship is growing rapidly. Never a time in human history has there been such a massive quest by many to be their own boss.

Recognizing this growing global trend is what inspired me to create this unusual article to help as many out there who want to embark on this unusual journey of entrepreneurship. It’s important I make this clarification; these are not all the possible FAQs on starting up a new business, there are many more. However, based on my consulting experience with clients, the ones covered here are quite fundamental and will serve as a guide to answer other likely questions you would most certainly need to answer as you progress on the entrepreneur’s journey.

 FAQs About  Starting up A New Business

First here are the questions at a glance on how to be your own boss;

1. What kind of business should I go into?
2. How Should I start; small or big?
3. How Should I fund my business; use my own money or get external funding?
4. How do I choose a name for my business?
5. How do I differentiate my company from other competitions?
6. What do I need for marketing my new business?
7. Do I need to have a business plan or not?
8. Do I need to have an office space or not?
9. Do I need to hire employees or not?
10. How do I price my products/services?

Let’s begin!

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This is the second article of a new series, I have tagged it “Business Mastery Series”. Throughout this series, I will be

How should you market your business?

addressing some key issues that are pertinent to your success in business as an entrepreneur.

If you missed out on the first article, you can read it here;

BUSINESS MASTERY: how should entrepreneurs be spending their time?

Marketing is a core business function; to a large extent the success of your business is dependent on it. But from personal observations, not many entrepreneurs go about their marketing as they ought to. If at all they do, they don’t approach it holistically and so end up leaving so many stones unturned.

They tend to focus more on the selling part of marketing and overlook the other vital parts that naturally make selling unnecessary. The truth is this, if you approach marketing holistically, you will find out that you don’t need to ‘sell’; your products/services will naturally sell themselves.

There is an unusual way to marketing –the holistic way.

To attain the significant level of success you desire in your business, marketing must be seen as one whole concept involving several key activities that must be carried out by everyone in your business beginning with you the entrepreneur. In other words, when it comes to marketing, no one is to be exempted!

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