I have always been fascinated by greatness; that special realm of human existence where achievement blends with fulfillment and creativity aligns with purpose. I strongly believe besides greatness, nothing else accounts for a life well spent. Greatness is the summit of life on earth!

The pursuit of greatness in the realm of business is what inspired me to create this blog; naijapreneur –to help as many unusual entrepreneurs as possible build businesses that MATTER, change the world, and profit from purpose. It is the basis of all that I write about and the glue that binds us as a community of unusual entrepreneurs.

The pursuit of greatness in the realm of business is not a quest for the meek; it is a mission for the strong. In the end, it is more about the kind of life you want to live and the kind of business that you want to build as an expression of the kind of life you’ve chosen to live.

But how is GREATNESS achieved; by CHANCE [Luck] or by CHOICE [Work]?

The critical question is NOT whether you will have luck [CHANCE], but what you DO with the luck that you get [CHOICE].

                – Jim Colins, author of ‘Great by choice’

GREATNESS is NOT by CHANCE -luck!

GREATNESS is by CHOICE –work!

Embracing The Long Walk

Every entrepreneur would love to see their business grow and become a success story overnight. Don’t know about you, but I seriously nurture this thought sometimes even though I know it’s contrary to reality.

Great companies that are often the admiration of budding entrepreneurs in their early years also wished they could attain greatness overnight. But neither of them did!

Facebook didn’t become a success story overnight; it endured a long walk to the top.

Apple didn’t become a global brand overnight; it had its own share of uncertainty, doubt and fear common to every growing company.

And so did other great companies like Nike, Sony, Intel, Microsoft, Disney, Boeing, Ford, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, etc.

The journey to greatness in business as well as in life is a long, hard, and scary one. You will often encounter several challenging moments that you ultimately have to confront and overcome. There is no way around it; business is a marathon and not a sprint race!

Greatness Is A Choice

It is true that every business has a financial objective; profitability –an economic engine. But also true is the fact that every business has a personal objective; legacy –an emotional engine. The economic engine [profitability] keeps the business going; the emotional engine [legacy] keeps you the entrepreneur going.

Profitability is the money you make through your business. Legacy is the impact you make through your business.  Profitability helps your business to thrive. Legacy helps your business to be great. Profitability helps you make a living, which is good. Legacy helps you make a life, which is great!

Many businesses exist with only one objective; profitability and by so doing, they limit their potentials for greatness. These are companies founded by average entrepreneurs who go into business to do the usual –make money.

But only a few businesses exists with both objectives; profitability + legacy and by so doing, they increase their potentials for greatness. These are companies founded by unusual entrepreneurs who go into business to do the unusual –make a difference.

The pursuit of greatness in the realm of business is the ability to create a balance between profitability and legacy.

How Do You Achieve This Critical Balance?

To answer this question, I will quote Corbett Barr, the unusual founder of ThinkTraffic.

GOING ALL IN!

When you’re all-in on what you do, people notice. When you care about what you’re making so much, you bring fresh insight and dedication, and that shines through for your customers to see. There’s something attractive about unrestrained dedication, and people notice, join in and help promote what you’re doing.

Going all-in isn’t about some short-term result, it’s about dedicating yourself to a cause or group of people for the long term or maybe the rest of your life. When you’re driven by a cause you believe in, a story that’s bigger than the failure/success of your product, when you tap into something that MATTERS, people respond.

If people aren’t responding to your work, examine your dedication first. You’re not just launching a product; you’re at the head of a movement. Serving a target audience with everything you have and helping them defeat their dragons ends up being the best sales tactic of all. There’s no substitute for being all in!

Conclusion

In every sphere of life; business, politics, sports, religion, family, academics, military, etc. The question of GREATNESS is never found wanting.

Be it a great life, a great company, a great school, a great hospital, a great sports team, a great church, a great country, a great military unit, a great charity organization, a great musician; each has its own definition of results, defined by its core purpose. Yet the question of what it takes to be GREAT amidst unlimited challenges faces them all.

In the end, ONE truth prevails; GREATNESS is not a business, personal, or philosophical quest; it’s a HUMAN quest!

Hector has it rough. Rougher than most.

Every morning, he stands on a street corner in Queens, next to the hardware store and across the street from the Thai restaurant. Hector stands next to his six biggest competitors, waiting for work.

Slowly, a pickup truck pulls up. The contractor behind the wheel is looking for workers, day laborers. He knows that every morning, they’ll be on this corner, waiting for him. He rolls down the window and offers minimum wage. Which is a lot for this kind of work. All the workers seem the same.

They’re bundled up against the cold, and they’re willing to work cheap. So he picks three and drives away. Hector is left on the corner, in the cold. Maybe someone else will come by today. Maybe not. He’s one of many, a fungible product, a non-choice.

The contractor didn’t expend any time or effort on his choice because it didn’t really matter. He needed cheap physical labor and he got it. He needed obedient workers able to follow simple instructions, and here they were. And Hector got nothing. Hector went home, as he often does, with nothing.

 

 

The Business Of Average

We don’t want Hector’s story to resonate with us, because it’s disturbing. Every business is a lot like Hector. Every business stands next to plenty of other businesses, each striving to be like the other, but maybe a little better. Every business waits for the next customer to come along and pick their company.

And of course, sometimes a prospect does pick a particular business. She recognizes it or trusts it or it comes with a recommendation. But more and more (and most of the time), she does precisely what the contractor in Queens did. She picks the cheap one. They’re all the same.

Sounds a lot like Hector. This is uncomfortable, but it’s true. The people you’re hoping will buy from you have more choices and less time than ever before. So the more you try to be like everyone  else, the quicker you will be ignored!

The Problem With Average

Being average would have been great if there weren’t many people in that space. The average space is already crowded, there’s little or no room for you. The more you try to be like everyone else, the less visible you become. Being average is the closest alternative to extinction!

When you are like everyone else your existence don’t matter; whether you are present or absent, no one bothers. Why? Because there are so many others just like you to cover up for you. Who needs another average product, service or company when they are already crowded by many? Average is abundant, extraordinary is scarce.

And remember what the laws of economics says;

“The higher the supply [abundance], the lower the demand [price]. And the lower the supply [scarcity], the higher the demand [price]”.

In other words, your goal as an entrepreneur is not to be like everyone else [abundant], you goal is to be like no one else [scarce]. Your goal is not to be abundant [average], your goal is to be significant [unique and useful].

The key to success in business and in life is not conformity, but non-conformity. The value of the products, services or businesses you create will significantly increase the less similar they are to the existing ones.

In the end, the problem with average is that it gets you killed faster!

 

 

Beyond Average, Becoming SIGNIFICANT

If you don’t want your business, product/service or brand to end up like Hector above, start doing the following;

• Define your market

If you are not going to be like everyone else, then there’s only one way to make that clear; don’t try to serve everyone. Trying to serve everyone is simply serving nobody, period!

The moment you start hunting the same folks your competitions hunt, then you are no different than them. The market your competitions serve is already crowded, go find your own market or better still, create your own market. <– read this unusual article to learn how.

The quickest way to frustrate the work you do is to engage with a client that wants to do the usual. It zaps your creativity, limits your ingenuity and hurts your emotional and financial bank account.

That’s how painful working with the wrong target market can be. It is counter-productive for both you and the customer you serve. You don’t give your best and they don’t get the best, because they pay the least. It’s a loss-loss transaction.

Business is not by force, neither is it a do or die affair. Going into business was your choice; it should also be your choice to determine the kind of customers you want to serve.

• Unleash your personality

When you don’t want to be like everyone else, then there’s only one person you’ve got to be; YOURSELF!

That’s right, “be yourself” is perhaps the greatest business advice you could ever get. Don’t be shy to put yourself into your business. Why? Because after all is said and done, business is fundamentally about relationships. People buy from people, period.

Your personality is the human touch you bring to your business every time you interact with your customers, workers or partners. It is simply who you are. This is a strong competitive edge you have in person, because no two people are completely alike. So take advantage of your unique personality traits and inject them into your business.

And so you know, personality traits are simply your;

• Actions
• Attitudes
• Behaviors you possess

Some personality traits are positive and others are negative. Below are 3 great articles you should read to help understand better some of the essential personality traits of successful entrepreneurs.

10 Personality Traits Every Successful Entrepreneur Has  — Business Insider

The Four Essential Personality Traits Of Every Entrepreneur – Forbes

4 Personality Traits All Entrepreneurs Must Have – Inc.

• Improve your touchpoints

If you don’t want to be like everyone else, then don’t appear like everyone else.

In communication, According to UCLA Professor Emeritus of Psychology Albert Mehrabian , 80% of the message being sent is non-verbal, it’s visual.

• 55% of messages received and processed by your brain are based on body language.

• 38% of messages are processed based on tone of voice.

• Only 7% of your received meaning will be based off the actual words you are hearing.

Meaning, the way you look, the way you sound, the way your products, service or business looks, sends a message to your target customers whether you like it or not.

In business as well as in life, you’ve probably heard this before, “appearance matters”. In business, this is at the core of a marketing concept known as touchpoints. There you go, that’s why marketing is alternatively referred to as business communications.

Touch points are any encounter where customers and business engage to exchange information, provide service, or handle transactions. In other words, every point of contact your business has with the customer is a touchpoint. And everything the customers sees, feels, thinks, hears, and perceives during every encounter with your business all constitute a touchpoint. They are those subtle things that contribute to the total experience customers have with your brand.

According to Harvard Business Review, touchpoints generally fall into four categories;

• Products: every aspect of the product from design to packaging to functionality to durability and utility.

• Interactions: Two-way interactions that can be in-person (such as in a store), on the phone, or virtual (web sites, blogs, emails, social network and user forum presences, and so on).

• Messages: One-way communications that include brand, collateral, manuals, advertising, packaging, business cards, handbills, and the like.

• Settings: Anywhere that the product is seen or used: a retail store, a friend’s house, TV product placement, events, or shows.

• Establish your authority

What better way to not be like everyone else than to be considered an expert?

Why? Because differentiating your company is easier when you can control the message.

Experts are authorities in their fields or industry. They are the people customers turn to for unbiased information when trying to make buying decisions. As you know, in business every company is always trying to get the word out there about their products/services, so in an ocean of ever increasing noise, customers are becoming less receptive to these marketing messages. They are literally turning deaf ears to advertising.

So the only way to get their attention is to rise above the noise and communicate your message through thought leadership. Rather than getting their attention through interruption marketing [advertising], everyone is already doing that, and that’s exactly why there’s so much noise in the marketplace. Going that way is futile, instead to get their attention, take the opposite route through content marketing [thought leadership].

Content marketing is the deliberate sharing of unique and useful information through the use of text, video, audio or picture in order to attract the attention of your target customers, build their trust and empower them to make better buying decisions.

Three words to keep in mind here; attract, build and empower. That’s what experts do, by sharing their knowledge, we get to know them, and because that knowledge empowers us, we like and trust them. And guess what? These are the recipes for influence, no wonder they make more sales because marketing that works is all about influence!

 Tools for establishing your authority/expertise include;

• Books
• Blogs
• Interviews
• Public speaking – seminars, conferences, etc.
• Articles
• Research
• Trainings
• Social networks – facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
• Consulting

• Differentiate your offering

This is the culmination of all the points listed above. If they are properly implemented, the end result is a differentiated product/service in the market. This is what a brand means. And that’s the ultimate reward for not being average.

Over to you

In what areas are you still struggling with the business of average?

Share your comments and thoughts below. Thanks!

In my previous post, I talked about the second most read and most searched for topic on naijapreneur —branding.

In today’s unusual article, I will be talking about the first most read and most searched for topic on naijapreneur —business failure.

Repeatedly, from studying the naijapreneur’s Google analytics, the most recurring search engine terms or phrases that bring in the most traffic from search engines to the site is related to business failure, entrepreneurship failure, why entrepreneurs fail, causes of business failure, signs of business failure and many more.

I never knew this fact until I started this blog, it turns out that the greatest fear of an entrepreneur is the fear of failure. Entrepreneurs fear that what they’ve built is going to look lame to others.

They fear that all the countless hours they’ve spent working on a project won’t pay off. They fear that it’s time to go back to the drawing board, yet again!

In this unusual article, I want to take a deeper look into some of these entrepreneurial fears and offer some useful ideas on how to deal with them.

 

9 Common Fears Faced By Entrepreneurs

If you’ve been an entrepreneur for some time now or aspiring to be one anytime soon, then you would be familiar with the following common entrepreneurial fears;

• Fear Of Starting:

The first obvious fear of an entrepreneur is the fear of starting. You’ve got a great business idea, you’ve discussed with a couple of people and they think it’s viable, you’ve done some form of market research and you can see some market potentials and now it’s time to start.

But you find yourself delaying, procrastinating, and over analyzing. Rather than actually starting your business, you are still stuck planning your business. This is the first fear that every entrepreneur faces, it’s the fear of starting.

The whole business idea is so cool on paper that you become so afraid it will be different when launched in reality. You are afraid things won’t go according to plan. You are afraid this is too good to be true. You are afraid something might go wrong. And trust me; it certainly will be a whole lot different in reality. So yes your fear of starting is a valid fear. It is real.

• Fear Of The Unknown:

Another common fear entrepreneurs face is the fear of the unknown. As an entrepreneur one thing that is guaranteed on this unusual journey is that nothing is guaranteed. On this path, there are no guarantees, nothing is certain!

This is the most disturbing fear of being an entrepreneur and even the successful entrepreneurs still nurture this fear. Any business can go up in flames anytime any day. That you are big or successful doesn’t protect you from this fear, the future is unpredictable.

Your best selling product can suddenly be knocked out of the market by a competition. Your most profitable client can run out of business or switch to another seller. A disruptive technology can wipe out your entire business model. And the scariest of all fear of the unknown is an economic depression or a natural disaster.

In business as well as in life, the only constant thing is change and this change can either be positive or negative. The disturbing truth is that no one is guaranteed of the kind of change that lies in stock for them in the nearest future. So again, this fear is a very valid one. It’s so ok to be afraid of the future. Why? Because it’s unknown!

• Financial Fear:

One of the challenges of starting and running a business is funding. To tackle this problem, entrepreneurs seek for funds from several sources; some internal from family and friends and others external from investors and banks. These borrowed funds can be very scary for entrepreneurs especially when you find out that the ones you had previously borrowed are still yet unpaid.

Another financial fear peculiar to entrepreneurs is the fear of not paying the bills. This is especially peculiar to entrepreneurs who had to leave the corporate world to be their own bosses. Having left the comfort of regular paychecks, the reality of not having enough money to cover living expenses and also business expenses can be a paralyzing.

Again, these two financial fears are very valid. It’s ok to be afraid of the debts that are hanging on your head and it’s totally human to be scared of being broke!

• Business Partner Fear:

At some point in your entrepreneurial journey, if not at the early stage, you will need to get other people on board. For most startup entrepreneurs, the first person to get on board is a business partner or a co-founder as it’s popularly called. This brings us to another kind of fear entrepreneurs face, the fear of choosing a wrong business partner or co-founder.

A business partner or co-founder can make or break your business. Choosing the wrong partner can put a limit on the progress of your business and choosing the right partner can position your business to unlimited heights. So yes, it’s not out of place to have this fear.

• Fear Of Being Your Own Boss:

For first time entrepreneurs just out of the corporate world who have been used to working in a structured environment, the first fear they experience as entrepreneurs is the fear of being their own boss. You’ve been used to following a script created by your boss, now it’s your turn to create the scripts and this alone can be very scary especially for first time entrepreneurs.

According to Psychologist, Dr. Colleen Long;

 “Working for yourself is both the best and worst part of being an entrepreneur. No one’s going to tell you what to do. The days can pass you by and you haven’t really done anything because there’s no one giving you the framework for what to do.”

• Fear Of Too Much Workload:

Contrary to what many people think, entrepreneurs don’t have less workload than employees, as a matter of fact they have more workloads. And this can be very scary to those switching from the corporate world.

On this unusual journey, there are no nine-to-fives; you have a 24hours working schedule. As most entrepreneurs would attest to, you even work in your sleep. So yes, when you think about the workload, it’s totally healthy to be afraid. Why? Because entrepreneurship is very demanding. It’s not for the lazy bones!

• Fear Of Boredom:

You would think its only overload that can scare you as an entrepreneur, how about boredom? This is one of the fears associated with running your business on a day-to-day basis. It gets to a certain point where there’s nothing exciting about your business and boredom starts to set in. You start to lose the initial passion and drive that you had in the early days of the business. Everything begins to seem like a routine.

Oh yes, this can be very scary. And the most people susceptible to this fear are serial entrepreneurs who enjoy starting up businesses rather than running businesses. It’s the adrenaline rush of the startup phase that interests them rather than the structured processes of running a business.

If you feel this fear, this is a good indication that you should get a complementary partner or manager early on in the business who can continue when you run out of steam. Another indication of this fear is the fact that you should check yourself and be sincere with yourself; do you really have passion for the business you are about to start? Or the business you are currently into? You can only get bored of something you don’t love doing. So watch it!

• Fear Of Failing:

Now to the biggest of them all, the fear of outright failure. All of the fears outlined above one way or the other is summed up in this one fear alone. The statistics are so terrifying of the number of businesses that fail yearly. This is one of the reasons I get so much search traffics on this topic because people are searching for answers on how to become the few who make it through without failing.

• Fear Of Success:

I left this point last because it’s one entrepreneurial fear that many rarely talk about. Besides failure, another fear entrepreneurs nurse is the fear of success; what if we become so successful that everything begins to fall apart because of our inability to meet?

Success can kill as well as failure. Becoming too big too fast is one sign of success destroying your business. So yes, it’s not just failure you should be afraid of, you should equally be afraid of succeeding too!

Conclusion

All the entrepreneurial fears outlined above are all valid, so it’s ok for you to have one or more of them as you embark on this unusual journey of entrepreneurship. What is not normal is going on with these fears without seeking out ways on how to cope with them.

This will be the focus of the concluding part of this unusual article. In this post, I just wanted to expose you to the 9 common fears most entrepreneurs face in business. I hope I have been able to do much justice to this?

As always, it’s possible I miss out on some of these fears, that’s why this is a conversation and not an instruction. The comment section is how you participate by adding your experiences, suggestions and feedback that will further enrich the discussion.

Over to you, see you in the comment sections!

As an entrepreneur, while trying to build your business, never forget to do business. And while trying to do business, never forget to build your business.

This is the paradox of business; to do or to build?

Mastering it is the definition of business success. Ignoring it is the definition of business failure.

To help you master this paradox of business is what this unusual article is about, read on!

What Is The Paradox Of Business?

If you’ve been in business for some time now, you will begin to notice some certain re-occurring trends; while pursuing more business you sometimes stray from your primary/core business. You find yourself doing some other business that is not your core business so long as they rake in some cash.

While trying to get your business off the ground, you neglect some key strategic elements that can help your business on the long run. Deep down you know they are important, but just because they aren’t urgent you keep postponing them till it becomes too late.

While being occupied with the day-to-day operations of your business, you realize you’re no longer paying adequate attention to pursuing your vision. You suddenly forget about the change you originally set out to create in the industry. You forget about the very idea that inspired your going into business. You get caught in doing business as usual.

While making enough sales with your current product/service, you forget about product/service innovation. While satisfying existing customers, you fail to pursue new ones. While pursuing new ones, you fail to satisfy existing ones.

On and on, you find yourself and your business falling short in one or more important aspects of your business. All these are the realities of being in business and all these are what I refer to as the paradox of business.

The world of business is filled with so many contradictory roles, expectations and functions. It wouldn’t be out of place to say that business is very complex consisting of several aspects that are so contradictory in nature.

At one end is the pressure [need] to do whatever you can to keep the business going; this I refer to as hustlepreneurship –doing business. At the other end is the desire [want] to build your business into something great; this I refer to as entrepreneurship –building business.

And therein lies the paradox of business –the contradictory roles, expectation and functions of hustlepreneurship and entrepreneurship; the pressure of survival and the desire for significance; the need to do business and the want of building a business.

HUSTLEpreneurship: The NEED To Do Business

Dreams, desires or aspirations are important, but none of them comes true without action, work, execution or hustle. The entrepreneurial journey in most cases begins with a dream, a desire or aspiration to create something significant that will positively alter the lives of many. This is a noble cause and as with all noble cause, there’s need for action, work, execution or hustle.

Show me a successful entrepreneur and I will show you a man/woman who hustles. In the heart of entrepreneurship lies hustlepreneurship. You cannot have one without the other!

Hustlepreneurship is the inevitable art of doing business. It is inevitable because you simply cannot succeed in business if you are not prepared to do business. But what does it mean to do business? What does it mean to hustle?

Doing Business Means….

• Selling/closing a sale
• Production/manufacturing
• Freelancing/doing contracts
• Managing your Inventory/stock
• Accepting any and every deal
• Doing paper/administrative work
• Making contacts/networking
• Pursuing more business/revenue
• Servicing existing clients/customers
• Day-to-day operations

Here’s the bottom-line when it comes to hustlepreneurship; it’s all about focusing on the NOW, TODAY, SHORT TERM and forgetting or neglecting the future, tomorrow and long term. If you only focus on today as an entrepreneur, your business will not live to see tomorrow. This is what I call the most deadly trap of business; being caught up in doing business –hustlepreneurship.

Many entrepreneurs are not aware of this fact and that’s why their businesses suffer. Ironically, many are aware of this fact and yet their businesses still suffer. Why?

Because hustlepreneurship alone is not all that it takes to succeed in business. It is a necessary element of business success, but certainly not the ONLY element. I have met so many entrepreneurs who hustle their hearts out in business and yet they still struggle with their business. It is true you need to take action, work, execute and hustle to do business; but equally true is the fact that you should dream, plan, strategize and create structures to build your business.

Entrepreneurship: The DESIRE To Build A Business

Entrepreneurship is about starting, growing and building a business that matters. It is the deliberate use of one’s life to create a significant company that helps to solve one or more problems plaguing humanity.

As I have come to learn in business and also in life, it’s not just action, work, execution or hustle alone that amounts to success, no. What amount to success is strategic action, smart work, organized execution and deliberate hustle. This is what entrepreneurship entails.

Entrepreneurs don’t just do business, they build businesses!

The secret is this; let your hustle bring you closer to the fulfillment of your purpose, dream or goal of building a business that matters. This is what it means to succeed; this is what it means to make progress. Without a definite or desired end in mind, without the pursuit of something great or significant, all you do in your business is nothing but expended efforts. This is what I refer to as activity –anything that keeps you engaged, busy or occupied but doesn’t take you in the direction you want to go.

So, you need to balance your hustling with entrepreneurship. You need to NOT only do business but must begin to build a business. What does it mean to build a business?

Building A Business Means….

• Strategic Planning
• Strategic Execution
• Strategic Marketing
• Creating a powerful brand
• Creating a corporate culture/business DNA
• Creating operational processes/structures
• Developing competitive strategy
• Developing innovative products/services
• Developing your people/employees
• Delivering excellent customer services
• Forming strategic partnerships/alliance
• Improving existing products/services
• Launching new products/services
• Research and development

The bottom-line when it comes to building a business is to focus on tomorrow, the future and the long term. This is how great companies are built, they don’t only focus on being relevant today, they create the future.

They dream dreams, nurture ideas, create environments where creativity thrives, they form strategic alliances with others and they constantly seek out great talents to hire. They actively allocate their time into activities that helps them to continually remain relevant today, tomorrow and always.

Conclusion

The key to overcoming the paradox of business is to create a healthy balance between doing business [hustlepreneurship] and building business [entrepreneurship]. And the answer is simple; make sure all that you are doing in your business is aligned with and contributes to your corporate purpose.

In other words, don’t just do business [hustle], do ONLY what helps your business to go and grow in the right direction –entrepreneurship. And eliminate all other things that you do that doesn’t align with your corporate purpose.

Over to you

Where are you caught up in the paradox of business? Hustlepreneurship or entrepreneurship?

At what point in your business did you discover that you’ve been caught up in only one aspect of the paradox of business? What were the particular signs or trends that made you come to this realization?

What did you suddenly realize as a result of reading this unusual article? What new thing did you learn and how do you intend to apply it in your own business?