“When the purpose is not known abuse is inevitable”

Dr. Myles Munroe

Business is about meeting needs and solving problems around you. This is the true purpose of business.

Of course, running a business in any chosen industry provides a cash flow that ensures that your bills are paid. However, the first purse of business, apart from making profits, is to meet the needs and solve the problems of the people around you.

As a matter of fact, success at the highest level comes from helping others to succeed.

Therefore, success in business, at the highest level of it, comes from helping others satisfy a need, desire, or pleasure by trading what you have that meets what they want, need, or pleasure for what they have that you need, want or have pleasure in.

For instance, about 17 years ago, a Nigerian mother living in London wanted to watch Nigerian movies, which at the time were not streaming on Netflix. So, she sent her son to go buy or rent the DVD from local shops in London. After walking into every shop and asking others around to find home-bred entertainment without success, the young man discovered a need to be met. He reasoned that he could return to Nigeria to get licenses from Nigerian movie producers and return to London to stream them online. That boy was Jason Njoku. That solution became what is now known as iRoko TV which has earned Njoku well over $40million worth of assets.

If you are constantly faced with the need to solve an unsolved problem, then you have a business opportunity at your fingertip. Would you take it?

SO, WHY SHOULD YOU START A BUSINESS OR DEVELOP ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS?

#1

You build wealth fast.

A business is the fastest way to build wealth for most people and have more money to invest and scale. Whether you are employed in a paid job or you are self-employed (that is, you pay yourself), ask yourself, what if I don’t work any longer, will I still have cash flow? If your answer is No, then you need a business!

Even if you currently earn so much in your paid job that you can afford certain niceties, what if you don’t have that job any longer or can no longer work? What happens? Will you still enjoy that much cash flow? On the other hand, if you own your own job, that is, you are self-employed, then ask yourself, what if you stopped working? What will happen to all your free time? Would you still enjoy your current cash flow? For some employees, the fear of this uncertainty lures them into stealing public or corporate funds.

You don’t have to steal to build wealth.

Owning a business is the fastest way to build and retain wealth that outlives you.

#2

You create products and/or services that meet the needs of real people.

People, organizations, and nations will always have needs. Meeting those needs is what business is all about.

Now, stop reading and take this short assessment –

Imagine that there are two million people in your locality and those two million people eat food every single day. Some of them eat up to four times per day (that is when you add snacks, soft drinks, etc. plus vegetables and fruits. Lol. That’s just on a light mode). So, multiply two million people by four times daily. The product is that you have the potential to meet eight million hunger needs. If you meet just 10 – 20% of that need daily, that is a lot of income to earn. Now, each of those two million people will drink water, wear clothes, and brush their teeth (although some people don’t brush their teeth. Lol…hahaha).

Let’s assume that 500,000 of them are married with children, say 2 – 3 children each who go to school, wear uniforms that need to be pressed, socks and shoes that need to be changed or polished or modeled to fit better, plait or barb their hair, snack at school, take food to school in lunch bags and plates, need to keep their lunch warm by lunchtime, birthday parties to plan and host, and so on.

Imagine how much need to meet for two million people – with some of them living in homes that need cleaning, fumigation, nannies, home lessons, extra-curricular activities for their kids, gas cylinders to refill, liquid soap to wash their plates, cars, groceries to buy, etc. The list is just endless.

Which of those needs are you meeting? Or have you met? What more needs of those hypothetical two million people that you identified? Leave a comment below.

(Tell the story of Ajide and his Music Text for primary and secondary schools).

You will agree that there are loads of needs you can meet and earn pay for. Once you can identify a need to be met, you have a business idea. And once you don’t just sit with your great business idea but launch out to meeting those needs for those people at a price, then you have started a business.

So, quit complaining about your empty pocket, or draining account balance. Start looking out for problems around you. The more problems you find around you, the more needs there are to meet, the more opportunities to do business.

#3

You are in control of your time

Your time is your life. Therefore, being in control of your time is being in control of your life. When you are employed within an organization, you are expected to resume at a certain time and for a certain period of time during which your employer determines where you go and what you do during that time. You are paid for that time taken from you.

On the other hand, owning a business gives you a measure of control of how you use your time and what you do with your life.

Depending on how you run your business and the systems that you create to keep it running and sourcing income, you can afford to travel the world, attend training sessions to sharpen your sales and business-building skills, work less time while earning a steady flow of income. Yes, a business gives you that control of your time, especially when you automate your sales and/or employ people smarter than you to do better than you at those activities that bring and retain your cashflow.

This is not to say that you can decide to run your business with levity and expect it to generate income without you. No, owning a business requires you to show up, especially at the beginning. You will have to resume work, whether you work from home or from a separate business place, as a serious-minded employee of that business and put the work to it. You will have to roll up your sleeves and work the talk. Dig the trenches of your business and grow it till it can thrive without your physical presence and even outlive you.

#4

You create jobs

By creating jobs, you give people a sense of value and meet their needs. When you start a business, employing someone may not be the first step you take. However, you employ yourself first. Then you grow your income and tasks into accommodating more people. When you create jobs, you give others the chance to add value to you and the growth of the business. They contribute in no small way to the impact you make in the business.

You do not have a business if you are not employing additional hands. If you are the only employee of your business, then what you have is at best a self-owned job and might be wearing yourself out with too much to do all by yourself. You are meeting your own needs, yes, but you can do better by meeting the needs of others, creating jobs.

#5

You spend less in taxes

Employees earn, pay taxes then earn while entrepreneurs earn, spend then pay taxes – Dr. Sam Adeyemi

A business owner usually pays less taxes. This is because he spends his money on the business and those who work with him in the business before he pays his taxes whereas, an employee pays his tax first before he can spend what is left.

As a business owner, there is a lot of expense that your business pays for. The business pays for data and call credits used for the business, its insurance and yours, the operational vehicle, its maintenance, the fueling (gas), lunch, your training & development, etc.

#6

You are a brand

You are a unique person. You have a product, a skill an ability, competence in a field or trade that someone else needs and is willing to pay for. A skill is the ability to do something well. It can be learnt, although for some, it is innate. A skill means that you know how to do something. So, what do you know how to do? What skills do you have? You have an expertise. Expertise means that you have expert knowledge in a particular field or trade.

Starting a business is an opportunity to share your uniqueness with the world and make it better. In the same manner that a problem shared is half-solved, so is a skill or knowledge shared half-better or made better. A business gives you the platform to share your uniqueness with the world, thereby becoming a better version of yourself and what you do. Trust me, no business leaves the owner the same way he or she started.

I have become better at being myself with others I work with. My skills, both learned knowledge as a lawyer and the innate personal skills, have gotten better than when I started the business of practicing my profession more than a decade ago. Now, including speaking and writing skills to the bulk of skills that I practice, I am better positioning myself for impact on a larger scale. You can do the same by starting a business today.

#7

You contribute to your national economic growth

I have said earlier that a business owner pays less tax, yet he pays taxes. In addition to the jobs you create and the impact of your products and services on the society, you contribute to the nation’s economy when you do business. For instance, you collect and remit value added tax (VAT) or Sales Tax, Company Income Tax, personal income tax (of your employees), social insurance for your staff, etc.

A business owner contributes to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country in no small way and in most countries of the world, businesses make for more than 50% of the GDP.

Seeing the immense impact you stand to provide by doing business, then what is stopping you from starting a business of that knowledge or idea that you have? Leave a comment below. If you’ve started, tell me, what held you back, at first, from starting?