How To Become A Successful Entrepreneur in Nigeria

A lot of people are interested in doing business but do not know how to go about it. If you really want to make things happen for you as a person wanting to be an entrepreneur, here are some of the things you must do.....

Start By Thinking Like An Entrepreneur

If you want to change your status to that of an entrepreneur, you need to start thinking like one. You need to change your mentality from just anything to something. Have the mind of doing business and to succeed. That is the first step towards becoming an entrepreneur, to think like entrepreneurs.

 

Choose Your Niche

It is very important that you choose your niche from the start. Decide what kind of business you want to do from the onset. When you do this,
it means you can then focus all your efforts into that one business type instead of just anything or everything, like the saying goes, “Jack of all trade, master of none.”

 

Know Every Detail And Create Plan

After you have chosen your niche, you need to understand everything there is to know about the type of business you choose. For instance, if you decide to start manufacturing a particular commodity, you need to know the class of people that will be needing the product. Is the product a necessity (for everybody) or is it made for a particular group of people. Just like diapers are made for children, you can easily determine its market.
Again, you need to know what is generally acceptable or the standard in the market. You can take samples of existing products and make your own to see how people will respond, before going ahead to start proper production.

 

Look For Investors

One thing that can easily kill a business is lack of start-up and running capital. Therefore, you need to look for investors before embarking on
the journey of starting a business.

 

Get Connections Through Networking

It is very important that you build a support network when starting a business. You need partners, referrals, allies and supporters. People
that will help in growing your business either directly or indirectly. You can join the association of the particular business you are going into. e.g Association of Cement Distributors in …, that is if you want to go into cement distribution. You can also register at the chamber of commerce in your locality.

 

Set Goals And Make Plans For Your Business

Setting goals and making business plan is essential to successfully starting a business and growing it. It is like a to do list and it will guide your actions when starting your business.

 

Invest Wisely to Attract More Money

Even though one of the important traits of an entrepreneur is risk taking, you still need to invest wisely. You cannot invest in any business that you don’t fully understand the pros and cons or that is uncertain. you need to have a level of certainty before you can invest in a particular business.

 

Take Business And Investment Risks

As much as you need to be cautious when investing, you still need to take some risks if you want to succeed. Some business, may not present everything you need to know at first, which means you may not know the details until you start something. In this case, you must take the risk if you want to know the outcome.

 

Be Aware Of Competition

It is very essential that you know the competition in your market. After choosing your niche, you must study existing competition. Know their
products, market price, advantage over the market and devise means of entering into the market.

 

Market Your Business

What is the essence of a business that people know nothing about? This is why you need to market your business to the world. It may not necessarily be on TV, radio or newspaper, but in any little way that is possible, advertise your business.
Nowadays, people complain that on the average, most internet users spend hours on the internet, doing nothing other than Facebooking, Twitting, Whatsapping and using any other social media at their disposal. You as an entrepreneur, can use this to your advantage. You can put your business on the social media and appeal to your friends to share to their other friends. So many businesses have been revolutionized with this method of online marketing.
You can become an Entrepreneur by doing one or more of the following:

 

Save to Reinvest

You cannot become an entrepreneur if you don’t cultivate the habit of saving. You need to avoid frivolities and be very disciplined if you want to become an entrepreneur and not just an entrepreneur, but a successful one.
Also, you should not put all your eggs in one basket. In other words, you should invest in more than one place. Diversify your investments.

 

Join Existing Firm

You can start by doing volunteer work with some successful entities in your chosen line of business. This will help you to get connections and grow your network. So that, when you are ready to start a business of your own, you will already have the right network.
It has been proven that the way you can become an entrepreneur is to join an existing firm. This could be very productive because, before you start your business, you need to understand the terrain or the market. Working in a firm that is in line with the business of your choice will give you insights to starting your own business.

 

Start Your Own Business

The best way to become an entrepreneur is to start your own business. It may not be easy at first, but when you take your time to develop the traits of an entrepreneur and take the steps listed above, you can be sure that you are on the right path to success.

 

Buy An Existing Firm

Outright Buy – When Microsoft bought an existing operating system from a Seattle company for $50,000 in 1979, they developed the operating system into MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), which became the standard operating system in the computer industry. Pushing Microsoft sales to $16 million dollars in 1981.
It is not all the time that entrepreneurs start a business from the scratch. You can buy an existing business that interests you and modify it to your taste.
Franchise – You can become an entrepreneur by buying a franchise. A franchise is an authorization granted by a company (franchisor) to an individual or group (franchisee), giving them the permission to market their products. So, if you already have a product that you are interested in marketing, all you need to do is meet with the maker of the product and apply for a franchise.
It is usually a legal agreement and you can become really successful doing franchises. Examples of a successful franchise company is the South African Shoprite group.

 

Make Use Of Social Media

Just like I have mentioned before, you can use the social media to do business. In fact, so many businesses have gone online and are using the social media as a tool in expanding their businesses.
With the internet revolution, a lot of people are maximizing the opportunity and make millions from the use of the internet. Online retailers like Jumia, Ezibuy in Australia are all utilizing the internet in generating income for themselves.

 

Social Entrepreneurship

You can start a non-profit organization if you have a passion for it. Social Entrepreneurship is all about solving social problems. Using innovative solutions to solve the pressing problems of the society.
Social entrepreneurs have the zeal to create a better society.

 

Enter Into Partnership

Partnership is also a good way of doing business. You can make it as an entrepreneur by partnering with other businesses. If you think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, you have money to invest and you know a few people with business ideas that are in line with yours, you can  partner with them.