My challenge as an entrepreneur (44) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

If you go with the crowd you will fall with the crowd. This is one thing that a lot of business people have not put in mind from the beginning of their business and so they want to do things like people who have been in businesses for decades even if they are just starting today.

 

I have seen some young people who are wearing the capital of their businesses all about. I said wearing because I see them wearing some expensive suits. They are wearing those suits because they want to look like some business guys who have been in business for years. They have forgotten that there is a time to invest in clothes but you must have invested in your businesses.

 

I remember that since I started my organization as a teenager around 2002, I didn’t wear a suit until 2006. Interestingly I had to get that suit because my sister was getting married and I had been invited to be a part of the groom’s men during the wedding. Whenever I had to wear a suit it was that suit that I wore. Wearing the same suit to every occasion that required a suit continued until 2008. Somewhere along the line I realized that the lining for the suit was not really strong because I wanted to wear it one day and the cuff links on my shirt tore the lining.

 

For about I another one year or so I was wearing my suit with torn lining because each time I wore cuff links the lining would tear again. After some time my nails wear enough to tear the lining but that was how I wore my suit because you definite would not be able to tell that the suit was torn. I tried to keep it clean always so there was no room to suspect the inner status of the suit.

 

Co-incidentally the second suit I bought in 2008 was bought because a cousin of mine invited me to be a part of the groom’s men for his wedding. Now it looks like I only buy suits for weddings. I know what is good for me and I know where to get whatever I need but I always go to places looking clean but simply for now. This has been helping me because I do not want to look bigger than I really am. Sometimes I realize that the people I am trying to relate with begin to build walls and make it difficult to relate with them when you look too classy in appearance. I prefer to wear the best and even the most expensive clothes in later in life than to wear them now and not allow my business grow.

 

As much as it is important to look beautiful, don’t forget that looking beautiful is different from looking flashy. Don’t put the life of your business in your clothes. I am a public speaker and I know the importance of dressing as a part of branding but it has to be a gradual thing. I only wear a few shirts to my outings but I keep in memory what colour I wore to an area at a time so that I wouldn’t wear it to that area the next time I have to go. Sometimes it’s my tie that helps me out since it will make a little difference in the appearance before the people realize that it’s the same shirt. The most important thing, despite wearing one suit is that business was progressing. Dressing to impress when you have not arrived can kill your business.

My challenge as an entrepreneur (43) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

If you have to keep a counter in your business environment so that the counter can count how many challenges you encounter, I am afraid the counter will malfunction sooner than you think if your business is a vibrant business. It will malfunction because I think it will count and count until it does not know how to count again.

 

You encounter challenges while trying create products and you encounter more while trying to sell the products. I once walked into a bookstore to request display of my books. The attendant didn’t want me to drop all the copies I brought for them. She suggested I drop a copy for scrutiny and that the manager would get back to me. I insisted I would drop all the copies because I would have to go back if they approve and I may wait for a convenient time if they don’t.

 

After a few weeks I called the manager of the bookstore to find out if they approved my book. No, they didn’t. The quality of print didn’t meet what they think they can display on their shelves. I only had a choice to go back and pick the books. Long before some of these rejections I had known they were going to happen because the publisher didn’t go by the specification given to me in the quotation I had gotten earlier. The final print was in a way what you would call a mess. I didn’t give up on the sales because I had one thing going for me. The title is a great title so everyone who sees the books ends up asking a question about the content. Some others take a step further by asking how I got such an interesting title. I knew I needed to sell the book despite the fact that the publisher didn’t print according to expectation so what I did was to cash in on my speaking engagements. Whenever I was invited to speak in a place, I went with the books and some audio CDs. Immediately after speaking, while the heat of celebration is still almost touchable, I introduce the book and some of the CDs. Some people immediately call for the books and the CDs because they have heard me speak and they just conclude that this is one of the books that should not be judged by the cover.

 

Interestingly when people buy the book they always have something to say that eventually proves it’s not the kind of book that should be judged by its cover. I had to teach myself a common sense. I no longer walk with a publisher who cannot keep to specifications because that is not helping my products. If people have to pay for something then I need to realize that they must have some desires met.

 

At a time I walked into another bookstore requesting they display some of my CDs. The lady I met asked me to drop a copy to be presented to the boss. Several weeks went by with series of intermittent phone calls to find out if they had approved sales. One day I think the lady realized it was getting out of hand so she called me to admit she couldn’t find my letter. She requested another letter so I sent that immediately. The next day I got a call from her asking me to bring 10 copies of my audio CDs. A few weeks later when I walked into the same store I realized the lady was no longer working with them. The shocking news was that the lady who attended to me was surprised to see my CDs on their shelves because, according to her, they only sell foreign materials. How did mine get there?

My challenge as an entrepreneur (42) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

Doing free jobs for people to convince them about what you can do and the things you are doing has become my best form of advertisement in recent years but it has come with the challenge of forfeiting rewards over and over again.

 

In order to convince some people that I could do a very good proposal I had to give them some free proposals to convince them and what I have seen after that is that they begin to recommend me to their friends and colleagues in their work place. Some of these proposals cost me a lot of time and even my own materials yet the people who are receiving the proposals don’t know the value of what they are receiving but I kept doing the proposals as long as they wanted them. Some of them tried to discourage me and I had to run after some others despite the fact that they were the ones who came to me that they wanted proposals. I spend my money calling and when they get the proposals some of them come up with something new. By implication they expect you to go back to work. They want your time, your materials, your expertise, and the best of anything they can get but they don’t want to pay.

 

Sometimes I sat for hours thinking about when the right people will come. I looked forward to the people who can pay for my services and people who would take the services to big companies so that big recommendations can come. I really wanted the big clients who have some big projects to handle but for a long time they were not forth coming.

 

At a time I nearly gave up on doing so many free things for people but I had to come to a conclusion that some of these people who are getting my free services are not going to remain on the same spot. They will keep improving and they will keep getting bigger. As they get bigger they will have more resources to be able to handle the proposals and other consultancy services I was rendering. This meant that for some time I had to go hungry, which happened over and over again because there was nothing to eat, just to serve some other people. I was serving some of those people because I saw their prospects and I could imagine how far they were going. For some others I do not know how far they are going but I just did free services to help them with their dreams.

 

I have been in some situations were I render some services to some people and don’t even expect them to think twice before giving me something to appreciate my service but they just keep looking at me. I once went to place to speak and I was to sleep overnight. I had never been there before and had exhausted the cash on me before I got to my destination. I only became thankful for the fact that I had asked a friend to follow me. It was the friend who followed me that paid the taxi fare to the venue and from the venue.

 

I send some other materials to some people expecting something in return and some of them promise heaven and earth. If they have kept to their promise I probably would be getting the promise tomorrow.

 

The only way out is not to look at what I am going through but where I am going to.  

My challenge as an entrepreneur (41) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

Issues surrounding seeds (what some people refer to by saying pay your dues) and gratifications are some of the most important decisions you have to make in your businesses and making the right or wrong decision will not be revealed by the immediate succeeding events but by the results that you businesses will produce much later.

 

When some people are wandering why things are not working, they usually have forgotten that the results they are having are based upon a principle called “cause and effect.” For everything that happens there is a cause so when we get an effect we should find out what the cause really is.

 

Seeds and gratification, I understood early enough, are principal things in your businesses that work as cause and effect. The seeds you sow are supposed to be the cause and the gratification you get as a result of the seeds after they must have germinated are the effects. Unfortunately some people now have gratification as the cause, because they always want gratification, and the aftermath of this is that they don’t get the desired results because the seeds are absent.

 

 I remember that there was a time in my business when I really needed money. The office was just opening and I needed some other small machines to come into the office so that I can reduce the cost of running the business. I was doing a number of proposals for some organizations and the cost of printing from other shops was eating into my profit. Printing, binding, lamination and some other little stuffs like that were taking unnecessary money so the intention was to fix my television that had been dormant for almost two years because I didn’t have time for it and it was not my priority. I wanted to fix it not to beautify my office but to sell it and get some money to buy at least one other useful machine that can generate money for the organization.

 

While calculating what might come in if that TV was sold, it occurred to me to give it out. Now I was to take a decision between selling the TV for money to pump into my business and giving it out. In a jiffy I took my decision. I decided to give the TV out. As soon as I fixed it I called someone to pick it up. The immediate consequence is that I would not have that machine in my office but the truth is that I do not know how much that TV has brought back to my business. In my perception, when things work or don’t work they can be traced to some things we have given up or refused to give up for others. For example, don’t you think that the last business proposal you lost could be connected to a seed you refused to give up! The people you transfer things to not because you don’t need them but because they need them may make some utterances that will affect your businesses. I have been amazingly involved in some fruitful business discussions with some people and the speed of the results I get are intimidating. I later came to understand that I had prepared the grounds for that result by some seeds given before the negotiation began. The implication of what I said is that there is a way to begin your negotiation before the negotiation begins. The folks in strategic management call it the intangible realm.  Doing some of these things meant some important things for me had to wait but it was worth the waiting. Refusal to wait initially will make you wait longer than you need to.

PRAY FOR OBAMA – Fola Daniel Adelesi.

There was an expectation from the entire world from an African American to break a jinx of being the first black and an African for that matter to sit on the coveted throne in the white house and to be the number one leader of the world. This was a few months back and the expectation has become a reality. All around the world, the election conducted in America on the 4^th of November 2008 was nearly predictable and you have now come to see that the predictions were indeed right. Obama has won!

 

Beyond the victory, beyond the celebration, beyond the preference for race, beyond the ideology of the personalities approaching power, it is important to realize that man can always make plans and the aspire to change the world. It is always a proposition to change the world but the action needed to change the world is not going to be an ordinary one that an ordinary human mind can execute. It is not going to an ordinary paper work that anybody can seat with and achieve with a group of think-tanks.

 

There’s a whole lot more to the glamorous campaign of Obama. There’s a whole lot more to the compelling charisma that so many watching eyes fell in love with. There’s a whole lot more to the story surrounding his place of birth, place of growth and citizeship. There’s a whole lot more to the intimidating eloquence and oratory that puts him in the lineage of Abraham Lincoln, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

 

Here is what is more important; A prayer for Obama. We all have seen human beings with good intentions and with nice plans on paper to execute but the turn table suddenly turns just as everyone expects and unfortunately in the wrong direction.

 

Let’s pray for Obama to remain strong in the burning passion for change because change is what everybody needs. If people refuse to change their environments will change and when environments change without the people changing then there will problems for the people.

 

Let’s pray for Obama to understand the nitty-gritty of servant leadership because no one is truly a leader until he has what it takes to be puffed up and refuses to be puffed up. Servant leadership is what all the nations of the earth need at a time like this. This is what will make the people understand that the people in power really understand what they are going through and that they are willing to help. There is no nation that will progress when the leaders think that they should be served rather than being served.

 

Let’s pray for Obama regarding the wisdom needed to lead because he used to be a leader of his life, a leader of his spouse, a leader of his children, a leader of his community, a leader of his nation and then a leader of his country which indirectly makes him a leader of the world. In all of these levels, the wisdom required to rule, lead or govern varies and the demand for such wisdom is also consequent upon the present level.

 

In my own words, I will say, May God give Obama a heart for the people. May God sustain Obama’s passion. May God give Obama wisdom and may God clear the enemies of Obama.

Make your mistakes – Fola Daniel Adelesi.

One of the amazing things in this generation is that we all try to be so perfect in the things that we do and we seem to forget our weaknesses so much that we keep pushing and pushing until we breakdown because of the limits we have ignored.

 

We do not want to make mistakes and we do not want people to jeer at us but that is what they end up doing when we breakdown because of the limits that are consequent upon the weaknesses that we have.

 

Some people enjoy their weaknesses so much that they forget their strengths and all that they are doing is to focus on the weaknesses. The ideal thing at any point in time is for you to build on your strength and maximize the potentials that come along with each area of your strength. When you build on the strengths that you have it will be possible for people to easily notice your accomplishments and not easily notice the weaknesses that you have.

 

If you think that what everybody has been noticing is just the weaknesses that you have in the places where you have been to then it means that you have also been focusing on your weaknesses all along. When you change what you focus on then what people focus on when they see you will also change. People have a way of seeing the same thing that you see about yourself even when you have not discussed what you are seeing with them.

 

Does this mean that this people have some amazing gifts that help them see what others see about themselves? It may not be so in so many cases. It’s just about your attitude. Whenever people see you they can easily deduce if you are the type that focuses on personal weaknesses or strengths. The moment they know what your focus is, they will align with that focus for you and that is what you will always get from them.

 

You need to break out of your shell, think about what you need to do, find out how it should be done and just go ahead. Sometimes the only way to get over the mistakes you may be bound to make is to first of all ignore them. The word “ignore” in this context means to pay greater attention to some more important things that the mistakes you may make. When you really intend to do a worthwhile thing you will need to ask questions about what the objectives are. You will have to think more about what people around you stand to gain. You must put to consideration the consequences of not doing that thing against the cost of doing it. If the consequences of not doing a thing are more than the cost of doing it then you should know that priority must be given to possible consequences and not the cost that will accomplish the task.

 

When you have built on your strength, go on and make your mistakes because there are some mistakes you cannot avoid until you have made them the first time. You will learn the lessons and you will be able to move on. Make your mistakes and leave the miracles to God. You just might have something that surpasses what you ever dream to do.

My challenge as an entrepreneur (40) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

The challenge of discouragement running with your cash flow is something you must watch carefully before it destroys you. The truth you are about to read will shock you but you will admit that it is real.

 

1.)    If you become discouraged when there is cash in your pockets you will spend your cash thinking the problem was hunger or some other thing your money could buy. When the cash is gone you would realize that it was something from within you that should be fixed.

2.)    If you become discouraged when there is no cash in your pocket you are likely to transfer aggression to the people you will need soon after the aggression.

3.)    The implication of the first two premises I have given you is that your emotion and your cash flow will, to a great extent, determine the direction of your business.

4.)    The truth about the whole issue is that your emotion and your cash flow can only determine the direction of your business as far as you let them!

 

If you want to know where I got all these from then I need to tell you about a few instances when I was practically in some of those situations. If you are a husband or a wife then you will admit that at some points when you offended your spouse you tried resolving the situation by taking your spouse out for dinner, launch or breakfast. At some points you probably brought something home and the situation was resolved. If the truth must be told you realize that the situations that warranted gifts or special meals reoccurred at some points. The reason it reoccurred was that you didn’t solve the real problem. you tried to buy over the person I the problem without facing the problem. That is what happens in business.

 

There was a day I walked into an eatery to get a bottle of soft drink. I was done with it in a few minutes but I wanted more so I asked for another bottle. I walked out not feeling the satisfaction I had expected that the drink was going to provide. I knew there was something wrong because the second bottle was not demanded because the first didn’t quench my thirst. I was trying to use something external to satisfy something from within me. I could only survive a few hours with the drink. Sooner than I expected, I was already in the same eatery for the same bottle of soft drink. This time I had to admit that my discouragement was the issue. I was not really thirsty!

 

When I noticed this I had to start working on it immediately because it occurred to me that this is how people get into some of the habits they seemingly cannot break away from today. When there was no cash I noticed that some of the people who kept stretching me when I didn’t really want to talk or when I just wanted to be alone could easily get a feel of my authoritative or choleric nature. At every point we are going to need people in our lives. At every level, no matter how prosperous you are, you will have reasons to be discouraged. Cash flow will always come to play in our lives. What we are left with is a choice that must be carefully made. If you want to succeed in business you will need to quickly identify ways of getting out of your discouragement rather than eating up your cash or stepping on toes you would need. My strategy is to listen to a tape when I don’t have enough strength to read a book or go over to people who can utter the right soul lifting words.

My challenge as an entrepreneur (39) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

The temptation to hoard every little profit is one of the little foxes that kill people’s businesses faster than the businesses can gain enough stamina to walk, stand or fly.

 

I have heard several statistics about businesses failing in several countries of the world. You may have heard people say that 9 out of every 10 businesses fail before the 5^th year of operation but one of the things the people have not told us is why the businesses fail. I am also writing about my challenges so that people will no longer look at how many businesses are failing but focus on how many businesses can actually succeed. If ten businesses are going to start out and it is sure that nine are going to fail I think you should ask why yours should be part of the nine! You need to ask yourself what to do to make sure that yours will be the only one standing from every 10 businesses that will be monitored.

 

I started here by talking about the temptation to hoard and you must understand that this is killing a lot of businesses in the world. The owners of the businesses start the businesses in question and they take out every penny available as soon as they start making some sales. A lot of business owners cannot differentiate between the profit and the working capital of the organization. So many people have forgotten that you do not call the cash from sales your profit until you have deducted all expenses incurred. Some people have also forgotten that you cannot touch the cash from sales until you already have the cash for reproduction separated. When you have separated the cash needed for the business to continue to survive then you can say that you have made some profit.

 

When I putting my intellectual properties in various formats I knew I was going to make some money from the sales. I sold books and kept the money. I sold CDs and kept the money. In some cases I would have demands for CDs but there would be no CDs because I would have used the cash from the last sales. Sometimes I used up this cash because I always seem to find myself in emergencies. Apart from finding myself in some emergencies I cannot also stand the fact that there is somebody around me who needs what I have so I keep giving even when it seems to affect the business.

 

I knew I could not continue like that for a long time because if I did the business would not grow so I changed my approach. I decided to start selling my intellectual properties through some stores in town. I also gave to some other individuals who like marketing. By the time I was doing this I had already printed a paper I call the product distribution list. The product distribution list contained the date the products were supplied, the quantity supplied, the price of each, the commission on each for the seller and the total amount I am expecting from the store. The last thing there is the date when cash or products were retrieved from the stores.

 

When I started supplying my products to stores I realized that it was helping my marketing. People were getting my products on the same shelves with famous people who are into human capacity building. That gave my products added value and you already know by now that I can only get my money after most of the products must have been sold. The benefit was that there was control over the cash since I did not have access to it just when I need it. When I eventually get it I know that one of the first things to do is to go and buy the materials needed to reproduce for the business to continue to grow. As a matter of fact there is one of those stores that insists I must give them a notice before coming to pick up my money and they would tell me if it is okay to come or not. This thing I have done is called “Systems’ Development.” I didn’t know that was what it was called. I was just doing it to keep my business in better shape and it also makes me feel like some people are working for me because the stores that sell are getting commissions so it means I am paying them. I found out it was called systems development when I enrolled for basic certificate course in Daystar Leadership Academy because systems development is a separate course in the academy.

My challenge as an entrepreneur (38) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

When you do not wait for things to get rosy to begin, the experience you gather in the rough times will qualify you for the rosy days. I have seen people who keep waiting for a nice time to do whatever needs to be done. Some say they are waiting for the perfect time.

 

One of the problems of waiting for the perfect time – getting abundance of resources needed to start – is that you will not learn the lessons that will make you strong enough to navigate in the storm when there is any you have to face and believe it, there will be a number of them to face. You will not understand what it is to wait and what you can be doing while waiting for something that is worth waiting for. When you fail to understand what it means to wait and what to do while waiting then you will assume that everything works at the speed of light. The implication of this is that you will not have the patience that produces results!

 

I must confess to you that I did enjoy every bit of setting up my office despite all the challenges that I encountered not because I relish the struggles but that the struggles produced a better person out of me. I learnt a new lesson from everything that happened and you must also understand that every new lesson learnt made me more qualified to run something bigger than what I am currently running.

 

Take one step at a time on the ladder if you do not have a suicide mission. When I started out Edible Pen I knew so when that one of the tools for the organization was writing and that was where the name of the organization emerged from. Writing articles and distributing to people freely was a plan and the idea was because the message needed to spread as fast as possible. Money would be a barrier if we had to put a price tag on the paper to be distributed so I did not think of charging any amount. This meant that I had to print nearly every week using my money to print and make several photocopies yet the plan was to distribute free. Sometimes my vice-president, Adeyemi Johnson, would go out of his way to make sure that we made the articles available on weekly basis. We kept doing this and in our little way we were blessing some lives because people began to look forward to receiving our articles.

 

After a few months my mum bought me a printer so the work seemed easier now that we have a printer. We did not seem to realize initially that there was something in the printer called ink which was making it to write magically on papers. We printed every article printable and did that as often as we could. Very soon the reality began to hit. We were running out of papers and both colour and black ink were running low.

 

We ran out of paper and ink and we had to start buying so here what we did. After moving with a friend who is skilled in computer graphics I learnt ways of minimizing quantity of ink consumed from adjusting the settings of the printer from the monitor. After some time a found out about the refill kit for black cartridges so I started buying the refill kit. We were refilling the cartridge instead of changing the cartridge. I only changed the cartridge one in a blue moon so that we could print more articles at a cheaper rate.

 

I sometimes messed up my carpet while refilling the cartridge but I did it because the price of a cartridge was four times the price of the refill kit. Sometimes I had to buy used cartridges from the guys selling computer accessories because the once in the printer were no longer usable. As for papers, I had to keep an eye on my mum’s room to make sure that there were no plain A4 papers lying fallow in her room. I raked everything I found and sometimes asked her if she had hidden some of the papers somewhere. After sometime I had some stipends left for paper because I had created other products like audio CDs which were generating enough money for me to run a charity like organization.

 

I understood the importance of paper when I discovered my purpose. I understood the importance of pen when I discovered my purpose. From then I began to say that, what some other people’s pen writes ends up in the trash can but what my pen writes ends up in the library. Believe me, it is amazing that the absence of paper or something as seemingly negligible as ink can ruin a company.  

My challenge as an entrepreneur (37) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

If only you learn to look very well you will realize that there are times when you are looking for something desperately in other places while those things are lying in your house. I gave you a brief statement of account as at the time the office was to kick off yet I needed to buy some things. While thinking about some of the things to buy and still looking around the house for useful things, I found the bedside chest that I brought from school. You and I know that a bedside chest is supposed to remain beside the chest but I converted the purpose of the bedside chest when I needed I security box in my office. Some people call it safe! All I wanted was something that would be under lock and key. I moved it into my office and that was where I used to keep some valuables that I did not want just anyone to have access to. I had a collection of complimentary cards in the chest. I kept some of my recording devices there. The company’s branded envelopes  and some stipends you can call working capital used to be in that chest.

 

I continued working like that for days and soon found out that I needed another chest. I just went up stairs and got another bedside chest for my office. This time I did not just bring the chest into the office. I brought a water flask, a tea cup, a glass cup, a roll of toilet paper and bottled water. When I finished setting up it was so beautiful! Inside the new chest was where I kept all the letters of the company. It contained out going and incoming mails. I also had a file in it that contained all the receipts I had been keeping for goods bought. Each time I bought I new item for the office I sent the receipts there so that I can fetch it easily if there was any need of it. I had brought the tea cup and the flask into my office because I was only ready to offer tea to the guests who visited the office. I later taught about something my father used to do. He always had a bottle of candy in the living room and it was used to keep the mouths of visitors busy until the real meal was ready. I decided I was going to fetch a bottle for candy so that I could offer some of my clients. After all I had seen banks do that so people would easily take it for creativity and hospitality. I also taught about getting a saucer for groundnuts so that you would at least feet at home when you come into my office.

 

On several occasions I resumed to my office at 7:15am and did some “extra mundane communication” like we used to call it in Mass Communication. After that I would study the only comprehensive manual of life – the Bible. Following these actions was one other thing that I love to do and still do. I would build outlines for messages and speeches that may never be delivered in the next seven months. I wrote down titles of speeches as I got the inspiration and later spent some time developing them. I never wait for an invitation to speak before preparing an outline. For some time I did not really have a heavy speaking schedule so I spent time building outlines for the days when I would have a heavy speaking schedule and may not have time to do a deep research. Some of the titles would be so heavy on me that I would tell myself this has to go into a book. That is how I get inspiration to write the books that I write.

 

One of the lessons I learnt during the periods when I had to be in my office since there was no speaking engagement was that you should never wait for a demand before you prepare for it. Settle down for work, project your schedule since your services and products are clearly spelt out, set goals and move gently. If you do things that way then you will be able to cope if there is a demand on your schedule.