TOPIC ONE:

HOW TO SUCCEED AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be .if I keep on saying to myself that
I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by reasly becoming incapable
of doing it.on the contrary, if I h have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire
the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
Mahatma Gandhi
There is no one single, straight –forward prescription for success in
entrepreneurship. What books, magazines, and entrepreneurial sages do is to look at
the characteristics and circumstances surrounding those who have succeeded.
Success leaves clues, and clues are important because they help us in pursuit of our
goals.
In his book unlimited power, tony Robbins writes, “if you want to achieve success,
all you need to do is find a way to model those who have a ready succeeded. “The
rationale here is if you do what successful people have done you are likely to get
similar results, other factors remaining constant. You can equally learn from the
mistakes so that you avoid repeating them.
In this chapter, we look at ten distinctive features that are found in all successful
entrepreneurs.
1. Vision

Success in business, as in any other endeavor in life, must begin with a vision
.Merriam –Webster dictionary defines vision as “the act or power of imagination”.

A vision is the ability to see beyond what eyes can see. It is a picture in your mind
of exactly the results you intend to produce .the business is going to look like, in
every detail, when it is finished.

You must visualize the growth path from business conception to business launch
.this will help you assemble all necessary resources and build a foundation that will
support future growth .it will enable you overcome initial challenges that you will
inevitably face in your journey to success.

You should be able to answer the following questions right from there start:

1. Why are you starting the business

2. What are the goods or services his business will offer?
3. Who are your customers going to be
4. What is your strategic objective
5. Is your business going to be local, regional, national, and or international?
6. Is it brick and mortar and or online?
7. What is the supply chain up to when the products reach the customers
8. What are the e gross revenues of your business going to be?
9. What are the profits going to be?
10.What is your main competitive advantages?

These questions can be answered easily and correctly by analyzing five areas in your
life as an entrepreneur.
The areas are:
a. Values
Frist and most important are your values /.this is what ,as a person ,you believe
in and stand for .it is what you hold dears t in life .Are you in that business
because you need money or you are advancing a cause you believe in and you
can depend on?

Nelson Mandela once said that democracy to him was an ideal he was prepared
to die for it need be. It is this value that made him fight to the very end.

Are you ready to work more for les in pursuit of your business idea l or are you
the kind of person who will ditch your core e business for some quick money
schemes should opportunity arise?

b. Plan
 Secondary is the plan you have for yourself and your future .this is where you
want to go and what you want to be. “even if you are starting your business on a
kitchen table ,you must have a vision of becoming a world leader in your field
to you will probably never be successful ,”are the wise words of peter Drucker
.having a vision without a detail led plan for its attainment is a mere wish .

Your plan and aspiration as Brain Tracy says should be to be among the top ten
in your industry. You should always plan big even if circumstance may force you
to act small. You do not start a business to be underdog in the industry.

c. Mission
Thirdly, have a clear mission .this is the need you must to solve with your product
.it is what you want to do for your customers to make their lives better.

Your mission should be very clear .it should inform your staff ,customers ,and
other stakeholders what your enterprise is about and where the business is
headed .A good mission statement acts as a base to help a business build a culture
that is integrated with I t s overall purpose.

d. Purpose
Fourth and closely related to mission is a clear purpose both for yourself and the
business. With purpose, you will be able to wake up every morning and persist
during hard times .but without it, you will see challenges as problems and quit.

The biblical prodigal son found no purpose to live a hard life in a foreign land.
His purpose of going to find life aboard ceased. He threw in the towel and went
back to his father.

Entrepreneurs who have no clear purpose usually quit when the going gets tough
.some abandon their enterprise and go back to employment/. Others just give up
and become disoriented in life an entrepreneur who has a clear purpose is forced
and is able to achieve their vision regardless of odds.

e. Goals
Last but not least you need concrete goals that you want to accomplish in life.
this is based on your choice of lifestyle .goals are based on how you want to live
,the family and friends you envision ,your health concerns ,the thing you want to
do for the community, and your envisioned retirement.

Michael Gerber, author of e-myth says that the purpose of any business is to give
the owner more life .when you start a business, you should visualize a time in the
near future where your business will be able to exist independent of your daily
involvement.

You need to know whether your ultimate goal is to start a business or to be self
– employed. Some people quit employment to pursue business but end up in self-
employment. In self-employment, you are technically an employee of your own
enterprise. You have to work daily to earn.

On the other side, business is independent and you have no obligation to work
there. You can choose to employ people after establishing a working system so
that operations can run smoothly whether you are their physically or not.

As an entrepreneur, your goal should be to have a business that frees you form
working in it, but you still enjoy its proceeds. This is the best way your business
can give you the freedom to live the life you want to live.

2. Attitude
Attitude is the single most important determinant of success in business.
Attitude is more important than capital, your skills, contacts, and many other
resources combined.

Charles Swindoll sums up attitude thus,

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on my life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than the fact. It is more important than the
past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than
success, than what other people think success, than what other people think or
say or do.
 It is more important than appearances giftedness or skills. It will make or
break a company, church, a home .the remarkable things is we have a choice
every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past, we cannot change the fact that people will act in
certain way .we cannot change the inevitable.

The only things we can do is play on the one strength we have, and that is our
attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent how I react to it. And so it is
with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.”

Attitude is the sole reason why people having the same resources and in the
same resources and in the same environment attain different levels of success
within a given time. Those who have a positive attitude do better and can
withstand challenges.

3. Competence
In today`s competitive world, you must be extremely good at what you do so
as to succeed. Competition is fierce at the average level. Above average and
upwards it becomes less competitive –the higher you go the cooler it becomes.

A good illustration is unemployment in our society .despite the high levels of

unemployment, the media carries very many jobs adverts every single day.
Most advertisers are looking for people with unique talents, highly educated,
and with an indisputable track record of past success or visible signs of
potential. This is where the demand is.

Many people obviously do not meet these conditions and as a results go on

complaining about a lack of jobs .those ho complain about this are mostly at
the average level. Those who perform above average are not worried about
lack of jobs.
To be successful in the market, you must be very competent in your field and
offer competitive products.
Customers are always looking for better options. If you can offer them the
best, you will definitely win their hearts and they will open wallet wide.

Jim Collins, the author of good to great, notes that to be competitive in your
field, there are three things that are necessary:

1. A burn9ing passion, belief, and love for what you do.

2. Choose are where you have potential to be the best.
3. Be able to produce goods and or services that are profitable enough to
enable you attain your financial goals.

4. courage
Courage is the foundation of success in everything. It takes great courage to
venture into a unique business where there is no reference for success. Many
people want to invest where the market has been tested, and where there are
clear testimonies of people who have made money or are making money.

No one is keen to invest in a product that has not been in the market before
because one does not know how customers will react; no one is keen to buy
land where no one else has bought; no one is keen to employ someone without
experience….. All these require great courage

Taking the first step in everything is always risky. But it can make the whole
difference between success and failure. Blessed are the entrepreneurs who
take a step of courage when others are hesitant for they will be successful.
Faith and determination drives them to making things happen, to success.

Persistence is an attribute of courage. It is ability and determination to work

hard on a project without giving up until you succeed. All great success are
the fruits of persistence.
5. Ability To Overcome Constraints

Constraints are what prevent many from pursuing or even aching their
goals. The constraints could be a mindset, finances, and or staff. It could
even be small things that you do every day that erect a barrier between
you and your goal.

Most people have all it takes to venture in to businesses but certain

constraints hinder them. You most likely have heard the following:
 I have no time – I’m too busy handling what I have now.
 I have no capital – there is just not enough money to do everything.
 I cannot get trustworthy people – unless I am there, employees will cheat
me.
 I cannot beat the competition – my competitors are making the market
very tough.
 Things are changing fast – new technology will only complicate my
business.
There are some of the things that prevent you from making you a move
that will change your life. If you wait until there are no constraints, you
will most likely never begin because in life there will always be
constraints between you and your goal.

Martin Luther king pointed out that, “the ultimate measure of a man is not
where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he
stands in times of challenge and controversy.”
6. Focus And Concentration
The ability to focus and concentrate on your goal until you achieve it is a
key to success. Many people venture in to business with a very clear mind
on what they want to do and how they want to do it.

However, once they start the business, some get other business ideas,
seemingly offering quick and better returns. For those who are not focused,
 they slowly and without realizing it drift away, to follow get-rich-quick,
unsustainable schemes.

The best way to remain focused is to write down your goals and objectives
and aim to follow them every day. Review your list of things to do every
day and reflect on how they are helping you achieve your core goals and
objectives. If you find something is not contributing to your overall
business success, remove it from the list.

Avoid diverting your money, time, and space to other things. I know of
many entrepreneurs who diverted huge sums of money to speculation in the
stock market during bullish times expecting to make quick money. Others
invest in short-term investment companies promoting high returns, which
later turn out to be pyramid schemes. This speculative businesspeople lose
money and their businesses suffer greatly.

If you are to be successful in business, you have to stay focused and

concentrate on your core competencies once you successful, people and
other enterprises will come with several offers to make money in apparently
easy ways. They will show you how you need to invest very little and gain
more.

However, if you follow their advice, you will get distracted and your
enterprise will start to suffer and may even collapse. You must learn how
to make independent decisions regarding the direction of your enterprise.

7. Know When To Quit

Quitting has always been associated with failure. There is a slogan that
winners never quit and quitters never win. But this is not always true-
winners can be quitters. There is a Spanish proverb that says, “A wise
person changes his mind but a fool never will.”
 One characteristic of an entrepreneur is trying many ways; different ways
of presenting product, different ways of selling and marketing, different
products to determine which work best. It is not doing the same way
persistently.
If something is not working in one way, you quit first and start another
one. I always say entrepreneurs do not fail, its enterprises that fail. If you
realize your business is failing, do not fail with it. Start another one and
move on.

Never stick to a business idea or concept that is not working. No one said
you cannot try something else. After all, studies show that many
entrepreneurs have achieved eminent success in areas that are different to
what they initially planned.
You should keep on evaluating and assessing different ways to reach your
goal. You should not stick to a road even if you discover in the eleventh
hour that is not leading you to where you want to go.

The path is not always smooth. Because entrepreneurs keep trying many
things and many ways of doing things, they of course fail more and quit
more before they succeed. It is the law of probability. If you keep trying
many things, you increase your chances of winning. The winners focus on
success and treat failure as lessons.

8. Commit Yourself To Kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese word for continuous improvement. It comes from the
Japanese words “Kai” which means “change” or “to correct” and “Zen”
which means “good”.
It is a system that japan pursued after world war two. Kaizen is a system
of continuous improvement in quality, technology, process, company
culture, productivity, continuous learning and improvement is a minimum
requirement for success in any business. To stay ahead of your
competitors, you must continually add value to your goods and services.
You must start by improving your own skills, knowledge, and attitudes.
 To be an entrepreneur is to commit yourself to lifelong learning. Kaizen
involves setting standards and then continually improving in those
standards.
Continuous improvement means we often outgrow our own standards and
what we previously thought was acceptable. It involves very person in the
organization.
To support the higher standards, kaizen also involves proving the training
opportunities, material and supervision needed for employees to achieve
higher standards and maintain ability to meet those standards on an
ongoing basis.
Continuous learning, growing, and developing awakens creativity within
us and helps us discover potentials that are personal and unique to us.
There are different ways of doing various things; using computer
software, management, and customer relations.

However, there are no tools or techniques for the ways of being. You are
uniquely yourself and you can only edge near your potential if you keep
searching, growing, and developing those ways that are true to yourself.
You can continually improve your skills, knowledge and attitudes by ding
the following:
 Reading relevant books
 Attending seminars, workshops, and conferences in your field.
 Meeting and interacting with your customers, staff and suppliers, among
others.
 Being more aware of the forces surrounding your business including
competitor activity.
 Consulting experts and trainers in your field, etc.

9. Staffing
It is estimated that ninety five percent of your business success will be
determined by the people you hire to work for you. High levels of
unemployment notwithstanding, one of the biggest challenges of every
entrepreneur is to hire the right people.
 Peter Carbonara Notes,
“You can’t build a great company without great people. But how do you
know them when you see them? Over the past few years, a number of
companies in a wide range of industries – from airlines to steel, computers
to hotels – have asked themselves what separates their winners from their
losers, good hires from bad and they all arrived at the same answer. What
people know is less important than who they are. Hiring, they believe, is
not about finding people with the right experience; it about finding with the
right mindset. These companies hire for attitude and train for skill.”

Look for people who have the right attitude towards the work they are doing
and who are willing to work more than they are paid for. A new business
requires a lot of self-sacrifice both from the owners and the employees.
Practically, it is not possible to pay a worker or even yourself what it takes
to make the business take off. Unlike old and established businesses that
can afford to pay overtime, good per diem, allowances and a horde of other
benefits, new business may require employees to work overtime, weekends,
and public holidays for no extra pay.
The moment you discover employee has a negative attitude, that they have
the perception they are being overworked or taken advantage of, start
looking for a replacement immediately.
The irreparable the damage you cause to your business as the employee
transmits the same to others. Big companies can sack employees very easily
because besides having established structures, decisions are made by a
group of people and hence the victims may not take it personal. This is not
the case for small companies where close relationships usually develop
between the workers and the owners. Some of them may be relatives.
For this reason, many small businesses find firing very hard especially if
the case is not extreme. This is very dangerous. A good manager must be
firm even if the culprit is a close family member.

10.Creativity And Innovation

In this book the way to wealth, Brian Tracy describes innovation as “the
ability to find faster, better, cheaper easier ways to reduce and deliver your
products and services to your customer.’’
You need to think creatively and formulate your own unique ideas and
plans based on what you enjoy doing and what the market needs. Creativity
is also important when it comes too marketing your products and the
business. You increasingly need more creative marketing strategies to have
an impact on the market.
You need creative and innovative ways to effectively and efficiently solve
the problems and satisfy the needs of your customers.
 TOPIC TWO:

WHY ARE GOALS IMPORTANT?

On the brightest sunny day, the most powerful magnifying glass will not set a piece of paper a fire
if you keep moving the glass. But if you focus the light and hold it on one spot, the paper will burn.
This is the power of concentration.

A man was traveling and stopped at an intersection. He asked an elderly man, "Where does this
road take me?" the man replied, "I don’t know." The elderly person said, "Then take any road.
What difference does it make?"

How true. As Cheshire cat in Alice in wonderland told Alice, "when you don’t know where you
are going any road will take you there."

Suppose a soccer team is all charged up, enthusiastically ready to play a game, when someone
takes the goalposts and goal lines away. What would happen to the game? There is nothing left.
How do you keep score? How do you know you have arrived? Enthusiasm without direction is
like wildfire and leads to frustration. Goals give a sense of direction.

Would you board a train or plane without knowing where it was going? Of course not. Then why
do people go through life without having any goals?

DREAMS

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.

-Washington Lrving

People confuse goals with dreams and wishes. Dreams and wishes are nothing morethan desires.
Desires are weak. Desires become strong when they are supported by:

 Direction
 Dedication
 Determination
 Discipline
  Deadlines

These are what differentiate a desire from a goal. Goals are dreams with a deadline and an action
plan. Goals can be worthy or unworthy. It is passion, not wishing that turns dreams into reality.

Steps to turn a dream into reality

1. Have a definite, clear written goal

2. Have a plan to accomplish and write it down
3. Read the first two twice a day.

Why don’t more people set goals

The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing
and succeed.

Lloyd Jones

There are many reasons why people don’t set goals, including:

1. A pessimistic attitude- looking for the pitfalls rather than the possibilities
2. Fear of failure- thinking. "What if I don’t make it?" people feel subconsciously that if they
don’t set goals they can't fail. But they are failures nevertheless for having no goals is the
sign of a failure.
3. Fear of success- low self-image or fear of having to live up to their success causes some
people to fear success.
4. A lack of ambition- a result of our value system and lack of desire to live a fulfilled life.
Our limited thinking prevents us from progress. There was a fisherman who every time he
caught a big fish, would throw it back into the river, keeping only the smaller ones. A man
watching this unusual behavior asked the fisherman why he was doing this. The fisherman
replied, "Because I have a small frying pan." Most people never make it in life because
they are carrying a small frying pan. That is limited
5. A fear of rejection - Worrying that, “if I don’t make it, what will other people say?”
6. Procrastination -Thinking “someday, I will set my goals.” This is ties in with a lack of
ambition.
7. Low self-esteem - Because a person is not internally driven and has no inspiration.
 8. Ignorance of the importance of goals- nobody taught them and they never learned the
importance of goal setting.
9. A lack of knowledge about goal- setting – people don’t know the mechanics of setting
goals. They need a step-by step guide so that they can follow a system.

Goal setting is a series of steps. When you buy a plane ticket, what does it say?

 Starting point
 Destination
 Class of travel
 Price
 starting date
 Expiry date
If you ask most what is their one major objective in life, they would probably give you a vague answer, such as,
‘I want to be successful, be happy, make a good living,’ and that is it. Those are all wishes and none of them are
clear goals. Goals must be SMART:

1. S –specific. The statement, “I want to lose weight” is a wishful thinking. It becomes a goal when you pin
yourself down to “I will lose 10 pounds in 90 days.”
2. M- must be measurable. If you cannot measure it, you cannot accomplish it. Measurement is a way of
monitoring your progress.
3. A – achievable. Achievable means that your goal should be challenging, but it should not be out of reach,
or the pursuit of your goal becomes dis-hearting.
4. R – realistic. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds in 30 days, you’re being unrealistic.
5. T – time-bound. You should set a starting date and a finishing date to reach your goal.
Goals can be longer thatn five years but then they become a purpose of life. And having a purpose is very
important. Without a purpose, you are likely to develop tunnel vision where you are obsessed only with achieving
your goals. Goals are more easily achieved if they are broken into small ones.

Life is hard by the yard,

But by the inch,

It’s a cinch

-Gean Gordon

Goals Must Be Balanced

Our life is like a wheel with six spokes.

1. Family. Our loved ones are the reason to live and make a living
2. Financial. Represents our career and the things that money can buy.
3. Physical. Without your health, nothing makes sense.
4. Mental. This represents knowledge and wisdom.
5. Social. Every individual and organization has social responsibility, without which, society starts dying.
6. Spiritual. Your value system represents ethics and character.
If any of these spokes is out of alignment, your life goes out of balance. Take a few minutes to just consider. If
any one of these six spokes were missing, what would your life be like?
BALANCE

In 1923, eight of the wealthiest people in the world met. Their combined wealth, it is estimated, exceeded the
wealth of the government of the United States at that time. These men certainly knew to make a living and
accumulate wealth. But let’s examine what happened to them 25 years later.

1. President of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab, lived on borrowed capital for five years before
he died bankrupt
2. President of the largest gas company, Howard Hubson, went insane.
3. One of the greatest commodity traders, Arthur Cutton, died insolvent.
4. President of the New York stock exchange, Richard Whitney, was sent to jail.
5. A member of the president’s cabinet, Albert fall, was pardoned form jail to go home and die in peace.
6. The greatest “bear” on Wall Street, Jessie Livermore, committed suicide.
7. President of the world’s greatest monopoly, Ivar Krueger, committed suicide.
8. President of the bank of international settlement, Leon Fraser, committed suicide.
What they forgot was how to make a life! It is stories like these that gave the readers the false impression that
money is the root of all evil. That is not true. Money did not cause their problems. Money provides food for the
hungry, medicine for the sick and clothes for the needy. Money is only a medium of exchange. In fact, it was the
pursuit of money to the exclusion of the other five spokes in their lives that caused the downfalls.

We need two kinds of education- one that teaches how to make a living and one that teaches us how to live.

There are people who are so engrossed in their professional lives that they neglect their families, health and social
responsibilities. Ironically, if asked, why they do this, they probably would reply that they were doing it for their
families.

Our kids are sleeping when we leave home. They are sleeping when we come home. Twenty years later, we turn
around, and they are all gone. We have no family left. That is sad.

Quality not quantity

It is not uncommon to hear that it is not the quantity of time that we spend with our families but the quality that
matters. Just think about it- is it really true?
Supposing you went to the best restaurant in town where they gave you white-glove service with cutlery form
England, crockery form France, chocolates from Switzerland, and on and on. You pick up the gold plate menu
and ordered a dish of barbequed chicken. The waiter within minutes brought back a small cube of the most
deliciously prepared chicken. You ate it and asked, “is that all I am going to get?” the waiter replied, “It is not
quantity but the quality that matters.”

I hope the message is clear. Our families need both, quality and quantity.

You can’t mandate quality time. You can’t say, “Now we will spend quality time with each other.” Moments or
quality come out of a larger quantity of experience. When adults were asked to recall their fondest childhood
memories, they recalled moments such as their mother bringing them a cool drink and reading them a story when
they were sick. Out of the time spent in mundane situations with friends and family members come precious
moments like sharing a joke or insight, receiving a smile of encouragement when it is most needed, or helping a
friend through a tough time.

Health

If you lose your health in the process of earning money, then you lose money in trying to regain your health.

Social responsibility

In the process of making money, if we neglect our social responsibilities and let society deteriorate, we will
become a victim ourselves.

Scrutinize your goals

A person who aim at nothing never misses. Aiming low is the biggest mistake people make, winners see
objectives: losers see obstacles

Goals should be challenging enough to motivate yet realistic enough to avoid discouragement. Anything
we do, either takes us closer to our goal or further away.

Each goal must be evaluated in light of the following (similar to the Rotary Club’s Four- Way Test):

1. Is it the truth?
2. Is it fair to all concerned?
 3. Will it get me good will?
4. Will it get me health, wealth and peace of mind?
5. Is it consistent with my other goals?
6. Can I commit myself to it?
The following examples fail the test:

a. If one of a person’s goals is to be the embodiment of good health with no money, it is quite obvious that
it will be hard to survive. That means it is not consistent with their other goals
b. A person could make all the money in the world, yet if he loses his family and health, it not worth it, is it?
c. A person could make a million dollars by selling drugs but then for the rest of his life, he would be running
from law. This kind of behavior would be socially reprehensible, illegal and take a way peace of mind and
goodwill.
Evaluate each of your goals by putting it to the question test above and make sure all your goals are in congruence.

Goals without action are empty dreams. Actions turn dreams into goals. Even if a person misses his goals, it does
not make him a failure. Delay does not mean defeat. It only means we have to revise our plan to reach our target

Just like a camera needs focus to take a good picture, we need goals to make a productive life.

Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will
pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.

-Earl Nightingale

Goals Should Be Consistent With Our Values

Goals lead to purpose in life. It is the starting point for success. Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you will
become one of the stars.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

-Henry Ford

All of us in this world have a purpose in life. And that purpose of course varies from person to person. An orchestra
would be pretty dull if everyone played the same instrument.

Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood…

Make big plans, aim high in hope and work.

-Daniel H Burnham
It doesn’t matter where we are. What really matters is in what direction we are heading.

Effort and courage without purpose is wasted. Worry leads to negative goal setting. It is thinking about things
that you don’t want to happen.

Activity is Not the Same as Accomplishment

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress

-Alfred A. Montapert

There is a big difference between activity and accomplishment. This was demonstrated by a French scientist
named Fabre. He conducted an experiment with processionary caterpillars. These caterpillars instinctively follow
the one in front of them. Fabre arranged them in a circle on the rim of a flowerpot; thus the lead caterpillar was
behind the last one. Fabre put pine needles (food for the caterpillars) in the center of the flowerpot. The caterpillars
kept traveling around in a circle on the pot’s rim. Eventually, after a week of circling around, they dropped dead
of exhaustion and starvation with food only inches away from them. We need to learn a lesson from the
caterpillars. Just because you are doing something, doesn’t mean you are getting anywhere. One must evaluate
one’s activity in order to have accomplishment.

A man was out driving with his wife and the wife said, “Honey, we are going the wrong way.” The
husband replied, “Who cares, we are making great time!”

If we confuse activity with accomplishment, we could be making great time but we won’t get anywhere.

MEANINGLESS GOALS

A Farmer had a dog that used to sit by the roadside waiting for vehicles to come around. As soon as one came, he
would run down the road, barking and trying to overtake it. One day a neighbor asked the farmer, “Do you think
your dog is ever going to catch a car?” the farmer replied, “That is not what bothers me. What bothers me is what
would he do if he ever caught one.”

Many people in life behave like that dog that is pursuing meaningless goals.
 TOPIC THREE:

HOW DO YOU START?

You obviously want to ccomplish more with the life God gave you that is why you are reading this book. There
is a principle of achievement which can be applied to any area of endeavour in life. Those who have succeed in
the past have left us clues as to how they succeeded. You can intelligently follow their clues and create the same
level of success in your life. Looking for some difficult, complicated and min-blowing process to success is a
waste of your time. The easier the principle, the quicker your success will appear. If you want to succeed, you
must start. Here are some clues successful people have left us about how to start and launch our ideas or dreams,

1. START SMALL

Little acorns grow into big oaks. The principle of life is that if you must succeed, you must start small. Every
achiever knows that success comes in little seeds, therefore they look for the smallest possible way to start and
launch their ideas or dream. Failures on the other hand look for the most complicated means of launching their
idea or dream and never get it off the ground.

What most people find challenging is how to break down their dream into small workable plans that can be tacked
one small bit at a time. If you try to handle your dream all at once, it may seem so overwhelming and that is the
reason many people give up. The secret to successfully execute your dream or launch your idea is to start as small
as you possibly can.

Starting small is relatively depending on the kind of business you are engaged in. there are some business you
cannot afford to start too small if you want to succeed. Let me explain. If you want to start a restaurant, you cannot
start with two tables and a chair in an obscure area of town where no one will be able to see and patronize you.
You must pay for a good location, good equipment, beautiful interior décor and hire some staff. To start small,
you may need to get some other investors involved or else your restaurant may not be recognized as a quality
place to dine. Your restaurant may not be big, but it should be a cozy place for people to eat. That is starting small.
When you succeed at your small stage, you can then source for financing to expand your business. If you don’t
have the finances to launch out with your main idea immediately, you can start a business from which you will
generate the required capital to launch your main business. The simplest way to raise capital is to buy and sell.
Look for a valuable product to sell.

The reason some people fail in business is because they listen to wrong counsel and start from the top, instead of
working their way from the bottom up. The only thing you start from the top is a grave. If you start from the top,
you may be overwhelmed by the demand, stress and the level of commitment required to stay at the top. You face
challenges you are not prepared to handle. You don’t have the necessary experience, skill, staff or know-how to
scale through the hurdles you face. In a little while, those challenges will bug you down emotionally, mentally
and spiritually and you may eventually give up on the whole project.

Starting from the top is the pathway to mediocrity or outright failure. It is true that failure is one of the
prerequisites for success but you don’t deliberately set yourself up to fail by taking on what your emotional,
mental or spiritual muscles are not developed enough to carry.
A young man was out of work. Someone suggested a new line of business to him and gave him some leads. He
immediately began is business with a telephone in his living room. He made all the international calls in his
apartment until business started coming in. today. He has a very beautiful office in a highbrow area of Lagos. If
he had waited for the perfect office space, he would probably still be looking for money to start his own business.

Dr. David Oyedepo, chancellor of covenant university Nigeria said he started small. When he began his ministry,
the 'International Headquarters' of his ministry was a table tennis board! He arranged some chirs around the tennis
board and there with his staff, held strategic meetings from morning until evening when he had to quit the board
for the players who used it regularly in the evening time. But today, the ministry has built an International
Headquarters, it has the largest church auditorium in the world and a university sitting on hundreds of acres of
land. If he wasn’t willing to start small, he wouldn’t be where he is today.
THE BENEFITS OF STARTING SMALL
LOW START-UP COST
Starting small will save you the usual high cost of setting up a business. It is the high cost of starting a business
that scares most people form trying in the first place. If you start small, you save a lot of investment capital which
you can use to support your business until it starts making profit.
If you are stepping out on your own, starting small means that you don’t have to rent a very expensive office
space to begin your business. You can start from your home and build up your business capital until you can
afford or raise the money to rent an office space. Unless your product is office spaces, you don’t need to have one
to begin with. People are interested in what you can offer them, not how fanciful your office looks like at the on-
set. They are interested in your business performance, your ability to add value and deliver on your promises
MISTAKES
When you start small, your mistakes will be small. If you start big, your mistakes will be very big and costly to
you. No matter how perfect you are in what you do, when starting a business, you are bound to make several
mistakes. If these mistakes are huge, they may discourage you and cause you to give up on your business. If you
take on huge challenges when you start out, they may just overwhelm you because you lack the financial, mental
and emotional resources to deal with them.
When you start small, you make small mistakes which are easier to correct or rectify. When you start small, your
mistakes are usually in hundreds or a couple of thousands but if you start big, you will make mistakes worth tens
of thousands or even more. If you make mistakes when your customers are about ten or twenty, you can easily
correct it, but when you have hundreds of customers, every mistake will automatically reflect on your bottom
line.
STAFF
Starting small will also enable you to carefully and progressively recruit quality staff. Quality staff are hard to
come by. If you start out hiring so many people to help you with your business or enterprise, you may hire the
wrong people. It is better to start with one or two people, train them and assess their performance on the job.
LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Starting small will enable you develop your leadership skills. The success of your enterprise or business depends
on the quality of your leadership. If your staff make mistakes, you will be able to handle just two people instead
of having ten dissatisfied employees on your hands. Unless you’ve developed your leadership skills in your former
place of employment, you may not be able to read the signals of employee dissatisfaction. But if you’ve learned
to relate and communicate successfully with your first employee, you can now apply your skill to the other
employees you will be hiring in future.
One thing you must realise is that your employees will make or break you so, hire smart. Go for quality and not
just quantity. Remember that if you pay peanuts, you will have monkeys for staff. Pay well and treat employees
with respect.

SUCCESS
When you start small, you are able to handle your success as it grows. If you succeed too fast, it may eventually
hurt your business. Success if it comes too fast, can be detrimental to your business health. Overnight business
success is not something you should pray for. If you don’t have a structure in place to manage your success, it
may result in failure. You should build your capacity to handle success before you achieve it or it may just
overwhelm you.
Am I saying that shouldn’t believe God to prosper your business? By all means you should but you should believe
for success that you can handle. For instance, you open a restaurant and within a few weeks you become successful
beyond your expectations. Your tables are fully booked, many prospective customers come in only to find out
that there are no tables for them.
This success scenario may play out in two ways. Firstly, your potential customers may return to book a table
because of your reputation for providing mouthwatering dishes. Secondly, your potential customers may just go
and have lunch across the road and forget about you. Unless you offer a very unique cuisine, your potential
customers may not return and that is not good for your business. What you should do is strategically grow clientele
until the restaurant becomes fully booked. This way, you prepare for success which you can handle. The secret
of a successful business is return customers. You should do everything possible to ensure repeat patronage by
your customers.
2. START NOW

Procrastination is the assassin of opportunities. Waiting for the perfect time to start and launch your idea or dream
has been the undoing of many people. Someone said the best time to plant an Iroko tree was 25 years ago, the
nest best time was yesterday! If you are still waiting for tomorrow to come, you may end up never doing anything
meaningful with your life.
The reason many people struggle financially is because they refuse to do anything right now to salvage their
financial situation. They wait for the perfect time to invest in shares, landed property or other lucrative
opportunities. What they don’t realize is that the more they delay starting, the more difficult it becomes for them
to become financially independent.
Some people want to write a book but they keep waiting for the perfect day when they will have the time or be in
the mood to write. But the truth of the matter is that if you want to write a book, you must create the time to write.
We create time for what we love.
We must understand that there is no perfect time to start or launch your idea or dream. If you look around you
long enough, you will catalog enough reasons why you should defer the launch of your dream till tomorrow. But
that tomorrow never comes. Today is the tomorrow we talked about yesterday, but what have we done about our
dreams and ideas?
To start now means that you should write out your idea. Bring out the blueprints for your business and work on
you strategy to rise funds, hire people and sell your products in the market place. To start now means to set aside
at least an hour a day to work out the details of your intended business or idea. As you work on it, your dream or
idea will take on a life of its own. It will come alive and begin to move you in the direction of its realization.
If you desire financial freedom, to start now means you should secure the services of an experienced financial
advisor or stock broker and invest in shares you can afford. The secret of financial success is to form the positive
habits of saving and investing. These habits will program you to always be on the lookout for viable opportunities
to invest. Your positive habits will train you to see and take advantage of financial opportunities that millions of
people pass by daily. If you start now, you will hasten your financial freedom

3. START WITH A VISION

Every great achievement began with a vision in someone's heart. To succeed in life you must have a clear vision
of what you intend to accomplish. A vision is the picture of the end result you want to produce. It is what you
want to achieve, a clear road map of where you are headed in life. Nothing significant ever happens without a
vision. Many people are dabbling in life because they have no clarity of direction. They dabble into whatever
comes their way as long as it holds a promise of financial reward.
But you must understand that a vision in your heart is more powerful than money. Vision is what secures and
guarantees your financial destiny. Being financially destitute is not as bad as being vision destitute. A person who
lacks direction in life will end up a failure no matter how much money he may start his life with money in itself
does not guarantee success. What guarantees success is a clear vision backed by plan and consistent action.
Vision is received through prayer, meditation and silence. Write down your vision where you can read it daily
until it becomes an integral part of you. When you have clarity, you will move confidently towards your destiny.

4. START WITH PLAN

To actualize the dream in your heart, you must break it down into little portions then develop a plan to carry them
out. Without a plan, your dream will never become a reality. Planning brings order into your life. Order is the
first law of success. Without order, you will keep on going in circles and accomplish little or nothing.
At the planning stage, you consider the cost of your intended project. In Luke 14:28, the Bible says "for which of
you, intend to build a tower, sittedth not down first and counteth the cost whether he has sufficient to finish it?"
You must sit down and carefully map out a strategy to bring your idea or dream to life. Map out all the necessary
steps to take before your dream becomes a reality. If you win on paper, it is possible that you will win in reality,
but if you cannot think through on paper and solve all your potential problems and challenges, you will not
succeed in the pursuit of your dream.
At the planning stage, you will discover your possibilities and challenges. This is when the strength, weaknesses,
opportunities and potential threats to your idea or dream will arise. This is what is referred to as the swot analysis
of your idea. The more thorough you are with this analysis, the easier it is for you to execute it. If you don’t deal
with your problems during the planning stage, they will become stumbling blocks when you begin the execution
of your plan.
To succeed, you should have at least two back-up plans in case first one encounters some unforeseen problems in
future. Having plans A,B,C and D is not a sign of fear or lack of faith, it is a sign that you have thought through
your plan and considered every possible thing that could go wrong in its execution. You have factored in the
unknown and proffered solutions to them before they ever arise. Every conceivable scenario has been played out
and you have solutions to them. People who begin and pack up did not think through on their opportunities and
challenges. In fact, you should create challenges in your mind and come up with solutions to them so that you are
never scared of unforeseen problems.
Before going into nay business, ask this question, “what is the worst thing that could possibly happen". This
question prepares you for any eventualities or unforeseen contingencies. When you answer this question, you
prepare yourself to meet whatever challenge arises in the course of pursuing your dream or idea.
I sold books for several years before I started writing my own books. Before I invested in any opportunity, I
always asked myself, "what is the worst thing that could possibly happen if I don’t sell these books?". Books are
imperishable so the worst case scenario, if I didn't sell my stock immediately, was to keep them until I had the
right clients to sell them to. I reasoned that I had enough back-up capital to sustain myself and business until I
sold those books, so I usually went ahead to invest in very interesting books. I always ended up selling those
books. If you want to succeed in your business, you must learn to ask and answer this crucial question.
During this planning stage you should write down your goals. A goal is a dream with a deadline. If your goal
doesn’t have a time frame within which you must achieve it, then it is merely a wish and nothing more. Write
down measurable, realistic, achievable and believable goals. You should have short term, medium term and long
term goals. Do something positive about your goals daily. Keep updating your goals. As you accomplish those
on your list set new and more exciting goals to pursue.

5. START WITH PRAYER

When you begin any venture or enterprise with prayer, you tap into the infinite wisdom of God. With prayer, you
invite divinity to partner with you in your venture or project. Prayer is revealing. It opens your spiritual eyes to
some issue you may not have considered while planning your venture. Because you’ve tapped into the all-
knowing mind of God, prayer brings to light some details that may jeopardize or help the success of your
enterprise.

It is in the place of prayer that you receive strength, wisdom and direction from God. Knowing what to do is a
major step to success and it is in the place of prayer that you discover it.

Prayer helps you generate new ideas. As you pray, your mind is also active, tapping deeper into the mind of God
and connecting you to superior ideas that will succeed when implemented.Quality ideas give you leverage in life.
Successful people cherish quality ideas because they know difficult it is to generate a good one. Ideas are superior
to money because they create money. People with ideas rule in the world’s market place. These are the people
who are always searching for new ways to bring value to the market place.

If what you are about to start will hurt you financially, physically or relationally, you will be able to discern it in
the place of prayer. People who don’t pray limit themselves to what they can see or hear with their natural senses,
but prayer goes way beyond the natural senses. When praying, you can receive a revelation of future events and
how to prepare for them. You can be given divine strategies about how to avoid financial disaster or how to take
advantage of opportunities in your business or project.

Prayers magnetises the necessary people, tools, resources and favour you require to set your dream in motion.
You may not understand how it works, but when you pray, the whole universe responds to your requests. People
you don’t know will step out of the woodwork and render you assistance in one form or another. You receive
favour form unexpected resources.

Prayer builds a shield of supernatural protection around you and your family. When you pray, negative forces are
held at bay and restrained from limiting you in any way. To be effective, prayer must be regular, focused,
scripture-based and impassioned with faith.

6. START WITH DILIGENCE

A very successful business man was celebrating his 74th birthday. Everyone knew how he rose up form extreme
poverty to wealth in spite of the fact that he only had six years of formal education. He was well known for his
words of wisdom which he had gathered through many years of business experience.

After the event, a young entrepreneur wanting to extract some words of wisdom for him, walked up and asked
him “ sir, what is the secret of your success in life and business?” the man looked at him and said “ I have asked
myself that same question several times but I keep coming up with the same answer. Son, there is really no secret
to it. From the time I was 12 years old until now, I have worked hard at everything I did. The more I committed
myself to my enterprise, the more I knew what to do. The simple secret was that I kept at it and that is why I am
successful today. If you want to succeed, do the same. Keep at it”.

Hard work never killed anyone. In fact, indolence is one of the major cause of frustration and psychosomatic
illnesses. One of the way to keep yourself healthy is to have a job or go to a place where you engage in some
constructive work daily. That regular, daily, constructive activity will keep your mind, body and soul healthy.

There is no substitute for hard work. The greatest help you will ever have is at the end of your own arm: your
hands, No matter how technology advances, hard work is still a major perequisite for success. If you want to see
your dream become a reality, you must be willing to work hard at it. No one will do that for you unless of course,
they are well paid to do it.

No matter how smart you are, if you don’t work on your dreams, it will remain unborn. Many people have
problems putting their hands where their mouth is. They talk about how big their business or enterprise will
become in future but they don’t put action behind their words. Words without action paralyse your initiative.
Words without action kill great dreams. Words without action create hobos and derelicts that become liabilities
to family and society.

I am sure you know some people who are forever preparing to live their lives. They tell you what they will do
when such and such is in place, when this or that happens but they never get around to it. They are very good at
convincing their friends why they’ve not started their intended project ten years down the line. All their excuses
are rational in their own thinking. Talking about the idea becomes their major project in life rather than pursuing
its actualization. Such people are rich in words but poor in action.

Proverbs 6:6-11 says we should observe the ants and learn a lesson from their diligence. Read it for yourself.
Poverty and failure are products of laziness, indecision, and inaction. Success on the other hand is only guaranteed
by working out an intelligent, well thought out plan.

You can break out of the habit of dragging your feet by setting small, non-threatening goals for yourself. When
you form the habit of tackling little goal, it becomes easy for you to handle bigger goals. Another way to build
the habit of diligence is to develop strategic relationships with diligent people. The more you hang around them,
the easier it becomes for you to model them and produce the kind of excellent results they produce in their work.

7. START WITH FOCUS

A wise man once said the difference between successful people and failures is focus. Successful people make up
their minds to pursue a course of action and they do all in their power to stay focused on their goal until it is
accomplished. They refuse to give excuses for failure. Mike Murdock said that broken focus is the primary reason
people fail in life and business.

To succeed at your enterprise, you must begin with a clear, strong focus. You must also hold on to it tenaciously.
The difference between an ordinary interest in something and focused attention is the difference between an
ordinary light bulb and a laser beam. An ordinary light bulb lights up a room but cannot do more than that. But
when that same light energy is concentrated and focused, it becomes a weapon that cannot be stopped. A laser
beam cuts through steel like laser beam is used by surgeon to burn tumors and perform delicate eye surgeries.
This is the difference between focused attention and mere interest in your dream.

You see, many circumstances will arise to make you relinquish your dream, break your focus and let go of what
you started. You will always be tested by life to assess your inner resolve to succeed. If you are resolute, dogged
and tenaciously focused, you will scale through all the hurdles on your way, weather the storms and do all it takes
to achieve your goals. Success doesn’t come cheap; you must prove yourself before you accomplish great things
in life. Life will continue to throw tests at you until you rise up to the challenge and triumph over them. All it
takes is focus.
Your dream is like an ordinary missile but with proper focus it becomes an empowered patriot missile that cannot
miss its target. You can empower your dream by stayin focused on doing one thing at a time. If you want to
accomplish so many things at the same time, you stand the risk of doing everything with diluted concentration,
energy and passion and you will end up becoming at best an accomplished mediocre in life.

Successful people on the other hand define their objective, stay focused on this singular objective until it is
accomplished, then move on to something new. If you spend time with a successful man or woman, one thing
you notice is the energy they exude around them. That energy is a product of their focus and passion. This energy
attracts people, ideas and opportunities to them, that people who lack focus don’t have in their lives.

Without focus, you can be easily distracted by the allure of achieving success in 'easier and more lucrative'
professions other than that which you are involved in. there is no profession that rolls out success for you on a
red carpet. Neither does success come cheap in other countries of the world. Some people erroneously believe
that it is easier for them to succeed abroad, but what they don’t realize is that the principles you will employ to
succeed in this country are the same you will use in any other part of the world. The truth of the matter is that if
you cannot make it in this country, it is very doubtful that you can make it in any other country of the world.

The market place is no respecter of persons or race, it only answers to value. If you add value, you will be richly
rewarded. You must go into the market place and assert yourself. Focus encapsulates you with energy and
empowers you to stay in the game until you make your mark, accomplish your dream and actualize your idea.

You develop your focus by eliminating every other pursuit or dream which seems attractive but isn’t producing
the kind of results you desire in your life. Eliminate things which requires a lot of effort but produce very little
results. Your results must be commensurate with your effort. Be focused on producing viable results.

8. START WITH PASSION

The difference between the great and the mediocre of this life is passion. You will only succeed at what you are
excited about. Passion however is more than mere excitement, it is the willingness to pour your life into whatever
you do. It is a state of mind which holds every other attraction as tasteless in comparison with your primary
objective, focus or dream.

Passion is being possessed by your dream. Passionate people engage in an enterprise and do all that it takes to
succeed. Passionate people wake up when others are asleep and work out the details of their dream. They think
through every conceivable angle and make decisions that will carry them forward.
Passion for your dream empowers you. You tap into incredible streams of mental, physical, emotional and
spiritual strength which you never knew you possessed. I am passionate about self-publishing. I can talk for hours
on this subject from various angles and I won't be exhausted or tired. If you are always feeling drained and
uninspired at your job, it may just be because you are working at a job you are not passionate about. Passion will
get you to be the first to get to your office and most probably be the last to leave,

Passion will make you volunteer for assignments that others dread to take on. Passion will cause you to go the
extra mile at your job and do more than you are paid for. Your passion for your job will bring you to the notice
of people who can help you move up in your organization. Your passion will cause the lazy and uninspired staff
in your company to call you the boss's daughter or son but it is far better than being a nobody in the organization

If you dread going to the office in the morning and you look at the clock throughout your working hours, you are
at a dead-end job. That job is detrimental to your emotional, physical, mental and spiritual well-being. You are
slowly dying at that job although you look healthy and vibrant to your co-workers who cannot see through you.
You must get your life back! Either you change your attitude or be bold and look for a new job. Working without
passion is destroying yourself with style.

Passion is giving all your heart and mind to a dream. It is what moves people to sell all they have to invest in their
dream. In Matthew 13:44 a man found a great treasure hidden in a piece of landed property. He went and sold all
he possessed and bought that land. Passion makes you take calculated risks towards the attainment of our goals.
Without taking calculated risks, you will not amount to much in life. Many people talk about their dreams but
they are unwilling to put their money on the table. To win you must back-up your big words and put your money
where your mouth is.

How passionate are you about your dream? Are you ready to sell your property to see it become a reality? What
are you willing to do to prove to yourself that you are not deluding yourself with all this talk about achieving your
dream? The more you talk about something you are not passionate about, the more deluded you become. The
only way out of such self-delusion is to break out of this limiting mental node and act with passion. Do something
positive and constructive. Make your dream happen!
 TOPIC FOUR:

DEADLY BUSINESS MISTAKES BY FRANK M. KATUSIIME

1. Wrong Aim Of Starting A Business

2. Starting A Venture With Wrong Partners
3. Choosing Inappropriate Location
4. Wrong Market Targeting
5. The Vice Of Procrastination
6. Disregarding The Spousal (Or Parental) Support
7. Fear Of Failure (FOF)
8. Abrupt Or Forced Entry Into Business
9. Faulty Timing At Entry
10. Not Following Your Passion
11. Having Little Or No Faith
12. Starting A Venture Without A Plan
13. Investing Inadequate Capital
14. Over Investing
15. Unplanned Or Unnecessary Expansion
16. Focusing Only On Plan ‘A’
17. Over Reliance On Plan ‘B’
18. Trading In Somebody Else’s Pocket
19. Abrupt Switch Of Location
20. Rigidity And Lack Of Innovation
21. Failure To Build The Right Networks
22. Absence Of Stakeholder Mapping
23. Poor Pricing Strategy
24. Not Planning For Taxes
25. Lack Of Focus And Commitment
26. Giving Up Easily
27. Poorly Timed Career Transition
28. Seeking Unwarranted Publicity
29. Joining Politics For Its Own Sake
30. Giving Room To Conflict Of Interest
31. Condoning Misleading Priorities
32. Launching Without Sufficient Knowledge
33. Investing With No Control Or Information
34. Just Following Others
35. Being Ignorant
36. Not Moving With The Times
37. Wrong Personal Values
38. The Vice Of Pride
39. Not Being Truthful
40. Incorrect Business Philosophy
41. Acting Against Your Intuition
42. Ignoring Conflicts In Partnerships
43. Failure To Exhibit Integrity
44. Exhibiting The Vice Of Hatred
45. The Chicken Feed Mentality
46. Replacing The Big Picture With Small Matters
47. Refusing To Ask
48. Sticking To The Poor Man’s Mentality
49. Mismanaging Success
50. Wrong Choice Of Spouse
51. Excluding Your Spouse In Ventures
52. Marrying More Than One Spouse
53. Underrating The Importance Of A Family
54. Not Guiding Children Appropriately
55. Treasuring Money More Than People
56. Reducing The Already Known Standards
57. Fronting The “Big Name Syndrome”
58. Promising More Than You Can Deliver
59. Failure To Manage Anger
60. Failure To Build& Keep Social Capital
61. Ignoring Corporate Social Responsibility
62. Destroying Business Relationships
63. Offering Poor Customer Care
64. Borrowing For Wrong Reasons
65. Deciding Never To Borrow
66. Not Utilizing Banking Facilities
67. Selecting Banks Without Scientific Analysis
68. Mismanaging Credit & Collections
69. Disrespecting The Time Value Of Money
70. Inadequate Knowledge & Compliance With Law
71. Uniformed Consent
72. Going To Court Unnecessarily
73. Mixing Business With Personal Transactions
74. Ignoring Warnings About People’s Character
75. Straining The Business
76. Underrating The Importance Of A Lifestyle
77. The Vice Of Mental Laziness
78. Not Keeping Updated With Current
Affairs
79. Poor Record Keeping
80. Mismanaging Business Transition