CONGRATULATIONS! You Have Been Made CEO -Achieving Entrepreneurial Success

When most people hear the word Entrepreneur, the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Dangote, Steve Jobs, Mary Kay, Bill Gates and Richard Branson come to their mind. But what most people don’t know is that everyone is an entrepreneur! Every individual is born a potential entrepreneur with the task of making a success of him/herself.

Yes, you are a business that must be nurtured, fed and managed effectively and passionately for success.  And if YOU must survive and fully thrive, then you must employ entrepreneurial skills to achieving that.

How do I mean? 

First, let’s look at the characteristics of a typical business and see if there are similarities between a person and a business venture.

I. A business is an entity, a living entity which must be effectively managed as such for success. So also is an individual. But while a business is a complex entity that must be managed by many different people headed by the founder/entrepreneur, a person is a complex biological creature which is managed by just the actions of one person- the individual.

MR NIGER D (remember the acronym? Characteristics of living things: Movement Respiration Nutrition Irritability Growth Excretion Reproduction & Death) also applies to a business:

·          A business can move/be moved from place to place by relocation or expansion.  Even online businesses (websites) can move from one hosting company to another.

·           A business breathes when it meets people’s needs (when you respire, you give plants the CO2 they need for their own survival).  If your business isn’t effectively meeting people's need(s), it isn’t breathing and will die eventually.

·          A business needs to be nourished to grow. Good Nutrition ensures optimum growth.

·          And not to forget that a business sure shows signs of irritability, meaning it can be irritated by, and also irritate, other businesses.

·          Anything that eats must excrete isn’t it? A business also excretes its waste which includes redundant raw materials and finished products, and sometimes redundant employees.

·          Does a business reproduce itself? I believe it does when it delves into other business areas, or successfully develops other areas of interest it hitherto wasn’t involved in. The best example of a reproducing business is Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway company which originally was only a textile manufacturing company dealing in cotton. It delved into insurance and began investing in other businesses, many of whom are in other industries. In 1967, its stock was worth only $20.5, today, 1 unit of its stock is worth $200, 000.

·          A business can and will die. The survival rate for start-ups is 10% i.e. 1 in 10 will die within their first year. And statistics also show that only about 9 of that 10% will be alive after a decade.

Need I say more?

II. A business can either be a small business or a large corporation. Legally, a business is either a Limited Liability Company- LLC/Ltd, a Public Liability- PLC, a Partnership or an Unlimited Corporation. All of these terms are defined by the size/number of its owners. I call this the mindset of the company. You as a person can choose to be small in your mind, or dream big, or think unlimited.

As a company grows, its numbers swell, its owners increase and it influence expands beyond its locale. Same happens to you too if your mindset develops positively.

III. Finally, for a business to be successful there must be a vision, and a visioner who is commonly known and referred to as an entrepreneur. He conceives the business’s vision and goals, and steers her in her daily dealings towards success. It’s no different for you too as a person. To achieve personal success, you must see yourself as a business venture that must become successful.

Most businesses fail because entrepreneurs fail in effectively managing themselves. Yes! People fail as personal entrepreneurs and carry that over into whatever business they setup. When you treat yourself as a business entity that must not fail or collapse, then you will naturally carry over the principles into your business- whatever it is you do. If you fail in personal cash and time management, you will fail to effectively manage your business's cashflow and have difficulties completing tasks as at when due.

Like I have covered elsewhere, an entrepreneur is simply he who can make a success of ONE. When you take an idea, a book, a business, a seed, a child, and now a person (-YOU), and make a success of that one, multiplying it many times over to produce wealth, you are an entrepreneur.

And though there are many other aspects of your personal success that this blog does not cover, but a very important aspect is already fully covered here- your finance (personal finance). Remember, as the motto of this blog goes, your personal success curve cannot and will not go up if your finances are going down.

Everyone is an entrepreneur. You are an entrepreneur.

Congratulations! You have been made CEO, You Inc.