DACommunity: How to Build a Winning Business Strategy

A few weeks ago, during one of the sessions on our community, we discussed and learned about how to build a winning business strategy. In case you are yet to join us, use this link:

Now let’s get into what we discussed as led by our speaker: Mr. Udochukwu Chikwendu

First, what is strategy?

Simply put, a strategy is a method of solving a problem. I believe that many of us have our own businesses or are hoping to have our own businesses in the future. While others are looking forward to scaling their businesses.
There are 4 levels to business/entrepreneurship and it is summarized as ESBI which means

1. Employee
2. Self-Employed
3. Business Man / Entrepreneur
4. Investor
   
   The problem in many cases is that those in number 2 in particular always see themselves as number 3. There is however a huge difference between being self-employed and being an entrepreneur and the difference is in the vision.
   
   A self-employed person is in charge of HR, Finance, Admin, everything. But, an entrepreneur builds a team. Because he knows that the vision he or she has for the business is beyond one person.
   
   So the first principle to winning in business is to build a #TEAM. Team members should be people that compliment your weakness.
   

Let’s go to a little bit of what you need to do if you are starting off in business.

1. Conceive an idea.
2. Develop a prototype (Minimum Viable Proposition)
3. Launch
4. Evaluate
5. Scale
6. Re-Invent

Is there anyone here whose business is currently valued up to #10m or above? I want to be sure I’m talking to the right audience with the right language. I want to guess we are all startups. But, no idea is beautiful until the market validates it. There is where MVP comes in.

Test your market with the minutest of your product or service. Then, use the feedback from the market to scale

How do you value your business?

To value your business, you need to include all your moveable assets, revenues, salaries, and wages and value them in cash.

Let’s go straight to #Strategy.

1. In business, strategy is #KING.
   Write it down. There’s no beautiful idea. What you have is beautiful strategy. It is strategy that makes idea beautiful.
   If you are a startup owner here, don’t be so particular about your idea. Don’t be emotionally attached to the idea. Be particularly interested about #Market_Dynamics
   
   What does my market work? Let’s say you want to start selling hair. Don’t say “Every woman needs hair”. So, the market for my hair is all the women in Nigeria.
   No! Do what is called market segmentation. What kind of hair do I want to sell? What class of people do I want to sell to? What is the demography of these people? What kind of environment do they live in? After this, you will know who your true customers are.
   
2. Don’t sell what you think is good. Sell what people will buy.
   
   You want to open a robot building company in Nigeria? How many people will patronize you? A hungry man does not look for the finest restaurant. A hungry man looks for any place to eat food. When your market is hungry, they will grab your products/services.
   
   Someone may say I have this great idea. It can change this. It can make me the richest man in Nigeria.
   My question to startup owners is always ‘Where is your market and how do you intend to service it?’
   Don’t go into business because your friend is into one. Be clear from onset what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it. Marry your market and the strategy more than your idea. Two people may have the same idea. But, two people can never have the same strategy. The better strategy with the same idea always wins.
   
   Let’s look at Facebook and Amazon. When you look at Facebook, what do you think? What comes to your mind? You think of a community where people have fun right? When you look at Amazon, you think of where you can buy anything right? Maybe you are correct. But, do you think Mark Zuckerberg is the 5th richest man because of the like and shares that happen on Facebook? Of course no.
   But, when he started, he only wanted to get as many people as possible on the platform before he will introduce the money making aspects. Google Amazon web services. That’s where a chunk of their money comes from.

Two Aspects You Must Adopt a Winning Strategy.

1. Corporate Culture
   
   Any winning business today has two things. Winning employees and winning product. You must have a culture that places a premium on your workers. I will summarize what I mean by corporate culture here;
   
   a. Customers are king
   b. People are not things.
   c. Risk takers and change agents.
   d. Everyone is a CEO
   e. Open communication
   f. Timely benefits
   g. Shared glory / pain.
   
2. Sales and Marketing
   This is the most important part of any business. In fact, everyone here who owns a startup should learn how to sell. Practice pitching. Develop your elevator pitch. I can do sales talk for 3 hours and not exhausted.
   
   In developing a sales strategy, here are highlights:
   1. Everybody in your company is in sales.
   2. We don’t accept a ‘NO’ answer.
   3. Every customer has our money, we have to collect them.
   4. The money is never enough.

I hope you found this session helpful. Like our audience, you probably have some questions. Here are some questions that were addressed during the session. If you don’t get your answers here, please send an email to Info@DevelopAfrika.org and we would be happy to help where we can.

Question 1

In a situation where you are doing all but the employee isn’t delivering, how do you handle that?

Answer
In this case, there is no sentiment in firing an unproductive employee.
Be sure however, that the problem is not a leadership problem. Because there is a possibility that if that same employee is allowed to work under another leader, he/she may do better.
I started my firm with one of my closest friend. As time went on, I discovered that he was not innovative and not willing to learn. I tried all I could to keep him up to pace but, no result. I dropped him from the board. He’s now a staff. Business is not emotion-driven. It is result-driven.

Question 2
My question is how can I recruit a good sales rep for a particular industry? eg EdTech

Answer
Let me tell you my personal strategy. I don’t have any person whose position in my organization is a sales rep. Everybody in my company sales. At least on social media. One person coordinates it. So, if as a startup you can’t afford the services of a good sales rep, inoculate your business vision into your employees. They will help you sell it without your knowing.

Lastly, let me give us these 3 working strategies.

Overall Low-Cost Leadership Strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy.
Oasis Strategy

We hope you learned something here. Do not forget to join our community using this link: Join Our Community – Developing Afrika (developafrika.org)

See you soon!