The Developing Afrika team met with Mr. Abayomi Adewumi a driven Business consultant who is continuously shaping and turning around businesses. through his service. Today he shares with us tips for entrepreneurs, how he started his journey and issues he has faced as an entrepreneur. Enjoy!
Let’s meet you
I’m Abayomi Adewumi, a Business Development Consultant and I work as a director at Global Leadership Institute; a human capacity development organization for business, corporate and political leaders. I am a Certified Management Consultant and a Fellow of Institute of Management Consultant. I’m the last born of my family with 6 siblings, a professional writer, public speaker/trainer and a lifelong learner with keen interest in reading and learning through all available media.
Tell us about your business
I work with a very smart team at Global Leadership Institute.(http://globalleadershipinstitute.org.ng) to offer services which include: ▶Business Plan Writing, ▶Sales & Marketing Plan, ▶Proposal Generation, ▶Business/Marketing Plan Implementation, ▶Market Research/Analysis, ▶Business Advisory Services, ▶Capacity Building Trainings, ▶Corporate & Executive Retreat/Training, ▶Leadership Training/Courses.
What prompted you to go into this industry?
While growing up and being the last child, I fell in love with books since I had no one to play with. I read many books from governance to politics and self development. This sparked my interest in solving problems of various forms. I considered being a NeuroSurgeon, then an aeronautical engineer and several other professional careers but ended up studying chemistry as my first degree.
Before I graduated, I was already the go-to guy for business and personal challenges. While business development was never the full time goal, I started this fully when I met a client of my brother who had overheard me discussing marketing strategies with my brother. He invited me to give a presentation to his management team and commissioned me to start the job (that was my first paid job and it was in 6 digits) .I began researching and decided that my intelligence and skill will be better utilized in business development.
I saw the potential and career path in what I had termed a hobby.
What challenges have you experienced growing your brand?
We live in a society where people get easily attracted to big brands and tend to do business with them without considering upcoming brands. My biggest challenge was establishing myself as a business development expert and by extension establish my firm as a competent capacity building institution. Another key issue presently is engaging competent hands both as full-time employees and contractors for our projects. It is very difficult getting competent hands whom you can bank on in this country because of the gap in knowledge which our educational system is not filling. Many of the youths are not also helping themselves because they don’t want to read, so it’s increasingly getting more difficult to get the right people for jobs/projects
You have been doing very great in your business, what has been your expansion strategy?
Our expansion strategy is anchored on ensuring African businesses run optimally, profitably and sustainably to help create the right economic conditions that can stimulate better standard of living for the common man. We are very passionate about growing at least 100,000 African businesses by 2023 and this led us to create Business Growth Hub which we have launched in 3 cities in Nigeria; Abuja, Lagos and Ibadan with other cities in Nigeria to follow soon. We have also been working with relevant partners to open up other West Africa countries and East Africa countries by the end of second quarter in 2019. Our drive for seeing excellence entrenched in the way Africans run business also led to the creation of our Accelerator Programme which is designed to help businesses with proof of concept and revenue generation track record to grow into stable organizations within 12 months while making it easy for them to enjoy professional advisory services. The accelerator programme will be launched and first cohort application will be open for Nigerians before the end of 2018.
Above all our growth strategy has its foundation on delivery of excellent quality services at a top speed while treating each customer’s business like its ours.
What is the toughest decision you had to make concerning your business in the last few months?
We made some optimistic financial projections at the beginning of 2018 based on past performances and trends. The management decided that we will need additional hands in the organization to meet the rising need, so we employed two young associates with well-defined Job Descriptions and adequate remuneration. Sadly, our projections didn’t happen and as such we had our new associates being most time without work and we had to stretch finances and even get loans to pay them. I opened up to them and gave them the opportunity to stay with us at half-pay till we balanced or seek another employment. It was a very hard decision because we had invested heavily in their training and development for 3 months so they can deliver optimally for us.
What keeps you motivated as an entrepreneur?
I derive my motivation from seeing ideas turn to profitable & sustainable organizations. I really love to help in growing a business or proffering solution to their challenges.
What were you doing the last time you looked at a clock and realized you had lost all track of time?
I was working on a marketing strategy for an established business to grow over 12 months and I was on it from 8pm till 4am before I realized it was already morning. I easily get carried away when I’m either preparing training slides, notes and development plans for businesses.
How do you wind off from the day’s stress?
I watch Movies and Play Computer Game (FIFA & PES)
Describe a time you felt you were right but you still had to follow directions or guidelines
I did a business plan for a startup and my team did an excellent research where they discovered that the business model she wanted needed to be tweaked in order to carve out a niche in her competitive industry. We did the business plan with all necessary research, strategy and projections only for her to reject the revised model with a defiant insistence on her original model. I tried to explain it to her but she was hell bent on her model and we had to rework the business plan to her taste because customer satisfaction is one of our guidelines at GLI. Interestingly, she came back to us to give her the revised model after she got advice from her network that our model will suit her best.
At Developing Afrika, we believe so much in reading books, “What book do you think everyone on the team should read?
Why you act the way you do – Tim Lahe; Think & Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill ; Blue Ocean Strategy – W Chan Kim ; 80/20 Principle – Richard Koch
What is your Advice to every Entrepreneur and Aspiring Entrepreneur out there?
Entrepreneurship isn’t about your technical skills alone, it goes way beyond that and combines your ability to see opportunities in the society and create profitable solutions around it. Don’t get bogged down by one grand idea you don’t have funds to execute, break it down into smaller units you can easily attempt or do something else to raise money before trying it because the fact is that no one will dash you money for an idea. Invest your resources (time and money) in researching your market to validate your ideas. Put together a solid business plan to assist you in the planning phase of your business and then execute mercilessly. Lastly, Business is an Art that is filled with innovation and creativity, but it’s also a Science that includes crunching your data, knowing your numbers and statistics.
Love the Art, Embrace the Science
What are your personal and business social media handles (Instagram, Twitter and Facebook).
Instagram: abayomiadewumi; Twitter: abayomiadewumip; Facebook: abayomiadewumi
Should you have Business consultancy needs, please feel free to reach out to Mr. Abayomi.
