HOW TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS AS A GRADUATE
HOW TO START YOUR
OWN BUSINESS AS A GRADUATE
One truth that
can’t be hidden from you is that, most of those who succeed early in small
businesses after school, are those who started the process while in school. A
successful business is one that started when there was no business. So, if you
are still in school, right now you have an edge before you graduate. If you
start the process now, you will avoid the usual tension and confusion that is
common with those who suddenly realize they no longer have anything coming from
home. However, if you have graduated, you still have hope. You will have to go
back to that drawing board, the basics.
What do you want
to do? What do you know you can do with relative ease? No matter how stupid it
sounds, it probably holds the key to your future. For example, if you dress
well with ease, make-up well without stress, and people always complement your
outlook, you might as well be a candidate for helping others who are not so
good at it even though they have all the money. One thing about ideas for small
businesses is that, most of them sound so foolish any reasonable person will
throw them out of the window. But it does not take reasonableness in that
regard to make it in small business. Do not discard your ideas so quickly.
Ruminate over them, you might need that seemingly ugly idea pretty soon. So, what
are your strengths? Which areas of life do you gravitate towards more? What are
your potentials? What skills do you possess? What trainings have you received?
What experiences do you have? What suggestions have you received? These are the
questions you should ask yourself and answer. No one will do that for you.
The bulk of
unemployed people in this country are youths with vigour that can be channeled
to productive use. You are probably interested in helping yourself out, that’s
why you are reading this piece. The energy you have in you is largely untapped
and because you know its there, its frustrating you and your younger ones are
waiting on you. This is killing you. My friend, come to yourself. You need to
start something and stop waiting for that job which is not there. Now that you
have asked yourself these questions and you have so many answers starring at
you in the face, and you still have some energy left inside you, it is time to
start something.
In starting,
don’t wait until you have big money to start. If you do, you will wait forever.
You better start small and end big. If you start big, you’ll mess it up. There
is no such thing as perfect time but a more appropriate time. So start with
that mustard seed you have. Plant it, water it and grow it.
Start by Learning and learn by Starting
My usual advice is to start by
learning, and to learn by starting. This is where you should start from; Learn
and start. Even if you have to learn as an apprentice with someone, on the long
run, it pays far better than to struggle in a job you don’t even love. If that job
gives you the opportunity to learn (few jobs do), lucky you. Learn all you can
on that job, and make learning your priority rather than the pay you get, because
in what you are learning lies your future.
Do you know you can talk very well and
you amuse people a lot? You could be a good candidate for Stand –up comedy,
Compere and Emcee services. Start by Emceeing free for someone, and then for
another person, and then another person. Soon someone will come along who will
be willing to pay a token, then your big break comes when you are called for
great social gatherings and events, but while you are doing it free, you are
honing your skill and learning the business of that profession. Do you know you
can write? Put that pen on that paper after you have decided on what to write,
and go ahead. Write free articles for newspapers, write small books that won’t
cost you much to publish, be in the forefront of marketing of your product. You
must be proud of what you have done.
Start by Selling
This’ perhaps one of the best counsels
you’d receive on how you can start your own business as a graduate. Selling is
where entrepreneurship begins. If you cannot sell, you cannot have a business.
Everyone sells. It is what we sell
that differs. If you get a job you sell your time, if you sell your products,
you sell derivatives of yourself. And believe me, it is better you sell
derivatives of yourself than to sell your time. You can always duplicate your
derivatives – make as many copies as possible, and sell to people. Whatever products
come from you are your derivatives whether tangible or intangible products (services).
On the other hand, we all have 24 hours, and arguably we use only about 16 or
less of those hours productively. When those productive hours are used in some
else’s employ, then that is it.
If you really want to sell, you might
want to learn to do it by selling other people’s products first and not selling
your time to them.
Do you know you have sugar-coated
mouth and people usually comment that you talked them into buying something
that they ordinarily wouldn’t have bought? You can start by selling convenient
easy to buy goods/commodities or undertake to market some Fast Moving Consumer
Goods (FMCGs). Whatever you start, as you go along improving it, support will
come, you will get to know how others started and broke the jinx, you will get
to know the best way that thing can be done to fetch you money. But remember,
no one does anything by staying out of it. Kill fear and anxiety.
I will do a follow up to this piece. You
have to keep a date with this blog.
See you.
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