Hi everybody! I have been asked to give you guys' free lunch today. That is to give you a run down of my entrepreneurial life. To help you make money. Right! Well there is nothing like free lunch so we will have to strike a deal here.
The deal is: I am going to be 120 years old on this earth, meaning I still have 57 years to go. I have enough resources to look after family and myself for another 47 years. Meaning I am short of 10 years.
I will need you guys to work hard make a lot of money so you in turn can look after us for the last 10 years of my life.
So guys' do we have a deal? Good! Looking at all of you here I can only conclude that you want to take your destiny into our own hands. In other words you want to go fishing yourselves and not sit at home for someone to bring you a fish, which will only give you one meal.
Introduction
Just for the record, I want you to know that I am honoured to be with you here today, because for me this would be my way of contributing to the development of our great country. As you all know, education in any form plays a very important part in the development of any nation. Now Let's examine the different definitions of various words in our topic.
Attitude:
The way a person thinks and behaves; viewpoint, outlook, perspective, approach, conviction, thinking; for an Entrepreneur you have to make humility sound more like a vice rather than a virtue (humble).
Who is an Entrepreneur?
The Oxford Dictionary defines an Entrepreneur as a person who organizes and manages a commercial undertaking, especially one involving commercial risk, a contractor acting as intermediary. In my opinion, the Oxford Dictionary misses the main point completely. That description suits a manager more than an Entrepreneur.
The Chambers Dictionary defines Entrepreneurship as undertaking a bold or dangerous undertaking, readiness, initiative and daring undertaking, a business concern.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines an Entrepreneur as a person who attempts to make a profit by starting their own company or by operating alone in the business world, especially when it involves risks. The Chamber's and Cambridge Definitions are a bit vague; they talk more about the gravy than the meat.
One lecturer in Legon has a definition of an Entrepreneur, as someone with a vision who spots a new opportunity and is mindful to act on it and start something.
This definition touches just a minute part of what an Entrepreneur is and leaves everything else hanging. Why should you put any adjective before the word opportunity? Opportunity is opportunity period, be it old, current or new.
The issue has more to do with what one does with the opportunity, and the phrase "to start something" is an open-ended phrase. Start what? Whatever it is that you want to start must be well defined.
Another meaning, also from another lecturer, defines it as an innovative process where a prospective individual identifies and seizes an opportunity, be it an idea or business, organises existing resources to convert those opportunities into workable or marketable products or services, by adding value through time, effort, money or skill for the benefit of society.
Then he assumes the risks of the competitive marketplace to implement these ideas and realises the rewards from these efforts.
This last definition is closer to reality. So we will take that definition, expand it and analyse it thoroughly. This definition however, talks about organising existing resources.
What happens if the existing resources that are available to you can't address the opportunity you have in hand? So here too, one shouldn't put any adjective before the word resources that you require. You require resources period!
Now, having criticized others in their definition of an Entrepreneur, we can do no better than to develop our own definition, which I hope will be acceptable to all of us here.
Entrepreneurship:
Innovation – Knowledge – Opportunity – Resources – Risk - Implementation - Reward
In other words an Entrepreneur, is someone who identifies an opportunity, be it an idea or a dream, organises the needed resources to convert the opportunities into marketable products or services, assumes the risk in a competitive marketplace and realises the rewards.
Who is a leader?
The Collins concise dictionary defines a leader as a person who rules, guides or inspires others. In other words, a person, who heads an organisation, be head of family, political parties, heads a country.
The first and most basic prerequisite for leadership is the desire to lead. You must want to lead. Becoming an effective leader takes hard work. Leaders seek long-term solutions to long-term problems not short-term solutions to long-term problems.
A leader does the right things. And so are Entrepreneurs. Management is simply doing things right. "Leadership" is a topic on it's own and hopefully at a later date we can discuss that. But to sum it up: the final summation of a leader or an entrepreneur is bringing together the threads of a complicated theme and weaving them into a clear, convincing vision.
Mastering a subject and persuading an audience or a team to interpret it as you do is akin (similar) to the art of leadership.
Having one's Destiny under one's Control
One thing that an up and coming Entrepreneur should know is that in life you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Our lives are NOT determined by what happens to us, BUT by how we react to what happens; not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive approach causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, positive events and positive outcomes. It is a catalyst a spark that creates extraordinary results. That's an Entrepreneur's power of attitude. In other words you may think because you are the best student at school or you are the prettiest girl on earth or the most handsome man on the universe, you should have a particular life style. No, you are very wrong! The key words here are 'you think'. Unfortunately the world out there doesn't think that. Otherwise we wouldn't be here to listen to the life and experiences of an Entrepreneur. Instead, we would simply dream or imagine what we think we deserve, and we should get it.
Most of us have the habit of finding excuses for our failures. Most times we tend to blame third parties for our failures. We say things like, "if it wasn't because of this or that I would have made a lot of money by now". In my opinion that is somebody who wants the public to think of him differently from what he really is. I read in one of the local papers this morning that President Mugabe says it's the foreigners who are collapsing Zimbabwe's economy. The people of Zimbabwe didn't vote him as a president for him to identify why the country's economy is sinking. It's his duty to fix the problems and not find excuses why the economy is sinking.
Inspiration:
Most times we all need inspiration to help us find ourselves and take the right path in our journey to becoming successful Entrepreneurs. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals. Your attitude in general almost always determines your outlook on life.
What inspired me to have the Entrepreneur's attitude:
My mother made a statement to me when I was a student at Mfantsipim. I also learnt the characteristics of a good document again when I was at Mfantsipim. Then a statement our then headmaster made also while at Mfantsipim in addition to being truthful to yourself. These four lessons guided me in my path to becoming an Entrepreneur. Lesson number one: The truth is always the first casualty in a war situation but if you want to be an Entrepreneur, you must first be truthful to yourself. Most of us here believe in the bible. Somewhere in the bible it says: "the truth shall set you free". Not being truthful to yourself is like you tickling yourself to laugh or shovelling smoke.
If you want to lie to yourself, lie in the hands of a lover. And if you want to cheat, cheat death!
There are certain incidents that happen in our life, which helps shape, that life. All of us experience such incidents at one time or the other, but it's what we do with these experiences that matters.
Second Lesson:
Like most of us here, I was close to my mother and as a result learnt a lot from her just by watching how she conducted herself in life. It got to the point where I knew exactly what she wanted just by her facial expressions.
When I was a student she made a remark to me on one fine day, which helped shape my life. At one point during my student days, I had 7 suits in my wardrobe. Those days I went to church regularly with my mother whenever it was possible.
One Sunday, I stood in front of my wardrobe for quite some time, deciding which suit to wear to church. My mother, noticing the time I was taking to decide which suit to wear, remarked that, "If you had only one suit, you wouldn't be spending so much time deciding on which one to wear". That sentence from my mother set me thinking for quite sometime.
Why should I have only one suit I asked myself? I thought one must always be in a position to have a choice. One must have his own destiny under his control. You shouldn't place yourself in a position that restricts you from acquiring something that you desire.
Most often than not when we want something and we can't get it immediately, we give up without considering other options that may be available to us. The questions you should always ask yourself are: how can I achieve this? Is there another way to solve this problem? Am I missing something here?
Like most of you I was just an average student. However I learnt two things during my secondary school days that also helped shape my life in addition to my mother's remark, and I would like to share them with you today.
Third Lesson:
I learnt that you refer to a document as a good document only when you can get all the answers to questions that you may have in that document. In other words, any question you may have on the subject matter, you must find the answer to in that very document. If the document doesn't answer that question, then it lacks something. For me, it simply means that you should always complete the circle.
Forth Lesson:
Is something very unique. One of the students during our student days refused to help a woman who came to the school grounds to sell food to us to carry her tray in which she had her food. For some reason, this student was reported to our headmaster. The headmaster asked the student why he didn't help the woman. The student's reply was that the woman wasn't a lady. That was his reason for refusing to help the woman. To that, our headmaster turned to the student and said, "Young man, you don't help the woman because she is a lady, you help her because you are a gentleman."
I translated this to mean that you don't do things just to please a third person. You do it because you either believe in it or you enjoy doing it. Even if it's to the benefit of the third person you must derive some happiness in rendering that favour or service.
For example, when a husband goes shopping for the wife, the joy isn't only that of the wife receiving the dresses, shoes, handbags, jewellery, but the enjoyment that you, the husband, also derived from the shopping and seeing your wife wearing them. Now since money and time are what it takes to shop, you must know you have an expensive hobby. You better make sure that money comes from your investment cash flow because that's the only way you can sustain that happiness that both of you enjoy.
Entrepreneur v. Businessman
Some times you asked the difference between an entrepreneur and a businessman. I believe there is a big difference. Entrepreneurship is an art and it also separates the men from the boys to say the least. An Entrepreneur can be referred to as a businessman but not the other way round. I will give you examples to exhibit the difference.
All over the world successful Entrepreneurs are vital to the health of their national economy. A deeper understanding of our special characteristics will assist in the development of more creative and effective leaders. I want all of us here to help build a healthy economy for all Ghanaians.
Let's define hope, winning and focus and discuss their meaning.
Hope:
Aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, goal, plan, design, dream
Winning:
Probability, possibility likelihood, prospect
Focus:
Economic Opportunities Creating Jobs
Rule number one: If you don't take care of your customer someone else will!
Proactive and Reactive Thinking
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce to you, two concepts of how you should think as Entrepreneurs.
They are "Emotions' thinking", and "head thinking". I define emotions thinking as reactive thinking and head thinking, as proactive thinking. There is a big difference; in the way these concepts affect our daily lives. Emotions' thinking is a short-term solution to a long-term problem, and unfortunately most of us have only one solution in mind, which is the short term one. In other words, we follow the normal pattern.
We naturally react to a statement instead of responding to it. We should use our emotions to think but not think with our emotions. So, looking for long-term solutions to long-term problems is the beginning of 'head thinking'.
The terrain of our lives and the strength of the foundation that we set shape our achievements. In building the life we've imagined, we must be true to our beliefs, dare to be ethical, and strive to be honourable. For integrity, is the highest ground to which we can aspire.
Many people dream of success, while others wake up and work at it. Let's belong to the others who wake up and look for opportunities. If you want opportunity to come to you, you will wait till hell freezes over.
Finding Long Term Solutions to Long Term Problems
This is best shown by examples so I will use the ownership of a house as an example.
Let's say you own a house in a reasonably good location, and the rentable value of that house is C3,000,000.= per month. You have a choice to either live in your own house or to rent the house and get a rented place to live in.
One can always get a decent accommodation for C1,500,000.= per month in Accra to live in. It might not be in the same area where your own house is but that shouldn't matter if the subject is to generate cash flow. So it would be worth your while financially to rent out your house for C2,800,000.= and get a rented place for C1,600,000.= to live in. Right there you have C1,200,000.= in your assets column.
You have two advantages decreasing your rent a little bit and offering to pay a bit more for the house you want to rent. One, you beat the market by reducing your cash flow from your rent intake so you can get your house rented out quicker.
Secondly you again beat the market by offering to pay a little over the market price for the place you want to rent to live so you can get one quickly.
The second example in finding a long-term solution to a long-term problem is an article that I read in one of our local newspapers.
Presidential Palace:
As much as I wouldn't encourage a Government to manage a business, I would like to see Governments investing in businesses. There are many very low risk investments areas where the Government can invest the money i.e. in real estate and in the stock market, create jobs and derive tax from employees, companies and dividends/profits from those investments.
These routes would be 'head thinking'.
First, the economic opportunity and secondly creating jobs.
Seek Financial Skills
When Entrepreneur dreams of generating cash flow, he first thinks of professionals whose expertise he can tap, or better still, whose brains he can pick. What this does is to eliminate the fear that you may have going to unfamiliar areas. This is simply because the more you understand the subject, the less your fear of taking any risks are.
For example, if you want to go into real estate, speak to as many real estate agents and real estate developers as you possibly can reach. Learn as much about the subject as you can because that will lessen your fear of risk.
Professionals like your company lawyers, tax advisors and accountants will ensure that you stay within the law. It is absolutely important to stay within the law as an Entrepreneur.
Most of us know the cost part, but not the value part. If you have two identical properties built on exactly the same size of land in Nima and Cantonments for example, the cost of those two properties would be almost the same; however there would be a vast difference in their values as soon as the houses are completed.
Another example in seeking skills is that, we are taught to be cleaver at school but not taught how to hire cleaver people.
Hiring cleaver people to take care of your business gives you two advantages. One; it gives you an added value because you have a cleaver guy running your business and secondly it also gives you time to look for other opportunities out there. After all you are an Entrepreneur.
Education has always been and will continue to be the foundation of success. But just as scholastic and professional skills are important, financial and communication skills are equally important. Our parents expect us to become Engineers, Accountants, Medical Doctors, Lawyers etc., out of societal demands. Their concept is simply the old idea.
Get good grades and find a good job. We are always advised to work for companies, but never advised to own the company instead. Although both paths require education, the subjects of study are completely different. Unfortunately, the subject of money is not taught in the classrooms or lecture halls.
Formal education focuses on scholastic achievements, but not on financial skills. Thus we become Engineers, Accountants, and Lawyers etc. with excellent grades but still struggle financially throughout our lives because we are one skill away from the source of great wealth, which is financial skill.
Unfortunately, most of the highly educated people making financial decisions in some of our countries have little or no training at all on the subject of money. Otherwise they wouldn't say every day that ''we can't afford it'', instead of asking, "how can we afford it"?
Saying you cannot afford it, your brain stops working, whereas asking, "how can I afford it"; puts your brain in gear to work. Remember your brain is the most powerful computer in the whole world. Your brain gets stronger everyday because of challenges. Saying, I cannot afford it, is a sign of mental laziness. Proper physical and mental exercise increases your chances for wealth, and laziness decreases both your health and wealth.
So, for those with the Entrepreneurial spirit, instead of, "study hard so you can find a company to work for", the attitude should rather be study hard so you can own the company. Most parents are of the opinion that "the love of money is the root of all evil". At least that's what some parents tell us, but in reality it's rather "the lack of money, which is the root of all evil".
Most of us go through various educational institutions, thereafter find a good job, get a good salary and get ourselves into a nice little circle, which the Americans call the "rat race", simply because we lack financial skills, which is the only process through which we can solve our financial problems.
For example, the same lack of financial skills makes most people say their homes are their largest investment, which is another form of emotions' thinking. If your home is your largest investment then you are in trouble.
Building a house to live in is an example of emotions' thinking and as we all know, when it comes to money, high emotions tend to lower financial intelligence, because money has a way of making many decisions emotional. Building a house to live in is simply a liability. It's a complete loss of time, complete loss of capital and complete loss of education.
When I came to Ghana finally from my stay in Europe, I rented a place, where I lived for about 10 years. While staying at the rented place, quite a number of people thought I was wasting money on rent and in their opinion I had enough money to build my own house to live in. In reality, those people simply lacked financial intelligence. Instead of obliging their suggestions, I rather put my capital, financial education and time in my business, which gave me an asset base.
I grew that asset base till I could use the generated cash flow from the business to build a home for my family and myself. So ladies and gentlemen, I am not saying you shouldn't build a house to live in.
What I am saying is: you should first buy assets that will 'generate the cash flow' to pay for the house to live in. That is how 'head thinking' works for true Entrepreneurs.
Another example is, instead of learning how to write an impressive resume (CV), so you can find a good job with a reputable company or be a Chief Director in one of our Ministries, you should rather learn how to write a strong Business and Financial Plan so you can own a company and create jobs. So when you are confronted with a problem, instead of solving it in a particular way because that's the way everyone else does it, you should look for a long-term solution to a long-term problem, and instead of a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
Understanding Assets, Liabilities & Wealth
As an aspiring Entrepreneur, there are some other things that you have to know. You must know the difference between asset and liability and buy assets, which is not the number one rule but the only rule to become financially independent. Asset is something that puts money in your pocket and liability is something that takes money out of your pocket.
You must also know the difference between being broke and being poor. Being broke is a temporary situation but being poor is an eternal one. We often say, we are not interested in money or money doesn't matter. Of course money matters. Why? Because money is one form of power, however, what is more powerful though is financial education. You must master the power of money, not to be afraid of it. Money comes and goes, but if you have the education about how money works, you gain power over money and then you can begin to build wealth.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have introduced a new word "wealth" so we need to define that first. Someone defined wealth as a person's ability to survive so many days forward. This can also be perceived in terms of the following; if you stopped working today, how long could you survive.
If I have cash flow from my assets of C1,000,000.= a month and expenses of C2,000,000.= a month then I have a cash flow for half a month. When I have achieved C2,000,000.= a month cash flow from my assets then I will be wealthy.
I am not rich at this stage I am just wealthy. I have income generated from my assets each month that fully covers my monthly expenses. If I wish to increase my monthly expenses then I first have to increase my cash flow from my assets to maintain this level of wealth.
My next goal should be to have the excess cash flow from my assets reinvested into the assets column. The more money goes into my assets column, the more my assets column grows. The more my assets column grows, the more my cash flow grows.
When I keep my expenses less than the cash flow from these assets, I will grow richer, with more and more income from sources other than my physical labour. As this reinvestment process continues, I am well on my way to becoming rich. The actual definition of rich is in the eyes of the beholder. One never gets to be too rich.
Just keep this in mind: the rich and wealthy buy assets and generate cash flow, the poor only have expenses and the middle class buys liabilities that they think are assets (luxury cars, clothes etc.).
So it's up to us as individuals to decide which category we want to find ourselves. Buying assets to generate cash flow or buying liabilities and think you are buying assets.
There is this saying that if you get yourself a fish, you have one meal, but if you teach yourself how to fish, you always have a meal. That's 'head thinking' for you.
Financial Knowledge
The reason why positive thinking alone doesn't work is because most people never learn how money works. We spend our lifetime working for money, instead of letting money work for us.
The only reason why you want to be an Entrepreneur is to generate cash flow. In simple English you want to be financially independent. You want to be wealthy. You shouldn't care whether you do that by growing vegetables or fruits. You just want to generate cash flow, and if you want to do that, you need to be financially knowledgeable.
In essence, you capitalise on opportunities within the constraints of your SWOT analysis, being, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, relating to the activities you have identified.
Most of us fail to realize that in life, it's not how much money you make, but rather how much money you keep that matters.
Let's take the analysis we had earlier: If your monthly expenses become more than your monthly generated cash flow then you can count how long it will take for the money to be used up.
A very simple example: If you have C1,000,000.= in the bank and you take C10,000.= out of it everyday, you can count how long it would take to have the C1,000,000.= exhausted.
Now when you start thinking that you need to find a job, most likely your emotions' are doing the thinking. The fear of not having money generates that thought. You don't make money from getting a job. You make money from investment. You don't make money from your job. A job just gives you an income, period!
Emotions are what make us human and real. The word emotion stands for ''energy in motion''. Emotion is the seed of our livelihood. So as an Entrepreneur you must be truthful about your emotions and use your mind and emotions in your favour and not against yourself. "An education and a job are important, but they won't handle the fear of not having money,"
Surmount Misfortunes
Mind you, I have been in unsuccessful businesses where I lost money. So let me take the fear of losing money off you. Losing money is also part of the learning process to become an Entrepreneur. I don't know and have never heard of any successful Entrepreneur who hasn't lost money one way or the other in his life. But what it does is it prepares you for your next project. You learn from that which makes you stronger and more determined.
In business it's about intelligent risk taking. It's not so much whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up again that matters. You may go over, go under, go around or go through, but never give up. Courage does not always roar, sometimes it is the quite voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow". Adversity does not build character it rather reveals character.
Some Examples of Identifying Opportunities
My mother operated a store where she sold materials commonly known as Dumas, and another type known as grey baft. Normally the materials are displayed in the shop and people come into the shop, look at items displayed and decide whether or not to buy. In commercial terms that is sales. You have a shop where people come and buy from; it is as simple as that.
As a student, during my vacation, I would help my mother in the shop. One day I decided to take a walk along the lane where the tailors operated in the market. I was chatting with one tailor when he asked a boy walking by to go and buy him one yard of grey baft. I immediately said to him; ''oh let me do that for you''.
Now if the boy he was sending had gone to buy the material, I would not have control over where he would go to buy the material. There was no guarantee that it would be my mother's shop. So I went over to my mother's shop, brought him one yard of grey baft and collected the money. I then told him where I bought the material from, thus letting him be aware of the service that my mother's shop could give him.
That act from me spread amongst the tailors thus making them aware of my mother's shop. Marketing is the name of the game. After that, it became a routine for me, going through the tailors' lane and selling materials to them. That was an opportunity that I made use of.
What that meant was that my mother had an advantage over the other shop owners who only waited in their shops for people to come there to shop. That opportunity increased the cash flow generating avenues of my mother's shop.
I will come back to a few more of such opportunities I made use of in my business life to increase my asset base.
I will give you few examples of some opportunities that I spotted and how I took advantage of them and as a result generated cash flow from them.
Big companies operating anywhere in the world have non-core businesses that they need as support function to their main line of operations. Examples are their adverts, car rentals etc etc.
They would be glad to have someone take that over from them. What you need is research into those areas, find small companies who are equipped to render those services. You then become their agent and start your own little operation and grow it. This would only cost you your time, your brains and very little money but you have an opportunity to generate a descent cash flow.
How one applies Creative thinking to expand the Scope of one's Business?
In the early stages of my business life in Ghana, I used to go to Tema port at the weekends, park my car at the first shed, and walk from one shed to the other and around the compound of the port. I would collate the different consignments, their consignees and their origins. Why was I interested in the consignments? Simply because knowing the consignment, I can then find out where I can obtain the same items at more competitive prices and conditions for my potential customer.
The consignees, because I can get to my potential customer, to discuss why I think they should give me a chance to give them an alternate quotation the next time they require the product.
I need to know the country of origin in order to conduct research on my competitiveness.
I would then send the name of the consignment and its origin to my partners overseas. They would start looking for the product and the various prices. More importantly research the price in the country where the original consignment came from. Knowing the price that one can obtain in that particular country, can give us an idea of what the customer paid.
With this knowledge, I definitely have an advantage over the original supplier of the goods. Why, because I can reduce my margin and my delivery period which will make me more competitive. In other words, any percentage of hundred is better than 100 percent of zero. As the saying goes, a bird in hand is worth ten in the bush.
I did a lot of such research over many years and as a result captured quite a sizable amount of the market share, thus adding cash flow to my assets column. I also added value to my services, apart from giving my customers competitive quotations.
I assisted them to clear their goods from the port without any additional cost to them. This relieved them of the hustle that exists at every port. For me, I took the opportunity, which is the key word here, to get closer to my customers, and the value of this was enormous.
Another revenue service that I added was to transport their goods from the port to their warehouses at a more competitive cost to them. Ladies and Gentlemen, unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
By so doing, I got quite involved with the customers' operations in many ways. This gave me an advantage over my competitors in servicing them.
With that, I built confidence with my customers that gave me a long- term association with them, to the extent that, when they required other services, which weren't part of my program, they would contact me.
Of course I assisted them in obtaining those particular services, which sometimes, added additional line of business to my original lines. What did this mean to me? It gave me an additional cash flow into my asset column, which is why I was in the service industry in the first place.
Other Examples of Creative Thinking
Various Port Projects
The port is like a world of its own with numerous opportunities. I learnt most of the various operational activities that go on at the port especially the infrastructural areas, which involves the dredging, the use of the various vessels, the material handling equipment and also the container functions during my numerous visits to the port.
I also interacted a lot with the operators and the administrators there, who knew the complexity of port operations thus gathering valuable information without paying for it.
Normally we pay consultants to gather information to aid us to take business decisions and now I am getting the same information first hand and for free for that matter.
A leader's job is to look into the future, and to see the organisation not as it is, but as it can be. So, equipped with this magnitude of information, I searched for representations of first class companies.
The companies were not only world number one in their areas of operation but had a lot of clout with their individual Governments.
So when the World Bank gave Ghana funds for the development of the port, I was ready, to the extent that out of the 6 lots of tenders, totalling $36 million, the companies I represented won 4 lots totalling $34 million.
The companies won those lots because their ability to obtain grants from their Governments to support their bids made them so competitive that it was impossible for the others to beat them.
A 40% grant element meant that the competition had to have a bid value less than 60% of our bid and be just as good in quality. This is something that was impossible for the competition to achieve. That situation put us in a good position to generate significant business returns over a long period at the port.
Benefits of Stakeholders Participation in Investments:
Accra City Sanitation
Another important lesson in Entrepreneurship is to encourage stakeholder participation.
The best-structured deals are often those that promote "ownership" all around. Entrepreneurs keep their eyes on the horizon, not just on the bottom line. That's why they have vision.
When I gathered the information that, the sanitation in the city of Accra, needed to be looked at for a more permanent solution to the problems that it was facing, it represented an opportunity.
So I went to see the then Mayor to discuss the actual problems the city sanitation was facing. During the discussion I suggested a possible solution, which the Mayor thought, was a good idea. The Mayor at that stage had received quite a number of other proposals from other interested companies.
But to my knowledge none of them had the solution that I had suggested, which was to have a value added consortium with the stakeholders, namely AMA being part of it, to manage the City sanitation.
With this concept, we got our contact in Canada, one of the networks you build up as an Entrepreneur, to search for a possible strategic partner and also investigate how we could raise funds from the Government of Canada for such a project. A Canadian company, which didn't only manufacture the relevant equipment but was also an operator and moreover had some experience in two West African countries, was identified.
Our associate also located a possible line of credit from Canada to Ghana, which he thought could be used for the project and at a later stage worked on it to become a grant to Ghana.
We informed the then Mayor of AMA and with his acceptance, got the Canadian company to come to Ghana to have a discussion with AMA. Delegations from AMA and the Ministry of Local Government went to inspect and also to investigate the company's work in the two other African Countries where they were operating, which they found satisfactory.
Another Government delegation went to visit their factory in Canada to assess their capabilities. The Canadian company at no cost to AMA conducted a feasibility study and this resulted in forming the consortium to undertake the project.
Four companies formed the consortium, two local companies (including AMA) and two foreign companies, one being purely an investment company and other, the strategic partner. The project was successfully executed, and the Canadian management team together with our associates in Canada were able to convince the Government of Canada to convert the loan to a grant to Ghana. All parties were happy, looking forward to their cash flow.
The deal I structured with the strategic partner was, first for my company to have the option of buying 10% of their share at a future date at cost, for introducing them to the business simply because at the time the business had to take off we didn't have money to buy equity and since we did a considerable amount of work towards the success of the project, I thought that was a fair deal.
Besides even if we had the money for our equity it was better to use that money for something else and take that opportunity at a later date.
Secondly, I requested to be given the chance to quote them, for the trucks, vans and computers, which they required for the project. Already my company represented companies dealing with two out of the three items mentioned.
We were competitive with the vans but not with the computers, so they brought in the computers from Canada and bought the vans from us. The make of truck for the waste collection that they used was mostly Ford. Ford had a representation in Ghana.
So if they went along the Ford route it would fit the famous saying, "Monkey de work and Baboon de chop".
Rather I got them to give me a chance to search for a truck dealership that had a better price and better conditions to enable me get the order.
I went searching and got the biggest truck manufacturing company in the world with competitive prices and conditions. So there too an opportunity was identified and worked at.
The search for this wasn't an easy one, let alone the price that came with it. But sometimes we learn the hard way and it doesn't pay to get discouraged.
Positive thinking is an intellectual choice, and by keeping our eyes focused on the light of optimism, we can restore faith in ourselves and stay clear of the shadows.
Conclusion
The Entrepreneur, who is proactive in his thinking and have strong values for what he believes in, has good business ethics and integrity in his approach and generous to mankind, can stand any stormy weather that may come in his path. The highest courage for an Entrepreneur is to dare to be himself in the face of adversity. An Entrepreneur should have integrity to choose right over wrong, to choose ethics over convenience, and to choose truth over popularity; these are the choices that measure your life as an Entrepreneur.
So up and coming Entrepreneurs travel the path of integrity without looking back; for there is never a wrong time to do the right thing. Just take note, that in life you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
In simple words, there are many ways to generate cash flow; you only have to get yourself a guide.
In life you need to resolve to succeed. The greatest discovery one can make is that nothing is impossible.
Ladies and gentlemen if you spend too much time in a sugar factory you forget what honey tastes like. You guys had a good lunch.
I am sure your heads are full of questions. I will be glad to take them.
Thank you for listening.