Small Mistakes That Kill Businesses in a Big Way

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Today I want us to look at simple decisions that can kill small businesses. Yes, this is not directly sales or marketing related, but I want us to look at this today because I got invited yesterday to be a guest on the radio show. And the the show is called Chook Your Mouth. Yeah, yeah, I think. Yeah, Chook Your Mouth. Yeah, I think that's what it's called. So anyway, the host of the show reached out to me, a very senior colleague, and I was like, hey,

my Co host is not available, can you come on Thursday and this is what we're going to talk about, simple decisions that kill small businesses. I was like, yeah, cool, I can do that because actually it's something I can talk about. And of course, I always keep things limited to I'm a sales and business development perspective because you know, that's my background. So from a sales perspective, yeah, sure, I can go and sit down and have a chat for one hour about simple decisions,

simple mistakes that kill Nigerian businesses. So I told the guy, sure, no problem. I agree. No, Allah then that's how I was just going on. And then on Thursday morning, well, about getting ready, the guy sends me a message. I checked my phone, Pimpim. I checked. I saw it. And then the guy was like, oh, by the way, the program is in pigeon. Can you cope or more? I was scared because, you know, I didn't grow up speaking pigeon English because my father was a journalist, Mom.

She also started off as a journalist. Later on, mom, she would be a public relations officer for the Hilton Hotel. Then from there she would become a marketing and advertising exec in Lagos. So basically my household was not the kind of household that used to speak pitch in English. And the little that would even speak, you know, my parents would try and stamp it out. And then back then as as a matter of educational policy itself, because I think it still exists even in the school system, you know, teachers wouldn't encourage you to speak pitch in English.

So apart from, you know, a few phrases now, you know, like when you're talking to your guys or something like that, I've never ever, ever, ever been in a situation where I had to maintain a conversation in pitching English for one hour straight. But anyway, you know, I'm guys represent now. So I sent a message back to the guys. I don't normally speak English, but anyhow, we go run up. The guys say correct, I like that.

I said no problem. So Thursday evening now, now I was yesterday drove down to the studio. I got there and inside the studio the guy was running late. Then when was time I didn't see the guy like 5 minutes to. So I begin to prepare now because after all I'm a professional so I can anchor the whole show by myself. I was saying it's even good now we won't anchor it by myself because then I can now control the tempo, the pacing of the pigeon.

But then the guy showed up. I said, hey, wahala, it's time for us to go live. And then the, you know, the usual background check you do before you go live now. OK, so this is how we run it. You know, this is all we talk about. This is this that, that, that. What did you prepare? I said, OK, no problem, let's go live. Let's go. I was ready, you know, and this is me thinking, OK, pigeon English, no problem. I was going to come out with the flavor, you know, the normal of flavor now, you know, like secondary school, university,

you know, that kind, that flavor of pigeon English. So the show begins and then he's like, ah, shook your mouth, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then this guy starts using a broadcast pigeon. You know, the kind of pigeon that they do on Wasobia FM and BBC. You know, BBC also has a, a pigeon radio station, like broadcast quality pigeon. As the guy was talking, in my mind I was thinking I am screwed. I am majorly screwed as I go from in front of million of people.

When the guy was a champ, he was a good pro. At some point, you know, he turned to me alive one day, his bras, I say they sweat and I started laughing. It was good. You know, he brought the mood down and then he had to tell the people basically that the reason why, even though we're inside studio and Studio Gacy, the reason why they sweat is because I don't speak virgin English and, you know, was supposed to talk about things that kill small businesses in Niger.

You're teaching English anyway, I made it happen by the time I was leaving. I mean, of course, yes. The studio engineer laughed at me. Who else? Again, the mixer laughed at me. Some other people who are there, you know, like they they applauded me. They say I tried. They say I tried If I'm one of the staff of the radio station. When she saw me coming out of the boot, she's like, what are you doing here? And I told her, she said, Are you sure?

Is it for this show? Then she started laughing because she knows me and she knows that I can't carry on the conversation for one whole hour in pigeon English. So anyway, that's the adventure that I was up to yesterday. So your boy has achieved another milestone. Yesterday I was on the radio and I spoke about simple decisions that kill small businesses. And I had to do that for one whole hour using broadcast Pigeon. And honestly speaking, I don't think I'm going to do that again because man was tough.

It was tough. Now I know what some of you go through when I say, look, it's very easy. Just prepare the script, blah, blah, blah. You know, set up the microphone, you know, just go, you know, is I guess it's because I'm making content for a while. I've forgotten what it's like that in the midst of creating your content, in the midst of doing your delivery, you are now paying attention to the words that you use and things like that.

So yeah, now the experience gave me a little bit more sympathy for you guys. So now when I'm advising you guys and I say, look, go ahead, blah, blah, blah, I'll try and be more gentle because having experienced it, you know, it brought back, you know, lots of memories. You know, like when you are, you know, that whole thing of you're trying to give a presentation, but then you're also conscious of every single word that you're using.

So yeah, that was fun. That was fun. Anyway, so today we're going to look at simple decisions that kill small businesses because some of the things that we spoke about on the on the radio show, I think they're really important. So let me just come over here and make this podcast recording. Now some of you might say, why don't I just get the audio and put over here? Well, it's it's complicated for my own radio station.

The that's really the engineer has already overworked. So I don't want to give him my work by saying guy beg, RIP that audio file and then give me. Then there's also intellectual property concerns, you know, who owns the property, who owns the copyright with these sorts of things. So yes, you know, I'm the talent and I'm the one on the show, but you know, I I haven't practiced law in a while, but you know, that's some legitimate issues there.

Like who owns the copyrights to to the broadcast recording? You know, is it the radio station? Is it the producer? If it's the radio station, what are the limitations? You know, where can you use it? Where can't you use it? All those sorts of things. So that's the reason why I come here and I make these summary recordings. Oh, by the way, for those of you listening to the broadcast for the first time, my name is Tavishima Ayede.

I'm a former lawyer turned business consultant. And yes, I also host a radio show. And now I have guested on somebody else's radio show. So that's the background in case you're hearing me say all these things. They are wondering who is this guy and what's this whole thing about? Now this particular stream that you're listening to, here's my podcast. And over here what we do is business goodness, I come here almost every day trying to solve business problems.

So we explore problems that people face in business, excuse me, still recovering from a cold, especially problems that can be solved by using good sales technique, good sales, good marketing practices. So that's what we do over here on the podcast. And just in case you're curious because you've never heard the name Tavishima before. Nope, I am not German. No, I am not. OK, Well, the name is not German. The name is not Irish.

The name is not Indian. The name is not, you know, wherever else you know people say comes from. The name is Steve. I'm Steve. I'm from Benway State. So yes, I am that one Benway boy that you know who is on the podcasting airwaves, if you can't put it that way. All right, So yeah, then if you'd love to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140 in case you hear anything during this podcast recording.

And so excuse me, we discussed some simple decisions here that kill businesses, and then you recognize that you're facing one of those issues. If you like my opinion on something like that, then yeah, sure, reach out. 08064662140. When you're reaching out, don't be shy. No, they're here. I'm OK with giving people free business advice. Just let me know in the very first message that that is what you want and that's the reason why you're reaching out to me.

Then we'll schedule a call and I'll answer one question only for those of you who are shy and don't want to talk because I actually did meet. Well, not meet per SE, because she sent me a message on WhatsApp. And in the six years I've been doing this, I finally met one podcast listener who actually did not want to talk. Most people, when I say let's go on the call, you know, they look forward to it. And then some people are surprised that I actually do call because they don't expect me to call.

But yeah, I've actually met one person who didn't want to talk over the phone. So in case you're like that, sure, no problem, let me know and I'll answer that one question by text. But then if you want us to go in depth to explore some of these errors, how it relates to your business and to create a plan for coming out of it, we'll have to set up a consult consulting session. And don't worry, we have, I have packages available all the way from big boys, big boys and girls, middle class boys and girls all the way down to our no get money.

We have packages for you. So except if you have 0 naira, then you're just limited to one question only. All right, so let's go straight into it now because I've already wasted like 10 minutes on preamble. OK, so simple decisions that kill small businesses. By the way, I'm not going to do this in pigeon English. So if you are waiting to hear me go off in Broadcast Pigeon for the next 20 minutes, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm never doing that again.

That was just too tough. OK, so First off, you know, I'd like to define things so that we're all on the same page now. Simple just means it doesn't have too many parts. You're not considering too many things. Another way for another, or let's say now alternative, a different word for saying that would be small. So small errors. But unfortunately, these errors have big implications for your businesses. In fact, at this point in the show, I had to the the host of the show, Father Sly, I had to argue Father Sly because Father Sly was saying that lots of people, you know, some people say no weapon fashion against me shall prosper.

OK, Now Father Sly was saying that some people, it's not even a matter of enemies, are fashioning something against you like you are the one who is bringing your business down by yourself. And I was happy to hear him say that because it's something I've been saying steady on this podcast and I say a lot that look, there are lots of things that are mitigating against the business. You know, the economy is harsh and yes, maybe pop sequel to somebody in a village.

So some people are putting eye on your family and they don't like you and they don't like your progress. Definitely now on day and maybe your employees, you know, they're all thieves and you know all of that. So all these issues are there standard, but then there are things that you yourself, the business owner or the professional sales person, there's some things that you you're using your hand to do and it's bringing you down.

So my focus has always been on let us fix these errors, at least the one with their hand, you know, the one that we can address. Sharp, sharp, deal with those ones and don't worry about the enemies later. All right? As if we can do anything about the enemies. Because honestly speaking, you know, if people are giving you a bad eye from the village, I also don't know the solution, you know, just sit down and pray, I guess.

Alright, so we looked at it in a couple of buckets. We looked at financial decisions that bring your business down, personal decisions that bring your business down, operational decisions that bring your business down and then strategic decisions that bring your business down. Now, of course, financial decisions are decisions that are related to naira and Kobo, related to money. And some of the things that we spoke about over on the show yesterday were Co mingling, poor record keeping, taxes and then salary.

So Co mingling is something that we've spoken about a lot on the podcast because people calling and they have the, so I'm not calling, excuse me, people send me messages and they're having these sorts of issues in their business. And unfortunately, because I am a sales specialist, not a financial or personal wealth or you know, that is not my strong suit. So this is not something I can help people on at all, at all. But at least I know enough to tell people that you shouldn't be doing this.

So the first financial decision that brings people's business down is Co mingling. Now, Co mingling just means you're running joint accounts have been mixed accounts, you know, so you want to pay school fees and then you take money from the business account and then you pay school fees. You know, you're in the market, you want to buy food and then you take money from the business account and then you use it to buy food or somebody wants to place an order.

You tell the person to send it into your personal account. Later on you intend to remit it back into the corporate account. But you know how these things are now. Once it enter your personal account, you spend one or two things here and then later on you're trying to track how much did Caviarzi transfer? Did he transfer 2.8 million or did he transfer 2.765? You know, so that is where things start getting a little hazy.

Now, the reason why this is a problem is because when you're doing joint business, remember that when you get into business, the whole point is you're trying to make a profit. When you're, you know, mixing account like this, you just join everything like that. You actually cannot figure out what is your profit and what is your loss. You cannot sit down and you can't decide whether this business is moving forward in a healthy manner or whether this business has quite a shocker.

And so if you can't decide if the business is healthy, if it has problems and where the problems might be, how you go about rescuing the business. But then again, if you're just commingling funds like this, you end up eating your capital, as you like to say, in this part of the world. So the way someone explained it to me when I was much younger was this because I'm from Benoit State, I'm from farming community, you know, Benoit State, Natural State, Plateau State, you know, all those areas or from traditional farming communities.

So the way someone explained it to me was this, Let's say you're a farmer and you have 100 heads of yam. No, I don't know how to describe it. Like, you know, the the top of yam, the one that sprouts that green thing, you know, you cut it, you can use that to plant other yams. So let's say you have 100 of those and then you go and you plant 100 and then the harvest is good and maybe you harvest. So excuse me, you, you harvest,

I don't know, 120 or 150. So the guy explained it to me is this. If you harvest 150 yams and then you eat all 150, you eat everything clean mouth as in eat it nice. By the time the next planting season comes round, you do not have anything to plant again because you ate it all. So those of you who farm cause me to be honest, I never did any farming. The most farming I did was in Agrik when we studied at Agrik in GSS 1, GSS 123.

That's the last farming I did because we farmed watermelon, we farmed corn, we farmed yam, and I can't remember what else you know, It was part of the practical. You have your plot, you, you farm your crop. And yeah, it was an exciting, it was an exciting time. I had this bright idea that I would urinate on my corn to give it, to give it fertilizer. And I found out, I found out the hardwood that unfortunately urine isn't, let's just say if you want to, if you're looking for fertilizer, go and get fertilizer.

Don't, don't urinate on your on your plants. It's not a good idea. It kills them. So where was I now? So if you harvest 150 heads of yam, you don't eat all 150, you keep some. So that's how the person who explained it to me, that's how the person explained the seed capital. So the rationale is the same. In business, you don't eat oil money. So money comes in, you know, if if, if, if 2026 turns out to be a good year and you make 140

million in profits, you don't go and spend all 140 million. You flex with some. Some is meant to be reinvested back into the business. And that's all to guarantee future returns. You know, for 2027. Yeah. I'm making this podcast recording as at 2026. Right. Sorry. Excuse me. Yeah, I know it's unprofessional to be sniffling. I'm just recovering from a cold. So. Yeah. So you'll be eroding your capital. So that's why commingling not good at all.

You can't figure out if the company is healthy or not. And in the case that the company is healthy, you might be shopping your capital and you have absolutely no idea. Then of course you spoke about the dangers of not doing good record keeping, not tracking your expenses and inputs. And so because of that, you can't even figure out profit or loss. If you don't know whether your company is healthy or not, you know it affects the, you know,

all the, the planning and the activities that you do to try and get things back on track. All I put it, you need to know that your business is off track first of all before you can rescue it. And if you're not been keeping good records, you're not going to be able to do that. Then of course, taxes, lots of us don't pay our taxes and we are lucky that the civil service in Nigeria is poorly manned and funded. So because of that, it takes a while, but eventually you will hear from them.

I've heard from tax people twice. My brother, before he left for our Agri business, he heard from tax people once. I've met some people who have never heard from tax people at all. That is, they never track you down, they never send you a letter. But chances are eventually they'll find you and they will calculate everything for you because you didn't give them figure. They will manufacture figures and calculate for you.

They'll say, look, you started this business in the year 2020, it's currently 2026. We've never seen you file any single thing. So for value added tax, this is what you owe for corporate income tax, this is what you owe for this disease, this is and then come and slam you 10s of millions or hundreds of millions. And then quarrel will start. And if you're able to settle the bill, and let's just say it's, it's not, it's not, it's not a nice process and you can end up spending quite a bit of money from paying the penalties.

To pay for lawyers, to pay for accountants or whatever. Then another mistake that we looked at was salary. Father Sly was shocked. OK, not shocked. Maybe he did it for dramatic effect. But at this point, when I mentioned the salary thing, the studio engineer, the guy put his hand on his head because he had never heard that before. So lots of us who run businesses, we don't know actually, but we're supposed to pay ourselves salary the same way you pay a cleaner the salary, you pay your marketer salary, you pay your store clerk salary, you pay everybody's salary, even you all guys supposed to get a salary fixed and you pay your and it comes up with an accountant because you know this number specialty.

So your salary fixed, you pay taxes on top your own salaries off. So the way my first accountant explained it to me is that lots of we business owners in Nigeria, we have this cultural drawdown. Drawdown just means, you know, you need to do something. You just took an inside the company expense and then you just draw down, collect money. You want to sort yourself at the end of the month, you don't have a fixed salary.

So you just took an inside company account and then you draw down. So we have this cultural drawdown, drawdown for my accountant at the time, the one that was the first accountant. The way he advised me was, look, continue to draw down, but shall I write the drawdown? Let me see the drawdown, then we'll discuss all the drawing down. The one that was necessary. The one that was not necessary will now know how to approach on everything.

But shall he warned me, Stanley, I suppose they pay myself salary. So yeah, you should be paying yourself a salary. So these are some small errors that will make that make it difficult for us to grow our businesses. And you can see that for the financial decisions that we've discussed here, you know, they, they impinge on our ability to determine whether the company is running at profits or running at a loss. And in some cases, we're going to end up eroding the capital that we should be using to invest in, you know, the next round of business growth.

Then we looked at personal decisions. I brought up the issue of work ethic. And that's because, OK, at this point now, I've spend most of my time in Abuja instead of Lagos. I don't know how negotiates, I don't know how old are they run? You know, I don't know how you guys run your things. But in Abuja, there's this whole idea of, you know, my own boss. And so some people just, you know, whatever, you know, I only be at the office at 10:00.

They'll go in at 10:00 tomorrow. Let me go in at 2:00 next tomorrow. Oh, OK, let me come in at 7:00 AM. So they just do it anyhow. Anyhow, up, down, up, down. Sometimes you wake up and say I don't feel like it so you won't come into the office again. SO1 error that we're all lots of us are making is we're not treating it like our brothers and sisters. We're in 9 to 5 S Our brothers and sisters would answer, Olga would answer, yes, Sir.

You know, they have fixed times clocking at 8:30, clocking at 9. Do not clock out at 4-5. We should have a similar attitude. I respect that. So, but you know, decide you know, if it is 12 to 6 and then do your 12 to 6. If it is 9:00 to 8:00 in the evening, do your 9 to 8, whatever a teacher just decide and then stick to it. Then we also looked at a case study. Well, not a case study per SE. Yeah, a case study because the host for the slide wanted to know about one of his neighbors who runs apos business and the guy does to do anyhow anyhow and we we looked at it and know that this guy is losing lots of money because he likes to stroll into the market like around 12 one but then fathers lines reasoning and he's very correct is that at least in Abuja anyway, there are lots of people who say like, oh,

the market is terrible. There's no parking it is hot and then I have to go to work. So what lots of people do is that they try and target early morning you know go to the office signing then rush to the market you know buy one or two things and then come back you know sharp sharp. So there's an early morning rush, people trying to get in from the market. So he was advising his friend, Look, you're losing revenue. And that's one thing some of you don't understand.

Some of you say, oh, I'm my own boss. But then you're not paying attention. In fact, you're not your own boss. The customer is the boss. That's the bad news I'm bringing for you guys today. You're not your own boss. The customer is the boss. So it's customers that determine like what's up if you want to be sleeping and waking up every day by let's say 11:00 in the morning, then you now stroll into the office or stroll into your studio by 12 one.

But by then 12/1, there's really like maybe 30 messages in your Instagram DM because people are asking for people are making inquiries. Then I'm, I'm sorry, it's not up to your preference anymore. By the time you show up at 11:12, there's already 20 messages. You guys should be coming earlier. If people start sending messages from around 7:00 in the morning, then hey, I guess that should be your start time. But you're not your home boss and we need to have a work ethic like our brothers and sisters who are doing 9:00 to 5:00.

So decide show up. The reason why this is a problem is if you don't put in the hours, you're not going to do enough work to gain traction on your business idea. It's that simple. Other people who are doing the work, they will come and overtake you sharply. So you know, this is one of the reasons why I say it's not the idea that is the main thing. It's the, the execution. This business idea you have, you are not the only person who has this idea.

If you like, don't execute it well, another person who is sharp, who is not sleeping, who is not slacking, will go on overtake you. You'll be shouting. But I thought about it first. I was the originator, like who does not want to help? You're the originator, but the other person is not making all the money. And So what? So that was one then. OK. We also looked at energy management because entrepreneurs, business people,

self-employed people, yes, it's a pandemic. We don't we don't sleep. We're very lousy with our sleep because we think we're our own boss. And so because we don't sleep, we're stressed, we're overweight, what else? And then we have cognitive impairment. That means you're not sleeping. So because of that, you are not thinking well. You are not thinking fresh. You won't realize how bad it is until, you know, maybe one day you have a very good night.

And then you realize that, oh, OK, So this thing I've been doing since, you know, for the last decade, I've just been suffering myself. So poor judgment because you're not sleeping well, you're not exercising. Good, good judgment at all, at all at all in your business. So make sure you get some rest. And we spoke about some operational issues in managing a business. Some of them you guys are already familiar with because I

keep talking about it over and over again. And I spoke about how people have no, SO PS no standard operating procedures in their business. And I defined an SOP as an instruction that you give to your employees because remember this show was impeaching. So whenever I was dropping any of these big terms like standard operating procedure, I had to now define them. And for you to understand my plight, can you now think about how you would define the standard operating procedure in Broadcast Pigeon?

Man, that was an experience and I am glad, I'm very glad that none of you were there to hear it because you guys did have spent more time laughing than paying attention to what it is that I, that I was saying. It was dreadful. I'm glad none of you heard it, and I am glad that none of you ever will. And I'm not doing that again. So no Sops because we need to leave some form of instructions so that we know before we can delegate things to people.

So from a sales perspective, now, that's one that vex me the most. I'm currently talking to someone who wants to scale his business and he wants to hire a head of sales and things like that. And in fact, there's more than one guy and I'm trying to get them to understand that. Look, relax, relax. Let's pause this thing for like 2 months first. Let's pause for two months because you're bringing in somebody to head business, to head sales.

But The thing is, you're not giving this person a playbook. You're not giving him a script, You're not telling him this is who we're chasing. This is how we sell. This is how we do this. This is how we do that. The guy will call me and begin to use idea to run your own business. He'll be using his own idea to run his own. His own idea to run your own business. Can you see the tension thereof? Of course. We'll end up doing things that will piss you off.

But don't blame him. You didn't give him instruction now. You didn't give the guy outline. You brought the guy in. The guy talks good. He looks good. Or, you know, the baby's fine. She's yellow. She get connection. You know it's OK. Yeah, sure. Begin. Start on Monday. Next you begin the quarrel. You say I thought you were a salesperson. It's massive. She's a bad salesperson. She just brought her in and left her on her own.

You didn't give her guideline. So what is she doing now? Of course she's manufacturing. You know, she's making stuff up as she goes or she's running it how she will run it if it was her own business. Meanwhile, her own idea. No blend with your own idea so you can have these conversations. So that's why I tell people, look, before we bring in somebody to be head of sales, head of this head of that like relax your current selling process.

How well do you understand it? Let's put it down in writing. What can we put on paper so that by the time we're bringing somebody in the nature of the conversation will be now look, welcome to this organization. This is what we're about. This is what we do. These are the customers you run after. This is how we go after them. This is our playbook. This is how we go and grow sales. Look at this framework. Can you apply this framework or can you improve upon this framework?

That will be the conversation. When you have that kind of thing, it makes your job a lot easier because there's some people who come in and say, oh, really now, Sona, they do. I'm, I'm sorry, I can't do this. So for one of my customers and one of my clients, you know, that's, that's how I was wanted to bring in the sales manager and they thought the person was a good candidate. And so they handed her over to me to have a conversation with her.

Oh, by the way, I don't offer this as a service, only do it for people who are my friends. And you're only my friend if you have given me money. So obviously there's somebody who has given me money before. So for me to look at somebody as a sales manager, you know, sure it's not a problem. But if you want to have a chat about candidates that you want to employ, call me, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message. 0806466 2140.

Remember, if you want free advice, one question only, you want us to do something in depth and you want us to become friends. You guys to pay me money, Then where was I? So she was like, Oh yeah, sure, I can do this, I can do this. And then I all said, OK, good. I noticed that where you are coming from, where you are coming from, the organizations you have worked with before, those ones were outbound organizations. The strategy there was outbound.

You wake up, you go out, you begin to pursue people. This one that you're coming into is mostly an inbound LED organization. That is, they're putting things out on social media, they're running advertisements, they're trying to entice customers to come in. So I asked her, will that be a problem for you? She was like, well, I can still be doing outbound. Should I say? Of course, no, of course you can. You can still be doing all those things.

Traditionally, what you do before, it's not a problem, but you just know that the bulk of the work is you're in the office and you and your team are making phone calls and receiving phone calls. Say no problem, she can do it. Then when we started now discussing particular outbound strategies that she wants to employ, that doesn't quite gel with the company that she's being interviewed for. You can see all these kind of conversation now.

This is the reason why we need to have some of these things in writing. This is who we are. These are our customers. This is how we chase them. This is how we close the deal. This is how we toss them. This is how negotiate this, how you know everything. By the time you start talking to somebody, some people can say, oh, is it like this? Oh, I'm sorry, I can't do that. And then they will leave and you know, there's no quarrel.

It's better to do things like that that for you to do by force. By force. You want to hire somebody and then you hire the person and then later you will start quarreling. You see, it's not as if these, these people, these are sales managers that you hire and, and sales people, it's not as if they're bad people. It's just that you did not come up with a standard operating procedure. You didn't tell them what is what. You didn't tell them what's up.

You didn't tell them that, look, this is my house. That's all with their own things. So they have come in and they're using their own idea. Their own idea is not blending with your own idea. So therefore there will be quarrel just one of those things. So we all need to have standard operating procedures in our businesses. Even if you don't have anywhere else a beg for sales, there needs to be very, very clear guidelines.

You don't just bring in boys and girls and say, Oh yeah, go and sell. Nah, it's not like that. You guys give them some guidance if you don't have Sops, standard operating procedures to be any quality control in your business. So salespeople, they will just be anyhow. Anyhow, some will be up, some will be down. No quality control when it comes to producing your your product. Let's say you know, you run the fashion outfit.

There's no standard operating procedure. This is how we stitch. This is how we cross stitch. This is how we bid. This is how we sold that. This is how we do this is how we do that. There's no template your customers club to just be up and down just be. Anyhow, no quality control. So standard operating procedure, quality control, nice customer experience. Yeah. So as I would need all these operational issues buttoned up.

Then on strategic, OK, we didn't get to discuss strategic planning and all that because we ran out of time. But on the strategic thing, I'd say the biggest mistake we make is we don't take time to, we don't take time to breathe and reflect, which is normal because you know, Nigeria is, you know how Nigeria is now a lot of us are just getting by, you know, just the raw farm, you know, week to week, day-to-day, month to month.

So you get to the end of the year, you breathe a sigh of relief, you do some more dirty December and then January you're back on the horse, begin the horse again. But we actually need to do periodic review. We need to take time, we need to take stock. You know, every single quarter we relax and say, OK, how do we do what happened? Well, every single month we relax, OK, how do we do what happened? Did we keep the goal?

Did we go higher? Did we go lower, lower? Like what's going on? So quarterly or monthly or yearly or whatever sharp guys be doing periodic review, we hit our goals, you know, all these kind of things. So I'm having all these conversations on a on a periodic basis that you now know is the company growing? I'll be, is he dying? I'll be are we stagnating? Then you now know, you now be able to brainstorm and figure out the things you need to do to move the business forward.

Now, if you don't do this, as far as strategy and growth are concerned, you don't know these periodic reviews. What happens is after a while, you stagnate. You become irrelevant because you're still doing the same thing in 2026 that you are doing in 2021. But your competition, you know, they're more agile, they're more sharp, you know, and because of that, they'll be able to plot one or two things. And before you know it, they overtake you.

Someone they used to look at before as a small boy, you wake up one day and the guy is yoga. So me and my former business partner, Shagun used to handle video was that sort of thing. You know, there was a time when if you came to Abuja and you called any name, anybody knew. The guys I used to work with video, everybody knew them. But then there were these upstarts who came in and before you know it, I won't call the company name.

But now they're everywhere, everywhere. This is the last British Council gig that they were doing I think for inclusive schools that I tried bidding on it like I didn't even stand a chance because those people don't like they have cornered the market, they collect everything. So any big event that is going on now, international corporate center, things like that, you see there are trucks everywhere, there are trucks everywhere,

there are logos everywhere, there are cameramen like they Jaws, you know. So the people that I outsource my video to, you know, they had a head start because they have been in Abuja for quite a long time. But you get comfortable, you're not taking time, you're not doing periodic reviews, you don't sit down, you don't think, you're not strategizing. Another person will come either with better strategy or better capital or better execution.

They will just leap for you. And before you know it, the only thing you will say is, you know, I was a pioneer, but of course, I was a pioneer does not pay the bills. And then of course, nobody will believe you anyway. So it's like with me and this consulting thing and this podcasting thing, but I don't play my cards right. In other 10 years, if some other young buck has come and overtaken me, the best I can say is that I started before him.

But who will believe me? Because people will look around and say, uncle, yeah, we see you, but we also see this guy or we see this girl shining bright, shining star. Don't even believe me anyway. So forget about bragging rights. Let's take time. Let's review, let's strategize. And overall, sharp, let's stop doing all this much more mistake that kill our businesses. So if you'd love to get in touch, if you want to connect,

you can call, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064662140. If you've heard anything that you clearly identify with and you think it might be an issue, you want to have a quick conversation to see how we can help resolve some of those issues. No wahala, just reach out 08064662140 if you want free advice. It's not a problem. I'm open to that. Just make sure you tell me in the first conversation. Make sure you tell me in the first message.

Make sure you tell me in the first DM. That is free advice that you're looking for. We'll set up a time, we'll have a conversation. You don't want to talk over the phone. You're shy, that is not a problem as well because having spoken page in English for one hour yesterday, I can understand when you're doing something and it's not comfortable, you know it's not fun. So you're not comfortable with that. Cool. We'll continue chatting, but I

will answer one question only if for your advice is what you're looking for. If you want us to go in depth, some of these operational issues, some of these financial issues, in fact, for the financial issues, to be honest, I suppose refer you to somebody else because that's not my area of Forte. But at least I'll be able to tell you what the problem is and then tell you which other kind of professional you should be looking for next.

Because fixing it will not be my own area of specialty. But you want us to go in depth, figure out whether these problems exist, how bad the problems are, come up with a plan, then we'll have to set up a proper consulting session. So if you're a big boy or girl, you're like Khashoggi, I got you. If you're a middle class person, no problem, I got you. You don't get money, No problem, I got you. If you're totally broke, like zip 099, no problem, I got you.

I'll answer one question. Either way, you reach out to me. I promise you, you definitely will get some value. I promise you there's nobody who hasn't come across my path, who has not said that was a valuable experience. There has been nobody that said, OK, well, there's one, one of my one of my ex girlfriends. It's not as if I have many. Yeah, but for her, yeah, she she says that meeting me was an absolute waste of time.

So apart from my ex, everybody else has come across my path. They say they got value for me. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you all some other time.