Saturday, February 13, 2010

BUSINESS SERIES 7: WHAT GATES DID THAT YOU HAVEN’T


INTRODUCTION
The marketplace is an interesting arena; few people understand it because few people study it. Folks go there to obtain goods, services, wages and returns on investment but it took certain folks to conceptualize and create the marketplace. The point is that the marketplace is man-made!
Like the “father Christmas” and “Valentine’s day” euphoria that generates billions of dollars in sales volume each year, business men will keep on creating cash yielding concepts  that  can be factored virtually into everything, religion not excluded.
Business to some “practitioners” is all about the bottom line; cash returns, but to some others it is a vocation, any potential and practicing business person if he/she would go far must be able to understand trends. Things don’t just happen, people happen to things and one has to understand why. When next you see a new product on the shelve, look closer and meditate on the concept behind it, the rationale of the developer, the response of the industry and the merit of the venture. You’ll be surprised to learn that you could predict trends from mere observation and deductive reasoning even in industries you know little about. For instance certain stocks on the Nigerian stock market would shoot up for the next two years to an astronomical level e.g. Diamond bank because they have a clean bill of health compared to their contemporaries and Pension funds must be invested! (I happen not to deal in stocks much). And certain pension stocks are much devalued (though the pensioners don’t know yet) because they have been invested on the stock market which is just reviving.
GATES
What did he do?
 In a nutshell Bill Gates unlike most folks was able to understand the nature of the computer industry, to project into its future and to (the hardest part) to convince himself that his idea is the next big thing on the planet.
The problem in Africa is that we lack self-belief; even those that believe in God limit Him to a “spiritual experience”. Folks, everyday, everyday, except you’ve no relationship with God, His seed on the inside of you is crying out for expression in everyday issues but most time you’ve looked at yourself, your surrounding and have despised the seed! The worst lie we tell ourselves is that if it is a good idea someone else should have done it, that someone else is you.
The deceitfulness of riches didn’t hinder Gates (the idea that if you don’t have money you’re probably stupid and vice versa); He practically gave away Microsoft Windows but retained ownership. Study his story, if you don’t have money like Joseph Jacob Isaac give the idea away to one with the means (it would have been lost anyway) and bargain to retain ownership/executor rights.
When people with marvelous ideas and no money complain it is because they are either too selfish or are unable to package themselves for a bargaining process. If you are really blessed, you must have noticed the ability of God to always give you better ideas. So to someone reading this article that idea in your heart probably is the only thing that can bring you before the king, don’t despise it, don’t be too selfish to share it, and don’t be too foolish to lose ownership completely.
Most times what will retain ownership for you is competence; the fact that no one else can be trusted to do it as good as you can. This is why reputation is everything, especially when you are starting out. For Bill Gates, the king was the president of IBM.
When you are passionate but Kobo less remember.
                                                Give thanks for the situation (at least you have something!)
                                                Dig; the resource/information is always around/beneath you
                                                Offer what you’ve got to commoners and then to the king (in that order)
God is faithful; He will not leave anyone without a talent at least. Where is yours?

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