Always take what the experts say seriously

Fifteen Lessons that I learnt from my first business setback

1) Identify your businesses critical success factors

2) Always take what the experts say seriously

3) The best business opportunities have high entry barriers as well as risk

4) If you are going to apply for a loan never ask for or accept less than what you need

5) Take your time and make sure that that you have considered all your start-up costs

6) If you can avoid loan finance for you start up costs

7) Treat your financial projections as if they were done by someone else

8) Unless it’s unavoidable stick to industries that you have a solid foundation in

9) If you are venturing into strange territory take someone that has been there before with you

10) Always pay your creditors what you owe them as soon as is feasibly possible

11) If you are having problems servicing your debts talk to the people you owe and ask them for help

12) Don’t be afraid or too proud to ask for help

13) Build a strong support network of people and organizations that you can depend on in times of need

14) Follow the river until it runs dry

15) There is no such thing as failure only hard lessons learnt or ignored.

Identify and acknowledge your businesses critical success factors is the lesson that still rings loudest in my mind up until today, if you read my article last week then undoubtedly you know how I learnt that lesson.

However today I would like to talk about respect. Yes respect, by this I mean ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS take what the experts say seriously. Now I am not saying that the experts are always right, all I am saying is, respect them for the amount of time and effort that they have invested in their field of expertise. So if an expert tells you something that you don’t agree with or don’t believe don’t ignore it, even if you are going to discard their advice or opinion at least take time to find out WHY they say what they say and or do what they do.

Whilst I was doing the research for the mushroom proposal,l I carried out a number of visits to a mushroom farm owned by a gentleman named Guy Ellman Brown in Gumtree, about 30 or so odd km from Bulawayo. Guy was at that time one of the most prominent button mushroom producers in Zimbabwe and one of the things that he stressed during all my visits was how important it was to keep the whole environment as close to being sterile as possible. He described to me how they sterilized the mushroom compost and the trays and rooms in which the mushroom grew. He showed me his steam boiler which he had acquired from some tobacco farm and installed on his complex. Then he shared with me his journey to becoming an expert in the culture of button mushrooms. He described the frustration that he had lived through after failing so many times and told me that he had sold a significant portion of his property after depleting his life savings and then he told me that through it all he had learnt that when it comes to button mushroom culture there can be no shortcuts. All in all it took him about three years, all his lifetime savings and the better portion of his personal property to come up with the template that had paved his way to success and respect in his chosen field.

Here I was in the presence of this industry giant who was offloading all this knowledge and experience onto me and what did I do? I went off on a tangent. I disregarded his observation that with button mushroom culture there could be no shortcuts. This gentleman handed me the template to his success and one of the things central to that template was sterilization and a good steam boiler but I took one look at that template and threw it out the window and decided to go for a makeshift boiler which turned out be a little more than a water boiler.

Why would I do that? Honestly up until this very day I am not really certain, but what I do know is that I rash and arrogant – in fact I am still working on the rashness. Even though I didn’t realize it I thought I knew better than this man that was at least three times my age and had, then achieved more than I have achieved seventeen years down the line. I was impatient and wasn’t going to let the costs associated with acquiring a proper steam boiler stand in my way so I did what a lot of entrepreneurs do I bypassed my obstacle instead of overcoming it and called it innovation and resourcefulness huh! The results were poor results and financial catastrophe.

But here is where it gets interesting

1) Guy had told me that sterilization and a steam boiler were critical to be successful in mushroom culture, and I hadn’t listened.

2) He had also told me that it had been very hard for him to get where he now was, three years, his lifetime savings and a good part of his property and guess what, that flew right over my head as well because if I had gotten a hold of at least that. I would have thought twice before going for a makeshift boiler.

So there it is respect the experts and pay attention to what they say, if you can remember to be humble and receptive you will find that by submitting yourself and sitting at their feet you are actually positioning yourself to stand upon their shoulders, and rooted in their experience you will achieve bigger and better things much faster than they did.Write your thoughts