The AZEMS 8Cs of Success

Next week, we will start a 5part series on Financing and Cash flow for small businesses in Africa. Investors say they can’t find projects, entrepreneurs complain they can’t find funding, so....!

Last week I had dinner with 21 of the 37 Ugandan entrepreneurs in the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the foundation. It was a good opportunity to touch base with them after the boot camp in Lagos last July 2015. They have all made progress, some faster than others, and there was a general commitment to success. I felt so lucky sitting in the midst of these young Africans who are writing “a generational statement” as Tony Elumelu puts it himself. By the way, we together set up an investment club and people started contributing there and then –talk of action. This pushed me to revisit my 8Cs of success which I share below. Of course they are open for challenge:

• Common Sense 

As basic as it sounds, the saying is that “common sense is not common”. Imagine a driver jumps the cue in bad traffic and is coming heads-on on your side of the road, what do you do, knowing that as per Highway Code you are right? School will not teach you this. For an entrepreneur, an investor is asking for 3% more ownership of your business in exchange for that seed or future round funding you need. Maybe you should take, because I always say, sometimes it is better to have 10% of something than 100% of nothing. There is no guide book for common sense, it “depends on not over-complicating the situation (simple), applying experience and general knowledge to the situation (sound and prudent judgment)”. It is a quality you build from a mix of everything you are, have been, have seen, have experienced, etc. Usually, the older people get, the wiser and more “common-sensical” they are. It is a quality that trumps all others and that’s why it is AZEMS’ number 1. So, nurture it or watch somebody you feel runs on it, and steal as much from her as possible! 

• Choice  

Like it or not, you are making choices every time of the day, consciously or unconsciously! The only guide is that, whether you make them or not, the consequences on issues concerning you have to be dealt with by you, so you might as well be proactive and take ownership. The only guide is, know yourself and know what you can, and are able to put up with. For the long term and life changing choices, the guide is to know where you are headed and follow your passion and your heart, because then the choice is rooted in something deep seated in you that really turns you on. When you have made that choice as Tony Robbins puts it, be ready to “pay the price”, that is invest your all an all for it to yield the fruits and success you envision. 

• Contents 

What is your Value Proposition? What is that package of benefits that you are bringing to your audience or connections? What do you have to offer – not quantity, but RELEVANCE and QUALITY? That’s what people, and most of all your target audiences, will pay for (no matter what your definition of pay is). This is what brings people to you, and as long as days change, so too you should be willing to enrich and pivot it. Read Dr Spencer Johnson’s book WHO MOVED MY CHEESE. When you have made that choice in case of a profession or business, you need to build your skills and capability to delight your audience, knowing that best today is not best tomorrow, because times change and audiences evolve.

• Confidence 

Remember it is always and will always be about YOU! Usually when you are a novice, people focus on your technical contents. Then as you go up and start getting contact with the big guys and influential stakeholders, your technical know-how becomes a given, what is being looked for is your confidence level which of course impact the way you influence relationships. Do you come across as the guy in control, or sweaty and wobbly like somebody who borrowed or plagiarized all the contents and experience attributed to him/her.

Investors and managers invest in people. No matter how knowledgeable and how appealing your business concept or innovation is, nobody will invest in you if you come across as lacking confidence - “the world belongs to the brave at heart!”.

Be careful though, it is not being handsome, vain, arrogant or cocky. Watch videos of Thomas Sankara

• Connections 

Your network and audiences, including your customers and employees or colleagues. They do the recommendations for you and your product. It is not about quantity, but quality. Remember pareto’s 20-80? Remember this thing about segmentation, loyalty, life time value analysis; people and businesses are picking their connections because there is a price tag per connection. So it is not just connections, but the ones that bring you tangible added value. For sure the connections are also looking for the value you bring to their lives, and of course if you don’t have the right value proposition or contents, then for sure they will avoid you and in case of businesses go to competition. It is a two-way traffic, and you only build it if your contents and credibility are in the right place. People will connect with you if only something will come out of the relationship for them, this may be functional or emotional. 

• Credibility 

Particularly when you have started building connections, credibility becomes a must. Credibility is just about trust. Contents, Confidence, will take you nowhere if you are unable to build trust. Each connection will last the twinkle of an eye because sooner or later they will realize that you cannot be trusted. AFFINITY and NET PROMOTERS SCORE in brand management are functions of credibility. It is something you work at day in night out, you build it one consumer at a time, one person at a time, till you bread your last breathe.

The tricky part is that it is a complex of many things – plain you, your values, your contents and your reputation. Faking anything will only take you so far.

• Communication 

The WYSIWIG principle works here like nothing else –What You See is What You Get!

Do you have great contents (product, service or competence), are confident, are credible, etc. Nobody will know this if you don’t sell it. Unfortunately, because of a busy world and busy life, our society has a bias for the rich, flashy, loud, tall and full-bodied, because these qualities already give them an artificial presence. It is true that the validation of the added value is a second step, but usually it is too late. So package your value proposition very well and exploit all relevant platforms and channels (particularly your connections) to make it come alive to your targets wherever and whenever they want.

Taking your target audience along the relationship or adoption funnel, all the way from awareness through trial to trust, retrials or repeat purchase and recommending you will demand you being savvy, forthcoming and generous with information about who you are, what you are about, and why they should go for your or your offering (not someone else)!

So, talk about you and your value proposition if you have the skills for it, or get somebody better than you to do it for you; the return on investment is worth it. 

• Contextualization 

Context, reality, cultures, and conventions are stubborn; they are part of the people who are your audience at different times and in different geographies. Not taking this into consideration in selling home whatever you want to sell is like the red flag of ignorance. You will never be able to enlarge your comfort zone with people if you don’t take their context and reality into consideration, it is a basic sign of respect and courtesy and is like an open-sesame that breaks down the initial wall of resistance and unfriendliness, creating baseline acceptance.

Remember: “Small will always be Big”! So, start from where you are and check yourself against these ‘8Cs of success’ as you ride on