Visibility should not come before competence

I heard of a young guy from Unilag who went into video production and was soon, to a level, sought after. His peers would ask him for input on what they were trying to do, and he'd give it. He'd watch music videos, turn to a fellow student and explain the concept used in the video. Because whoever he was talking to wasn't very knowledgeable about video production, they'd nod and be rightly impressed by what this young guy said.

Soon, he began to seek visibility.

He did all he could to get it. But it just didn't seem like luck was on his side. As enthusiastic and filled with passion as he was, he just didn't crack the ice of visibility.

Years down the line, he is said to have made a statement: “Thank God say I no blow that time for campus o!” Why? He would have only embarrassed himself.

The guy realized how sorely incompetent he had been on campus. Yes, he could put a video together. He could understand and explain a few concepts, but given what he now knows, he was at that time what Nigerians call a ‘learner’.

A learner should not seek visibility.

A learner should seek competence.

When you start on anything—a personal project, a business venture—you need to carry a healthy dose of humility. Not the kind that shrinks back, refusing to attempt things until you're perfect. No, the kind of humility that acknowledges that there's room for growth.

In fact, no matter how good you get, you must keep remembering that there's room for growth. The excellence of yesterday is not the excellence of today.

Today demands another level of excellence, expertise, and presentation. (I think this is a message for another newsletter).

For this morning, what I'm impressing on you is the need to seek competence over visibility.

It's a bit hard in this video-every-moment-of-your-life-and-post-online world. The moment an idea strikes people's heads, they feel the need to post it on their status, ask people's opinions, and carry everyone along.

So instead of attempting quietly, failing quietly, and learning quietly, they're attempting in the open, failing publicly, and learning with way too many eyes on them.

Visibility will come when competence is in place. Visibility will be the natural effect of competence.

In another newsletter, I'll talk about how to blow the horn of your excellent service or product, and how not to think your work willing speak for itself. It won't. You need to speak for your work! But you do that after competence has been well established.

You don't advertise a half-ready product. You advertise the one that's completely ready for the market, fitted and furnished for kings!

As a business consultant, I've seen my fair share of business ideas get battered by the winds of premature visibility. You weren't ready for the public. You went public. And because the public can be heartless in its analysis of poorly done things, it shot the idea down. Now you're struggling to even believe that product can still work. Your self-esteem, your sense of worth in that business idea took such a beating that if you're being honest, you don't want to try it anymore.

There is the time to work on competence.

There is a time to go visible.

There is the time to continue to improve competence even after you're visible.

So if you're still cooking something that needs some time to polish up, don't seek visibility. It may be the platform that exposes just how incompetent you are.

Quietly experiment.

Quietly learn from the process, the day-to-day, and the beginning stages.

Quietly test and retest.

Then when you're sure of what you have, sound the alarm!

(I'll dedicate next week's newsletter to this).

I am Nkechi Alade, the business builder.

Have a great week ahead.

- Nkechi