CAPTAINCUE’s REVIEW OF AKIN ALABI’s “SMALL BUSINESS BIG MONEY”

[Complete] Title: “SMALL BUSINESS BIG MONEY: How To Start, Grow And Turn Your Small Business Into A Cash Generating Machine”

Author: Akin Alabi

“An ant has no quarrel with the boot”

                                                -Loki, The Avengers, 2012.

The author gifted me a softcopy of the first sixty-three pages and my first impression was that the title is unpretentious. You know what you’re in for. I bought the book two months later.

The book opens with rave reviews from successful contemporary Nigerian entrepreneurs across all business sectors. Essien, Njoku, Nzimora etc all praised the teachings served by someone with actual practical experience in the challenging Nigerian business landscape.

A table of contents highlight the book’s seven chapters before a long foreword by ROK’s Jason Njoku primes you for the pages ahead. The foreword posits the book is a distillation of the vast knowledge of an ‘unfiltered entrepreneur’ (I loved that) who deeply understands the idiosyncrasies of the Nigerian market.

 1. “BEFORE YOU QUIT YOUR JOB TO START A BUSINESS”

The first chapter alludes that the allure of being an entrepreneur is particularly strong upon reading the biography of a successful entrepreneur. In what will set the tone for the rest of the book, the author strips the lush, fleshy stories to their underlying ugly bones rife with challenges and at times, failure.

The chapter (mostly) debunks myths about the entrepreneurial journey – proffering the sort of thinking that should guide someone intent on starting a business and ways to improve existing ones.

2. “HOW TO DECIDE ON THE KIND OF BUSINESS YOU SHOULD DO”

This chapter counsels against approaching entrepreneurship with rigid, preconceived ideas, without factoring market variables into the equation.

‘Do not create a product/business and then look for customers.’

Rather, look for what people want and create a business around it. The book’s Macchiavelian pragmatism starts to manifest here; what with quotes like “forget the ideas you currently have, and let the demands of a market influence the kind of business you do”

The author craftily leaves a piece of advice for punters (patrons of his most successful business) by reminding them betting is more entertainment than investment. That was a nice touch. The chapter talks about how he chanced on sports betting, how he built and sold an information product around it, saw a viable market for betting in Nigeria, and finally; building Nairabet.

He discusses some business ideas, but you’ll end up not memorizing a single one because more than the highlighted ideas, the chapter has one purpose: HOW TO THINK. The culmination of the chapter is to “sell people what they want to buy…not necessarily what they need to buy”

It is explained plainly. {If I told you plainly, would you read the book?}. I will not told you

3. “HOW TO BECOME NUMBER ONE IN YOUR MARKET PLACE”

Laptops.

Which brands come to mind? Exactly. Those, this chapter tells us, are called the “evoked set”.

There is an interesting tale of how Dr Sunny Ojeagbase, the author’s mentor, leveraged on his observation, in the 80s, that people flipped straight to the sports section of newspapers. He took this as a cue to start the first sports paper in Nigeria.

This is a chapter devoted to disseminating knowledge about pioneering, about disruption [(by innovation) if pioneering is no longer an option], about uniqueness AND noisemaking about your uniquery. In essence, this is a chapter dedicated to ways in which you can become part of the evoked set in your industry.

It’s rich.

It is.

4. ADVERTISING FOR MAXIMUM PROFITABILITY

A chapter full of Nigerianisms™; a phrase or a combination of words that couldn’t possibly be used by humans who do not have deep affiliations with Nigeria. The chapter is about getting people to know and patronize you. It drags the nonchalant “quality speaks for itself” creamy kind of thinking out the back and violently clubs it to death with a 2by2 of stonecold precision. You read about the types of advertising and why they are done.

**ARE YOU COCA-COLA??**

There are many instances in this chapter where the author stops just short of telling you to borrow yourself brain. Ultimately, he wants you to “determine the future of your business with your hands and brain”.

There are seven advertising commandments geared toward fetching you immediate patronage and you’ll feel like you saved several tens of thousands that will otherwise be spent on a marketing course.

It discusses the components of compelling advertising and there’s a call to let your copy “do something from the first second”

I chuckled at that. Lovely.

5. HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS

This discusses getting people to talk about your business. The author writes things, which, on closer inspection, one cannot convincingly disprove. There are eight suggestions to induce word-of-mouth marketing.

“There is some truth in it. People will talk about fantastic products, but you cannot wait for that. Smart business people do not allow things to happen naturally. They make things happen. They are in control.”

Disprove that!

6. PRICING

Mathematics of the milk was used to explain the concepts of “Affordability” vs. “Cheap”

The chapter explains the notion that people aren’t necessarily looking for the lowest prices, but for what they perceive as the best deals (i.e. value for money). A crucial chapter.

CAPTAINCUE’s VERDICT:

I’ve been tacitly giving it along the line. I like the book’s anti-positivity approach and the realistic theme that runs through its 220 pages. There are a couple of places where inverted commas would’ve been useful – and a few words could’ve been hyphenated also.

On sticking to the financial plan: “you cannot solve all the problems in this world. You can only play your part.” That’s for you not to exhaust your money on helping. Eeesh.

Do not fall under the illusion of doing something. Be deliberate about your stuff. The author says, in other words, that hope/luck is not a strategy, before going on to prescribe tested ways of successfully running businesses. With his face covering 40% of the cover page, the author gets in your face with some difficult truths.

(Yet) Another positive is that the book does not drone on and on about Nairabet as I feared it would. The principles discussed are instead, designed to be useful across several kinds of businesses.

Finally, it must be said that SMALL BUSINESS BIG MONEY plugs into a problem of the Nigerian zeitgeist; joblessness. A large percentage of those with jobs are gainlessly employed – forcing many into sourcing alternate income by starting businesses. You might as well do it right if you’re going to do it at all.

For Lists.Ng, I wrote here that the single thing you can confidently say Nigerians are unanimously good at is prevarication. There is still, a widespread #WeThankGod syndrome to “how did you do it” questions – even from legitimately successful Nigerian business humans. Especially from them.

·        Misplaced paranoia?

·        Avoidance of competition?

·        Fear of village people?

·        Intentional hoarding of information that could cast your business?

An ant has no quarrel with the boot, but the game is the game. This book explains the game. In the end, more naijacentric books like this one need to be written.

On my scale of pretty awful to truly awesome, I think this is a bloody brilliant book.
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Captaincue...is a freelance writer taking on gigs for unridiculous money. Call/Text 08132150177 now. Let's get started.

TWITTER CONCOCTIONS (S01, E02) : Daddy's Money

By my reckoning, Robert Ludlum is the ultimate marmitey American author. Baba would break every rule of punctuation in a twisted, unending statement - - and if you're not down for such prose, you will hate his writings. Me I'm a big fan of his characters and their occasional pithy one-liners. In Bourne Identity, one of those characters told Jason to "rest before you're tired". I did not, and all last week was a swirling cloud of unwellness for me. After convalescence, I have since finished the bastard second episode that was forcibly put on hold. Here we go. (You can read the first HERE)

This week’s topic, which should’ve been last week’s topic, is a timeless, (un)popular opinion brought to fore, once again, by a series of unconnected tweets which boils down to:

“YOU ARE NOT RICH. IT’S YOUR FATHER’S MONEY”

You know its not my style to jump inside a barrel labeled conclusion, so y'all will bear with me as I tell stories. Again.

Okay. When I start a sentence with “I grew up poor,” most people will assume “but we thank God we’re now rich” will follow. Most people are mad. See ba. I grew up poor and these days, I’m still financially broke most of the time. Have I ever wondered ‘why me Lord!’. Only sometimes. Koda I didn’t write that to solicit pity; I'm just saying that I write from the vantage point of a whirlwind hustler who works towards joining the big leagues AND has firsthand, non-Hollywood experience of lack. When you struggle oh-so badly to breakaway from the clutches of unyielding need, and your struggles have SEEMINGLY been in vain, the faint-hearted (through incessant frustration) resign themselves to their harsh fate.

N.B: ‘daddy’ in this piece could hence take the meaning of parents

FACT: Many persons hold the opinion that your daddy’s, and by extention, your parent’s money isn’t yours. Per se.

AFTER THE FACT:

I.  Your daddy’s money, is, in fact, in your daddy’s name and semantically, of course, IS your daddy’s money & not your money. So when someone says #You’reNotRichItsYourFather’sMoney, they are semantically, grammatically, basically, administratively and pedantically correct.

II.  Philosophically, #You’reNotRichItsYourFather’sMoney brigade is backed by the notion that:

• The money might have been used as collateral and stuff
• If the daddy dies, the money might have unforeseen beneficiaries
• The daddy might have many more hidden, biological offspring y’all didn’t know know about which reduces your quota (men are scum)
• Morally, you'll kinda be seen as a better person if you make your own money.

MY VERDICT: 

I love topics in the grey areas of life; they constitute the bulk of our beer-parlor arguments and give us things to do with our lives. Just like those pesky Nigerian films where conflicting parties wait for a rich parent to die so they can inherit and flex for the rest of time, the real time version is rather less ghastly but no less dramatic. Seeing it through the Nigerian-film prism would be simplistic, I think.

Twitter is not that deep, and some twitterati say that rich kids should BeHumble/sit down as they’re flexing with daddy’s money and not necessarily their own. I think people with this perspective are missing a vital point. If somebody’s daddy’s money affords that person some privileges, opportunities, connections, cars and relative comfort, ALL that comes with the territory. I think the bane of the issue twitterati have with dem #daddymoney gang is that some of them are spoilt, dim and obtuse. But judging a demographic by a select few many is an –ism. Most –isms are bad. And I think these lot owe the world no explanations or apologies whatsoever.

Come on! I hate to say my aunt would be my uncle if she had a penis but if your folks were rich, you'd be a rich kid too. Rich-Kid isn’t an euphemism for stupid. So what if some of them spend half-a-mil every other night at the club. She’s a bastard. Face your front.

There is the morality angle too as seen in J.F Odunjo’s poem “Ise loogun Ise”, he opines repeatedly that work is the antidote to poverty and counsels that even if your folks are rich, you still shouldn’t rely on them. These are admirable sentiments, but being a rich kid affords one to plan rationally WITHOUT distractions. Give the average poor guy a N2million loan to start a business and while planning his business (like a rich kid spending his family’s N2million would), a portion of his productivity will be permanently assigned to thinking about turning a profit early and servicing his loan. Conversely, the rich kid will be able to focus all his thinking on the business without REALLY stressing over profits and loan repayments.

A quick word here too. I know more than most that it is especially hard for a poor person to rise in this world, but that is something you must deal with gaskiya. Romanticizing and glorifying your current position as a poor person is the worst kind of poverty. See ba. You hold no moral or any other advantage over them just because you don’t have a rich daddy. Talking of morals, some twitterati seem to be simmering just below the visible surface because they are of the opinion that most rich people accumulate their wealth by looting public funds or other unscrupulous means.

Well…

In conclusion, the intangible things having a rich daddy affords the kid, apart from the money itself, are invaluable. And this, is why, I submit that #You’reNotRichItsYourFather’sMoney gang are in the wrong here, and they’ve been assigned the L  on this episode.

May our kids be born with silver spoons and all manner of assorted cutlery.

---@Captaincue