A BETTER OPTION THAN STARTING SMALL

 

 

 

 

MY WEEKEND INSIGHT (18/07/2020)

 

 

Sabiiti Herbert 

 

I have always read, heard, and admired successful businessmen who started from scratch to build enormous business empires. These people bear virtues including but not limited to focus, patience and consistency. Some other businessmen turned to business coaches and motivational speakers to tell us how they started from let’s say selling popcorn to earning billions of money. I respect and appreciate such kind of patience and focus for it’s nothing less than a sheer determination that drives them on a daily.

 

 I, however (yet with all due respect) have some reservations -rather issues with some others who don’t reveal the guiding link between for example hoping from earnings of UGx 10m to UGx 60bn. Looks like there is something they hide e.g someone may not find the honesty within them to add that they got some deals in the course of survival that pushed them from point A to D at a time 0 to T. Please do quote me right here, you can start from scratch and become a billionaire without engaging in dubious ways, no doubt about that.

 

Looks like the habit of writing too much is catching up with me lately, let’s use the next minute to dive into the gist of today’s insight and we shall call it a weekend.

 

While at it (writing this), am aware of the challenges presented to many different people who want to achieve alone, they love to ride solo, call them too selfish that they find happiness in leaving people behind on their journey to the topmost top. They catch the vision and guard it jealously as a Tiger does its prey when hyenas close in, yet sadly they just want to use and later dump you. When you start a business with people of this kind, later they even start stealing from themselves (your business) and in the end kill the business thinking they were always going to work it out alone – ‘better alone’ is a common phrase you may hear around them. 

 

In today’s insight, am thinking out loud, the world would love to hear business coaches and mentors encourage partnerships in business because it is high time we focused on building business synergy. Harris and Moran define Synergy as a cooperative or combined action and occurs when diverse or disparate individuals or groups collaborate for a common cause. The objective is to increase effectiveness by sharing perceptions and experiences, insights, and knowledge. (Harris, & Moran, 2011, p.233). 

 

It is (usually) when two parties collaborate and create a culture of excellence that yields mutual benefit.

 

I, therefore, call upon you my friends who normally take time to read these insights to learn how to do things as a team, collaboration is key in whatever we do. 

 

Instead of being advised to start small, get business partners with whom you share similar aspirations and values and start from 25% (that’s a quarter way up) rather than from 0%. For example, if you want to start a business of rearing goats and you have only five goats, if you look around with interest, you may find some nine friends of a kind and start with 50 goats. 

 

The world is rolling on quick heels swinging by- says a song we used to sing while “tende”. If you selfishly want to start small and grow organically, you ‘might’ remain behind, and I also write this backed up by a mass of experience but with a heavy heart knowing that we could have started yesterday, it’s high time we considered starting big through partnerships. And once you go down this road, please remember; Trust, collaboration, and ultimately co-creation help to create better effects and results. 

 

Let’s look at this wisdom from the Holy Bible in *Ecclesiastes 4:9-12*

Vs.9 Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Vs.11 Also, if two lies down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

Vs.12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

 

I pray this challenges you hard enough to jump-start you and your contemporaries about starting partnership businesses. The challenges like i mentioned at the start may be many but there are more Pros than Cons of starting as a group than there are for an individual.