Two life goats

There exists a competition in Kogi state Nigeria where young men compete for the prize of a strong man. The competition involves eating goat meat. A large amount of goat will be slaughtered and cooked in a delicious soup. Then, young men, chaps will be invited to the feast. The last man to stop eating i.e. who eats a lot or the biggest amount of meat then emerge the winner. A very important condition of the feast is that they are continuously flogged while they eat the meat: a bittersweet experience if you choose to call it that way. The prize for winning is two live goats.

Therefore the winner is normally the one who can endure most while still ‘enjoying’.

Sometimes when we expect results either personally or in our business, there is a need to endure and persevere pain, difficult challenges, ‘wilderness experience’ etc.

Here are some tidbits that were given to me by an elder to help in maintaining my life focus:

1                    be sure your business is about what you love doing;

2                    always create a goal that you are passionate about;

3                    be sure all your team understand the plans for your goals;

4                 always ask yourself questions relevant to your core competencies and whatever it is that you can be best in the world at;

5                    all staff should be allowed to make known their deep-seated fears and doubts;

6                    the day you stop doing what makes you great, you start to die.

Until next time when we shall be meeting with a fresh title, don’t forget to always do something that is worth writing about.

Business ruled by emotion or reason?

Business globally exist to solve problem, prevent or manage problems or challenges. Hence in achieving these, they provide products and services which help end-users attain their goals.

Essentially, business that excelled do so by providing or meeting the fundamental need of the consumers. But on few occasions, some business sales are driven by some extra values they add to their goods and services. I carried out a survey on truck drivers’ choice on which brand they will love their boss to buy for them next. 60% responded that they would love to drive the truck that is strong enough for haulage and also have many accessories such as GPS and others. Remaining 40% said although accessories are good but may be immaterial as long as the trucks are strong enough for her primary objective.

Here are little suggestion an elder told me to put in mind when building a business:

1.      design your business t excellently meet the customers’ need;

2.      add feelings and emotional features to your goods and services;

3.      ensure the features added do not consume a lot of daily input  in terms of financial daily running of goods and services.

4.       insure the accessories added do not add too much to the capital cost.

Until next time when we shall be meeting, do not forget to create something worth writing about.