During the past three weeks, this column spent time on the concept of enabling environment. Evidently, that phrase has been used and abused to the point of bastardisation in our country. We tried to establish that the concept has also been used, sometimes fraudulently, to mask inefficiency in many quarters or to hoodwink unsuspecting listeners. While there is still so much to say about the subject, we are resting it for now, having established and identified many things we do and say in the name of enabling environment that are anything but enabling to the business community. So I would rather share some of the things I observed or learnt during my recent vacation, which I consider useful to the small business community in Nigeria.
During my brief vacation, which ended last weekend, I made out time to visit some small businesses around the community where I was vacationing. Although members of my holiday team fought the idea of a working research holiday, I unleashed the whole package of my negotiation training, which for most part actually has not been put into formal use, to have my way while leaving the adversaries happy and supportive. I wanted to find something unique, which, on my return, I would give to the readers of my column as a present. Although the readers did not feel my absence as the column continued to run smoothly, I was actually away to get some rest but kept in touch. Thanks to the architects of the internet and the social media.
Before embarking on the exercise, I defined my objective very clearly by asking myself what exactly I would like to see or learn from the companies that I would visit that would benefit small businesses that follow my thoughts on this page. In response to that question, I established the kind of organizations I did not wish to visit. Clearly, I had no interest in organizations, even if they be small and medium, relatively speaking, that were involved in very complex and highly technical businesses that are currently far-fetched to the small businesses in my country. Granted that no knowledge is lost and the world is a global village, I think it is better to spend our limited time looking at things that have immediate relevance to the people with whom I share my views.
In other words, I carried out my Target Market Definition, eliminating organizations that will not fit into my purpose. This is a critical market segmentation activity that every small business that understands the benefit of focusing on the right targets must carry out. The absence of this activity in the scheme of things that are of interest to many small businesses has been one of their major stumbling blocks. This market segmentation helped me to concentrate on the things that mattered most in the exercise.
There is ample evidence that many small businesses in our country try to be everything to everybody. They set out to do one business but never follow through and work at making it a success. They are quick to switch to another line of trade the moment they are told that some other person is making or claiming to make profit from the other line of business.
The saying that a rolling stone gathers no moss is a time-tested truism. It holds good both for big and small operators, the same way it is true for individuals. Small businesses would do better if they stay long enough on their present line of trade, understand its tricks (because every business has its trade secrets, which are known only to those who have understood the business), satisfy themselves that they are reading the signals right before quitting the line of business. Some think of diversification the moment they open the shop, and by this they mean not focusing on anything. This is not correct.
There is need to take one last look at the last corner of the business before one leaves to another. Some of us may recall one of Murphy’s Laws, which states that there is always something wrong in the last place you look. Indeed. If one has been in a position to review the work of others, one will see that this rule holds true. However, it also follows that there is always something right in the last place you look. So be sure you look in that one last corner of that business before you join the bandwagon to switch over to something you probably know nothing about.
Being able to win the argument for a working holiday and still leave those who lost it feeling very good is not an advanced skill that small businesses should ignore or think it is beyond them. Negotiation skills are basic to any successful business, be it a multinational or a sole trader. If I needed that skill to win my freedom to mix my holiday with work (the work from which I was supposedly escaping, and hence the holiday), then it becomes indubitably clear that every small business must know how to negotiate even if it is at very elementary level, call it Negotiation 101: Elements of Negotiation. Many small businesses see life as a take-it-or-leave-it affair. They don’t care if the customer does not come again. Well, negotiation skills came handy to get me the right of way I needed to carry out the exercise in question.
And the good news is that one does not need to sit in the class of Richard Shell, who was director of Wharton School’s Executive Programme on Negotiation, or Guhan Subramanian, the negotiation guru who happened also to be the only person in the history of Harvard to hold tenured appointments at both Harvard Business School and Harvard University. Small business people need to have the ability to keep customers smiling after they have been thoroughly defeated. This is one of the major drivers of repeat business.
I am humbled by the privilege of learning from both men at both schools. Prof Subu, as we called him then, told us to always remember to consider the incentives of the individual across the negotiating table. This is very important, he says, noting that although most major deals in the world are done between major multinational corporations and involve billions of US dollars or other hard currency, the real dealmakers are ordinary individuals, not the organizations. My take from that is that incentivising the individual across your negotiating table, which could be the front desk of your shop or the boardroom of a Fortune 100 company, is vital. It worked for me on this trip.
Once I was able to put the sweeteners to those negotiating with me on the need for my working holiday, everyone was happy. Although some were still throwing the word workaholic at me, they did so in the most positive sense. Some even went further to prove to me that all great leaders were workaholics. So I won but they had the joy.
Emeka Osuji
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