The Leicester City story: Lessons in there for Nigerian entrepreneurs

In 2008 Leicester city was in league one, third tier of the England Football League.

Fast forward to 2016, Leicester City football club are the champions of England. The No 1 domestic club in the biggest league in world football.

Their win have had financial analyst, rake up their projected revenue income as a result of the triumph, figures from £500m-£900 are what the club according to various report will earn over the next 12months.

Let’s bring the Leicester story home and look at how Nigeria business and Entrepreneurs can learn from the team’s rise (steadily) from 50 places below to being No 1 in England.

Ownership

There’s been a few club takeovers in English football notably the Glazer family (Man United), Roman Abramovich (Chelsea), Sheikh Mansour (Man city), Randy Lerner (Aston villa) none of the listed (except for Roman Abramovich) has as much passion for the club than the business side of the investment like Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha the Leicester City owner. His vision and blue print for the club transcends the financial figures. He did all that could be done both on and off the pitch, free beers, free doughnuts to entice fans, reward their loyalty, ‘importing’ the monks of Buddha to help the team, good welfare for the football club staffs, regular match day appearance, good investment outlay, no knee jerk reaction to events on and off the pitch.

These are characteristics of a passionate business owner, beyond the figures, being steadfast in your projection, sticking to the plan despite unfavorable results are good business lessons to learn for Nigeria Business men and women especially in this present economic down slide. Passion for what you do, passion from the vision should sustain a Nigerian entrepreneur at these hard times, and it (passion) did sustain the Leicester owner even when relegation stared the club in 2015.

A good group 

The workforce in every organization is the wheel of progress (or otherwise) of the firm. Leicester city F.C. wasn’t founded on expensive buys despite the owner being himself a billionaire. Did he follow other club owner’s bandwagon of expensive buys? No! Vardy, Kante, Mahrez, Drinkwater, Albrighton, Ulloa, Okazaki, Schmeichel, Schullp all came in a combined fee of less than £60million. Bargain! The strength of the team wasn’t in individual players but in the spirit built from top down. The buys were needful, important and could bring value.

Nigerian entrepreneurs are quick to ring the changes at  the slightest prompting where a little tweak could suffice, we tend to do a whole sale change, where a kick in the backside or a motivation to do more is needed, we tend to criticize, thereby bringing a negative vibe. We should as business owners invest more in our workforce, see the job from their point most times and create a general atmosphere of friendly work environment to get the best out of them. Good staff will swim and sink with your firm if you bought them over with your vision from the onset and stick to it.

What are the lessons from the Leicester city fairytale? If your business/service brings value be passionate about it. Groom virile staff strength; learn to be calm even when in an unstable economic climate. Be realistic with your projection and with a good team (product) a good customer (fans) base be rest assured that once you survive the hard times as Leicester city did last season you will be a winner, a champion, a known brand and the monies will start rolling in and that’s when you start looking at the financial figures. Service first (even in hard times) before reward. Campeones! Campeones!! Ole! Ole!! Ole!!! Leicester City.

Chris Anozie