‘Business should breathe independent of owner’ — Deji Agboade
Deji Agboade is the CEO of BPI Advisory and a sustainable business growth advisor, a firm that helps businesses reach their peak. This role is significant especially as businesses globally seek diverse ways to grow their products and platforms. In this interview, Agboade who has over 16 years’ experience in helping businesses grow and improve efficiency shares profound ways entrepreneurs can sustain their business and compete globally. Excerpts
With your years of experience in the business world, how can solopreneurs and entrepreneurs weave sustainability into the fabric of their business?
Business sustainability is about building businesses in a way that ensures they survive and thrive over the long term. You may start up as the solopreneur doing everything in your business, but you should aim to move out of that very quickly by putting structures in place and hiring great people.
When you listen to most solopreneurs talk about their business, you hear statements like, ‘I have to do it myself because it’s quite technical’ or ‘If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself’ or ‘They will do it when I am there but things go crazy when I turn my back’ etc.
Somewhere in their minds, solopreneurs and indeed some entrepreneurs think that doing the work themselves is what keeps their customers coming back. And while they may have a point, the truth is that the customer will always come back when value is delivered irrespective of who delivered it. Consider the fact that most of the things you use or buy are not made literally, by the owner of the brand.
Think about it, the highest paid person in any organisation does the least amount of operational work. The highest paid person on any project does the least amount of day-to-day work. Why? Because organising people, thinking and strategizing about the future work is often much more valuable than doing the actual work today. It’s the way our world is wired. The problem is that many people have allowed themselves to think they have to do everything themselves but the reality is that’s not necessary. As a matter of fact, I argue that that’s actually what is limiting your growth.
To grow therefore, business owners must grow to the point where they are able to engage other people to do the day to day work their business requires in order to free the business owner up for more strategy and brand building work. The guys in operations are critical to our business but they are only focused on what happens today. And since what happens today ends today, the manager who can see ahead to create the future will earn more than the fellow who only sees as far as today goes.
What features are must-have for businesses owners?
There are two features I recommend that every business must have if they are to build a business that’ll grow exponentially. First, the business must be designed in a way that’s replicable and second, the business must be financeable. As simple as these two features sound, they are very powerful.
Having a business model that’s replicable refers to the ability to take a business model to a different location and still be able to produce the same result while being financeable means the business owner is able to answer the question: how would you grow this business if I gave you a million dollars?
A business that is replicable is a business that can be scalable. Just like McDonalds, you must design your business model in such a way that it works independent of you. Imagine designing a car that requires the help of the manufacturer every time you have to start the car. That’s the way many people have designed their businesses today. The business can’t breathe without the input of the owner and just like the car, no one wants that kind of product.
Some businesses are difficult to fund. Generally speaking, relationship based business tend to be difficult to scale because it takes too long to build relationships in a new market. To scale a relationship based business therefore requires that you design the business model differently such that clients can still be attracted even if you don’t really know anyone.
What needs to be done if a brand must compete favourably in a globally competitive world?
In my opinion, every company that must compete favourably in our world today must either be an industry leader or a fast follower — globally or locally. Those are the only two places to play. Every other business is a laggard and the problem with being a laggard consistently is that others will leave you in the dust in no time.
Every industry has a leader and a group of followers per time. Interestingly, the industry leaders often share the number 1 spot among themselves from time to time, almost like they’re rotating it. Think about Apple and Samsung, Uber and Taxify, MTN and Airtel, Unilever and PZ, Coca-Cola and Pepsi etc. — your guess is as good as mine as to who the industry leader is and who the follower is per time.
What strategy do you prefer in engaging to grow our business?
This is a tough question and the reason is simply because there is no one strategy that delivers growth. The way I like to say it is that when it comes to growth, there are no silver bullets. There are however, a number of things that must be done for growth to happen.
So at BPI Advisory. we deploy a tool we call the Growth Track which helps us define our goal when it comes to a growth project, generate ideas and initiatives that can help achieve that goal, monitor and analyse the feedback from deploying those ideas, eliminate the things that are not working while emphasising the ones that are.
If you think it sounds too good to be true, just give us a call and find out.
How does the activity of BPI advisory benefit private/public sector in Nigeria?
Every organisation whether in the private or public sector desires growth but it appears so elusive to many. In fact, did you know that 8 in 10 thriving businesses today will be gone in 5 years? And what’s worse is that their owners/ managers won’t see it coming.
Against this backdrop, we developed a business health assessment tool on BPI Advisory’s website under health check category and that can help an organisation take their first steps towards turning things around within their organisation. We are convinced that this tool is a great first step in changing this mortality narrative in our environment.
