Having the courage to start a business is one feat. Growing that business is another.

One of the fastest-growing career options in Nigeria today is Entrepreneurship.

Millennials and the generations after are gradually ditching the corporate hustle. Even those in it, are mostly doing so while they level up their side hustle; their core is in building that side hustle into a global and sustainable empire.

Research by Knoema identified that Nigeria’s global entrepreneurship index was at the level of 20.8 index in 2019, up from the 19.75 index the previous year, this is a change of 5.33%. 

This means that owning a business is gradually growing in Nigeria.

However, many businesses fail because their drivers (owners/managers) lack the necessary leadership skills to move them to greatness.

In this post, I will share the 7 simple yet effective lessons to grow your business fast. They are carefully culled from Jeff Bezos’s lessons and explained in the Nigerian context.  

Now the lessons.

Ready? Let’s go!

7 Simple Yet Effective Lessons To Grow Your Business Fast

1. Customers come first

The main reason you started your business is to be profitable. And you can’t attain that level without great customers. 

When your customers are satisfied with your services, you’ll get great publicity through word-of-mouth marketing, and your brand will walk the Twitter street with lots of accolades. 

You’ll also make money, increase customer loyalty and build a personal brand for yourself as the CEO. 

2. Give your employees independence

Micromanaging makes your employee feel that they aren’t trusted doing what you’ve hired them to do. It kills their chance to think freely.

You’d have seen people drag brands on social media for doing this. It’s a feeling that affects brand trust. 

Give your employee the independence to work so that they can birth impactful ideas of getting things done.

3. Convey a meaningful vision to your employee

Let your employee mirror your drive and get them to love it as you do.

Develop a meaningful vision and convey it to them. Once your employee can embrace that drive, you’re steps ahead of your competitors for you’ve created your version in multiple folds. 

Also, this will form the basis of great work culture and will inspire investors and other internal stakeholders to support the dream. 

Double sure that you creatively tie your employee’s career goals with the company vision as this is crucial for everyone’s success.

4. Get obsessed with hiring the best people

Employees that possess the right talent, drive, flexibility, and personality are the greatest asset of any business. They are the type the delivers excellent service and gets the job done on time.

Don’t be too formal with your hiring process. You could find your right hire from a WhatsApp status, don’t sleep on it. Engage the person and see if they’re a fit.

Because finding and hiring great hands could be nerve-wracking. Getting obsessed with sourcing and bringing in the best talents is a quality you shouldn’t compromise.

5. Promote new people at the right time

Your ability to sense an opportunity before it becomes obvious to many people is a must.

When you observe that an employee is ready to take up a new challenge or the person is solving a greater problem than the role you hired them for, invite him to discuss a promotion or raise.

Most talents are quick to realize when they are the star. So before they figure that out, show that you care and buy them fast before they know their real worth. 

6. Never kill your gut-decision making

“Data never lie.”, most people say. 

But sometimes it’s rewarding to follow your gut-decision-making when the insights from the dataset point in an unreasonable direction. 

Remember Henry Ford’s arguably most famous quotes “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Maybe you should go with your gut.

When this happens, take few steps away from the data and think about the possible cause of the seeming flaw. If you fail, you’re learning.

7. Grab the external trends

As a business owner, it is important that you pay attention to the trends in other industries. This could provide solution pointers that you could adopt in your own space.

You also experienced what happened when lockdown hit, everyone switched and did business following the new normal. While businesses that were slow to adopt failed, many successful businesses came up as a result of that external trends.

It’s smart to keep tabs on such trends.

Conclusion

Doing business in Nigeria takes more than reading those business books. You have to do it, to know how it eventually works.

Sometimes Government policies and other factors might drag your growth, but your ability to sense threats, seize opportunities and adapt to growth is critical. 

CashDrive is helping businesses grow.