Top 10 Important Steps You Must Take Before Starting a Successful Business in Nigeria

Starting a business is not a walk in the park or a get up and get going project like most people may think. Running a successful business in Nigerian is tough; it is a serious bustle but with high reward. For your business to survive you have to be tougher. To be tougher you have to not only know these important steps but you must make conscious effort to follow them.

Nigeria is filled with good business terrain for operating successful businesses. With the vast existing business opportunities in Nigeria, it is vital to be well-grounded in tackling the challenges associated with starting and running a successful business in the country.

This article was not written to discourage you, but meant to prepare you for your business venture. Starting a successful business requires careful planning, you may think that this is not important but it can be the thin line between your business success and failure.

Presented here are top 10 important steps you must take before starting a business in Nigeria. Not all of these steps will apply to all businesses and in the same order, but working through them will give you a sense of what needs your attention and what you can check off.

1. Generate a Business Idea: This step obviously came first on the list because successful and profitable business venture is always built on an idea. Idea, they say rules the world.

Except you are running a non-government or charity organization you need to make sure you generate a profitable business idea. In generating a profitable business idea, the idea must be creative enough to yield turnover that can sustain the business you built round the idea.

Nigeria economy is filled with innumerable business ideas, developing a profitable and creative business idea is therefore easy. To successfully do this, an entrepreneur who wants to start a business in Nigeria must be dexterous in generating innovative idea from already existing idea(s).

All that is required for successful new business in Nigeria don’t include generating profitable, innovative and creative idea only. The Nigerian product and service market need ideas peculiar to the business environment.

Some entrepreneurs and foreign investors believe that copying an already successful business idea from another country to Nigeria will be the required key to business success. For a business idea to be profitable in Nigeria it must be peculiar to the country’s economy.

Generating a business idea peculiar to the nature of the economy is very important. Look at Nigeria, there are several needs to satisfy. Get yourself thinking and come up with idea to satisfy existing needs in the country, and you will be on your way to building a lasting and successful business.

2.     Acquire the Required Competence:  Knowledge, they say is power. Every business has an inside secret. Before jumping into any business in Nigeria, make sure you have thorough understanding about thefundamental of conducting the business.

Sometimes you may have business idea in sectors that you are not conversant with. Learning the fundamentals of your intended business is very imperative because there are differences between your business idea and your business idea as a business (i.e business idea in actual operation) this fact cannot be over emphasized.

If you must succeed in any business, you must first find the secrets surrounding running such venture. An intended business owner must have or acquire product knowledge, vendors’ knowledge, customers knowledge, demography knowledge, technical knowledge, marketing knowledge, industrial knowledge,     materials sourcing knowledge etc.

Developingnecessary competence in your area of business is very important step if you want to start a successful business in Nigeria.

Acquiring the required competence involves adequately preparing yourself for your business. You can prepare yourself by attending seminars and workshops on the chosen line of business you wish to venture in and getting all the necessary information about your chosen industry.

If you don’t know exactly what you need to know about your business, asking questions such as:

Who are my customers going to be? Who are my major competitors? How would they want to be served? Can I grab some market share in the industry of your proposed business?  Who is leading the market and what are they doing differently? Does my business have a chance to survive and grow?

Will help, these are the questions you must answer before starting any business in any industry in Nigeria.

3.      Choose Your Business Location: Where you locate your business may be the single most important decision and step you have to make to achieve successful business in Nigeria. This is where the expression “Location! Location!! Location!!!”  mostly used in real estate becomes important to be adhered to.

Let me quickly add here that, the expression is not limited to real estate business alone, but boundless to every business that make profit through the offering of product or service to people. Making business location decision is dependent on the type of business you want to venture into.

Are you going to site your business within your neighbourhood or in an industrial area? Are you going to separate yourself from the crowd by building your own brand in a specially selected location or operate from the centres of trade or commercial places in the country?  

I am not in the right position to choose for you where you should site your business in Nigeria because of the uniqueness embedded in every business. The task of making the above decision is entirely up to you. It is important to note many factors that come into play such as proximity to suppliers, the competition, transportation access, demographics, and zoning regulations.

4.      Develop a Good Business Plan: Write your business plan at this point using all the information garnered from the steps above. Business Plan is a management tool used in planning and developing strategies for a business.

As an entrepreneur, you should know that the importance of a good business plan cannot be over-emphasized.  It is important to also know that you should write a business plan whether you need to secure a business loan or not because proper planning is essential for the success of any business.

Developing a robust business plan that include every aspect of your business and following it judiciously is important because it provide you with a clear set goal and objectives, it can provide a reference point you can return to at any point in time during your business operation.

This is where many Nigerians and foreign investors alike miss out. It is estimated that over 85 percent of small business owners in Nigeria operate without business plans. To be successful in your business therefore, you need to separate yourself and your business from the pack.

The thing is, a business plan doesn’t have to be exhaustive and it doesn’t have to have all the answers. Even if it is a one page business plan, write it down. Your one page business plan may not get you the bank’s attention but it’s a step forward because it will help you to concentrate on fulfilling your business mission, achieving the desired  business goals and objectives.

A well prepared business plan, when often revisited, will help you in steering your business all along its growth curve when started. Try to think of your business plan as a living, breathing project, not a one-time document. Breaking it down into mini plans and implement them sequentially will further help.

5. Conduct a SWOT Analysis: SWOT is an acronym                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          for Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat. SWOT analysis is the analysis of yourself and/or your business vis-à-vis the economy, industry and the business you are about starting.

Consider critically your strength within the industry. Consider those things, areas or strong points that will make you and your business stand out in the industry. Identify them and formulate strategies to capitalize on for the survival and expansion of your business.

Identify your weaknesses. Consider those things, areas or limitations that negatively affect your business and performance in the industry. After identifying your weaknesses, do not waste your time on how to improve on them; out-source your weaknesses and focus on other areas you are good at (this is not contrary to step 2: Acquire the Required Competence).

 Opportunities are those resources or prospects external to your business that you can capitalize on to grow and expand your business in the industry.

Threats are those factors external to your business but present in the industry that threatens the survival of your business. They include external business environment like the political environment, the level of the country’s technological development, laws etc.

To be continued in the next post!!!