Firstly, running and managing a business comes with lot of responsibilities, swift and adequate decisions. To be successful in your business you need to know your onions. Not all businesses can withstand the test of time, in as much as this article advises on you owning your business, it will also advise on how to run a successful business. Several arising factors has made this advice imminent and is calling for us to understand how helpful and barrier breaking running a successful business can be.
I have read and seen how Artificial Intelligence has started taking over employees’ jobs and how in the nearest future will make millions jobless. Meanwhile, a large chunk of Nigerians are majorly dependent on government jobs and are salary earners, these salaries we all know are inadequate and irregularly paid.

How can you Start and Run a Successful Business?
These days you can find very useful information about entrepreneurship and starting a business. But often time you will need to separate the wheat from the chaff in order to get the right information.
Usually the process of starting a business begins with an idea. Once you think the idea is good enough to build a profitable business with then the next step is to develop your business idea in to a viable business plan.
A business plan is one of the most important ingredients when preparing the recipe for a successful business. Without a well written business plan, your investment in your business may just be akin to flushing money down the drain.
This post has highlighted series of easy-to-follow steps that you need to successfully start your business and execute that amazing business idea.

1. Develop a business idea
First, you need to do a proper research to come up with a smart and unique business idea. I mentioned unique because one mistake most Nigerians make is that they ignore many of the vast business opportunities in Nigeria and instead decide to ‘copy’ other people’s ideas.

If selling recharge cards looks like a very profitable business, before you know it, almost everyone is selling recharge cards. Nigeria is very large, and there are a lot of products and services that are still unavailable or could be better.
So, don’t copy other people’s ideas, instead, you should take time to brainstorm on the solutions you could proffer and the needs and yearnings you can help to satisfy.
About a year ago, an old friend approached me and told me about how difficult it has been to land another job since she lost her job with the bank. The only thing I told her was that she should stop looking for a job and that I was not going to give her any money If that was what she wanted. I told her to come up with a business idea and come back in a week and I will register a company on her behalf in that respect. She came up with the idea of fish supplies. I said good, I wrote out proposals to about 30 hotels alone both on the mainland and island of Lagos. We did rigorous follow up and about eight hotels acceded to the proposal to supply their hotels fishes of different kinds but majorly Croaker. Five months into her supply, she called me and was telling me of her intentions to buy two delivery vans because the supply is becoming overwhelming and she needed to meet up with the increasing demand. She is definitely making lots of sales and profit even more I than I envisaged.
Registering a company for her fish supply gave her three very important advantages.
a. Incorporations will only want to deal with registered companies.
b. You are seen as serious legal entity and other companies can freely associate with and allow you handle their businesses.
c. Access to loans and credit facilities.
Whatever your line of business is, you can always come up with a strategy to explore peoples wants especially incorporations.

2. Write a business plan
You cannot start a journey without having a destination in mind. Can you? Even Nomads usually have a destination in mind before they set out with their cows.
Your business plan is the blueprint of your business. It shows where you are going and guides you throughout the journey. Hence, it is important for you to take your time to write a business plan before moving to the next stage of starting your business.
Olayinka was my bunk mate during NYSC years ago, he works with CWAY, he realized that his short term goals are becoming long term. We met for discussion sometime around March this year and he told me of how he has decided to quit his job, I adviced him on how to go about channeling his energy to his own business since he his business oriented and has a little start up capital. Olayinka requested I register a company for him that will cater for supply of farm produce, food products and supply of diesel. I registered a company for him and dished out proposals to hotels and companies that are into food services. He has a lot of clients at the moment and he now pays salaries.
Writing a business plan is quite easy, and there are even software packages that you can use to do it easily.

3. Register your business.
The next step is to register your business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). There are three main types of business you can register in Nigeria:
Sole proprietorship
Private Limited Liability Company.
Public Limited Liability Company.
Just be certain of what you want to do and that will be your aims and objectives for which your business will be registered. Company registration in Nigeria is now becoming seamless as everything is done online. So with someone with a knowledge of the application and workings of the CAC in a week, your Company Registration Certificate should be ready.

4. Obtain necessary licenses and permits
This would depend on the nature of business you wish to operate. If you want to operate a transportation business or starting a filling station. All these kind of businesses requires permits from the regulatory bodies.
In all, starting your own business can either make you or mar you, it all depends on your attitude, readiness and your ability to know what is needed to be done and when it’s to be done. But for any business to thrive in Nigeria the above factors are important especially advertising and writing out quality proposals to your intended customers to see reasons to choose you over others.

For anyone who wishes to start up an enterprise or company, I offer to support and provide free written proposals to your identified strategic clients.
consultarise@gmail.com or 07087940346.

It's an eye opener