My first credit analysis training was by SLS aka HRH Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. This was in 2008 when he was the CRO i.e Chief Risk Officer of a first generation bank in Nigeria.

The main lesson of that day was the application of the Risk Pyramid in our credit reviews. This lesson stayed with me till date.

Ok, so in your in mind you are wondering that now that I’m a full time poet, wetin concern Risk Pyramid with spoken word poetry?
���
I believe the Risk Pyramid affects every aspect of life, thus even poets need it to plan and strategize.

So let’s get right into it.

The Risk Pyramid is made up of 5 levels.
At the base you have, country risk, next / on top of it is industry risk, then management/ non-financial risk, then financial risk and at the top of the pyramid is product risk.
As a spoken word poet, you are the product.

/ \
/ \
/ Product \
/ Financial \
/Non-financial\
/ Industry \
/ Country \
—————————-

Let’s start from the base:

1) Country risk: this is general to everyone, but the interpretation differ from person to person and industry to industry. Country risks can be categorized under PESTLE.

PESTLE is broken down as follows:

Political
Economic
Social
Technological
Legal
Environmental

Political – as a poet, do you know how new government policies affects you?
E.g. the proposed Hate Speech bill – if your Poetry video goes viral, can your words be classified as “hate speech.”
What about taxation? Hope you know the tax net is widening to capture as many as possible.
Change of Government, insecurity, lack of power etc all come under political issues.

Economic: this has to do the economy of the Nation, as it relates to CBN policies, inflation rate, deposit rate, stock market, money market, unemployment, purchasing power etc.
Two key questions to ask even if everything above sounds technical are, are the middle class still in the middle?
If not, why?

Social: for this one I will drill down to just two major segments. These are Demographic and Psychographic factors.
Demographic relates to age, gender, religion, education level, income etc.
Psychographic relates to values, interests, lifestyle, attitude, opinion etc.

To increase your chances of success/ sale/ growth, knowing and attending to the psychographic factors to get customers and clients would help you more.

Technological: how are you leveraging technology to grow your career?

Legal: do you have a lawyer or lawyer friend who helps you draft agreements and read through the contracts from.other parties before you sign?

Environmental: issues affecting your physical location e.g. weather.

Next on the Risk Pyramid is:

2) Industry risk: let me illustrate this with something I heard recently.

A poet performed at an event and was confronted by a certain class of people after his performance. He was told that if he had done the poem at another event, his poetry career would be over.

Personally, I don’t believe flesh and blood can end any poet’s career.

But as a poet, please know that reputational risk is a key issue in any industry.

Also, there are always “power centers” in every industry, and you don’t have to be James to bond with them. In this context, power centers are people not places. But note, not all power centers are for you, so choose wisely.

Lemme stop here for now.

If all what I’ve said thus far is making sense to you, do let me know so I can continue.

Signed
Olumide Holloway aka King Olulu, who likes natural Kunu.

+2348025070892, Twitter @olulu4ever, Instagram @olulutheking, olulu4ever@gmail.com