5 Success Tips for African Entrepreneurs
African entrepreneurs have a lot to contend with considering the poor economy and numerous challenges on the continent. Because of these, being an entrepreneur in this part of the world isn’t exactly a stroll in the park. Some of the major challenges of running a business in this part of the world include a lack of finance, resources, and mentorship.
The question that begs an answer is, “How can African entrepreneurs build successful businesses?” This post will provide five important success tips to help you out.
Success Tips for African Entrepreneurs
Learning from failure
Failure isn’t an entirely bad thing. Most successful entrepreneurs, African or not, have more failures than successes. How then have they become so successful? These entrepreneurs have chosen to learn from their failures. Every failure is an opportunity for a lesson and every mistake shows you one way that doesn’t work.
According to Tony Robbins, “success truly is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is the result of experience, and experience is often the result of bad judgment.” The earlier you look at your failures and learn from them, the better. Draw lessons from your failures and mistakes and apply them to improve your business.
Business and pleasure don’t mix
Every African entrepreneur must understand that business and pleasure don’t mix. There’s always the temptation to “flex a little.” But you must know where to draw the line.
You shouldn’t treat business relationships like friendships. This isn’t to say that you can’t be friends with partners and stakeholders, but when discussing business issues, stick to business. Also, the fact that you and a person have a great friendship doesn’t mean that you can run a successful business together. Never let sentiment cloud your judgment.
Motivate yourself
Do you know those days when you don’t feel like getting up from your bed? Those days when all you want to do is sit in front of the TV and Netflix your way through the day? While this may be fun, you must remember that you have a business to run. Learn to motivate yourself against all the odds.
Business is not a bed of roses, especially in Africa. As such, African entrepreneurs must understand that no one can motivate you as much as you will motivate yourself. You should learn how to give yourself pep talks from time to time. Don’t depend on others for validation, instead, draw your motivation from within. Frequently go over your notes to relive your dreams. Use this as a springboard for yourself to push yourself towards success.
Patience
As much as it is great to motivate yourself, you must also learn patience along the way. Not every business risk is worth taking. Many African entrepreneurs don’t understand this and they end up suffering humongous losses that could crash their businesses.
Some of the investments that you make will take several months or years to yield returns. Don’t pull out just because it doesn’t seem like it is working initially. Be patient with your investments and trust the process. Also, you should learn to slow down before making business decisions. Never rush into decisions. Always remember that patience is a virtue. If you are going to succeed as an African entrepreneur, patience is a virtue that you must have.
Trust your employees
This is an area where most African entrepreneurs fail. One of the first things that you must understand in business is that you cannot do it by yourself. No man is an island of knowledge neither can a tree make a forest. You need people to bring your ideas to life.
While you may be the originator of your idea, you must work with other bright minds to flesh up the idea. Such people require you to trust them so that they can deliver optimally. Don’t be too rigid with your team. Allow them to contribute to the process and you’d be shocked at their ingenuity.
Wrapping up
You can be one of the successful African entrepreneurs by adopting the tips in this post. Asides from the ones mentioned above, you must also adopt innovation, and fuel your passion. Do you have any others? Feel free to share them with us in the comments section. Meanwhile, check out some exciting articles on SME360.
