Skills you need to Suceed as an Entrepreneur

The past weeks have been busy for me and my writing has been restricted to the minimum(precisely zero), but I promise my utmost best to write the occasional thought here and there as my scheduling permits.
That aside, let me focus my discussion on the essentials of becoming a successful entrepreneur in any given industry, be it in a service or a product. I am sure that some of us if not most of us aspire to be entrepreneurs. I believe that given a choice, we would rather be employers than employees. The lure of managing your schedule, controlling your destiny, higher revenue and even for some a chance to fulfill their long held dreams is enough motivation to entice many to entrepreneurship. But my big dilemma can everyone make the grade/cut? Well if you going to attempt, then you better read on.
Ignoring the starting capital requirement aside and arguing from a perspective of equal playground as far as capital is concerned, I would like to focus entirely on the qualities and skills that one needs to develop/learn before we plunge into the entrepreneurial world. I am tempted to jump ship tomorrow, but when I assess myself I am not ready? Because I believe that there are so many skills that one needs, and ignoring the popular believe you need to work hard, I argue that working hard is essential but on its own am afraid may not be enough to help you make the grade.
The other day, one of my friends was boldly debating with me that he believes that some of the successful entrepreneurs around have been lucky in one way or another. This is an interesting argument/opinion but I completely disagree with him. I believe that those people who have succeeded have either mastered the technique to understand and gauge the demand for their product or service. They have also been able to do extensive market research to aid in selling their product and service. We are all capable of working hard at all times, but am not so sure that we all have the same levels of intelligence, insight and commitment to master the same techniques for business success. I believe that hard work and a little bit of luck is necessary but I still do think on their own, they are never enough.
With entrepreneurship, we must be prepared to face obstacles, and if you are the kind of person that quits when the going getting tough or you tend to shy away from challenges, then in my opinion you are not ready for entrepreneurship. Use your present job to learn all the skills that you need to, even a menial job can provide you skills that will be important in running a successful business. Be prepared to learn the skill of networking, I cannot emphasize enough of this. You need this skill in career advancement; you need it twice as much if not thrice as much to succeed in business. Be prepared to learn from your friends, family and even present co-workers.
Lastly, develop street smarts, and good instincts when gathering information. Read widely from business magazines to politics, social issues and environmental issues because neither academic, logical nor systematic techniques will help you succeed as an entrepreneur.

Are you ready to be an Investor?

A lot of people seem to not know what kind of investors they are or for that matter in what ways that they can invest their hard earned money. Most often, we see people start to worry when they are close to retirement on how they haven’t saved enough to retire. Do we really want to expose ourselves to such a situation when we grow old? I have time and again said, I have nothing against enjoying life when we have the energy to, but it also important that we maintain our conscious that we can only have that energy for so long and realize that we need a nest egg when our bodies won’t be able to support such a lifestyle.
I will therefore dedicate today’s page to help us understand ways that we can invest. Some people choose to have cash in their banks and money market funds. While I have nothing against holding cash, why should one hold funds in cash when you can be earning a return on the funds however little that amount may be?
If you are ready to be an investor here are my tips on ways that you can invest, these include real estate, bonds, preferred shares and also common stock. I find that a lot of people go out and buy common stock in reputable companies and even upcoming companies. While this may be a good strategy, it is always important to consider what levels of subjective and objective risks that you can afford. Remember that with stocks, you are placing your future on the company’s managers/CEOs, of which you do not know their skills, loyalty to the company and even the priorities that they may take, which all affect the growth potential of the company. Investing in bonds and preferred shares, offers you less but steady return and you are also insulated against most mismanagement. I have always argued that real estate is an area that one cannot go wrong, though one can argue the example of the collapse of that market in the USA. I would laugh it off as a one off! Most often times than not, real estate gives you capital appreciation and of course one builds equity.
As we contemplate, discover and learn new ways of investing, we need to minimize our exposure to risk, because investors suffer from company defaults, credit crunches and even inflation. We need to set our goals on how much savings we expect to have and the risk that we can assume. Obviously, the younger you are the more risk you can take, because with a younger age you can afford to take risks as you will have enough time to recover. That is why I have always argued that investment and money management should be part of our school curriculum. We do not want to end up being desperate in our investment endeavors as a result of being late in starting to invest; there is no jackpot in investing! Take time to learn investment techniques and also understand financial data, only then can you grow your portfolio. I have said it time and again there are many financial books around, take your time to read as many as you can.

How Africa can compete in the Global economy

Any news you read and even some of the people you talk to have/will indicate some stereotypical ideas, opinions and assumptions that are used to label Africa as a negative place to be. But for those that have been to the continent or frequently visit the place, you can generally agree with my believe that Africa has great potential in it and the continent is not as bad as many perceive it to be, After all, did we not host the 2010 world cup successfully? And through South Africa, the world saw how beautiful Africa is and the potential that the continent carries.
I argue that in order for us to move forward and remain stable amongst the challenges that we face, we need great and visionary leaders to help us achieve that potential. This leads me to my concern, how can we remain stable and grow as an economy when we entirely depend on agriculture? Yes, some countries earn some foreign income from tourism, fishing and even mining but no one can disagree that a lot of sub Saharan Africa is highly dependent in agriculture, and as population growth and industrial agriculture seem to take place, the continent needs new avenues to generate income for the small scale farmers who have high dependency on agriculture. Recently Kenya introduced tea picking machines which I believe will have a positive impact Kenya’s labour force. Surely, they were long overdue and I believe that this is a good step forward as we need to embrace industrial agriculture.
It is through industrial agriculture that we can free the labour and allow for enough time to civilize and educate our population. That way we can target a move to service based economies. I believe that the small scale farmers that derive their living from agriculture are prone to manipulation from those that are knowledgeable and have political power. This is where I argue that we need to invest in a sound education system and also embrace in technology if we are to compete in the global economy. If we continue to depend on agriculture, soon the land will run out and we will continue to have a poor majority, which doesn’t aid the progress of our dear continent. And in the end we will continue to have the same question marks.