Choosing The CEO

Who is your CEO?

In lay man terms, the CEO is the big front end of the organisation, while the receptionist is usually the smaller front end. Many small businesses fail due to the inabilities of the CEO to manage the business properly and Leadership is key to the success of any business.

Most startup entrepreneurs are always eager to have their name on the top hierarchy of the startup as Mr CEO. In their defense, its their idea, they started it, its their sweat and all. They are right, except that they fail to realize that its only an existing business that needs a CEO. If they do not have what it takes to manage the startup properly, the CEO position becomes a neglect.

As an aspiring CEO, there’s much work to be done, many plans to be made, many things to learn, unlearn and relearn, many books to be read, many seminars to attend, many practicals to be done and most importantly, many mistakes to be made.

I run a clothing line WITTEEwears. I can’t afford to hire a CEO or a manager right now even though I know I still have much to learn, so I decided to go into partnership with the best partner that ever existed. My business partner doesn’t sleep, he’s always marketing, he’s constantly bringing in new clients, he handles the management better than I do and I can ever do, he only takes 10% of profit and allows me keep 90%, even though he’s the CEO.
My CEO is God.

I realized my in capabilities on time and chose my CEO wisely. You don’t have to use the same CEO as I do, but you definitely need a great front end management for your business. If you know you’re not so great at managing your business, don’t deceive yourself, think other than yourself, who else can come on board to assist you, it could probably be in form of employment or partnership; put the business first. The person might be the manager if you really love the CEO name, but most importantly, if your business is failing due to your inabilities as the CEO, look for someone who can CEO better than you. The most important asset in a business is the organisation itself, not the products or the marketing and definitely not the CEO.

If you’re scared of someone stealing your idea, you can keep starving your business of success, till there finally isn’t a business.
When choosing your CEO or your partner, make sure you employ legal agreements that define each person’s rights, percentages and roles. An MOU will also be good too.

Don’t be scared of taking risks, be scared of remaining stagnant.

Mr CEO, who ever you are, be realistic, be strategic, understand the company’s mission and vision and work according to it. Set long and short term goals. Stay true to the mission- the mission comes first, then the team and yourself should come last.

When it starts to get easy, EXPAND

Think WITTEE! Think Intelligence

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LAZINESS BUILDS BRANDS

The Brand Is Worth More Than The Business

A while back, I was chatting with a friend who just started an NGO with a beautiful motive and wonderful ideas, but she needed to raise money through sponsors and donations. I told her to create a system to make it very easy for people to make donations online which would be much easier and faster. During our session, while doing the SWOT analysis for her organisation, I mentioned to her, 'LAZINESS BUILDS BRANDS!!! she flared up insisting she's not lazy, Laziness can never describe her and so much more in her defense. I thank God we were chatting that day, If it was a face to face meeting, I can almost bet she might have beaten me up that day. I later explained the concept and she understood.

Laziness builds the best multi-national brands till date. Laziness in brand building doesn't mean you as the brand should go weak with business implementation and activities. It rather means, the brand should do all the work for the customers and the only thing customers have to do is to fully rely on the brand to meet their needs without them going through any stress. Does that make sense?

Why do you prefer shopping on JUMIA?

Why do you prefer doing your searches on Google?

Why do you prefer buying/repairing your phones with SLOT?

or 

How did you become a fan of coca-cola?

Why do you like to eat Indomie noodles?

What makes noodles different from spaghetti?

The answers to these questions, are born out of laziness.

JUMIA - E-commerce site where you buy the best products from the comfort of even your toilet and only pay when they are delivered to your sitting room.

GOOGLE- Information database that has or links you to almost everything in the world, both past, future and present and is accessible from any internet enabled device.

SLOT- Trusted gadget merchant with excellent services and so many branches all over Nigeria with a good return policy and efficient warranty.

COCA-COLA- World re-known soda brand available everywhere in the world. Sold by every kiosk, bar, hawker etc. Even unconsciously, some people mention the name coke even when they intend buying another soda brand.

INDOMIE- Most popular noodles brand in Nigeria. Available in all stores, easy to prepare and comes in various sizes and flavors. 

Spaghetti has more nutrients than noodles, it's more filling and less expensive but because spaghetti would cook for nothing less than 30 minutes and it requires some cooking skills, Noodles is preferred by most.

All these brands understand the needs of their customers and work so hard to meet them while improving their services everyday to make their customers lazier and loyal.

Laziness builds brand Loyalty

In our own way, we are all lazy. What motivates me might not motivate you. We all have mood swings. For any brand to be successful, the brand needs to take it as a responsibility to ensure that even in times when the customer is psychologically unstable, your brand still comes first when they need your service. Such is achieved when customers can easily access your brands' products/services very fast without any stress. That way, even when competing brands arise, your customer remains loyal since its easier to purchase from you than your competition.

Put your customer's interest first.

In business, the interest hierarchy should go like this -CUSTOMER - SUPPLIER - EMPLOYEES - ENTREPRENEUR.

Your customers interest should always come first , hence the saying 'customers are always right'.

Your suppliers interest should come second, or else, you wont be able to meet up with customer demands and then customers start becoming unhappy.

Employees are next because they are the skeleton of your business, unhappy employees are less productive and less productive employees would reduce customer satisfaction.

If your customers, suppliers and employees are happy, business would be great.

The entrepreneur is happy.

Customers are lazy people who want all the work done for them. Entrepreneurs are hard working people who get paid to build a system that does all the work for them and satisfies a need.

If the entrepreneur becomes lazy, the customers have to become hard working, but since customers have the choice of patronizing competing brands, they won't get hard working, they would rather switch brands and subsequently, loyalty.

Don't strive to meet your customers half way - that only works for love stories.

Meet your customers 98% of the way, make 1% the neutral ground that holds the decision preference of the client and make the client only participate in 1% which is payment.

Laziness would make you a brand leader.

I wish you success in business.

Think WITTEE! Think Intelligence

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