Sunny Elem is a real estate consultant and the Managing
Director, Nature Hero Limited – a network marketing firm.
What is the basic challenge of a prospective entrepreneur?
The first problem usually is funding because every
great idea must have some kind of financial backup to put it to the
marketplace. But in Nigeria we don’t have adequate access to funding for
small scale or medium scale businesses. As an entrepreneur, borrowing
money from friends and family sometimes may not be enough to meet your
target in order to make it out there. Also this issue of not having good
statistics in the country is a challenge to entrepreneurship. You know
when you are planning for a business you would want to rely on
statistics in order to do your research very well. But as it is now
there seems to be no particular place you can go to get information to
aid you in your planning and I faced that challenge too when I was
starting.
In Nigeria, if you are starting newly, you don’t get
the support of the government unlike what is obtainable around most
economies of the world. In the United States where I have some
businesses, their economy is based on small scale businesses and that is
why they don’t play with them. They give them all manner of support to
make sure they succeed. Basically these are the problems here. However,
it is important to say that in Nigeria we have the market and we are
very resilient people and we are hard working despite these
confrontations. I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life and I started
selling from the age of seven when I supply brooms to buyers at the
train station close to where we reside then. So, I’ve come to realise
that the easiest way to succeed is to work for yourself and not for
somebody else or to make other people rich by using a better part of
your life for them.
Some successful businessmen say the fundamental
challenge of a prospective entrepreneur is the inability to come up with
a sellable idea, but you just said it’s funding. Are you, in anyway, at
variance with their views?
Basically I will say yes, and, no. We have what we
call ‘the Achievement Cycle,’ and it starts with a dream or an idea. You
have a dream and there are a whole of things you have in the picture.
After dreaming it becomes a goal by the time you put it down and from
there it gets to the next level, which is planning.
From this stage it
goes to execution, and of course, idea comes first. But go out there on
the street, we have millions of people with ideas and so many come here
with their ideas or proposal seeking for somebody to help them to push
it in the marketplace. So, I’m not saying that funding comes first
because if you look at the cycle funding comes last, but eventually you
will get to it. And when you get to it, you will understand that it is
where you either become successful or not. So if you ask me, I will
still say it’s funding because by the time you go through the cycle you
will come to it.
What are your three key investment principles?
Knowledge is first. Is just like you want to go to
Benin, but you don’t know how to get there. Then basically you cannot
get there until you are knowledgeable enough on how to get to your
destination. So, you must have the knowledge of the business you want to
go into. Some people may say Mr. Elem is making money in network
marketing and as result they will want to jump into the business. That
is what a lot of people do and most times they get their fingers burnt
in the process. Secondly is passion. Do things you love. Do things that
when you wake up in the morning you will be excited to go to work. If
your business is not like a job to you, then there is no need being in
that business. So your business should be able to wake you up excited in
the morning to go out there to make things happen. The third is
resilience, you must be able to endure, persist and you must be able to
say to yourself that you will not go back despite the daunting
challenges.
Initially, when I started in business, I used to
think that I’m at the middle of success and failure and that I had the
option to choose between both. But after reading the biographies of
successful business people and after my experience in business over the
years, I come to realise that that my initial formula is wrong.
The
right formula is I am behind, followed by failure and trials then
success at the end of it. So for me to get to success I must pass
through failure and trials and there is no how I can jump trial and
failure before I meet the great success. It is often times not possible.
That is why when some young entrepreneurs come into business and first
meet with failure and disappointment they will say, ‘hey, I think I’m
driving on the wrong route,’ without knowing that they must pass through
failure before getting to success.
Tell us about network marketing and why is the sector misunderstood by Nigerians?
This is an industry that is very well misunderstood
and there is a whole lot of misconception about it. Some people confuse
pyramid schemes with network marketing; they are two different things.
Pyramid is illegal and was designed from the beginning to rip people of
their funds. You see many of them online and initially we saw people
make money and this is because it has been designed that way so that the
news of them making money will spread and a lot of people will join.
But so many people have burnt their fingers in this business. However,
in network marketing the reverse is the case. It is a business where you
have all professionals and it is the only industry which stood the five
great global recessions since inception in 1930. You can be involved in
network marketing part time or full time. Nature Hero uses the platform
of network marketing to distribute its products and this is because of
the gains and returns which network marketing is celebrated for.
In this
interview with Okechukwu Nnodim, Sunny Elem says young entrepreneurs must realise that failure usually comes before success in business.
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