Have you ever started a new job and realized you hate it? Are you finding it hard to get your dream job or even a job? Would you like to know how to position yourself as the best job candidate?
The Confidence in Action Summit helped the Nigerian Motherland Moguls discover how to build their professional brands and answer the questions above. It was juiced up with the boss-level talk that elevates careers and took place on the 12th of February 2022.
SLA partnered with Darling Nigeria to bring the summit to 3 African countries. It kicked off in South Africa, came to Nigeria and now is headed to Kenya.
More than 2,900 Nigerian queens showed up to the free, 3hrs of masterclasses, workshops, networking sessions and the keynote speech ‘Bouncing Back From Rejection’ given by Dr Chinny Ogunro.
All attendees had direct access to some of Nigeria’s high profile career experts, and it was epic.
The career expert speakers and coaches included Isioma Coker, an HR Advisor Team Lead at Shell. Nwamaka Okey-Aguorun, Senior HR Manager at Diageo – Guinness Nigeria. Toun Tunde-Anjous, founder & CEO of The People Practice. Tiwalola Ogunlesi, international speaker, author and founder of Confident and Killing it.
If you missed the South African and Nigerian summits, register for the Kenyan summit taking place on the 19th of February 2022. You wouldn’t want to miss out on another chance to build the professional brand of your dreams and grow your network.
Here are the Boss-Lady Conversations You’ve Missed
We learnt how to revamp our professional profile, make a strategic career plan and build our network.
The attendees had the option to be in a masterclass or networking session each hour before the keynote speaker. They were also coached on how to harness communication skills needed to negotiate job offers, ace job interviews and gain strategies to propel their career forward.
Masterclass 1: Getting Unstuck When You Feel Trapped In A Job with Isioma Coker.
Masterclass 2: How to Position Yourself As The Best Candidate For The Job with Nwamaka Okey-Aguoru.
Workshop 1: Do Things & Tell People: Develop Your Professional Brand to Land Your Dream Job with Tiwalola Ogunlesi.
Workshop 2: How To Find A Job That You Actually Care About with Toun Tunde-Anjous.
We lit things up with Confidence in Action and showed our boss ladies how to launch powerful professional brands!
We were captivated by world-class information, tips and advice on owning our careers and being intentional about our career moves, from the beginning to the end.
Here’s to raising a glass to all our boss ladies who showed up for the Nigerian summit. They came out in numbers to take in the career gems we had prepared for them, and it was an experience worth watching again. You can watch the masterclasses and keynote speeches on YouTube to get a snippet of how the summit was.
As a young ambitious woman, your career choice is one of the most significant decisions you’ll ever make. It is important that you equip yourself with the right information to build the professional career of your dreams.
Think about it, would you rather spend your days at a job that leaves you feeling empty? Or where you are fulfilled for the better part of your life?
This is why we at SLA partnered with Darling Nigeria to bring you the Confidence In Action Summits. That will take place in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. The summit series kicked off in South Africa, on February 5th and it was a BLAST!
More than 1200 Mzansi queens came together to attend a free learning and networking experience. There were masterclasses, workshops and networking sessions where we saw our SA boss ladies make new connections, and then our Keynote Speaker Nicolette Mashile, made her entrance and taught us all about navigating career turbulence.
All attendees had direct access to some of South Africa’s high profile career experts, including Talent Acquisition & Employer Branding Lead at PepsiCo SSA Candice Martin, Market HR Cluster Head at Google SSA Avanti Maharaj, Talent Acquisitions Specialist at Nestlé Lebogang Mashabela and founder of Pam Cherry Coaching and Consulting Pamela Cherry.
It was 3hrs of interesting talks, coaching and loads of digital connection fun. Our Mzansi mogul ladies showed up, and showed out!
So whether you missed the event, or you want to relive the Confidence In Action Summit experience, you can also attend the Nigerian summit on February 12 and Kenyan summit on February 19.
Here is how we took over the digital streets in SA
We learnt about career/ personal development, professional networking and practical advice on building a professional career of your dreams.
The attendees had the opportunity to pick one masterclass or networking session each hour.
They were also coached on how to harness communication skills needed to negotiate job offers, ace job interviews and gain strategies to propel their career forward.
Masterclass 1: How To Find A Job That You Actually Care About Speaker with Candice Martin.
Masterclass 2: How To Position Yourself As The Best Candidate For The Job Speaker with Avanthi Maharaj.
Workshop 1: How to Find A Job That Suits You Coach with Pamela Cherry.
Workshop 2: How To Position Yourself As The Best Candidate For The Job Coach with Lebogang Mashabela.
We Came, put our Confidence In Action and gave out formulas to elevate careers!
The summit had a vibe and more. The moment we went live on Zoom, Google Meet, Youtube and Facebook, we learned, unlearned and relearned, while having an unforgettable experience.
So here’s raising a glass to all our SA boss ladies who made the time, energy and resources that went into planning the Confidence In Action Summit South Africa totally worth it.
So… you register for She Means Business– all pumped and ready to learn how to dominate the online business world. You are looking forward to your training and all the amazing online business knowledge you KNOW you are going to leave the class with.
But then two days later you get an email saying you were absent from your training…yesterday. You had totally forgotten. Believe it or not, it happens to the best of us.
This article is going to show you two easy ways to make sure you do not forget to attend your She Means Business training. We want to see your awesome business grow and we are willing to do what it takes to make sure you get the knowledge you need.
OPTION 1- Add the event to your calendar.
Once you register for any of the sessions,you will get a confirmation email in your primary inbox. It looks like the image below. Please open it.
Scroll down a bitand tap on the calendar option of your choice and it will automatically take you to that calendar.
It will ask you to give Zoom permission to access your calendar. If you are fine with the terms, agree and your calendar will be displayed. Tap on “Save” and the session will be added to your calendar automatically.
On the day of the training, you will get a calendar reminder with a link to your session. Click on the link and voila, your training will begin!
OPTION 2- Join a WhatsApp Reminder Group
When you open the confirmation email above, scroll down a bit till you see what is in the image below. Tap on any of the blue links to join a reminder group.
Interaction is limited to admins on the group, so do not worry, you won’t get spammed. The only messages you will get will be session reminders.
If you want to make super super sure that you do not forget, you can try both options. This way, you will get a reminder via the WhatsApp Group and also through your calendar.
We can’t wait for you to gain the knowledge you need to run your online business like a pro so that you can strut into places like this:
What is She Means Business?
She Means Business in partnership with Facebook offers digital skills training and business finance sessions for entrepreneurs to learn how to effectively grow their business online and share strategies for success.
Here is what you can expect from She Means Business-
Business finance trainingto help you stay financially healthy.
A certificateto show you have successfully mastered the digital marketing skills from the training. (If you can score 80% or higher on our course quizzes😏)
You definitely do not want to miss out on this opportunity! Tap here to register today.
The art of balancing a 9-5 job, side business and managing a family cannot be underrated, it is the work of a superhero! Taiwo of Ejire Onigarri describes herself as industrious, ambitious and a go-getter not just because she has her way with words but it is a description of who she truly is.
She started her business,Ejire Onigarri, to fill in a gap in her community. Repeatedly, people had complained bitterly to her about the dirt-filled Garri they buy at the local market. They would always ask her to buy Garri for them from her hometown. This she turned into a business, added a unique twist and has since then been evolving.
Her business journey is one filled with challenges, successes and lessons learned to help other female entrepreneurs map out their way in the business world.
How did you become an entrepreneur, where did the idea of your business come from?
My mum used to work in UBA, and that always excited me. I dreamt of working there or any other bank of my choice. Everything was going well for my mum until there was an overturn in the banking industry that made banks lay off their staff. This was a major struggle for my mum because she only knew about the 9-5 life. It was difficult for her to get another job or enter into the business world. This hit me deep and ever since then I made the decision that I wouldn’t rely on a 9-5 job. The urge to start a business sparked in me.
I personally don’t buy Garri from Lagos, it always has stones, dirt and other impurities. For those who do not know what Garri is, it is cassava grained into dry edible granules. Anytime, I travel home, my colleagues and friends would always tell me to bring Garri for them. This demand kept on increasing and I thought to myself why not start a business out of it. Garri is a fast-moving product that people can affordably buy. No matter what is going on in the economy, people will always eat, food will always be a priority.
What’s the biggest factor that has helped you become successful?
I won’t say I am there yet, I’m on the path to success! I see feedback as an opportunity to do better. Customer service is key! I don’t do transactional relationships with my customers, I go beyond that and invest in building a long-lasting relationship with them.
What significant struggle have you faced running your business and how did you solve it?
Financial:Funds are usually needed to scale up an enterprise from being a hobby to growing into a profitable business. To achieve this upscale, I began monthly contributions.
Having to get equipment for the business: At inception, my Garri bags were handmade by me. However, as I interacted with colleagues in the industry, I learnt there were machines available that will save time, manage resources and maximise profit.
Social media: Social media can be a hard nut to crack sometimes. My degree in English couldn’t save me as the terrain spans beyond that. To succeed, I enrolled in digital marketing courses as well as conducted research.
What has been the most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur?
Having something to call my own and building my dream. I am building something that generations behind me can take over. As a mother, I want to leave a worthy legacy for my daughter.
Beyond Garri I am preserving the Nigerian heritage, providing crunchy nourishment and creating customer satisfaction and happiness.
What are some lessons you have learned?
Being an entrepreneur is not a walk in the park, it is definitely not a bed of roses. There is a lot of struggle behind the smiling face, behind that exciting post you see on social media. As a 9-5er, I have to balance the orders, package the Garri, prepare for work, get the kids ready for school and put the home in order, I’m still learning, I learn new things every day.
To learn more about Taiwo Oludairo and Ejire Onigarri, read the rest of this article on the FCMB Business Zone.
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This feature article on Taiwo Oludairo is sponsored by the First City Monument Bank (FCMB). FCMB is passionate about empowering female entrepreneurs, helping them build their businesses, and improving the overall success rate of businesses owned or run by women.
This feature article on Onome Ikhimoya is sponsored by the First City Monument Bank (FCMB) SheVentures proposition. FCMB SheVentures is empowering female entrepreneurs, helping them build their businesses, and improving the overall success rate of businesses owned or run by women. Please click here to learn more about how FCMB SheVentures can support you and your business.
Onome’s love for fashion is only rivalled by her drive to be the best and her businesses are proof of this. Onome Ikhimioya is the founder and CEO of Mistics Couture and Mistics Sparkles.
Mistics Couture is a fashion outfit that specializes in making bespoke outfits. Their outfits include English wears, traditional wears, casual wears, beach wears, and so on. Mistics Sparkles is an arm of Mistics Couture that brands and designs t-shirts, fabrics, throw pillows and much more. She has styled celebrities like Yemi Alade, Kim Burrell, Oge Okoye, Funke Akinokun, Ngozi Ezeonu, and so on.
This piece discusses Onome’s journey in the fashion industry. It also talks about some struggles she has encountered and insightful advice she has learned from past mistakes.
Running Mistics Couture requires you to be very creative and that can take a toll if you are not inspired. So my question for you is, where do you draw your inspiration from?
God inspires me. Every inspiration I have comes from God because he is the creator of the world. He sees me through my day to day life and guides my path.
Secondly, my inspiration comes from a knowledge of myself. Knowing that I have a lot of talents in me, seeing that I have a whole lot to actualize in my time here on earth. After my first degree and my Masters, I did not want to work for anyone. I think I worked for a while- maybe like a month before I started my own thing. I felt like I had a lot in me waiting to burst out and I was not going to be able to let it out while working for someone else. One talent I have is that I can look at you and sketch what will suit you. I can do a lot of stuff with fabric generally. So I decided to go into fashion design.
My inspirational fabric- if I can call it that- is Ankara fabric. Looking at Ankara fabric gives me this joy that I don’t understand. I look at the fabric and I want to do a whole lot of things with it.
My mum is another person that inspires me. Growing up every Sunday, people would come out and peep at my mum on our way to church and they would call her, “to match, to match.” Even till now in her 60s, she dresses so beautifully. Her age has not really made her step down in her dress sense and she has a lot of strength, faith and hope which she passed on to me.
So in all, I get my inspiration from God. From my belief in myself, the fabrics that I love to work with and my mum.
Over the years, the United States Government has funded a number of agencies and platforms to support African companies to do business with both the U.S. government itself and with the U.S. private sector.
To provide more clarity on ways in which the U.S. can assist in growing African businesses and entrepreneurs through trade, investment, and technical assistance, Africa.com is organising a one-day Virtual Summit – if you are a Motherland Mogul looking to expand your business into the United States, this is not the one to miss!
This Virtual Summit will bring thousands of c-suite executives and decision-makers of African businesses together with high ranking U.S Government and business officials. It will be held on Wednesday the 14th of October 2020 with the following panel sessions:
Panel 1: View From The Very Top The Summit kicks off with keynote remarks by the highest-ranking U.S. government official responsible for relations with Africa, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, The Honorable Tibor Nagy. Then, the Chairman of the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (President and CEO of GE Africa) Farid Fezoua, will deliver keynote remarks from the private sector perspective.
Panel 2: Hear It From The Agency Heads A panel discussion featuring the Chief Operating Officer of Prosper Africa, a new U.S. government initiative that brings together the resources of over 17 U.S. Government agencies to connect the U.S. and African businesses with new buyers, suppliers, and investment opportunities. Joining this panel are the ‘Africa heads’ of some of the key U.S. Government agencies that do business with Africa, including the International Development Finance Corporation (formerly OPIC); The Export/Import Bank; USAID; and the U.S. Africa Development Foundation.
Panel 3: Hear It From African Business Heads The third portion of the summit is a panel of very senior African business leaders who have done business with the U.S., who will provide their perspectives on their experiences and guidance to those who seek to follow their footsteps. Panel 4: Views From Ambassadors Country-by-Country The fourth portion of the summit is a panel of U.S. Ambassadors to several key African countries who will speak about the resources available specifically in their markets to support African businesses.
This event is free so don’t miss this opportunity to take your business international!
Felicia Ogumah is the brains and strength behind Feligold Food and Spices, a food company based in Warri, Delta State that began in October 2019. They package and sell food items like dry fish, crayfish, prawns, melons and local spices. Felicia’s business skill is something that has been cultivated since childhood. She says, “I grew up selling. At the age of 12, I was already selling. I think it is something that is a part of me. My friends tell me ” Feli there is nothing you can not sell. Even if they package stick and give you, you will sell.”
This article covers Felicia’s experiences running Feligold food and spice and valuable lessons you can take away from it.
Warning: Checking Felicia’s Facebook and Instagram page, will make you buy something.
What is the inspiration behind Feligold Food and Spice?
It, first of all, came as an insight, an inspiration from God. When I first started, it was something I really just wanted to do with everything that I have and am. God was stirring it in my heart to do it and so far it has been very profitable. God has been involved in the sourcing to get my products. I had no level of experience, I had no one putting me through, I did not go for any offline or even online training on Food and Spice. Divine connection came in. God was strategically connecting me to people. In fact, I am amazed!
For now, we ship to Benin, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Anambra. We have even shipped to a customer in Europe. That particular customer contacted me through Instagram. In fact, I get most of my customers online. The lockdown affected us because most of my clients are outside Delta State. When the roads were eventually opened, the cost of the way-bill was high. Doing business right now is not the way it was before the virus. I pray everything goes back to normal”
From her business experience with Feligold Food and Spice, Felicia has three major business tips.
Have a good reason for starting your business. Don’t go into the food business only because you think it is something that must sell. Everybody is into food business now. You have to have a passion for it and know why you started. It is important to know your why!
Be focused. If it is just crayfish you want to sell, put all your effort into selling that crayfish. Don’t jump into doing everything at once. Pick one thing and try to get the best out of it before moving to something else.
Be known for something. Let people know you for something. If you choose to do something, let it be something people identify you with because you are passionate about what you are doing.
When Terryanne’s eldest daughter was little, she struggled with a dry skin condition called Eczema. Terryanne searched for a natural skincare solution that would heal her daughter’s skin but could hardly find any in Kenya. Based on a doctor’s recommendation, she tried shea butter and it worked. Terryanne soon realised that some mothers in her circle were also searching for natural solutions to their children’s eczema. This spurred her to start Keyara Organics- a leading home-grown skincare brand in Kenya.
Terryanne Chebet is a Media and Communications professional with more than 15 years of experience in Media practice, Media leadership and Management. She is also the founder of Africa’s Leading Ladies, an online group for African women to connect, learn and share experiences. She started Keyara Organics from her kitchen and it has flourished because of her expertise and passion.
This piece is about Terryanne’s journey with Keyara Organics and the lessons you can take away from her experience.
What is the intention behind Keyara Organics?
The intention behind Keyara organics has always been to provide a skincare solution for the whole family using as many natural ingredients as we can. We aim to make products available for the man in the house, the woman in the house, the child, the toddler- we want everyone to be catered to.
What inspired your decision to leave journalism to start Keyara organics?
There were so many things that I needed to do with my life and I would not have been able to do them while working as a journalist. It would not have been fair to the job. It would take too much of my time and waste their time as well. So I decided to focus on what I needed to do to be able to get to where I wanted to go.
I am 41 years old right now and I have been telling my friends that “this is possibly my highest productive decade so you may not see me much, you may not hang out with me a lot.”When I am 50, 60, 70, I can relax and enjoy life a lot more.
I also left because I needed to be home more. As a journalist, I could count the number of times I was actually home before 10 PM for the 10 or 12 years of my career.
Has your experience as a journalist helped in running Keyara?
My journalistic background has helped me immensely. Being in the public eye has helped me put my brand in a place where I can reach many people. It has helped in building a better brand and getting visibility from media houses. Also, the confidence I have today may not be there if I had not been a journalist before this.
What are some of the challenges you have experienced and how have you dealt with them?
One of the biggest problems is the packaging and I believe this is an African problem. Many of us in the skincare space has had a problem getting quality local packaging. So we end up having to import packaging. That affects the margin because we are paying for freight and a higher grade of plastic. All this eventually affects the pricing of our products.
We have thought of different ways to solve this problem and one of them involves buying a moulding machine to make our own plastics but it is very expensive. However, one of us in the skincare space decided to fill the gap by shipping in containers in bulk and then we buy from her.
Sourcing products has also been quite a challenge. For instance, shea butter comes from West Africa and shipping it into Kenya is very expensive. Luckily for us, we found out that shea butter is also available in Northern Uganda and South Sudan and they are neighbouring countries. So now we source from Northern Uganda.
In running your business, you interact a lot with local communities and business. In your opinion, how important do you think local communities are to the businesses they choose to support?
They are absolutely important. I think that it is a thing of pride to be able to invest in our own and contribute to these little economies. I am pretty big on working with what we have locally and patronising small businesses in our communities. For us at Keyara, we source raw materials like aloe vera from local farmers in Kenya that harvest those items.
Supporting local businesses will never stop being a priority for us. In a couple of years, we have seen the skincare industry in Africa grow- brands are consistently popping up in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and we are effectively creating an economy of our own through our patronage.
By supporting local businesses, we also create gainful employment. Whether it is a full-time person or a consultant, the people who are working on packaging, the people who print out labels- the whole value chain gets impacted and enriched. The more we push for our African brands to grow and support them, the more we grow our economies.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a business of their own?
This might sound cliche but just start. Start where you are, start with what you have. Just start. I started Keyara organics with about 60,000 shillings which is 600 dollars which I took out of my salary. I bought some shea butter and some containers and began producing in my kitchen. Looking back, had I thought that let me wait for big money to come in, let me wait for a million shillings, I would not have started it. So my advice is start where you are, start with what you have and start on something that you are passionate about.
Nothing beats creativity. There is a lot of copycatting in the small business space and I understand that because it is a lot cheaper and easier to start out copying someone else’s model. Still, I want to challenge us to think broadly and not limit ourselves to the same patterns and thinking. We need to be creative and innovative in our approach because that is how we build a business that can scale.
Be serious about your business. We are in such an entrepreneurial age in Africa. Everyone wants to start something and some people just start and are not serious about it. Be as serious as you can, learn from the mistakes of those of us who started as a “side hustle.” If you can afford to from the beginning, make the business formal, do your accounting right, get a consultant to handle your books, just do it right from the beginning and the business will grow.
If you want to take your business to the next level and meet more customers online, Visa is your plug! Visit their Small Business Hub to get the support you need. First 100 businesses to sign up get $200 worth of online advertising, so hurry now!
This spotlight feature on Yomi Odutola is powered by Visa. Visa’s ‘Where you Shop Matters’ initiative aims to champion entrepreneurs across Africa while encouraging consumers to support small businesses by shopping local. Visa’s initiative is supporting small businesses through the Visa Small Business Hub, a merchant platform providing tools and information on how to start, run and grow small businesses.
So you’re one of the people who finds themselves drifting off thinking about how to build wealth with their monthly income? Don’t just sit there daydreaming, here’s a chance to actually do something about it!
Or maybe you think you need to have a ton of money to start investing, think again. This and other investment myths are some of the topics we’ll be covering in our webinar titled Safe Space – A No BS Guide on How to Invest..
On September 18, 2020 at 5PM WAT/ 6PM CAT/ 7PM EAT, Tolulope Faboyede of FSDH Asset Management will be taking you through everything you need to know to build wealth and invest. What’s more? You’ll be able to get started after the class!
Tolulope Faboyede is a Business Development and Wealth Management expert at FSDH Asset Management Limited. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Lagos and has completed a CFA Institute Investment Foundations Program. Tolu has over 12 years experience in the Nigerian Financial markets and has attended various professional courses and training in Portfolio and Wealth Management. She has worked with several individuals and companies to grow their wealth.Tolu is passionate about providing financial literacy to both individuals and corporate organisations.
After Eve quit her much-loved job because of unwanted sexual advances from male colleagues, she was left with almost nothing in her bank account and desperately had to figure out how to make money. Eve’s family have always traded in shoes. So for her, the shoe business is not uncharted territory.
So Eve began selling shoes to make some money pending when she could get another office job. When the business began to show fruits of success, she decided to go into it full-time. Today, Eve owns Shoe Space Africa – one of the fastest-growing shoe businesses in Africa.
This piece is about Eve’s journey with Shoe Space and how she has been able to grow her business from almost nothing to the phenomenal brand it is today.
What is the story behind Shoe Space Africa?
Starting Shoe Space was not intentional at first. I quit my job in 2016 and I was wondering what to do next. The only other thing I knew how to do asides my corporate job was shoes because I grew up in a family where my mum used to make shoes, my cousin used to sell shoes so it was an easy fall back plan for me. I did not know if it would work because I always liked the corporate life.
Shoe Space started in January 2017. At the time, I had no savings so I started Shoe Space from zero. I talked to a friend in the business and she gave me some of her shoes. I posted them online and made some money from it. My capital was gotten from the money I made off those sales. I thought I was going to sell shoes for a short time and then go back to working a corporate job. However, when I started seeing headway, I decided to do it full-time.
What are some of the challenges you have faced in the course of running Shoe Space Africa, what did you learn from it?
I would not necessarily call this a challenge but this time last year, I experienced a tragic accident for the first time in my life. I was travelling to Kampala, Uganda by bus to consult on some shoes. At the bus station, I met a good friend of mine and because we wanted to sit together, I swapped seats with another passenger on the bus. The person that sat on the seat I was supposed to occupy passed on in that accident. My friend who had a safety belt on was thrown out of the bus and even though I didn’t have a safety belt on, nothing happened to me. I remained seated.
This moment changed my life forever. After the accident, the way I thought and approached things in my life changed, my heart changed. Up until this day, when I think about that moment, I am stunned. Seeing someone else pass away on your behalf changes something in you. Many times in our life, we take things for granted. You look at your life and see all that you have achieved and you think you did it all by yourself. You forget that it is God that has brought you this far.
With regards to the lockdown, the major challenge we have faced has been sales. What has helped us cope is the fact that we have an online presence. I also gave my clients offers and discounts that made my items more affordable for them. Being online worked to my advantage because most people were at home doing nothing except scrolling through their feed. Most shoe lovers are people that will purchase whatever catches their eye even if it is the last money that they have.
What is your big vision for Shoe Space Africa?
I want Shoe space to be a household name for quality shoes sold at affordable prices. More importantly, though, I want to leave a lasting legacy through Shoe Space. Right now, I am working on establishing a foundation that will provide Kenyan kids with quality shoes. So when you buy a shoe from She Space, you are donating a pair of shoes to someone else that needs them. So my big vision is to make sure African children that need shoes have quality shoes.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to start a small business?
Having a relationship with Jesus. I know not everyone believes in Jesus but Jesus us the one I give all the credit to. There is a certain kind of wisdom and clarity that you can only get from God. When you start a business, you may not be sure of what you are doing or where to go next but if you have Jesus, He will help you out with that. When you pray about something and ask for help, if He says no, if He keeps quiet or if He says yes, you know what to do and where to go as opposed to just doing things blindly and on your limited understanding.
Discipline is so important. Even if you don’t feel motivated, discipline keeps you going. There are days you will not want to wake up but the discipline you have gets you awake. I call myself the 4 AM boss because I wake up at four am in the morning and I have been doing that since primary school. After I wake up I pray and get ready and then I am usually at Shoe Space at 6 am. That discipline has to be cultivated and maintained.
If you want to take your business to the next level and meet more customers online, Visa is your plug! Visit their Small Business Hub to get the support you need. First 100 businesses to sign up get $200 worth of online advertising, so hurry now!
This spotlight feature on Yomi Odutola is powered by Visa. Visa’s ‘Where you Shop Matters’ initiative aims to champion entrepreneurs across Africa while encouraging consumers to support small businesses by shopping local. Visa’s initiative is supporting small businesses through the Visa Small Business Hub, a merchant platform providing tools and information on how to start, run and grow small businesses.
This feature article on Taiwo Oludairo is sponsored by the First City Monument Bank (FCMB). FCMB is passionate about empowering female entrepreneurs, helping them build their businesses, and improving the overall success rate of businesses owned or run by women.
