Don’t be like the poor man- write a business plan!

In one of the English textbooks I read in primary school, a story is told of a very poor man.

All he had was a coin and he thought of what he could buy with it. He walked into a grocery store and realised all his coin could buy him was an egg; having no choice he decided to buy the egg and fry it for lunch. However, on his way back to his house, he suddenly had a brain wave- why eat the egg and wait for certain hunger when he could make money from it? So he quickly came up with a plan about how the egg could become his seed capital.

He thought to himself “Instead of eating the egg, I will leave it for some time to hatch, then it will grow and become a hen and lay more eggs that will in turn grow and give me more eggs until I have a whole poultry. I will start to sell my hens and from the proceeds, I will buy a cow that will in turn give birth to more cows and in no time, I will have a herd of cattle. My cattle will start to produce milk, I will soon become the largest milk merchant in town and I will be rich!”

He got so excited and started to jubilate. Alas, the egg fell down and broke amidst his jubilation, and down went his dream of becoming the richest merchant in town!

Poor farmer!

If only in his excitement he had picked a pen and paper to write down his ‘business idea’ then he would have been guided to know the viability of his new venture. He would have realised that egg picked up on the shelf was never going to hatch and his business idea was dead on arrival. He would at least have saved his lunch.

To the business lessons from this story:

1) A business idea is not the same as a wish or fantasy…wake up!
2) Dream big but set realistic goals
3) Carry out due diligence and research the business you want to venture into.
4) Find out if you have the requisite skills for successfully implementing your business idea
5) Get help where necessary.

Be a wise Entrepreneur.

Don’t be like the poor man.

Write a business plan!

Bukola is Founder, SMEBizInfo.com and apart from being a blogger, She is a travel consultant with over 13 years industry experience. She is passionate about helping small businesses harness opportunities to grow their business. You can reach her by mail- info@smebizinfo.com