Jan Okonji is a startup business consultant and coach. He runs his own company, Business Growth Solutions, and has partnered with the Pan African business support hub SNDBX, where he is the resident startup expert.
One of my greatest milestones was helping a client in the building and construction industry achieve a 500 per cent growth in revenue within 1 year. The revenue was over six figures. When I first engaged the client and his team, they were adamant that their problem was in their current business processes, that these were inefficient and slowing down company growth. I disagreed and told them that their bigger problem was actually a negative mindset and wrong company culture. We set out to remedy this over 4 months and had intense coaching and training sessions on a weekly basis. The result was a team willing to learn from mistakes, commit to growth and revenue improvement within a year! I still get excited by what I achieved with that team. All change whether physical, social or financial must start in the mind.
The secret to building a career, business or wealth is that there is NO secret. I would only wish for people to follow their path, the one thing that makes them truly happy and gives them peace. I have been fortunate enough to find this out, after leaving a great corporate job after 13 years and following my passion. This is not easy at all. I have experienced great failure too. My journey started with me reading books by Og Mandino and Zig Ziglar when I was young. This gave me an immense positive outlook on life. Later on, I met mentors who pushed me hard and supported my personal growth. I have daily rituals I stick to, a supportive family, a life outside social media and I journal a lot – collecting every idea that pops in my head. I was never the brightest in class, nor the best worker in the office, but somehow opportunity always met preparedness in my case. That thing that people hate hearing? Hard work! That is all there is, focusing and trying and failing and still trying and adjusting and reinventing and trying again.
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In 2013, I lost out on a potential Sh. 30 million sale of a business application. I had just left corporate employment and was looking to make a splash in the mobile app world. I got a team of great people together and poured in about Sh.3 million to develop an interactive smart-home mobile app but my ego was consistently getting in the way. I did not seek a business mentor, I did not look at better financing alternatives, I had not thought through my startup strategy model but most painfully, I did not look to sell when the opportunity presented itself. All the while I thought that I could keep the returns for myself if I managed the mobile app on my own rather than work with a strategic partner. As a result, I lost out on a potential big pay day and a good return on investment.
I have been fortunate to have had a great 13-year career in the Oil Industry before I embarked on my entrepreneurial journey in 2013. I recall a dilemma between two internal job promotion opportunities during my days in employment. One opportunity involved me taking a pay-cut, wallowing in a lower job group for 2 to 3 years and then eventually moving up to an African-wide role. The other was a country role with an immediate salary increase but no growth out of Kenya. Money or the box? Against my mentor’s advice, I chose the latter and got an immediate salary increase. 3 years later I was doing good in my Kenyan job but I knew I would have been doing great in an African role, with a much higher salary of course. I was young and impatient and I lost out in the long term. View your losses as a lesson and not a death sentence. Within every loss is an opportunity to learn, grow and become better. If you refuse to learn, you will continuously lose.
The best way to save money is to stop spending what you do not have. Stop borrowing money you don’t have to buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like. I was the most broke in the past not because I did not have enough money, but because I had a problem keeping money. It is not only about saving, but also about investing. For me, the worst method of keeping money was putting it in a bank. I could easily access it and it hardly grew. What I do these days is diversify my money in instruments I have knowledge of like trusts, policies, commercial paper, money markets and stocks. I avoid popular trends and I practice patience. For those looking beyond a bumper inheritance, winning the lottery or marrying into wealth, go for compounding interest.
Whatever you are doing, whatever you believe in – go all in and do it with your all. The Universe always falls in love with a stubborn heart. In life we only experience fulfillment in achievement, so do not settle for ‘just trying’. Complete what you set out to do. I am surrounded by amazing mentors, and regarding life and money the one word they all have in common is: balance. Spirit, mind, health, relationships and money… all five should be balanced out and managed to the level you’re capable of. Do not sacrifice one over the other. Learn to be patient, true happiness is a journey and not a destination. Life is a yin and yang scenario. No good without bad, darkness without light, negative without positive.
This profile feature was first published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.