Hi everyone, I'm Omolola.
I'm an entrepreneur and this is my business diary.
Every week from Monday to Friday- I'll be dropping my thoughts on business, entrepreneurship, career and lifestyle.
The First Episode is Three Questions You Should Ask Yourself before Quitting Your Job.
You've heard this advice a million times. 'Start your own Business and you'll never be poor'
Then you wonder why seven in every ten startups close after two years.
It's a familiar story and it goes like this,
John always wanted to start his own fashion business.
So, one day, his boss yelled at him and he saw it as the perfect reason to resign. He rented an office, bought some equipment and opened his shop, which he called Jodo Tailors.
Six months down the line, Jodo Tailors is accumulating debt, John is frustrated, and the business is now history. The question is where did this go wrong?
We've all failed at things as children as children but as adults, there is something bigger at stake. There are bills to pay, responsibilities to face and in some cases, children to care for.
**Let us get this straight,
**I'm not saying you should stick to a job that gives you no joy.
But, I'm asking you to take out time to answer these three questions before you quit:
1. Do you add value?
While I was still at radio, a colleague of mine resigned and our boss was very excited. He smiled for days on end because the colleague was a pain in the neck.
Be honest with yourself,
What value do you add to the workplace?
Do you take charge of projects? Can you work independently or with little supervision? Would the office miss you when you leave?
You've been at a job for several years but no one allows you take charge of any project.
Have you ever asked why? Do they doubt your level of competence? Do they think you have no leadership traits? Is there something you are doing wrong? Are there standards you are not measuring up to? Take out time to ask yourself if the problem is you and not your boss.
2. What skills do you have?
Let's look back at John's story- It's easy to assume that the only skills he needed were sewing and fashion design.
Well, if you think that, you are dead wrong.
To run a successful business, you need a combination of soft skills and business skills.
**You should know basic accounting or at least how to use an accounting software, you should understand how to create systems that would bring you, clients, you should know how to manage clients (when to be soft or hard ) and you should create a business structure. **
I'll write about these skills later on but just to give you an idea- creating a product or service is not all there is to running a business.
3. Am I ready financially?
We have a proverb in Nigeria, where we say 'Oga ta, oga ota owo omose mape' meaning whether the company makes money or not, the staff’s salary must be complete.
For entrepreneurs it’s different. There would be dry months where you make little or no money and there would be months where you make more than enough. Even when you make crazy money, you still want to invest more in your business or start another business.
Ask yourself, if you can cope without salary for at least three month. Do you have savings in place?
But that’s not all, tomorrow, I will tell you what you need to do before you quit your job so that you don't end up writing a blogpost that ends with ‘had I known’