Businesses are created for profits and also to make impact. With this in mind, the following are the ways I would invest 20milliin naira in my business if given the capital.
1. Investment in team development :
A wise man once said that your team is as strong as the weakest person on the team. When you show your team members that their progress matters to you, you get yourself some loyalists. I will invest in my team members by sending them on trainings and seminars, sending them out to understudy other companies, encouraging them to register and go through online courses, create systems that reward their efforts and recognize their contributions as well as provide incentives and a great working environment.
I once read a book- "The Firm" by John Grisham and one of the points I took home was how "safe", the lawyers were made to feel. The firm ensured their workers and their families were as comfortable and closely knit as possible, this was to ensure one would think twice about trying to bail out on the firm.
When employees see how much you are willing to invest in their personal growth and how you are interested in their physical, emotional, social, financial and mental well-being , they will be more attuned to putting in resources together to make corporate growth and advancement possible.
2. Invest in personal development :
J. Paul Getty said and I quote, "To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all that is possible to know about that business". The role of personal development in business and life in general cannot be overemphasized. I know that the success of my business depends largely on the information I've been able to acquire over time.
From the nature of the business, to accounting, to product procurement etc. I will invest in myself by learning thoroughly about the business. Attend paid business seminars, buy books, attend online courses etc. Learn how to manage time, people and resources.
This will greatly affect the output of my business because in almost of all life's situations, you get whatever you put in.
3. Invest in marketing :
The role of marketing cannot be overemphasized in today's business system, both traditional marketing and digital marketing. I could deliver a first class customer service, have amazing products and services, but if I don't get to talk about it, no one might know. I'll invest in branding. The reason why someone will feel comfortable buying a bottle of water that goes for #100 in local store, #1500 in a tush hotel or restaurant is branding.
I'll make sure my business has a unique brand voice and identity, hire a brand strategist and build a brand that can stand the test of water. I will also invest in digital marketing, technology is taking over the spheres now, to run a business without harnessing the limitless potentials inherent in the internet could almost be foolish. With a great website, social media pages, amazing content and top notch SEO, I won't run out of customers, year in, year out.
4. Invest in information and research :
One thing I've found lacking over the years in Nigeria, especially Akwa Ibom is data- information. While attending Start up South 5 in October, Mark Essien, CEO of Hotels.ng made a striking point that has stayed with me, he said, "look for an extra information, that which people do not have and leverage on it".
Innovation is primarily driven by data, investing on data collation and implementation in my business can be the miracle I need to scale up my business. One of the things that will determine my business' long term success is how I and my team have been able to develop a competitive advantage and also defend it on the long run.
To be able to achieve this, I have to be clearly ahead of the game and this can only be done when I have the appropriate information. With the right information, I know how to go about the research process of my services. So, I tell people, I am not offering the normal writing services, I am doing something more than the usual and I have data to back that up, boom! I get customers feeling like they are getting the value of their money and I get to attract investors as well.
5. Invest in Legal protection:
I am in the writing business and it is such a delicate business. Plagiarists are always around the corner looking to harvest huge yields where they didn't even get to till. Copyrights violation law suits fly around. Investing in legal protection for my business and my clients is a big deal and I'll do that with part of the money.
When a client pays money for a book Ghost written by any member of my team, he should be able to sleep with eyes closed knowing that no one will slap a law suit on him for plagiarism or any other dilemma authors usually face.
Having a company lawyer is important. Training my staff about legal and book rights and all of that is important, training myself on the legal sides of publishing is important. All this will be done with money.
6. Invest in customer experience :
There is a ripple effect to making one customer happy. The one customer would tell three others. Each of the three others tell ten others, the ten others tell ten other people and the cycle just keeps rotating, the same with leaving a bad impression on the mind of one customer.
An old adage says, the customer is always right and in most cases, this saying holds true. Keeping my customers happy is an important part of my business. A happy customer will always return, most times with some one else.
I'll used the money to invest in creating an amazing customer experience for my clients by designing a unique customer journey, build a classic customer relationship management team, making the customer feel like loyalty, listening to their suggestions and problems with the aim of finding solutions and following through the suggestions, this way they feel, they are not just customers but part of the business.
7. Invest in technology :
Technology helps you do your work faster and better, producing more efficient and cost effective results. I'll invest largely on technology. Writing, in the olden days was done with the typewriter, but these days, we are using MacBook, voice to text feature enabled gadgets etc.
Writing quality articles and copies involved tons of research which can be achieved using the powerful tool of technology. There are abundance of spelling, grammatical accuracy, plagiarism detection apps. Most of these apps are expensive and used by high end writers. Ill make sure I get them to aid my team produce nothing short of excellence.
These are the ways I'll invest 20million in my business, I know that one might wonder why I didn't include expansion. With 20 million, I can easily open up other branches of the business, while this is a great idea, there are downsides to expanding a business too fast, it is always better to improve upon existing products instead of trying to create new ones, to try as much as possible not to shift attention from quality to quantity.
With expansion comes heavy burdens on leadership, the pressure of living up to expectations, customer service experience could reduce, inability to handle increased financial complexities, hiring wrong people to fill in new positions, assuming that fast sales is equal to profits etc.
I'll try to invest the 20million on the things listed above, knowing that from that, a formidable business is established and over the years it can be scaled up and I can repeat the same things I did to open another viable business in another location and run it effectively. When done once, it's a chance, twice records success.
Thank you!