Mr Joshua Mensah, a Business Consultant has urged young entrepreneurs to resist the temptation of stealing from their businesses if they will take their enterprises to higher heights.
Speaking at a programme dubbed: Emerging Young Entrepreneurs Network Dialogue (EYEN), Mr Mensah urged young business owners to stop the act of using funds generated from their businesses for personal usage.
This, he said is because until entrepreneurs sees businesses as a separate entity from themselves, it would be difficult accumulating enough funds to expand the venture, adding that many start-ups collapse because many owners misuse business revenue as their personal emoluments.
He however advised that it would be a better option to pay ‘yourself a commission or salary and use that rather than directly using money from your business capital,’ explaining that no matter how small it may be, it would be prudent to start it anyway.
Taking the young entrepreneurs through financial principles needed for businesses, Mr Mensah said in order to succeed, every entrepreneur must ensure that every service or product used is paid for to ensure financial success of the business.
Saving regularly towards accumulating funds for the acceleration of the business is the sole responsibility of entrepreneurs and the Business Consultant urged every business owner to have both savings and investment accounts, and regularly moving savings into investments.
Mr. William Quaye, the Chief Executive Officer of Bill’s Consult Limited, touching on customer service noted that the world is moving from customer service to customer care, which calls for the need to care for what the customer desires at all times.
He said for an entrepreneur to succeed, there is the need to understand the behaviour of customers in order to satisfy their demands because the absence of the customer meant the end of the business.
Mr. Quaye said young business owners must learn to classify customers to ensure better service delivery, adding that customer classification helps to know which group to spend more resources on.
He said keeping customers is not easy but it is worth it because attaining new customers is usually more expensive than the maintaining the existing ones.
Mr. Elvis Sackey, Business and Management Consultant noted that for a business to succeed, there was the need for effective planning and the adoption best organisational systems strategies that could to turn the business around to satisfy generational needs and the fortunes of the business.
In interview with Mr. Sackey explained that many start-ups do are unable to endure the hard time like during the lockdown era due to poor planning but said there is the need for young and emerging entrepreneurs to develop strategic plans that could spur their businesses on even beyond the owner’s existence.
He said every entrepreneur ought to take into consideration the three levels of strategies, thus, corporate, business and functional levels of strategies, noting that what most young business owners need is direction, which is derived from their passion for what they want to do.
In an interview with some of the emerging and young entrepreneurs, Ms. Dora Dede Anim, the Chief Executive Officer of Doe Interior Events see the dialogue as a platform to groom her into becoming a better entrepreneur.
She believed that after this programme, her business was on its way to attaining marvellous results with my business and “the mindboggling questions I had on my mind prior to the dialogue has been answered”.
Mr. Gideon A. Sosu Jnr., the Chief Executive Officer of Gideon Agenyegah Dream Ventures (GADV), said the dialogue was very effective and that the knowledge would help to spur the business on.
He said “I’ve learnt some strategies that will help me win back some customers that I lost during the lockdown era” and that he learnt about the need to be disciplined when it comes to growing ones business.
Mr. Edward Hewardson Tetteh, a Logistic and Supply Chain Actor said as a young entrepreneur, the dialogue meant more to him as it was helpful in throwing more light on the necessary skills needed for business growth.
He said: “We learnt things in the areas of business strategy, customer care, financial principles, which are the three keys areas when it comes to making your business grow and I think I am ahead in terms helping my business to grow”.
