Minding your business

2nd Edition

A very practical guide to building and managing an enterprise.

Touches parts many books cannot reach!

Like the thousand who have read this book before you, you will recommend it to others.

minding your business lekealder

Minding your Business. Copyright Š 2007, 2008 & 2010. Second Edition by Leke Alder.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Request to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to: Alder Media U.K. Argo House Kilburn Park Road, London NW6 5LF, England T. +44 (020) 7644 0487 F. +44 (020) 7644 0487 Nigeria 1 Ajose Adeogun Street (by Ligali Ayorinde Street) Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria +234 (01) 270-5408/9 Second edition, third print.

All photographs Š Leke Alder except Leke Alder portraits by Seyi Body-Lawson Minding your Business ISBN: 978-978-079-900-7 Leke Alder will like to hear from you: leke@lekealder.com www.lekealder.com

alder media

preface to 2nd edition If judging by the tons of emails that I get, writing Minding Your Business has to be one of the most important contributions of my life. When I wrote the book, I just wanted to democratise knowledge and empower the disenfranchised who cannot afford powerful consultants. Little did I know how impactful the book would be in the lives of people.

I have always believed that it is more efficient to create employers of labour than to create jobs. Minding Your Business is a demonstration of my faith in that philosophy. I believe in enterprise!

I have added an extra chapter - Apology for the Female Entrepreneur - in this edition. The old edition had Apology for the Entrepreneur but it sounded more like an apology for the male entrepreneurs. Since my readership cuts across gender and cultures, I have added the new chapter.

Minding Your Business is one of those inspired classics no author can write twice. Twenty books after, I still can't shake that belief. I do hope that the book continues to inspire dreams and enable the fulfilment of dreams. Thank you.

Leke Alder iv

preface to 1st edition

Here is the obligatory introduction to the book. Technically it's called a Preface but

nobody reads a preface except people like you! You like to maximise your spending. Of course I'm assuming this is your copy of the book, and that you bought it with your money.

Hello Maximus!

I have tried to make this book academically unambitious. It is not a didactic prolixity - a boring teaching. The approach is creative to make for interesting reading, and the style, my style, is a conversational relay prose where one thought takes off from the last, and the structure is disciplined but not regimented. Most importantly, I speak from my heart and if truth be told, I don't write, I speak on paper. I speak my convictions on paper.

And why did I write this book?

I just want to tell the truth from experience and help many from insight. I have consulted for many successful businesses and the truth is not in the scripted answers and grandiloquent postures of some, who seek to paint themselves in heroic light. I tell the truth and cut out the bull. What you have in your hands are my years of thinking, of consulting for corporations - big, very big and small; of starting a business as a young

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man and building it up from zilch. I am also actively running businesses and managing people and herein lies practical wisdom.

There is an element of luck in building a successful business but there is also a science to it. That science is undergirded by a philosophical posture. The difference between the struggling and the successful is oft times the philosophy of life adopted. This book not only talks philosophically, it covers topics you will not find in business schools. Topics like

To get one, visit www.lekealder.com.

loneliness and coping with fear.

I wish you success in your endeavour!

It is a mishmash of good consulting and intellectual property practice, folkloric wisdom, philosophy, photographs (which I took!), poems, plain old common sense, plain new common sense, not so plain common sense and of course, uncommon sense. It should be of great help to you in building your business, and if you have other questions I'll write another book to answer them. Just keep on buying!

There are 2 good companions to this book and I recommend them to you: my other book, Life as I see it, and a business kit, The BizKit速. The kit is specifically developed for small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs), and will take you from business idea to business plan, covering everything in between.

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Leke Alder

contents this book is divided into 4 parts

Chapter 1 What do you really want? 1 Chapter 2 On becoming 3 Chapter 3 The tunnels of life and we 7 Chapter 4 The vision thing 12 Chapter 5 The philosophy of underachievement 17 Chapter 6 I seek, therefore I am 20 Chapter 7 Business genotype 25 Chapter 8 Haunted 28 Songs of fear Chapter 9 Message from the future 33

part 1 upfront

Mary, what are you thinking?!

The 10 Passions of an entrepreneur

chapter one

what do you really want?

Ask yourself a simple, funny question. Do I just want to make money, or do I really want to

build a business?

The two are not the same.

The man who just wants to make money is not really concerned about building a business structure. He's not concerned about creating an enduring institution, or a strong brand. He has a short term mentality and may fall prey to his ambition as he cuts corners here and there. He is very transactional in nature and may not have scruples. minding your business leke alder 1

The man that wants to build a business on the other hand, has

extremely focused and believes in purpose. The business is

scruples and is particular about his name.

his life, not a passing fancy or a side attraction. He builds the

He is prudent with resources and plows back profit into the

business and the business builds him.

business. He wants to build an enduring legacy that will

Such is the difference between the man who wants to build a

provide jobs for many and he has his eye on history. He will not

business and the man who just wants to make money. If you're

cut corners because that impacts on quality. He cares about

the latter, this book is not for you.

the feelings of his customers and will not unduly jeopardise relationships. He builds capacity, invests in plants and

If however, you want to build a business, please read on.

machinery and when the business bleeds, he bleeds. He does not suck money out of the business for vanity projects, and he has an acute sense of deferred gratification. He puts in place policies to aid the growth of the company beyond him, and he institutes a system of checks and balances even if it constrains him. He trains managers and develops people. He is

The man who just wants to make money is not really concerned about building a business structure. He's not concerned about creating an enduring institution, or a strong brand...The man that wants to build a business on the other hand, has scruples and is particular about his name. minding your business leke alder 2

ISBN 978978079 - 6

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2nd Edition

A very practical guide to building and managing an enterprise.

Touches parts many books cannot reach!

Like the thousand who have read this book before you, you will recommend it to others.