I was in a mentor’s office, earlier this week, and while
describing her tight work schedule she pulled out a book she’d been working on for
some time. She dropped it before me and asked, “It’s OK, right?” I replied (or
should I say, lied) in the affirmative because I knew all the pains she put
into writing the book. But being intuitive creatures that they are, this woman saw
a slight grimace as it flashed across my face and knew that I had lied. She sighed,
looked at another book on her desk that was printed in India and said, “My next
book will not be printed in this country”.
Honestly, I don’t blame her; although her book served the
function of displaying her work in a readable format, when it came to the
finishing strokes like illustrations, paper quality, bookbinding or cover page
design which are needed to add class to a book, something was just amiss. Many
people might dismiss these as nothing but mere aesthetics, but when you are
packaging anything for human beings you need to appeal to one or more of their
five senses. Her publisher’s work just didn't cut it; it failed to stimulate
any sensory centers which could attract buyers to her book when she was not
there to tell them how instructive her book was.
This brings us to the question, “What level of standard do
you hold yourself and your business to?” I am not only referring to such standards
as the ISO standards or the British Standards, I am talking about those tiny
little things that are often taken for granted but when put in place their
effects are undeniable. These little things are the posters that announce your
business several yards off, without you having to say a word. Recently, I was
talking to a man in the State Government Procurement Office; he pointed out so
many houses around us and said to me that if he were to publish bids for
builders, many local companies could never win them because merely looking at
the buildings that many of them construct, you would wonder if they knew what the use
of the mason’s level is. He said that if he could not trust the perpendicular of a builder, then he
could never trust his project cost estimates, completion
dates or quality of building materials. It reminds me of a friend who called
his metalworker and asked him to remove all the burglar-proof bars he had fixed
in his house, then fired him on the spot and commissioned someone else to make
new ones for him. When I asked why, he told me that he was not about to cut his
fingers while house-cleaning because a careless metalworker would not grind the edges
of his burglar-proof bars.
A few months back, I was watching a programme on CNN; it was
a documentary on Nollywood. After singing praises of the industry and
interviewing a number of filmmakers, actors and actresses, the narrator
lamented the lack of acceptance that Nollywood movies suffered outside the
African continent. But one statement he made is still etched in my memory to this day; the narrator was on location as a movie was being shot and then he
said, “The director and his cast have been shooting this scene for a while but
it has not occurred to any of them to check the sun’s position in the sky"! Unbelievable, right? The Oscars have a category for Best Picture and it
takes into account all those tiny things that our directors are either unaware
of or don’t care about; but either way it banishes their movie sales to only a
few African countries.
You see, we cannot keep begging Nigerians to buy Nigerian or
Ghanaians to buy made in Ghana products when our entrepreneurs and businessmen
are making below par products and rendering substandard services. The least that
an entrepreneur should be gunning for is what obtains in the international
market or even better because customers don’t part with their hard-earned cash
in the name of patriotism, they do in the name of quality products and
services. Many will argue that our indigenous entrepreneurs don’t have the
funds to compete globally but what does it cost to look up and see the angle of
the sun’s inclination? What does it cost to buy a plumb or level? Or does the cost
factor of a grinding machine outweigh the safety of the product users?
Striving for excellence starts with such subtle things that
when put together form a reputable business brand. We must therefore invest in
them, train our eyes to pick them and get feedback from consumers to
improve them. A master of ceremony who plies his trade in English language
should buy and read a dictionary every so often; the other who MCs in his local
dialect should walk closely with elders to learn proverbs and other usages of
the language. A pharmacist packaging his drugs in plastic bottles may want to
consider printing his labels on the bottle and if that is too expensive he could use beautifully designed stickers and not glue them on with starch! A
trader can invest in standard shopping bags bearing his business name and
address and stop using this nameless black-and-white nylons bags we see
everywhere.
Up your game and you will build a trade name.
Wonderful...these are things we all know, thanks for reminding moi, though i am not a business man or enterprenuer, but in my day to day work, interaction and life building to perfection I need to take these tiny things into consideration. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteWell said sir!
ReplyDelete