Kunle Adelabu
About 100 unemployed and emerging entrepreneurial youths across the six Local Government and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in Ikorodu Division have been trained and empowered to be good entrepreneurs.
The entrepreneurship training programme, which was organized by the National Commission for Refugees Migrants and Internally Displaced Person in conjunction with Royal Consult Limited, was facilitated by the member of the Federal House of Representatives representing the Ikorodu Federal Constituency and Chairman, House Committee on Defense, Hon. Babaimi Adegoke Benson.
At the end of the 3-day training, which was held at the Fun City located along Lagos road, Ikorodu, participants were empowered with N20, 000 each and presented certificates of participation.
Hon. Benson, while speaking at the end of the training, stated that he was very happy with the participants’ conducts and their individual and group presentations during the training.
“I am very happy with the way and manner that you have conducted yourself and I am also quite glad with your presentations. It’s very impressive”, the lawmaker stated.
“I have learnt new things that I will start using in my political relations and engagements.
“I have seen from the presentations of the three groups that you have all learnt a lot about business development, day-to-day relations with customers and sustenance”, Hon. Benson stated while commending the participants.
The two term lawmaker, who made out time to attend the the 3-day training, advised participants to always handled people’s businesses with total commitment.
“Always show integrity, loyalty and commitment to other people’s work. It is the way that you handle other people ‘s work that you will handle yours when you venture into business. So, always be dedicated to other people’s businesses as if they are yours.
“On behalf of myself and partners, I wish you all merry Christmas and happy new year in advance”.
During the training, the resource person, Mayor Deen Sanwoola, discussed the concept of entrepreneurship, identifying opportunities, market research, creation of pitch desk, successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs, factors affecting entrepreneurship, customers and factors of business consideration among others.
At the opening of the training, Sanwoola stated that the goal was to train and empower emerging and intending entrepreneurs in Ikorodu Division by giving them new skills to work with in the challenging and engaging global business world.
He described entrepreneurs as someone that takes risk in starting a business to earn profit.
“The training will allow participants to learn new things that will be of great help for the participants in the new business world and network with others that are in the same and different line of businesses”, Sanwoola stated.
Sanwoola, who stated that ideas now rule the global business village, added that entrepreneurs should not be afraid to fail or take up new or any challenge if they are planning to be great entrepreneurs.
He stated that investors are more dispose to giving capital to someone that has business experiences and that had probably failed one or two times in his or her business dealings but still raring to succeed than a new person who is just venturing into the challenging business world.
According to him, “Such entrepreneurs will have learnt great lessons in the failure and would be ready and willing to succeed”.
“In business, you have to learn from your mistakes and more importantly, from other great entrepreneurs that have established themselves over time in the businesses they had also failed in severally before becoming masters in them”, he added.
He listed risk taking, taking responsibilities for one’s action, feeling competent and capable, setting high goals and enjoying working and setting high goals and working towards them as common traits among entrepreneurs.
While teaching participants how to identify opportunities, Sanwoola stated that participants should always identify skills that they are good at and should be ready and willing to teach others, look within their own lives to proffer solutions to problems, ready to solve problems that those around them are having and brand or customize popular items for people to pay for.
During his lecture on market research, Sanwoola, who was the first to introduce cashless transaction in Ikorodu Division over a decade before the policy was introduced by the federal government, explained that an entrepreneur conducts research to know his competitors, finds out if such or similar research had been conducted before and analyze findings or data from the researches to tackle competitors and make customers to patronize his or her business.
He stated that entrepreneurs should endeavour to tell story, show that there’s market where he wants to operate, have solutions to problems inherent within the market and keep the description simple, validate and show how the business will make profit, show marketing plans and show why they are the right persons or team to be assisted as entrepreneurs.
He described successful managers as those who are creative or innovative, position themselves in shifting or new markets, creating new products and processes and new deliveries while also stating that unsuccessful entrepreneurs are those that lack managerial capacity, have low work ethics, inefficient, failed to plan or prepare and poor in managing resources, both material and human, among many others.
While stating the importance of customers to survival of a business or otherwise, Sanwoola described as people who are receives an entrepreneurs output, those that pay for goods or service, reason why entrepreneurs go into business and those who are the most important factor in business consideration.
He listed qualities of a good and successful entrepreneurs as accuracy, friendliness, timeliness, efficiency, couttesy and honesty.
Participants were engaged in practical assignments during the exercise and also divided into three groups to make presentations at the end of the 3-day training.
