Having your own business in Nigeria is no longer just an option, it’s a necessity. It’s important that everyone has a business that generates income for them. This helps you to keep up with the rising cost of living and gives you more freedom, stability, and financial growth that everyone truly desires.
However, starting and growing a business in Nigeria is not for the weak. It takes more than just passion. You need a strategic plan, the right mindset, and clear steps to follow if you really want to succeed in that business. In fact, a lot is required, especially getting a good business idea, raising capital for the business, and keeping the business running and growing.
What is a Business?
Business is anything you do in exchange for money. It could be selling a product, offering a service, or solving a problem for someone and getting paid for it. It can be online or offline, full-time or part-time, small scale or big. As long as there is a transaction of value, it’s a business. The goal is to create something people need and are willing to pay for.
Why you need a Business in Nigeria
Permit me to say that everybody in Nigeria suppose to have a business, you suppose to have one thing you are selling: whether products or services. If you are a salary earner, that your salary may not be enough especially considering the nature of the economy.
Do you know in Nigeria today, it’s very hard to see a salary earner that earns up to N200k monthly. And even those that earn up to N200k monthly, what can such an amount do for you especially if you have a family you are taking care of?
Did you know that for one to eat an average quality meal 3 times in a day in Nigeria, it may cost an average of or at least N5,000 daily? What if you have a family of up to 5 persons or more? N5,000 feeding daily for the 5 persons in the family is already N25k daily, which is about N750k monthly; only in feeding. What of other family and personal expenses? How do you expect that N200k to still carry you in a month?
You see now that you need more sources of income to support your life and be more stable.
Even as a student, you need a business to support your education and navigate through life when you graduate. Everyone needs a business in one way or the other. Business may not necessarily be about having a shop. it can be in any form.
a. Starting a Business in Nigeria
Starting a business in Nigeria comes with its own challenges and opportunities. But with the right mindset, clear planning, and a willingness to adapt, you can build a successful and sustainable business here in Nigeria. The key is to start smart, avoid common mistakes, and focus on offering value to the right people. Let’s look at the steps you should follow in starting a business in Nigeria.
1. Decide What Business You Want to Start
Business starts from the mind. What are those business ideas in your mind? Business ideas could come from a problem you have personally faced, a need you noticed in your environment, something you are passionate or skilled at, a business someone else is doing successfully, trends you are seeing online or in your area. So you have to search your mind for these ideas, and ask yourself some questions like:
- What are you passionate about?
- What problems can you solve?
- What business is needed in your area?
- Do you want to sell products or offer services?
It is always good to go for a business you have passion for and which allows the full use of your potential; this gives you internal joy and the attitude in doing the business. However, you still need to separate emotions from your choice of business; you need to go for what works. If the business you are passionate about is not realistic and doesn’t sell in your environment, there is no need insisting in going for such a business. You must go for what is needed and what sells better in that environment.
You should take making decisions for the type of business to do seriously because your success depends greatly on your choice of business. According to Thomas J. Stanley, the author of “The Millionaire Mind”, your choice of vocation is one of the most important factors that determines your financial success.
In simple terms, the kind of business you go into can either position you for growth or keep you struggling, no matter how hard you work. That is why you should not choose a business just because others are doing it or because it looks profitable from the outside.
Ask yourself:
- Do I understand how this business works?
- Am I passionate enough to stay consistent?
- Is there real demand in my location or online?
- Can I start with what I have and grow gradually?
- Is this business capable of making me rich in the long run?
Choosing the right business from the beginning saves you time, money, and a lot of frustration. Don’t rush it; research, reflect, and be honest with yourself.
Definitely, you may have a list of different businesses that you think all are possibly fine. Write down those few businesses, and then proceed to carry out real market research about them.
2. Do proper Market Research & Analysis
Don’t just assume in your mind, you need to do real research and analysis of those business ideas you listed, then choose the one that best fits the factors considered.
You need to understand
- Who your target customers are.
- What they really want.
- How much they are willing to pay for that product or service.
- Who your competitors are.
- What makes your business different from others?
- Access the risk level of the business and how to possibly minimize the risks.
How can you do all these? You can do this through Online surveys, Talking to people directly, Joining WhatsApp groups or Facebook forums, Observing existing businesses within that environment. This step will help you validate your idea and avoid costly mistakes.
3. Go & Learn the Business if Need Be
Meet any reliable person that is already doing that business and learn from them. There are businesses that require a lot of knowledge, exposure and expertise for you to even start or succeed in the business.
Learning the business in most cases may not take long; it could be within just 3 months, 6 months, etc. depending on the nature of the business and how you want it. Learning the business helps you gain a full, deep understanding of the business; how it operates, and helps you decide whether it’s really what you would still put in your money, rather than just jumping straight to a business you have no knowledge about.
Learning the business lets you understand how and the best way they source their products; it helps you also to make relevant connections and build customer base even before starting your own.
4. Write/Develop a Business Plan
Now that you have done your market research and have finally decided and picked a particular business you want to go into, or have learnt the business; you really need to write a business plan for that business before starting. A business plan is a written document where you outline your plans about your business: your actions, decisions and procedures you wish to take to start and grow your business. It serves as a roadmap for how to structure, run, and grow your new business. A simple business plan keeps you focused and makes it easier to attract partners, grants, or investors if needed.
In this, it is good to say that every business needs a business plan if it really wants to grow and succeed.
Your business plan could contain the following:
- Business name and idea.
- Startup capital and how to get it.
- What you will sell. (product or service)
- Your target customers.
- How you plan to market your business..
- Your monthly expenses and income expectations.
- Clear vision.
5. Raise Capital or Start with what you Have
Now that you have chosen your business idea and developed a solid business plan for it, it’s time to make out capital to start the business. There are several ways to raise capital for business; you can use one of those means or combine all. These could be from your savings, family & friends, investors, loans and so on.
Alternatively, you can also start small with whatever that is currently available in your hands. Great businesses usually start small and grow from there. It is even wiser and safer to start a business with smaller capital and grow with time. You learn along the line and continue to grow and expand as you gain more experience in the business; instead of carrying a lot of money and putting all in a business you have not really tested to know how it would go. So, in most cases, you may not really need millions before you can start a business.
- You can check our guide here on how to Raise capital for your dream business.
6. Register your Business
Now that you have your capital for the business, it’s important you register your business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Registering your business helps in several ways. It helps you make the business legally belong to you. Nobody can come up to claim or start bearing the same business name with you. It makes your business completely belong to you, if it’s a sole proprietorship.
Also, when you register your business, customers trust you better and take you more seriously, thereby increasing your patronage. With a registered business, you can also easily access grants or loans and several other benefits that come with that. You can reach out to us to help you register your business.
7. Get/Define a Location for your Business
You have developed your business plan already, where you probably outlined how you will run your business. Now you can get a location for the business if you will be using offline space. If you are doing it only online, then no problems, you can define which online platforms you will be using and how you will be engaging with your customers and delivering your product or service to them.
8. Start Marketing your Business
Marketing is a great tool in business, without it, even the best product or service will remain hidden. In Nigeria, where competition is high and attention is always short term, you need to actively promote what you offer. Don’t wait for customers to find you. Go out there and tell people what you do. Marketing is not a one-time thing, you must do it continuously.
Some marketing strategies you can use are: telling people with your mouth, sharing flyers, social media advertising, posting on your social media accounts, creating contents that aligns with your business on social media, using influencers, search engine optimization (SEO), using TV, radio, and so on.
Don’t wait until everything is perfect before you start promoting. Start small and grow as you learn what works. As you keep promoting and marketing, customers will start coming and they will increase with time.
b. Maintaining & Growing your Business
Starting is one thing, but keeping the business running and growing it is where the real work begins. You need to stay consistent, deliver value, and always look for ways to improve. Growth could be: expanding your customer base, getting new branches, introducing new products, improving your service, and so on.
1. Keep Good Business Records
This is one area most small business owners ignore, but it’s critical; many businesses fail because of lack of proper recordskeeping. For your business to be on the safer side, you need to keep adequate records of everything going on in that business. These could be your: Daily sales and expenses, Inventory (if you are selling products), Customer details, Business growth, and so on.
Keeping these records helps you to track your daily income and expenses, Know whether you are making profit or running at a loss, Avoid unnecessary spending, Plan for future growth, Stay accountable, especially if you are managing other people’s money or working with a partner.
To keep business records, you may not necessarily need to be a professional accountant. You can simply do this with just a simple notebook, Excel sheet, or any bookkeeping app.
2. Provide Quality Product or Service
Quality matters in your business. When a customer patronizes you for the first time, one of the things that bring them back is how you treated them and the quality of what you offered them. As long as customers keep getting value for what they spent patronizing you, they will always come back and will come with other customers.
3. Build Relationship & Trust with Customers
Good relationships and trust with customers matters a lot in your business. Don’t solely chase after money, rather build good relationships and trust with customers; with this, they will always come back. You need to be very humble and transparent if you want to capture a good relationship with your customers.
According to the authors of Guerrilla selling, Guerrilla selling means getting to know your customers so well that they refuse to do business with anyone else, except you. And to achieve this, it comes from being super honest, super ethical and super responsive. This means that to control your sales, you need to control your customers, and to control your customers, you need to build good relationships and trust with them.
4. Keep Learning and Improving
You don’t need to be comfortable with the little you know about your business. You need to keep learning and improving in your field of business. You need to improve in how you do things in your business, and you need to improve in the knowledge you have about that business. You need to be an expert in your business field.
To do this, you can always attend relevant seminars if possible, read online about your business, watch Youtube videos about your business, connect with other people in your business field, and ask for feedback from customers.
This is a continuous process, learning and improvement never end. You also need to be open to innovation. Innovations especially in technology usually change the way things work. In order not to be left aside in your business, you need to be current and follow technological trends.
5. Be hardworking & Consistent
Consistency builds trust. Hard work builds results. No matter how brilliant your business idea is, if you are not hardworking and consistent, you won’t go far. In Nigeria, success doesn’t come overnight, you have to show up every day, even when sales are low or things are not going as planned.
Customers want to deal with people they can rely on. If you are here today and gone tomorrow, they will move on. But when you keep showing up, keep delivering, and keep improving, people will notice and your business will grow.
Conclusion
Starting and growing a business in Nigeria can be tough, but it’s one of the best decisions you can make for your financial stability. To start a business in Nigeria, you need to first do proper market research to know what people are really interested in in that environment, so you don’t start what people won’t patronize. Business could be selling a product, offering a service, or solving a problem for someone and getting paid for it. And you can decide whether to do this full-time or part-time. Remember, you may not necessarily need to wait to have millions of Naira or till everything is perfect before you can start a business. You just have to start as much as you, you can start small and grow from there.
