In this article I will show you how to convince people to invest in your Nigerian business. I decided to write this because I have seen that here in Nigeria, it is hard to convince people especially local investors to invest in business. Investors are a great source of encouragement for entrepreneurs in Nigeria. For one thing, not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Some would rather want to invest in an already active business and partake in profit sharing after an agreed length of time. For this reason, it is imperative to understand that no matter what business you are into, with right targeted strategies you can always get the right investors for your kind of business.
Another reason why investors are useful is that their presence in a business assists greatly in risk management and productivity as well. How so? A public limited company usually has multiple investors who partake in profit-sharing of the company and at the same time when there is loss or colossal damages, they also equally partake, thereby relieving the heavy effects or loss from the entrepreneur.
Also the multiple financial contributions of these investors into a company’s affairs helps to increase yield as capital investment is directly proportional to income and profit as we all know.
Little wonder then that many companies are out to welcome investors into their folds and you practically understanding how this is achievable helps you in setting your own goals rightly too!
Just how can you convince Nigerian Investors to invest in your business for excellent results? This article addresses not only active entrepreneurs but also to some extent addresses start-ups, and people without practical businesses but mental ideas!
How To Convince People to Invest in Your Nigerian Business
How To Convince People to Invest in Your Nigerian Business
1. Build Your Business On A Good Foundation
A business or company without a deep rooted buttress and foundation is more likely to collapse sooner than later not minding how much money is spent to keep or maintain it. If your business isn’t properly fixed and checked with the necessary good business characterizations, it is impossible to succeed with it even if you get a million investors to join you.
If you’re a manufacturer, ensure that your products are quality-checked and of great usefulness due to its uniqueness and having the qualities of lasting forever! Good products stay long enough while bad products are short lived, yes short lived because when people realize your products are substandard, they’d run helter-skelter and even spread the bad news to everyone who cares to listen. But good products gives you a good name. We all know of Ariel detergent, if I’m not mistaken Ariel has been useful for over two decades now while there are still other detergents that came up after Ariel which are no longer in the market now due to their substandard nature!
The same is very applicable to services and other businesses too. If your services are substandard, faulty or unprofessional, no one wants to stay with you for long and you loose. So ensure that you’re doing what’s right!
Give your business a proper foundation, it’s never too late to do that anyways, you can always edit it’s foundation when you realize the truth but the earlier the better.
2. Write Quality Proposals to The Appropriate Channels/Investors
As a defined individual with qualitative ideas, you need to reach out to these investors yourself because if you don’t, they won’t reach you. You need them and they need you too but they can still actually get what they want from so many others like you out there while your only source of joy would be reaching out to them, that’s the difference!
Look around you, you could find so many bustling companies and cooperate bodies around you, why not write nice proposals on what you do and what you want and reach out to them? It would surprise you just what the turn out could be! For instance, telecommunication giants in Nigeria like Airtel, MTN, Glo and 9mobile have been doing well over the years on investments and partnership and even sponsoring of small, medium and large scare businesses.
These telecom companies in Nigeria and other multinationals have been doing well on investing in ideas and practical businesses. Why? They do this because it is lucrative for them and they would continue to invest more as long as good ideas and businesses keep coming their way. Think about this and see how you can be the next in line to receive financial and other benefits by pitching your idea to these investors.
If you are the type of person with sell-able ideas or you have great ideas you’d like investors to develop and invest in, you can actually make money off it without having to set up a practical business. You can do this by pitching these lucrative business ideas to the right minds and via the right channels. If you do this professionally, success would be yours in a matter of months or even weeks.
In Nigeria, there are thousands of people with very lucrative business ideas but wallowing away in poverty and dying of thirst and hunger when they actually have millions upstairs! And this is pretty pathetic .
3. Let Your Samples Do The Talking
If you’re starting up a business in Nigeria, let’s say you’re launching a clothing line or you’re a designer. I keep using this as an example because so many people look down on tailors in Nigeria, they don’t think it could be a nice venture. If you’re into cloth making, for example, and you’d like to attract investors, sampling should be prime to you. Find ways to make clothes for notable persons around you or your community. In fact the best and first place to start searching out investors is “around you” not miles away!
Try to deliver impressively and nicely to these people and when you sense they are impressed by your works, that is the best time to forward proposals to them, be it written proposals or verbal proposals but be serious at it, give them reasons convincing enough as to why they should invest and just what they stand “to gain”. Every business man loves gain so if you’re able to convince them enough, they’d invest, they may even advice their friends or colleagues to do the same and that’s how news spread, before you know what’s happening, you’ve gotten more investors than you’ve ever bargained for!
4. Be Sincere
No one loves to do business with a liar because a liar is invariably a cheat! Sincerity and honesty matters. Honesty is the best policy remember? That’s right!
No matter how a “desperado” you are for investors for your Business, start up, ideas etc., never you exaggerate facts or make claims you can’t practically defend, it maims your reputation and gives you a bad dirty name at the long run.
Remember if business is good, news Would spread and if business is bad, news would still spread but it’s far more advantageous if news spread for the latter reason, more people will get interested in you. And if you’re a manufacturer, never plan to give out a sample that is super standard and impressive and then make substandard products for the actual businesses, you’ll loose investors if you succeeded in getting any previously. Stick to what you did and be known for that, let what you give out as samples or test products be of just the same quality and branding as your actual products!
With these four points, I am convinced that you can convince people to invest in your Nigerian business. As you have seen, it is not a difficult thing to do. Just do the right thing, pray and wait to see the impressive outcomes. Thank you.
