28/11/2023
In the cause of running your business, you need four set of people to push and grow your organisation.
1. You need family.
2. You need friends.
3. You need enemies.
4. You need strangers.
Each of this market segment has a place in your success but they don't share equal weight at scale.
"Family" is important, but its importance to building and sustaining a business diminishes as you scale.
The same with "Friends."
They are called friends for a reason, and that is because they share "personal relationship" with you
At the mortal level, personal relationship has a time limit. After a while, one or both of you would leave.
Then what happens to the business at the centre?
Well, your answer is as good as mine.
By the way, you can grow a business without friends
I have friends.
Many of them have not patronised my business and we are still friends, yet, my businesses have grown.
This is not to say friends are not important.
They are, but just like family, it has limit at scale.
How about "Enemies"?
Don't be naïve.
They are folks who don't like you, but will buy from you out of necessity, curiosity, or proximity to hurt you.
Sometimes these enemies follow you from start or they meet you along your pathway through growth.
You cannot build a big business without creating a few enemies along the way. It comes with the game
Just be aware they exist and stay on guard.
Then you have the last segment.
"Strangers"
Strangers are the wheel of scale.
Every entrepreneur that wants to grow big beyond their own personal effort must create "strangers."
Not kidding you.
95% of my clients don't personally know me.
99% of them have not even met me.
If you don't have enough strangers in your business, you limit how far you can scale that your business.
Strangers don't need you in the equation to transact
Strangers don't buy from your because they know you; they purchase because they want your product.
That's where real scale happens.
Your job as an entrepreneur is to build solutions that not only need family or friends or have enemies
But solutions that attract strangers.
Why?
Strangers is the only sustainable path to scale.
By Chinonso Ogbogu
19/07/2023