Development Of Your Business

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Personal and business services: what if you started?
Increasingly mentioned in the business community, the services sector has a great potential that you could benefit from.

Services are at the heart of our daily lives. Consumers, producers, companies, administrations, we all use services.
However, finding a business idea to start your business in this area can be a challenge. Paradoxically, the simplest concepts are often the best. It is sometimes enough to listen to those around him complaining of a service that is poorly adapted or non-existent to sniff out the opportunity. Evidenced by the boom in personal services, also called local services, which includes home care services (domestic services, improvement of the living environment, responsible for shopping, etc.), services rendered to employees at their place of work. work or on a restricted perimeter of proximity. Business services are also booming: advice and support, security, cleaning, IT, etc.

It is important to know how to smell the good vein. Sometimes you have to bet on a phenomenon that begins at a specific point on the planet before it rages around the world. The example of the Air BnB community service platform that offers rentals and bookings of private homes in nearly 190 countries is a perfect example. Founded in 2008 in San Francisco by Americans Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, their website contains in 2015 more than 1.5 million ads in 34,000 cities and 192 countries. And their potential for development and expansion, especially in Africa, is still very big. We must know how to bet on a sector in full development such as for example the mobile Internet, mobile money transfer, connected objects, the sharing economy, the search for savings and time savings, money, energy, etc.

At the origin of this phenomenon of the rise of the service: the dedication of the personal and professional development for all, the increase of the activity of the women, the multiplication of the lone parent families. At the corporate and government level, there are trends in outsourcing non-core businesses to reduce costs and refocus. As a result, local business services are booming.

How to find the right idea?

Around us, people’s priorities are evolving. They aspire to more freedom, more pleasure, more facilities, more time saving. Observe the everyday and its dysfunctions, surf the Internet, peel the sociological studies and the reports of certain institutions and observatories. Get inspired by foreign examples, transfer a trade or service to a particular target, or take advantage of changes in regulations. But most often, it is in their professional and personal lives that creators identify latent needs. Beware, however, if some areas are accessible to self-taught, others require degrees and qualifications. Better to inquire.

Technical skills and sense of contact required

But let it be said: service is a state of mind that requires beyond technical skills, strong involvement and important relational qualities (availability, adaptability, initiative, etc.).

This issue of mindset can be a challenge for some people from certain cultures in Africa. Indeed, the history and education of some people make their identity paradigm insufficiently integrated with listening, otherness, empathy, availability, adaptability, and so on. These inadequacies in terms of know-how end up having a negative impact on the quality of their know-how.

The other issue is that of the economic model. “Service companies continue to be apprehended from a model built on the basis of the industrial economy and transposed to services without even being adapted,” says a professional in the sector. But these companies have common features that many entrepreneurs hide. Margins may seem weak at first, and it may still be difficult to increase the billing of benefits. The profit potential is however real and little exploited. Historically developed over the counter, between members of the same family, relatives or association, the commercialization of services to the person or companies still raises reluctance. For many self-entrepreneurs who embark, obstacles are often overlooked. Involved, lack of professionalism, planning and poor communication. The most common failure is the case of the unemployed person who starts the personal service because he has computer skills, but does not have the experience of the trade or entrepreneurship. Mastering the specific dimension of the customer relationship is also a factor of failure for many entrepreneurs.
To be successful, entrepreneurs must also value their communication. Generating confidence and reassurance are the key words of the communication of the service to the person.

Then there are the insufficiencies, or even the lack of management. It is common to see entrepreneurs confuse profit and capital. Structuring the offer, evaluating the means necessary for the development of the activity are essential steps. Better to be accompanied by professionals.

Who can go?

Everyone or almost everyone. Primarily, unemployed people, people in professional transition, retirees who want to stay active. There is a real interest in capitalizing both in terms of skills and relationship network. Specific training and support exist and can help you to broaden and structure your perspectives. More and more are also developing in Africa specific financing and legal security mechanisms such as microfinance institutions and the status of the entrepreneur provided for by the provisions of the OHADA. Make up your mind ! There are certainly in your environment more or less immediate expressed needs that are just waiting to be satisfied and make you rich.


By Synsores DJAKPO,
Business Developer