Wednesday 17 October 2012

3 Business Lessons from Conjestina’s Boxing Life


Are there any business lessons we can learn from Conjestina’s boxing life?

                                 
                Free Image Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Conjestina won the hearts of many Kenyans after boxing her way into the international arenas back in 2010. She became the first African woman to win an international boxing title. Companies like Tuzo Milk went on to endorsed her. Moreover, she became a national star after appearing on several adverts including the recent “Back to School” advert by Tuskys Supermarket Chain.

Recent study shows that most small business people don’t take “hard punches” for long. That’s why, according to the Economic Survey of 2006, three out of five small businesses get knocked-out in the first few months of establishment. 

Just like Conjestina, small business owners too must learn to endure “hard punches” in order to achieve business success. In business, jabs won’t literary land on your nose or ear. Painful jabs like stiff competition, technological change, and lack of funds for business expansion among others will. Here are the business lessons that we can learn from her…

1.      Failure is Part of the Game
The Economic Survey of 2006 states that three out of five businesses fails but doesn’t state the number of businesses that learn from failure and move on. It isn’t the number of times you fall but the number of times you wake up and move on that count.

Through failure, Conjestina became a better and stronger boxer and went on to win the International Boxing Title.

Small businesses people must learn that business failure is part of business cycle. If a certain process or product fails, the owner should find out what happened. He or she should learn from the mistake and come up with ways to mitigate failure in future.
What most business owners do is repeat the same mistake again and again expecting different results. That’s what Einstein calls insanity.

2.      Competition is tight
In boxing, there is always someone stronger than you. According to me, some of the opponents Conjestina battled were stronger and faster than her. That’s why she lost some matches.
However, she won most of the matches because she took the competition head-on. Through battling she became more experienced, quicker, and stronger.

Likewise, small business people must know that big and established businesses are waiting to box them. However, they shouldn’t shun boxing them back. It’s through battling them that they’ll learn ways of eliminating competition, for instance targeting a certain market niche. If they don’t take competition head-on, they’ll never learn, achieve business profits, and probably become quicker and stronger.

3.      No Risk, No Reward
One of the major challenges facing most small business people is the fear of risk taking. The negative “what ifs” hinder most small business people from opening a store, for instance, they have always dreamt of. 

What if I don’t sell anything by end month? What if I don’t get loyal customers? What if operational costs get out of hand? What if I lose all my money? What if I make heavy losses? What if I don’t get good employees?

The “what if I get a broken nose?” didn’t stand between Conjestina and the International Title. Instead, she sought professional coaching to learn how to take hard punches, jabs, and ways of counter-attacking her opponents.

Likewise, don’t let “what if I lose all my money?” stand between you and business success. Attending business seminars/forums and acquiring management knowledge from business experts are some of the ways of learning how to take “hard punches” and “painful jabs”.

I hope that the above business lessons from boxing sport will propel you to become a better and wiser small business person.

PS: Kindly help me improve this article by pointing any typos. In addition, you can suggest more points that I should incorporate in this article by simply leaving your comments below.

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