Akin Akinyemi
The first time I ever engaged in any entrepreneurial activity was about 12 years ago. My Church (The Osun Anglican Diocese) was going to hold a convention. I saw an opportunity for me to sell stickers. It was a Christian Convention and Christians liked positive confessions. More than five thousand people were expected. My brother and I drew up a plan, we did our calculations; we were going to make money! I quickly contacted a graphic designer, got the graphics done. I rushed to Ibadan, got the printing done. The excitement was overwhelming. We were going to make money!
The D-day arrived (I could not sleep the night before, thinking of what to do with the money we were going to make). My brother and I shared the stickers. We quickly decided on where each person would go to. The plan was to sell at least 1000 stickers at N200 per sticker. That’s N200,000! And so we set out. I started talking to people. I spoke with 10, 20, 30 people. They were not interested in buying. I felt maybe I started from a wrong place. I moved to another side of the field. Same result. I called my brother. He had managed to sell one. One! After two hours! I encouraged him not to give up. Another two hours went by, this time, I had managed to sell four stickers, he had sold one more. And the sales were more of emotional blackmailing. The buyers were people we knew.
At the end of the convention, we manage to sell 23 stickers. We even reduced the price to N100. People still did not buy. We made a loss.That day was one of the saddest day of my life. Prior to then, I had never failed at anything. I did not cry but I was so dejected I could not eat the next day. What went wrong? What did we not do? Why didn’t they buy our stickers? I just could not answer the questions.
Did I give up? No. Did I learn from the experience? Yes.
That you failed at something does not mean you are a failure. That you have never experienced the joy of winning does not mean you will never. You need to see failure as a learning curve. Everytime you fail is an opportunity to learn, it is an opportunity to improve. Have I failed after that horrible experience? Yes. Each time, I learn, each time I see a different way to get things done. I may not be where I want to be; I am surely not where I used to be.
Be good, be great, be all you can be