Don’t despise little beginnings -Rev. Ocran coaches youth on how to do business with their talents
Executive Director of the Springboard Road Show Foundation, Rev. Albert Ocran has advised the youth not to despise little beginnings if they are to succeed with their respective talents.
He said what might look like a small beginning and something that was not very glamorous now could literally grow to become one’s full-time profession.
Rev. Ocran gave this advice at his second presentation of the COVID-19 Recovery and resilience Programme (CoRe) which is aimed at equipping the youth who form the core of the Ghanaian society in areas such as health and wellness; job readiness and business skills to thrive first now and in a post COVID-19 pandemic era. The presentation was on the theme: ‘Doing business with your talent.’
Moving beyond small beginnings, he said it was also necessary to improve each and every day for one to succeed with his or her talent.
“What you did yesterday can't be the same as what you do today. Today must be an improvement upon yesterday and tomorrow must be an improvement on today,” he stated.
He also urged the youth to invest time, money and effort in their talents if they wanted to succeed with it.
“Every day, read on your talent, rehearse every day, determine to get better and better and better every single day. And that is the attitude you must have to the work that you do,” he noted.
How to determine your main talent
Rev. Ocran also shared four steps through which an individual who had more than one talent could determine which one to develop first.
“Many of you reached out and said, you have a talent, but you have more than one. You are multi-talented or there are a number of things you can do. So which of them should you start? Let me give you four things that can help you determine which one to go into first or which one is your main talent,” he stated.
He said the first one was passion.
“What are you very passionate about? What do you talk about and feel that this is my life, this is my assignment, this is my purpose; this is what I was born to do. That is the first test of your main talent”.
He said the second one was intuition, which was something one did not learn in school but able to talk about and do correctly without any formal training.
“The third one is execution. When you get things done correctly and rightly and excellently all the time, that is an idea about what your talent is.
“And the final one is appreciation. If anytime you sew, anytime you recite poetry, anytime you arrange flowers; people say; “Woow!! My wedding was excellent because the flowers were so beautiful.” That is an indication of your main talent. And so those can be used to help you to determine which one you want to go with,” he explained.
How to do business with your talent
For an individual to be able to do business with his or her talent, Rev. Ocran outlined ten questions that the individual must first ask himself or herself.
1. What is my talent?
Giving an example of talent, he said one’s talent could be cooking or baking.
2. What can I do with my talent?
Depending on what you are good at, you should write what you can do with your talent.
3. Who are my target customers?
So for what you do, who are you trying to serve? So it's very simple. What is your talent? What can you do with it? And who are you trying to serve?
4. What is my customer’s expectations pre-COVID-19?
5. Since COVID-19 has disrupted our world and things are looking different from how they were before, what would be my customer’s concerns in and post COVID-19?
6. How do I respond uniquely to my customers’ COVID-19 related concerns?
7. Who are my competitors and what are they offering?
8. Who do I need as I go into this business?
9. What should be my attitude to work?
Rev. Ocran pointed out that this was very necessary as lots of businesses rose and fell due to attitude.
“So someone may have a fantastic talent, but a very challenging attitude. That means the person may never smile at their customers, may not treat people too well. May not keep their promise; and as a result, they may lose business that could literally help them grow their business or opportunities that could help them grow their business,” he explained.
10. How to treat your customers
“My tenth and final point is about how to treat your customers. If you want to be world class, your customers are the key to the growth of your business. So treat every customer with respect, invest in letting your customer know that you appreciate their business and treat every single opportunity as a World Cup final,” he noted.