Doing Business as an Under-Dog

On 10th February 2013, the Confederation of African Football concluded its 29th edition of the tournament tagged: South Africa 2013 (AFCON 2013), which the Super Eagles of Nigeria won for the 3rd time. Beside the intrigues and excitement that is associated with the competition, there are a few lessons small business owners can learn in order to boost their competitive edge in the market. Nigeria was the under dog in the competition, but the lifted the cup. No body gave Burkina Faso the opportunity, but the got to the final.

In business, nobody will give the chance to succeed. You have to fight your way through knowing that you can only be celebrated when you come out victorious.

In today’s business,

There are really no under dogs in business any more

Nigeria and Burkina Faso that played the finals of the tournament were they under-dogs; in fact nobody gave Burkina Faso the opportunity of qualifying from the group stage let alone making it to the finals for the first time. Both these teams were resilient, determined and courageous to fight even the favored giants. Burkina Faso eliminated Ghana; one of the favorites, while Nigeria played passed Cote d'Ivoire to reach the finals.

No matter the industry, never consider your business too small to face the giants. Most big businesses were some day small also.

Businesses Strives on new resources

What separate failed businesses from surviving ones is simply new resources. These resources could be in form of new ideas, new technology, innovation, new opportunities. In the tournament, we saw the injection of new locally based players, indigenous coaches, new foreign players and exceptional skills. Every business is supposed to re-invent itself as regularly as the industry changes. Survival is not a matter of capital alone, it’s about the new resources you are introducing into your business. You cant keep trading on old ideas when the industry has adopted a new one.

Even the Big businesses have weaknesses

All the big businesses in any industry have a measure of weakness. They know, you may or may not know, and they don’t want you to know more about it. Many of the big businesses have weaknesses that money cannot solve. The big businesses make you feel that your biggest problem is capital, but consider it, most big businesses also started small in an industry where the big businesses dictated the trend, yet they survived. Nigeria exploited the weakness of Cote d'Ivoire by caging there super players like Didier Drogba, Yaya Toure and the likes. Learn to trade on the weakness of your competitors, and soon you will take over the market.

No team wants to be a spectator

No team comes to a competition to be a cheer leader. Every team wants to win and become champions. Like wise, no business exists to watch others succeed. See yourself as a competitor, not as an under dog. Does that succeed, do so because they believe they can, they have the determination to do more, and the courage to face any challenge.

Nobody has the monopoly of success, if your vision is strong enough, and you are focused on your goal, you will always come out successful.

No matter how small your business is, or how tough your competitors are, you can always win in business even as an under dog.