My Rotaract Club (the Rotaract Club of Kampala City) meeting is every Tuesday at 6.00pm. Normally, we come from work and school and we sit together and we share fellowship (as we call it) fun and friendship and then go home .We do that every week. Most of us look to it as a rewarding moment when you go to catch up with friends and discuss all types of business, service(mostly)Club administration(sometimes) and other business, but not business.
It was one such Tuesday that I was asked to make a presentation about what I do for a living. Honestly I had never really got opportunity to share about my business ideas (then) and plans and how good the future of entrepreneurship could be. So I shared.
I started with the fact, " All of us shall at one moment need to create something of our own. The size doesn’t matter, but in our lifetime, we shall either choose to leave employment, or be asked to leave or we shall grow old and retire. A lot of times when any of those happens, we need back up and instinctively we turn to what we think pans out- ironically which we avoided most if not all of our working life-business."
In that very meeting, there was seated, my first partner in business, ever. It was not so much what I was doing but I guess what I had lined up to do that moved a few people. I got amazing reviews. My profile must have moved up. I even got new friends.
Truth be told, I had never thought, before that that my business or my business idea deserved any mention, much as it paid my rent and I had grand plans with it, I sold myself really short(before that). The only people who knew I was doing farming for a business either did not take me seriously or just didn’t take the idea seriously. They must have thought I would wake up from that trance and get a real job soon. Of course they never ever shared this with me in public (to mean in my presence), until after that presentation.
One gentleman comes up to me and says,
"My friend,I hope you didn’t mean what you just said! You can’t make money from farming. You are far too schooled to be doing this"
My eyes straight at his ,I tell him. "I meant every word I said there. That is what I do and I just shared my dream right there."
That presentation did not just get me a partner,but several businesses as well.
Each and everyone of us has a dream,one they are either working on or one they hope to work on.Truth is,no one else has the responsibility to grow and nurture that dream than you.You owe it to yourself.Promote your business at every opportunity you get.The advertising industry is not mega for nothing.Promotion is equal to sales and growth. And opportunities come from the most unexpected sources;don't pass on an opportunity. When you get to speak about what you do or how good you are or your plans for the future,you don't just convince your audience, you convince yourself too.So your subconscious keeps working on the grand dream you have and it keeps you posted with results,surprisingly in the same form you dream about. If we get to talk about how terrible the weather has been for ages and how high taxes and prices are or even how bad our bosses can be,we surely can talk with that much gusto about how grand our dreams are.
Several months later,and we have no guest speaker again. A friend and member of the club is asked to sit in and speak about what he does for a living. He declines. He said he was not ready,he was not prepared,people needed to have told him early. No type of cajoling would get him to take the stand.
I casually walk to him and say;
"This is the best opportunity you will ever get to promote you business and your idea to numerous people without a cent paid.Go for it."
For some reason,this got him going, and he delivered the best presentation I have ever heard about Architecture.
It worked for me,It worked for him.It has probably worked for you too,if up have tried it. Go out here and spread the message. People listen to whatever we tel them, and when we deliver it with passion and conviction,they are as sold as you are, and soon it turns into lived dreams.
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