way to living a life of financial freedom. The
problems Nigerians have till date is that we don’t
understand certain imperative credos about money,
so we end up having the wrong view of wealth.
That you have millions of naira in your account
cannot make you rich. If you understand this
single fact, you are on your way to becoming a
financial literate. I wrote in my other article, 'What makes the rich rich ’ that the difference
between rich people and poor people is not the
value of their wealth but the wealth of their
values.
Success becomes palpable if and only if we see
to the application of tested and trusted principles
that guarantee our desired achievements. The idea
that a particular occupation is richer than others
is an ideological voodoo which must be thrown
away. Let me tell you the bitter truth, there are
no rich or poor occupations. The only thing that
guarantees the wealth or penury of such
occupations is the individual itself, not the
occupations. There are rich doctors and poor
doctors, rich teachers and poor teachers, broke
lawyers and wealthy lawyers, proverty-stricken
accountants and well-to-do accountants and so
on. The problem with these poor professionals is
the lack of Responsibility. The first principle of
success in any human endeavour is the Principle
of Responsibility; it states that whatever you
make of your life is determined by the level of
responsibility you place on yourself. Basically,
there are four skills you need to become rich in
whatever occupation you engage in. I cannot
exhaust the list but I am sure gonna try to drive
my points home as easy as possible.
The first is Marketing . 86.3% according to
statistics lack marketing skills in Nigeria. You
can’t survive in the occupation you find yourself
in if you don’t know how to sell. ‘But Akin, my
occupation does not require me to sell’, I can
hear you say in your mind. Now listen, when I
talk about marketing, I’m not talking about
moving from door to door to sell a product. I
mean having the ability to communicate your
talents to the world. Let me give you an
example: If a baby is hungry and the mum
refuses to give him/her what she wants, guess
what he/she is gonna do? Start crying. Why
crying? To communicate and sell his desire to the
mum. The better you are at sales, the more
successful you would become in life. Our world
is filled with great talented poor people who live
daily in mediocrity. I have met with people
whose writings are better than some well-known
authors. But guess why they are still where they
are; they only improve their writing skills not
selling skills. Have you ever seen a book that
reads New York #1 best-writing author? I’m sure
your answer is no. What you see is New York #
1 best-selling author. The simple philosophy is
this: the better you are at selling, the richer you
become. Learning to sell is learning to overcome
the loser inside of you. This is applicable to all
occupations without exceptions. There are some
phD holders who are still jobless not because
they aren’t sound but because they can sell their
academic qualifications. One of the reasons why
some pastors still have low members rate is
simply because there are not selling Jesus the
right way. The problem therefore is not prayer
or fasting. It’s simply lack of selling skills. Get a
sales training to improve yourself. It doesn’t cost
much. If you don’t have much money, I would
recommend you buy ‘Be a sales superstar’ by
Brian Tracy, ‘how to sell anything to anybody’ by
Joe Girard ‘Secrets of selling anything’ by Harry
Browne,’7 hidden psychological secrets to maximum
sale’ by Yanik Silver and any sales books you can
lay your hands on. You can also venture into
network marketing business. It presents a lot of
opportunities with regards to selling which would
improve your wealth greatly.
The second skill you must acquire is Accounting
skill. The fact that you are a graduate of
accounting does not mean you have this skill. I
call it financial literacy skill. Financial literacy is
the ability to read and understand financial
statements. Financial statements are not meant for
companies alone. Anybody who would desire
wealth must have a financial statement. For this
article, I recommend having an income statement
and statement of financial position. Income
statement shows your income and expenses while
statement of financial position shows your assets
and liabilities columns. The income statement has
items like salary, pocket money, allowances and
other inflows as your income while your expenses
has items involving spendings. This is where most
people get trapped. All they do is earn salary or
collect pocket money and spend the money on
what they like and it ends there! They do not
have the understanding of the statement of
financial position which the rich focus on. I
would talk more about the statement of financial
position in my next skill. There are two
management areas you must understand;
management of cash flows and management of
systems. You should have basic understanding of
strategic budgeting. These stuffs aren’t
complicated. You should be able to prepare a
budget of your anticipated revenue and estimated
expenditures. I recalled a young rich entrepreneur
came to meet me and contracted me to be his
financial advisor. I consented and during my
financial analysis on his company, I discovered he
did not have understanding of budgeting and
strategic management. He had spent #1.2 million
naira in a month that he couldn’t account for.
This almost cost him his business. Financial
literacy skills are important and cannot be
overemphasized. You could apply for free online
courses on Financial Intelligence and related
subjects. They are all over the internet.
Alison.com could be of great help if you want a
free online course on financial literacy. Lay hands
on as many books as you can and start
improving your accounting skills. Can’t wait to
see you at the top buddy!
Thanks for reading. Stay in tune for
the second part of this topic. I love you
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