David Apaflo's Blog

Yes!!! davidapaflo.com now has guest writers!!!! Below is a brilliant piece from Tobi Adeseri.Tobi is a Business Strategist and a Brand Consultant. Recently, on my way to work, I came across 3 beggars plying their trade as is usual with most places in Lagos. As I walked past them, one called out to me saying "Oga Good Morning, where my own". This statement made no sense to me and I just kept on moving. Walking past them I began to wonder what he meant by that statement and then I heard the other two making jest of him asking "wetin be where my own" then it dawned on me the former guy wasn't as skillful as his other colleagues. This really took me back to life and made me remember the story a friend told me of a popular beggar that had started building and developing his house and this made me realize that even begging is a skill and the best of them (the guys on the road you give money to out of pity) think they have to perfect their skill to invoke you

Recently, the leadership of NYSC decided to introduce a Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development Program (SAED) as part of the one year mandatory NYSC Scheme. It is impressive to see the effort of NYSC in ensuring that the unemployment rate in Nigeria is drastically reduced by equipping everyone who passes through the scheme with one skill or the other. I was privileged to be a facilitator at a capacity building session for Corps Members in February this year and it was great teaching budding entrepreneurs the usefulness of accounting records. Anyway, accounting is not the topic for this piece. In this piece we would be looking at how you can take your newly developed skill to the next level be it cake making, bead making etc. So now you know how to bake, what next? In business, having the skill to get the job done is not good enough. You need more. You need to be able to convince people to patronize you (marketing) you need to position your skill or product (branding), keep