Business Bomba: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating A Successful and Sustainable Business in Sierra Leone

By Modupe Taylor-Pearce, Claudius Bart-Williams and Mercy Frimpong

Business Bomba is a solution to a problem faced by thousands of Sierra Leoneans; many people in Sierra Leone want to start or own a successful business that creates jobs for others but do not know how to do so. By providing a step-by-step guide to creating a successful business in Sierra Leone and examples of current successful businesses in Sierra Leone, Dr. Taylor-Pearce provides a "recipe book" for how to create a successful business. This book is a guide for any current or future entrepreneur in Sierra Leone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312784765

Book preview

BUSINESS BOMBA

A step-by-step guide to creating a successful and sustainable business in Sierra Leone

By

Modupe Taylor-Pearce, PhD.

Copyright 2022

Dr. Modupe Taylor-Pearce

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author or publishers.

Published by:

Lulu Publishing Services

Editor

Hugh K. Fraser

ISBN

978-1-312-78476-5

Cover design

by

Mercy Frimpong

First Edition

CONTENTS

Concept Summary………………………………………………      5

Acknowledgments………………………………………………      7

Foreword………………………………………………………..      10

Reviews…………………………………………………………      14

CHAPTER ONE……………………………………………….      24

SO YOU WANT TO BE A BUSINESSMAN/WOMAN…ARE YOU READY?

CHAPTER TWO………………………………………………      40

WHAT IS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS?

CHAPTER THREE……………………………………………      50

IDENTIFYING A PROBLEM WORTH SOLVING

CHAPTER FOUR…………………………………………….      66

SOLVING THE PROBLEM (THE PRODUCT / SERVICE)

CHAPTER FIVE……………………………………………..      81

IDENTIFYING THE BUYERS (and their ALTERNATIVES)

CHAPTER SIX……………………………………………….      93

IDENTIFYING THE PRICE

CHAPTER SEVEN…………………………………………..      106

CALCULATING THE COSTS

CHAPTER EIGHT……………………………………………      115

PUTTING IT IN WRITING PART ONE - THE CONCEPT NOTE

CHAPTER NINE……………………………………………..      122

ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP

CHAPTER TEN…………………………………………...….      132

ASSEMBLING THE TEAM – PART ONE – THE OVERSIGHT TEAM

CHAPTER ELEVEN…………………………………………      142

PUTTING IT IN WRITING PART TWO - THE BUSINESS PLAN

CHAPTER TWELVE…………………………………………      151

REGISTERING YOUR BUSINESS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN………………………………………      162

FINDING START-UP CAPITAL

CHAPTER FOURTEEN………………………………………      178

ASSEMBLING THE TEAM – PART TWO – THE EMPLOYEE TEAM

CHAPTER FIFTEEN…………………………………………      187

GETTING YOUR FIRST SALES

CHAPTER SIXTEEN………………………………………..      201

WATCHING THE CASH

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN……………………………………      210

MAKING SURE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE HAPPY AND PAYING

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN………………………………………      219

PAYING YOUR TAXES

CHAPTER NINETEEN………………………………………      227

TRAINING YOUR TEAM TO DO MORE

CHAPTER TWENTY…………………………………………      236

PLANNING FOR YOUR EXIT

EPILOGUE…………………………………………………      …      246

CONCEPT SUMMARY

Perhaps it is because I was the youngest (last-born). Perhaps it was because I was a boy-pikin (male child). Whatever the reason is for this debilitating deficiency, I learned about it at age 25: I did not know how to cook. This would not have been a problem if I had been living in Sierra Leone at the time, but I wasn’t. I was living in the USA and I was hungry for Salone  chop and I did not know how to cook. Sitting in a small apartment in upstate New York where I was pursuing my Masters degree, I silently blamed my mother and my aunt for letting me get away with avoiding the kitchen as a teenage boy (I know, selfish thought!). Necessity is the mother of invention, so I eventually decided that I would have to learn how to cook…at least groundnut soup or fry soup (stew). A friend of mine sent me a cookbook – it was a home economics book of recipes from a secondary school in Sierra Leone. I found the recipe for groundnut soup, and I followed the recipe step-by-step. To my surprise, an hour later, I had something in the pot that tasted like groundnut soup (although it was not as good as my mother’s groundnut soup).  I was delighted. By the time I had made groundnut soup two more times it was good enough for me to share with some American friends who loved the peanut butter soup.

The purpose of this book is to provide a step-by-step guide for Sierra Leoneans aged 15 to 80 who want to create a successful business on how best to make that vision a reality. The challenges of creating a successful and sustainable business are numerous; some of them are unavoidable, some are unmitigable, and others are avoidable and mitigable. One of the avoidable and mitigable challenges is the lack of knowledge on the part of the person starting the business. A lack of knowledge about how to set up a business and how to make a business profitable is one of the primary reasons why businesses fail, and yet this is eminently avoidable. Just as I would have failed miserably trying to make groundnut soup on my own without a recipe book, many wannabe entrepreneurs fail at creating successful businesses because they have not been given a cookbook. This book provides the knowledge and steps that will equip the aspiring business owner to be successful. This book is the recipe book for starting a successful business.

The book is written for Sierra Leoneans of any age who have at least completed JSS level of education.

This book has been broken down into various chapters or sections. In each chapter, the reader will also find italicized stories about real-life companies and entrepreneurs in Sierra Leone that help to illustrate the principles in the book. It is my hope that this book will inspire an entire movement of Sierra Leoneans to successful pursue entrepreneurship and create 100,000 new jobs in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone needs you to become a job creator!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We stand on the shoulders of giants. The knowledge and experience that have informed this book was gained over decades of experience and teaching moments courtesy of a number of people, some of whom I may have even forgotten about. For those that I have forgotten who deserve honourable mention for their contributions to my leadership and entrepreneurship journey, I humbly apologize and beg your forgiveness.

My primary gratitude goes to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for His grace and favour and for allowing me to see this day in health and strength.

Next, I wish to thank my wife Renee – the best wife and mother in the world – for giving me the space, time, and wise counsel to learn entrepreneurial lessons and write this book. Much of the wisdom that I have gained over the years I have acquired from her business acumen; most importantly she gives me the peace of mind to pursue my passion – creating jobs for Africans. No acknowledgement would be complete, though, without recognizing the role that my children (Chinua, Mandisa and Makeda) have played in my growth. They are my primary leadership audience and motivation for my drive to create a prosperous Sierra Leone. 

My mother (Olive Taylor-Pearce) and my aunt (Iris Femi Hamilton) are two entrepreneurs who have provided excellent learning for me about entrepreneurship. I learned as much from their mistakes as I did from their successes. Most of all I have learned from their willingness to share their knowledge. My father (Canon Dr. J.E. Modupe Taylor-Pearce) is an infinite source of knowledge about leadership and some of the lessons in this book come directly from his actions.

A special statement of gratitude goes to my business partner and big brother/uncle, Wilben Short. He has been a source of wise counsel and encouragement as well as a shoulder to cry on from time to time. I thank him for giving me the benefit of his business experience in and out of Sierra Leone.

A number of colleagues and friends have been instrumental in my development. Special mention goes to Hugh Kweku Fraser (a pillar of strength and partnership), Joe Abass Bangura (a lifelong learner and fellow soldier in the battle for the transformation of Sierra Leone), Mercy Frimpong (an amazingly-talented colleague who has been a constant pillar of support), and Claudius Bart-Williams (who preceded me in making a positive impact at IPAM). I cannot forget all the CEOs and Directors of various companies in Sierra Leone who allowed me to provide coaching, consulting, training or facilitation services to their companies. I am also grateful to Sheka Forna and Francis Stevens George, who wrote reviews of this book.

Victor A. Rossi (an Italian-American entrepreneur) was one of my first bosses who taught me most of what I know about operational excellence. He gave me business and life advice, much of which I still utilize today. Steve Bowen (an American entrepreneur) taught me 90% of what I know about sales, marketing, and customer service. Their fingerprints whether they realize it or not, are all over this book.

I am also grateful to all the successful entrepreneurs in Sierra Leone – some of whom have been profiled in this book - for creating jobs in Sierra Leone. You are my heroes!

Finally – I dedicate this book to my IPAM MBA students of 2013, 2015, and 2016, who collectively and willingly provided the research for this book during their Entrepreneurship and Enterprise course. May you go on to become successful entrepreneurs and be joined through the use of this book by so many other successful entrepreneurs that the Government of Sierra Leone will one day complain that they cannot find people to hire into public sector!

FOREWORD

For many years, a very politically connected friend regaled me with stories about numerous political events in Sierra Leone, referring to the learning points that would benefit today’s political leadership.  I did enquire of my friend, as to why he had not written a book, a question to which he had no answer.  Herein lies one of the problems of Sierra Leone, documenting events to act as learning points. It is in this context that I very much welcome the book.  An attempt to define, document, explain, and guide the reader on the basic tenets of 2 related but different concepts - entrepreneurship and leadership.  The author recognizes and explains that a relative lack of entrepreneurship is at the heart of the country’s relative economic failure – that imbalance between job creators and job seekers.  Put another way, not only are there not enough job creators, some of those who seek to be, are unsuitable for the role.  Many associated and related issues emanate from good entrepreneurship (integrity, honesty, effort), many of which are mentioned by the author.  I hope that future editions will make further and even more insightful contributions to our experience and knowledge in this area.  In other words, corruption makes a country poor.

I see the book in two parts.  The first sets out the pre-conditions to becoming an entrepreneur (values, mindset, attitude, courage, passion) whilst the second deals with the practicalities of setting up as an entrepreneur.  There are many important lessons from the first part but perhaps the most important is that because you can cook does not mean you can run a restaurant.  Cooking is a skill whilst a restaurant is a business.  The story of the British furnishing firm, Laura Ashley, is often the subject of business school study at many universities.  One of the other lessons that could perhaps have been set out more explicitly is that a ‘real’ entrepreneur never explicitly starts a business to get rich.  They seek to provide a product or service, fill a market gap, and as a consequence, may likely become richer.  It is also clear that risk can be managed by bringing others into the business for these ‘others’ can bring skills, capital, and often both, and this is an important point.  The author explains how an unwillingness to put in place appropriate governance and support structures. Often, a one-person business that dominates the Sierra Leone business landscape fails some of the basic principles of entrepreneurship on the basis that such businesses often lack the governance structures that the author identifies as vital.  The author is correct to state that a product or service is only likely to be viable if the price offered is less than the value being placed on the product/service by the potential customer.  Value is created by a combination of lower prices and or better service or product.

For the second part, a couple of points are worth mentioning.  Remembering that value is the driver of success explicitly means that improvement and innovation become vitally important and it is competition that drives this. The author correctly uses the banking sector as an example.  Despite claims of saturation at the time when many of the new banks entered the market, 13 of the 14 banks are making significant or record profits.  Any entrepreneur seeking government intervention to solve a business problem is not a ‘real’ entrepreneur.  Neither is a person whose sole mission is to win government contracts for a service or product.  The book implicitly recognizes that the skills required to start a business are different from those required to maintain the business.

It is perhaps beyond the scope of this edition of the book but further exploration of attitudes to entrepreneurship within society is vital.  For example, political leaders have to accept the need to redress the job creator – job seeker imbalance and more importantly, that job creators are therefore likely to be richer but that is the consequence of creating jobs.

I particularly enjoyed the engaging style of the author and the use of examples with which the reader will likely be familiar.  It will help the reader re-assess their opinions of the businesses referred to in the book and that can only be a good thing as they plan their entrepreneurship journey.

The author never tires of extolling the virtues of entrepreneurship.  That Apple Inc, driven by Steve Jobs (a real entrepreneur) has a market value of USD 3 trillion and which is almost exactly the GDP of all of Africa.  There is no need to say anything else.

For the budding entrepreneur in Sierra Leone, this book is a must-read because it forces the budding entrepreneur to think through the requirements of good entrepreneurship but also understand the interconnections within the context of businesses that the reader is likely to be familiar with.  The result should be that fewer people wish to go into business, i,e, weeding out the non-entrepreneurial dealmakers.

Claudius Bart-Williams

Dr. Claudius Bart-Williams, who holds a Ph.D. from Brunel University in the UK, is a seasoned Financial Economist with over 30 years of experience in education, consulting, corporate advisory and finance in the UK and Africa.

REVIEWS

A REVIEW BY MR. JOSEPH ABASS BANGURA

This book, Business Bomba, a step-by-step guide to creating a successful and sustainable business in Sierra Leone; is written for Sierra Leoneans of any age who have at least completed JSS level of education who want to create a successful business on how best to make that vision a reality. It starts with echoing the fact that Sierra Leone has been going through an entrepreneurship revolution. Entrepreneurship has ceased to be the career option for the not-so-bright-kids; indeed, I describe myself as an entrepreneur and not a Chartered Accountant. No longer are people waiting to retire from government service at age 55 to 65 before opening their own business; people are now opening businesses while employed. Teachers are setting up private lessons or syndicates (a sophisticated word for an unofficial school; nurses are running their own private pharmacies. A big challenge we face often as entrepreneurs when looking for books to help us navigate the entrepreneurial journey is that many business books are written by people who have only read about or have been taught about business but have never created or managed one. Much of the content in Business Bomba is informed by the Author’s practical experience in the trenches as an entrepreneur. He talks about his grave errors that led to business failures; he carries the scars that qualify him to write this book. It is indeed a cookbook containing everything you need to know about the fundamentals of starting, growing, and exiting a business in Sierra Leone. From the definition of a successful business, choosing the right problem your business solves and solving that problem with the right product; understanding your market and getting the right price for your product; counting the cost; writing the business concept and business plan, registering the business, assembling the team, funding your startup capital, making the first sale, and watching the cash and down to planning for your exit. The content is rich and written in quite an easy-to-read style with no irrelevant jargon; I read it all in one afternoon. A big part of the inspiration for me in Business Bomba is the number of stories of successful Sierra Leonean entrepreneurs and businesses, past and present; some are stories I am learning for the first time. These include Union Trust Bank, Sea Coach Express, Family Kingdom, S A Beckley, Grafton Water Ltd, Marz the Chemist, Red Lion Bakery, Balani and Sons, G Shankerdas and Sons, Genet and Partners, Eddie K Enterprises, Office World etc.

I first met Modupe up close in 2007 as he facilitated the Leaders of Godly character (LGC) seminars at the British Council in Freetown. We became close