How many of us love sleep? I guess many of us. I had a boss who said that he does  not care whether we sleep in but as long as we remain productive. The truth is productivity is synonymous with being awake.

Lately I have been struggling with waking up early. I cannot seem to get it right, yet I know that for me to remain productive, for all of us to be productive we must at best wake up way before the first bird chirps away into the morning.

Creativity and arising early are intertwined. How is this so?

Any views, any ideas on how to do this consistently?

Cerulean Blue Consulting has been working with a client over the past three weeks. Initial impromptu consultation was based on our pitch that we could work together to obtain financing for this particular buisness to enable it expand its Heavy Machinery and Spare Parts sales operations. This of course was before any initial assessment had been done. According to the owner the main role of Cerulean Blue Consulting was to set up a system to handle all financial transactions and records to bring them up to speed and then use the financial statements to obtain the necessary financing.

The assessment was done and working on a financial policy document together with the directors became a good starting point for the directors to effect an efficent and effective finance system. This has taken a while to begin implementing even though the business is a small company with less than 5 employees. Meanwhile part of Cerulean Blue's other role was to try and get in more cash into the business through the available venues. 

After consultation we settled on a few avenues that included Invoice Discounting, Local Purchasing Order financing and seek long term finance options.

Consultation with local Micro Small and Medium Enterprise financiers yielded both expected and unexpected results. The expected as is always the case required the business to present a business plan with all the cash flow and other financial projections. The other turned out to be about values: what was being termed "UTMOST GOOD FAITH".

Deep in me I knew the owner had not showed utmost goood faith. This after advising that we prepare two different cash flow statements for "öutsiders" and different ones for internal use!

Here is Cerulean Blue representing a client who does not show a value that is oxygen to the MSME financial sector. What would be the next logical step, given that our reputation was also on the line?

We did further due diligence and this time involved a potential LPO financier. After poring over the clients bank statements for just about fifteen minutes interrogating every transaction  it was evident that something was not right. The whole picture was wrong. It did not paint Utmost Good Faith. The information I had over the days received from our client did not quite satisfy the financier in comparison with what the statements spoke.

The huge cash withdrawals warranted further explanations. The financier asked for audited financial statements (Cashflow Statement, Profit, Loss Statement and a Balance sheet). We are yet to present these since we ran into another obstacle. Incomplete Records.

These raised questions such as What would happen if my client really could not provide proof of the use of the transactions for the reasons they were taken? (These were to finance an LPO type transaction)

What is the problem really is not with the financial system but with the owner's value system?

How can these be instilled in a business right at start up so a business or its owners and employees develop a competitive advantage through delivering and practising value based business management?

If this were the case, could it minimize costs related to due diligence processes by banks and other financial intermediaries and investors?

What are the possibilities of value based business management?

What would constitute value based business management in such a set up?

Is it possible then to detect the lack of this very important ingredient in entrepreneurs needing finance for their businesses for whatever business need?

We would be on the look out for answers. Maybe there is solution out there somewhere.

One of the distinctive discovery strategies is being able to take time to acquire both general and specific knowledge concerning your product and or services, the environmnet you are operating in both at a micro level and macro level.

It is basically being able to percieve and interpret business information. This will mean that as a business owner you take deliberate action steps to collect information about your customers; finding a way to collect all demographic information, collating them and presenting them in a format that will help to make the decisions that will drive business growth.

The same process should then be repeated in the areas of products, finance, research and products. An important aspect to add is the development of human resources. Being able to combine and interprete this information is the true beginning of a workable opportunity and will help you as the business owner find a good fit between the context in which you operate in and the strategy the business owner and his team ought to employ.

The above steps and processes need certain skills that need developing. These skills are:

1. Being able to intuitively percieve and interprete knowledge

2. Being able to structure and process cognitive information

How to develop these knowledge structures is left to the owner since he or she knows the inner workings of the specific business. This is always the better thing to do. In a fast paced and dynamic environment business consultants can be invited to guide in the developing of these knowledge structures and setting up systems that ensure they remain standing to aid in this very crucial aspect of growth readiness in any business organization

 Various researchers have argued that entrepreneurs ability to discover opportunities is cultivated way beyond when the venture begins. We will take this week to look at various processes that have been proposed and how they can be translated directly into profits within all types of businesses, small, micro, medium or even non profits.

The strategies that will be proposed affect the performance of such ventures. These strategies increase the newness value of the ventures and include the following. )we will then break each down in subsequent days)

1. Proactive searching
2. Competitive scanning
3. Collective action. 

We set this week to learning a few methods on how to generate ideas for business.

The question we are addressing is how we can come up with ideas that have the potential to unearth great business opportunities; opportunities that in turn will lead to the creation of sustainable and profitable businesses and organizations.

Most great entrepreneurs have asked themselves this question and have come up with answers both expected and unexpected but in the end they have gone ahead to create myriad businesses, business solutions, products, programs, written books and started revolutions because they put in the work to answer the “ideation” question.

I have heard, I have read and I have practiced it to some extent… the art of ideation; the art of forming “Ideation Questions”, the discipline of engaging your senses; engaging the environment around you to come up with something out of the ordinary.

My partner and I have some capital available. We want to start a sustainable business that can generate profits.

So the first thing we do is seek God’s guidance, being Christians. We realize that God helps us, besides He is the author of creation; that is what we believe. He created us, He created the world, He set the starts in place and there is great order in all that yet there is a synergy that ensures everything works well.

The process has started; we ask people questions to find out what other guys think is currently a good thing to invest in. We get good ideas but it’s what everybody else is doing

So we embark on a process to brainstorm between us. This does not do much good either, it seems we are limited.

So I tried a different approach:

From gathered knowledge it is good to engage with yourself, engage with the environment you operate in. Then combine the two together, play around with mixed ideas, look at the problems people are going through…what can be done to solve this problem?

It was spontaneous; I was listening to two men talk about their plans.

This made me realize that I could take bus rides just to listen to people talk…engage the environment.

Half way through my ride I decided to go to a shopping mall just to walk about, perhaps I could get an idea. I did

I walked into this shop saw the arrangement…I liked the way they dispense their products. I got a business idea right then

I looked at their products, having this alternative to one of the major products people consume when they go out for things like dates. Looking at the label I got a few more ideas. I think from this one shelf I got three interlinked ideas.

As I walked to the office from the mall, I prayed to God to show me what I ought to do. He is the one who gives us Skill, Ability and Knowledge

Look at your SHAPE…Skills, Hobbies, Abilities, Passion and Education, what am I passionate about, what do I love doing, what I learned in school or what has life taught me.

I came up with another technology idea after that process.

By the time I got to the office I had a multibillion dollar business idea all linked from the first one.

The next thing I ought to do…Write it down fast…before it disappears. And then do some background checks and desk top research and environmental scanning and come up with a viable business proposal.

Where can one get business ideas from? Business ideas that will translate to profits and create wealth for people, for communities, for nations?

What is the process of "ideation"?

In the next three weeks, I will be embarking on a journey to find out more from men and women who have gone through the process, are still working on their opportunities and are having fun and creating wealth for themselves and the communities they come from. During this time, please join us and contribute as we go through this journey of discovery.

 I read an article on the growth savvy state of businesses and it seemed to suggest that most business owners do not have as much knowledge and skill at growing a business as they do on cutting business costs. I wondered why that was so and continued reading more.

Apparently most businesses do not have the right tools and systems in place to determine what factors truly lead to their business growth. Two important things about growth. Looking at the right variables and having the tools in place to measure these variables.

These two practically shows the manager the growth affinity of the business.

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