First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000@gmail.com Twitter: @Babawilly
Everybody needs and is searching for investors. Fewer are searching for investment opportunities.
Time, Money, ‘Likes’, Kind words, Motivation, Food…, the list of resources needed by brands is endless.
The one whose main brand is a big appetite has no business spending time with people with no food to invest. Demand and supply rules the world. Allocating valuable resources into schemes and individuals that we feel would prove to be more valuable in the future is what we all do. We trade in value. That is why babies that cannot walk or talk already have their medical, educational and nutritional needs catered for from their first week of life. Parents, society and governments invest in the next generation who we expect will invent and device things which were previously unimaginable in previous generations. The babies all have potentials to make the world a better place but there must be intensive investment in their lives.
The rich investor has a harder job to do than the one seeking investment. Once universally identified as a potential angel investor, the requests pour in. Even with the best screening of start-ups, he still loses money and may soon become cynical when the ‘next big thing’ arrives at his door. A ‘seen it all before’ attitude might set in while on the other hand the other option of living for self becomes attractive. Those without money always wonder why people blow wealth on conspicuous consumption to the point of penury. Those without money vow that they will invest and grow their wealth. These are like people who look at alcohol in a bottle and boast of how well they can control their drink, that is till the alcohol gets into their system and intoxication takes over the brain which is the seat of decision making. Money intoxicates and is deceitful. These are qualities that are exerted on the brain which now chooses to invest in pleasure. It soon becomes clear that investing time and money in copious consumption and indulgent gratification is pure ‘bad market’.
Bad Market is a financial term of the Nigerian streets and denotes investing in a brand that has been greatly over valued prior to its going public. We have all experienced companies that dress themselves up prior to being floated on the stock market by hiding their debts and liabilities and projecting non-existent virtues. The real truth is that the value (value being synonymous with market in Nigerian lingo) is next to zero but with aggressive marketing the investors struggle to have a chance to invest with exorbitant non-refundable application forms.
People set themselves up on social media to increase their ‘market’ and many who get close discover they have a bad market situation on their hands a few years later. Like the guy with the big car and house all featured on social media whose wife discovered that he owed the whole of Lagos money and even his house which he built in 2008 was actually rented. His wife found the tenancy agreement when searching for the deeds to the house in his study when he fled his creditors. In usual Lagos style, the poor lady put her hands on her head and screamed, ‘Bad market’. The other suitors who had struggled to invest in her market flashed before her eyes in one split second.
I once watched an interview of Warren Buffet discussing how he decides on with company to acquire. He said he reads company reports and analyses what he reads. He spoke with no excitement but purely in a matter of fact manner. That is the way to invest. Have a cold shower, get rid of the excitement, call on your most objective friend and analyse the brand with a fine tooth coomb
The fine bride needs a groom.
To change his gloom to boom
But soon she is found with child
And yet she is busy with a broom
Invested time and figure
Invested all her cash
Her ring’s a share certificate
And she hopes it does not crash
The other side of the proverbial Jordan is populated by the majority who want investments. These are the bright, young and hardworking who are amazed that no one has jumped at the chance of putting their life savings into their scheme. What they do not realise is that if the start-up fails to go up, they get a useful education and learn lessons for next time. The investor however, loses part of his pension and his children’s inheritance. Why should one with money risk having nothing to make a stranger’s dreams come true?
However, despite the risks of loss, life is all about investments and time is the greatest of all things that can be invested. We all want the time of others. The admiring glances, their well wishes, their favour and sometimes a pat on the back that reassures that one’s effort is being recognised and appreciated. It is so rare to get a pat on the back invested on one these days. Everyone is out to receive one forgetting that if all wait to receive there would be none to give.
The financial state of penury does not exempt a human being from investing in people. Part of the human spirit can be invested in another soul without money changing hands. Giving of ourselves to others most especially our children is the best investment of all.
The designer blouse maker
Craves for patronage
Accountant the bad
Prowls for clients to mismanage
The future is saved
Investing in the babies
They represent ‘good market’
For all our resources
