Month: August 2016

Relationships that Matter (5)

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

As we conclude on this series today, it is important to re-emphasize that you can only travel as far as your relationships permit. If you have the right people in your life and at the right time, you will likely get to your destination easily. If otherwise, your chances of reaching your goal are very slim. It will be unwise to despise relationships that matter, such will only be setting himself up for failure.

The last relationship we will be looking at is relationship with your employer as an employee. Your career is like a building and every job experience represents the brick in the building. If you do not keep a healthy relationship with your supervisor or manager or the business owner, your ability to move up in your career will be hindered. I am not promoting eye service. I am asking you to be dedicated  committed, passionate, efficient and innovative on your job functions.

Reward Systems in most well managed organizations are designed to reward those who bring the most results. Your passion, skills, commitment and creativity must therefore be geared towards increasing your output per time or your efficiency. If you make yourself very relevant, you are likely to become indispensable to your employer. If you do your job well, you won’t have to lobby for promotion or more perks.

Beyond your job function, try to have a personal relationship with your supervisor or manager. It will separate you from the pack and will position you better than your contemporaries. Never exit any job without following the right exit procedure. Don’t resign abruptly and leave the company stranded. Don’t trade with your employer’s trade secret, it is unethical and will backfire. Respect your colleagues and be helpful where possible.

In summary, on your job you must aim to have a 360 degree positive influence. Have a positive influence on your superiors, contemporaries and subordinates. You will reach the peak of your career if you maintain a 360 degree approach to work.

You will observe that I have not mentioned relationship with your friends or neighbors in this series, the reason is that your friends and neighbors will either be destiny helpers or professional colleagues . We will commence another series on Relating With Your Enemies next week.

God bless us all.

Good morning!

Relationships that Matter (4)

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

As we approach the end of this series, we will consider another relationship that you must not toy with. Remember our premise for this series is that you can’t make it alone. You need people to reach your full potential. Keeping the right relationships is therefore a key imperative for fulfilling purpose.

As a self employed person, your relationship with your clients is very important. The saying ‘Customer is the king’ is not just a cliché, it is a truism. It remains true always. You must nurture your relationship with your customers so that you can retain them and get referrals through them.

Customers have choices, there are other competitors that can offer the same product or service you are offering. You need your customers more than they need you, hence your product/service offerings, accessibility, pricing, channels, and promotions must be cognizant of the needs of your customers. No matter how big your business may have grown, remain small for your customers to have access to you. One of the reasons why companies fail is growing so big to the extent of losing touch with market realities.

Always engage your customers through regular feedback, customers forum, and market survey. Be interested in your customers well being. Birthday wishes, thank you notes, promos and discounts, all go a long way to keep your customers or clients. Design your business in such a way that you get some personal details of your customers. It always works, especially when matched with great product or service.

Above all, ensure that what your product or service offering exceeds the price they pay for it. Value must always exceed price, if you are to retain your customers. You must take time to determine the value expectations and value perceptions of your clients. Sometimes what we regard as value offering is different from the customer’s value perception. You must always bridge the gap between value offering and value expectations/perceptions.

Regardless of the size of your business, you can grow it further or cause it to shrink, depending on how you treat your customers. Treat them like Kings and you will get them always coming back.

God bless us all.

Good morning!

Relationships that Matter (3)

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

Another relationship you must give attention to after God and your family is relationship with destiny helpers.

Who are destiny helpers?
Destiny helpers are people who will help you to reach your full potential through teaching, mentoring, financing, leveraging, connections, counsel or prayers. These include your teachers, mentors, spiritual guides, supervisors, colleagues and even friends.

We often appreciate only those who are valuable to us,  while sometimes destiny helpers don’t appear like they have anything to offer you. You therefore need to be patient, humble and sensitive to people around you, in order to discern those who are destiny helpers. As a rule of thumb, don’t despise anyone. Everyone has something of value, if you are sensitive enough, you will gain something. Destiny helpers will give you advice that will take you from a negative position to a positive position. Sometimes it is just an hint on how to go about an assignment. Some other times they offer tangible help in form of money, materials or even gifts. Please do all you can to keep them.

There are different junctions in every body’s life, and your ability to take the right turn at each junction sometimes depends on the people (destiny helpers) in your life. Many have made wrong choices and decisions because they either lacked or disdained their destiny helpers. ‘Destiny itself is like a wonderful wide tapestry in which every thread is guided by an unspeakably tender hand, placed beside another thread and held and carried by a hundred others.’  –  Rainer Maria Rilke.

Develop, grow, nurture and strengthen your relationship with your destiny helpers. You cannot make it alone. You need people.

God bless us all.

Good morning!

Relationships that Matter (2)

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

The next most important relationship you need to maintain, after your relationship with God, is your relationship with your family.

Family can be Nuclear or Extended. Both are important, but you must tend your Nuclear family very well. A nuclear family is made up of father, mother and children, while extended family covers all other relations.

Your family is your first back up when things go wrong. They are your pillars. You must take time and care to cultivate your relationship with your family. ‘The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.’  –  Lee Iacocca. When everybody deserts you, the only people that will be left are your family members. This means you also have to be there for your family members during thick and thin. Be committed to them.

Sometimes you may have difficult family members, and dealing with them may be stressful, but you need them just like they need you. So you need patience, wisdom and a lot of tolerance to manage such difficult ones. Honor your parents and take care of them. Love and respect your spouse. Don’t give them any reason to doubt your commitment to them. Friends may leave when the going gets tough, but it is not easy for family to leave. Blood is thicker than water, as the saying goes.

Nothing hurts more than being deserted by family members when one is experiencing difficulties. It means you also must watch the seeds you are sowing, because it will surely come back to you. Cherish your family and they will always be there for you.

God bless us all.

Good morning!

Relationship That Matters (1)

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

No man can reach his full potentials or fulfill destiny without the right people in his life. Jesus Christ needed John the Baptist to baptise him before he could commence his three year ministry. Moses would not have recorded much success without the help of Aaron and Joshua. We are creatures of relationships and we function effectively when we find the right relationships.

It is therefore important to know the right relationships so that our journey on earth will be smoother and so that we can make heaven at last. In the next few days, we will be discussing relationships that matter. We will examine one today and continue tomorrow.

1. Relationship with God: Dear friends, it will be a total and colossal waste of time and heaven’s resources if you journey through the world without a perfect relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. For you to have access to God, you need to accept His Son, Jesus Christ as your Lord and Personal Saviour. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” Acts 17:28.

Without God, you cannot go far in life. He made you for a purpose and doing anything outside that purpose will only lead to frustration. It is important you have God as your Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. This relationship is the most important and the foundation for every other relationship to thrive.

Do not be deceived by science and its various theories of the evolution of man. God exists. He was, He is and He remains forever. If you don’t have a relationship with Him here on earth, you can’t live with Him in heaven. The place prepared for those who refused to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord is Hell, and it is a place of eternal punishment.

I therefore advise you today to accept Jesus if you have not. If you have, obey him more, and follow his leading through the Holy Spirit. God is functioning in this dispensation through His Spirit, known as the Holy Spirit. If you don’t have Christ, you can’t have the Holy Spirit. Your relationship with God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Spirit (Holy Spirit) should be of more value to you than all the treasures of Life. Accept Jesus today.

God bless us all.

Good morning!

Are You Really Serious About Your Dream?

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

As we take on the eight month of year, it is important for us all to be reminded that we are already approaching the middle of the second half of year, and before you know it, once September sets in, the year starts running out fast. The question is what have you done with the past seven months? Have you just been paying lip-service to your goals? What steps have you taken so far?

Are you really serious about making it? If you are, I expect that by now you should have some bruises from failed attempts. By now you should have some stories to tell and lessons to help you as you forge ahead. You should have one or two success stories too. Even if you have not recorded any success, you should have learnt some lessons. Generals are made on the battlefield not on the drawing board. Move your plans out of the drawing board today.

Understand this, just as the clock ticks away every second, so our lives tick away, so don’t think you all the time.
If you are serious about your dream, you will be willing to pay the price. You will be willing to burn the candles. You will be willing to keep vigils, reading and studying while others are sleeping. You will spend less time watching Soap Operas and devote more time to your dream. You will deny yourself of certain pleasures in order to cope with the pressure of your dream. You won’t give up when others do.

If you are truly serious about your dream, you will be willing to pay any price for it. So, are you really serious?

Happy New Month and God bless us all.

Good morning!