Think hard. Don’t work hard for money.

There is a lady who sells g/nuts and other snacks just outside my office block. I usually buy my breakfast snack from her. I have seen her doing this trade for the last three years. She is strategically positioned just outside the gate of the parking yard. Hundreds of middle class corporate employees park their vehicles in this yard. She has many clients.

The challenge is I have not seen her business grow. She told me one time that she wakes up everyday at 4.00am to prepare the snacks. The whole day I can see her seated outside at the gate of the parking yard tending to her trade. Her inventory has remained pretty much the same. She serves only dry snacks (g/nuts, soya, hard corn, sweets, etc). She clearly works hard to earn a living.

However working hard often does not lead to accumulation of great riches. We have to think hard. This lady is clearly not seeing and exploiting the opportunities before her. She has a limited assortment of eats which only cater for breakfast. All these people who park at this parking yard can be sold complimentary services. She can decide to make a variety of juices and deliver to their offices. She can also start preparing food and deliver at lunch time since finding a decent restaurant around here is difficult. She can also start making fruit salads and deliver to their offices. She can hire more people to prepare all these things during the day. She can also hire people to deliver the well packaged and branded juice, snacks, fruits, salads, etc. to her customers. She can seek financing from some of her customers since she is very friendly with many of her clients.

She can get details of her customer phone numbers, where they work, and what kind of snacks/food they like. She can use this database and take orders using Whatsapp. She can also decide to take bulk orders especially around back to school season to make snacks for school kids. She can also start supplying local supermarkets with her well branded snacks. She can negotiate with the parking yard management to set up a more permanent shop which is more convenient for her customers.

The opportunities for growth are limited only by her imagination and creativity. She is clearly working hard but not thinking hard enough. Money is created by thinking hard and not by working hard.