Must Read: CEO of Joy fm fires up young entrepreneurs

• Posted on June 18, 2014June 18, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

CEO of Multimedia has fired up young entrepreneurs to fight off the pressure to live large and to avoid distractions while they keep their eye on the prize – a successful business.

Kicking off the view from the Top series at the ServLed Friday talks, Kwasi Twum said because an entrepreneur’s life is always about business, he would need to cut off some pleasures in order to incline himself to the work of creating opportunities and growing his brand.

With the goal of building Ghana’s startup ecosystem, ServLed Africa runs free weekly talk sessions dubbed ServLed Friday where accomplished entrepreneurs and subject matter experts talk to a group of young and dynamic entrepreneurs about business strategies to help them succeed.

Kwasi Twum believes that Africans can run businesses in a very transparent way and still be able to compete and turn a profit.  He encouraged the young entrepreneurs to make use of the available resources to study and qualify for the positions they confer on themselves at the start of their businesses.

Using his own story as an example; coming from a distribution business to start Joy FM without any prior knowledge in broadcast media; he gave himself the title of Chief Executive. He was soon to realise that there was a lot more to know holding the title of CEO in his business. He asked himself if he would be selected were he to be interviewed for the position of CEO in his own business or any other. That got him into the thinking and developed the habit of constant learning to earn his position.

His talk helped the participants to see the one major mistake entrepreneurs make which contributes to the demise of businesses – Customer Service.  In this fiercely competitive environment, businesses that will survive are those that focus on meeting the needs of the customer. Often however, entrepreneurs start businesses with ideas on what they can supply rather than what the customers are asking for.

Kwasi talked about how the Human Resource strategy of a customer driven business focuses on hiring candidates that will fulfill the needs of the customer and not necessarily bringing in family members or friends in your business.

Asked about Bola Ray leaving Joy FM – Kwasi again talked about how business continuity should be the focus of the entrepreneur and always being on the look out for talent and spending a good amount of time to plan succession and business continuity.

He challenged the participants to always seek to do the right thing in their businesses and to live a life of integrity so they won’t have to worry and or have their children bothered about them being in the news for the wrong reasons.