“Embracing partnership is the key to the success of small businesses”

According to Ifie Sekibo, Managing Director and CEO of Heritage Bank Limited, adopting partnerships to create and stabilize start-ups is key to the success of small business.

While advising youths and entrepreneurs in Lagos, Ifie Sekibo said that learning from people and forming partnerships is one of the keys to success in any business.

“Trying to do things alone or hiding your vision from others might not give adequate results in any given enterprise. As a person, I have never done things on my own. Though I have my ideas at every point in time in life, I have always done partnerships because most times, other people are privy to information you do not have.

“Partnerships have also helped in my propelling my visions and aspirations in life. So, I am urging entrepreneurs not to keep their visions to themselves” he said.

Mr. Sekibo added that after working in the oil sector for years, he was bored and wanted to do something else, first as an insurer. “As at the time I was buying the insurance company, it was located somewhere in Ikeja in one office, no window, no toilet and the company was owing about N150 million.

“I said to myself if we buy this business, we will be able to employ people and give them a life. I went ahead to borrow money, N7 million from my brother’s friend and went to the bank to borrow another N7 million and bought the insurance company.

“And holding on to God and with the help of other people, I shared my aspiration and visions with, within a year and a half, we were able to grow the company to a tune of N12 billion”, he said. Sekibo also advised the youths to brace up for the challenges of life early enough, just as he asked them not to allow poverty mentality to deter them from making headway.

“I am an accountant. I did not study banking and finance in school, but I stumbled into banking. I termed such as ‘you fail to succeed’. It is about preparation and you have to prepare early enough.“It is what you do with your wilderness days that makes the difference”.

Those periods that you can hardly feed are the days that will determine what your future will be.“If you allow poverty mentality to take you over, it might be difficult for you as a youth or as an entrepreneur. You need to have a positive mindset from the onset, especially from the point you have a vision and mission and you need to pursue it,” he added.