Is Consulting in Nigeria Lucrative And

How Long Will It Take Before I Break

Through as A Startup Consultant?
By Ogbo Awoke Ogbo

A few years ago, I met a Nigerian in diaspora during my trip to a conference

in San Diego, Ca. He had lived in the United States for 30 years! Like many
other Nigerian professionals in the US, he wanted to come back home and
consult.
He wanted to know, "Is consulting in Nigeria lucrative?"
Besides my friends in the diaspora, dozens of my executive coaching
clients and highly paid professionals in Nigeria would like to quit their jobs
and set up a consulting business in Nigeria. They first want to find out, "Is it
profitable?"
A colleague in the oil industry sent me an email, inquiring, "Ogbo, how did
you find the courage to quit your Shell job and start a consulting business?"
Can You Make Money Consulting in Nigeria?
You can make money consulting in Nigeria but Id by lying if I told you that it
is an easy path.
First, a few facts.

Number One: the Big League - the ayes - have it big time. KPMG,
PriceWaterhouseCooper, Phillips Consulting and maybe, Accenture, and a
few others that momentarily skip me. Most big organizations and
government agencies will not, repeat, will not, talk to you if you are a
startup consultant. They deal with the Big League of consulting.
Nevertheless, there are ways around that. Guerrilla marketing is top on
the list.
For example, I chased a project with a big financial institution for three
years without success. They played only with the Big League. Finally, I told
them, I understand that elephants inspire respect and confidence. But
there are crevices and corners in your boardroom that an elephant cannot
enter. You need cockroaches! Many times, it is those small matters in
corporate crevices, like King Solomons little foxes, that ruin your
organization. Allow me be your cockroach!
They hired me.
The other way is creative visibility. My being on TV for five years gave the
corporates a preview of my content. The CEO of an oil and gas concern
expressly instructed his HR Manager, Go find the guy called Ogbo Awoke
Ogbo. He speaks on STV every Wednesday morning. I want him to handle
our team building in our next retreat. She did. That was how my
relationship with his organization developed into many other consulting
opportunities.
Third, join a Golf Club. I wont say more than that. Or, at least, network like
crazy. The consultant survives more on professional networking than he
ever could on rice, plantain and stew.

Lucky are you if you have any kind of relationship with the Lagos Business
School or Enterprise Development Center (EDC) of the Pan Atlantic
University. Those are the two main gateways to entrepreneurship in
Nigeria. Nothing seems to happen in Nigeria until it has passed through
LBS and EDC. Virtually all the business plan competitions in Nigeria,
including the YouWIN, Diamond Bank BET, ECOBANKs ENVI, Etisalat and
many more are singularly anchored by EDC. Besides, IFC, World Bank,
Cherrie Blaire, Goldman Sachs and many international entrepreneurial
initiatives look to EDC for partnership in delivering their programs.
I dont believe you want to ignore LBS and EDC if you want to succeed in
consulting. Their networks are rich.
Think multiple streams
The other hard sell about consulting in Nigeria is that once the economy or
the fortunes of an organization begins to decline, training and consulting
become the first casualties in corporate budgets.
Your cashflow as a consultant is often a huge mess. You may get a very
huge consulting project in one moment and at another not get any
engagement for the next nine months or more. Think about other ways to
earn money along your consulting value chain such as writing and
speaking.
Finally, startup consultants are very poorly priced in Nigeria. It is not
uncommon for a Nigerian Company to pay a comedian N1.5 million for an
event while they struggle to pay the speaker at the event a paltry
N250,000. Been there; I can tell you.
How Long Will It Take Before My Startup Consulting in Nigeria

Becomes Profitable?
Other businesses in Nigeria may become profitable in about 3 - 5 years.
But in consulting, speaking and coaching, plan for 10 years or more. A of
colleague in the industry had done nearly 15 years before his real breaks.
Ultimately, the greatest obstacle to your success as a startup consultant is
the low value for knowledge in Nigeria. Its a cultural problem.
I was hired by a State Government to speak to about 1,000 youth
delegated from all their local governments.
Imagine my shock, when after my speech, they queued up to receive
payment for coming to hear me speak! In other parts of the world, you pay
to hear a speaker. In Nigeria, the speaker pays you to come to listen to
him.
The typical Nigerian struggles to pay for the intangible. Knowledge is not
food. It is neither a car nor a house. It is not a cell phone. So, why pay for
something you cannot eat right now?
That tide will change. You will make money in consulting. But can you pay
the price of persistence?
Ogbo Awoke Ogbo is a Management Consultant based in Lagos, Nigeria