Recessionary periods often create opportunities for self-employment and young people in particular, who have long been holding on to a business idea, should seek to grasp all opportunities available to branch out on their own and start their own businesses.
Sarah Crawley, Chief Executive Officer of iSE – the Initiative for Social Entrepreneurs based in Birmingham England, shared the above with The Barbados Advocate recently.
Crawley shared a number of her views about entrepreneurship, while she was here in Barbados conducting training sessions for staff of the Barbados Youth Business Trust (BYBT), to enable them to better assist young entrepreneurs in coming up with new ideas to succeed in the business world. The Barbados Youth Business Trust (BYBT) is presently benefiting from a partnership with the UK based non-governmental organisation (NGO), in an effort to ensure long term sustainability of entrepreneurial endeavours.
Meanwhile, Crawley had some advice for those desirous of stepping out into the exciting, but challenging world of entrepreneurship.
“I would suggest that they seek the right kind of support, so they can go to organisations like BYBT, who are experts in supporting young people. They can take advantage of all of the opportunities that are created in schools around enterprising activities, programmes and projects that they have in schools, so that they get the experience” she remarked.
Crawley also suggested that such persons should not be fazed if they fail on the first try.
“They say that every entrepreneur has at least four or five failed businesses and you can learn. So even if you don’t get it right first of all, you will get it right, because you will learn every time it doesn’t work. You will learn about how to market, how to sell, you will learn about how to produce, how to project manage, all these things. And so it is a learning process.”
“So take advantage of the learning opportunities, get specialist support and don’t be put off if it goes wrong because you will get there in the end” she reiterated.
The CEO of the UK based NGO, also suggested that young entrepreneurs consider those services which people are willing to pay for, even in a recession.
“The recession actually creates opportunities for young entrepreneurs, because there are things that people need” she indicated, while noting that business built around the beauty industry, food and technology are all good areas in which to start.
“In a recession, there will be less people perhaps buying luxury goods such as jewellery, but they will want to look good and they will need to eat also” Crawley concluded.
