Collaborate with experienced business tycoons – Lecturer advises young entrepreneurs

Robert Ebo Hinson, a professor at the University of Ghana Business School, has charged young entrepreneurs to collaborate aggressively with business owners who have more experience and expertise than them.

Addressing participants at a Master Class during the 2018 Youth Entrepreneurship Forum at Labadi Beach Hotel, Robert Ebo Hinson encouraged young entrepreneurs to develop good cooperative skills in order to tap into the knowledge pool of such experienced business tycoons.

He also urged young entrepreneurs to cooperate with each other instead of competing against each other.

“Every young entrepreneur must develop a certain strong capacity to cooperate usually with those who have gone ahead of them, so they can pull you up and make you stronger. So you have to find a way; you do not compete alone, you collaborate aggressively so that you can do well,” Ebo Hinson suggested.

The marketing scholar argued that startup businesses will be unable to survive in the Ghanaian market if they fail to develop strong business circles and incorporate strong networking skills in their businesses.

“One of the sad things I hear when we do research back in the university is that people are afraid of other people and there is no integrity and they can backstab you. So sometimes it is very difficult to develop cooperation and competition seems more normal. However, I think as a young entrepreneur you can’t develop if you do not have strong networking and cooperation skills because sometimes skill alone gives you more business,” he added.

The 2018 Youth Entrepreneurship Forum, which is the second edition, was a two-day event organized under the auspices of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) at the Labadi Beach hotel to provide a platform for the continuous sensitization process of sharing GIPC’s strategy and provisions of the GIPC Act 865.

The benefits the participants can derive from it and create an avenue for captains of industry to interact with young entrepreneurs through building a sustained avenue for mentorship.

It also focused on promoting dialogue between young entrepreneurs and government at the highest level to influence policy formulation whiles providing leadership and entrepreneurship training for young entrepreneurs.