Ugbe: Success Comes by Doing What You Love
won the prestigious Emmy Award; it confirms that our estimation of the quality of the concept was accurate. And, I can tell you this, the best is yet to come for Arise TV from what I am seeing at the moment. What is the idea behind the Multichoice resource centres in schools?
Even though I would quickly say that it is part of our own corporate social responsibility, but it goes beyond that. We thought that it would help to start to expose the youth to educative materials very early in their lives and we can see the impact this is having already. In those centres, pupils now have access to quality information that could shape the way they think and the way they see things. The way we know that they were making impact was when parents were demanding that we set up such centres in schools in which they have interest, with some of them even ready to provide the fund. But we always tell them it is not about the money; it is about ensuring each of the centres we set up meets the predetermined objectives and requirements. We sponsor it fully. One of the parents who is a medical doctor said he was amazed by what the students were exposed to. According to him, most of them at the medical schools never watched surgeries on video; they only read about them in photocopied handouts but he saw the kids being shown video clips and documentaries on surgical operations. That is how powerful the concept of the resource centre is. Research has shown that visual channels of learning produce faster assimilation that any other method. For instance, how do you explain tsunami to people? But when you show it on video, the impact is profound. At the resource centre, the kids are exposed to some period of watching educational videos and documentaries that show them what they cannot learn in most of the textbooks. How are you handling the issues around the hike in subscription?
I like to say this: the business of entertainment particularly in Nigeria is one where you have to do a lot of catch-up. We make a lot of investment that we do not hope to recover quickly. The costs also continue to go up . So we don’t just wake up and say we want to hike subscription fee; we constantly look at investment recovery rate that will ensure we continue to satisfy our customers and at the same time remain in the market without compromising on quality. One of the most expensive aspects of our business is buying TV rights and you find that we have to keep up with other costs which keep changing. Costs are going up everywhere. I want you to look at how much you bought your toothpaste last year and how much the price is now. Even some newspapers have reviewed upward their prices.
What I am saying is that we do not just hike prices arbitrarily, we look at the cost profiles carefully and how to balance cost recovery with satisfying the customers. We cannot compromise on that. It is unfortunate that the issue has attracted a lot of attention but we are confident that if people look at the scenario from the business point of view they probably would react differently. We will always be on the lookout for ways of providing quality service that is affordable to our customers. What would you recommend people take into consideration in the choice of career, given your own experience?
I have had a lot of people come to me to advise them on the career they should go into and the question I always post back to them is what would you like to do? When someone says anything, I, kind of switch, express surprise . My advice is that you should look at yourself very carefully and look at the things that would interest you and make plans to pursue the best out of them. You may not get it directly but if you put it in your mind that you want to pursue a particular interest, you would discover that ultimately, you find yourself there even if you did not start out from that particular area of interest initially. So passion is one and then your choice. Again many people mistake what they study in school for what they are wired to do in life. It does not follow. You would discover that 99 per cent of what you learnt in school is not what would see you through in what you are eventually doing post-graduation; that is why passion is so very important.
And I am glad this is catching on now. I see a some young people who say they want to make career out of make-up, fashion designing and they are going ahead to make something interesting out of those passions. Five years ago, it would be unlikely that a parent would endorse such a move but now we have some individuals creating excellence out of what they have chosen and their parents have no choice but to embrace them. You just must like what you are doing ; let money not be part of the initial equation. Money will ultimately flow in when you put in your very best into what you are passionate about. How do you create wealth working for other people?
It makes sense to go with success first. I think the first quality decision you can make when you choose to work for others is to say- I want to make this thing work- and put everything within you to make it work and ultimately you will find that you are on your way to creating wealth first for the owner of the business and then for you. Come to think of it! Workers actually collect their own dividends monthly while the owners of the business even have no guarantee that they would collect annually . So who is working for who? So a lot also depends on what you do with what you earn.
I have found that a lot of people are impatient. Working for others would make you to develop the discipline you would need when you start your own business. You gain when you don’t see everything from the perspective of the money you are going to make immediately. The way I see my work is that I am paving the way for others. If I am committed to my job and I am able to excel, it would open the door for other Nigerians who might want to be in the same position. And if I make a mess of where I am now it also shuts the doors against other people. So that is the way I look at it. It is not about the money to be made quickly, it is about impact you have to make in the lives of other people. Most Nigerians still believe that Multichoice is a foreign company.
This is a misconception. We are a fully Nigerian company with Nigerian shareholders. What personal finance principles do you employ? How do you deploy your salary for instance?
That is a tough one. I think the real problem is not what you do after you have collected the salary but what you do before you collect it. I have found that it helps to have a spending plan. You should put in place a solid plan well ahead of the time you would get hold of the income. This has helped me a bit. My own life-long practice is to plan the expenditure long before it occurs. With that you are likely to make few mistakes.
Again, I do not just plan; I ensure that I stick to the plan. And not just planning, I also ensure that such a plan has both short-term and long-term perspectives. I don’t believe in saving everything I earn. I believe you must make some quick wins. You should have some you can spend to improve your life. Again, you need to enjoy yourself a little and also plan for the future. Where do you see Multichoice in the next five years?
I would like to say that in five years, we will have moved further into the core of entertainment. And to be more specific, in 10 years, I see the entertainment industry becoming bigger than it is now. I see it contributing between 30 per cent and 35 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP and I see Multichoice contributing substantially to make this happen.