By Olufemi Oni, Ilorin

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has advised those aspiring to float small and medium scale enterprises (SMSEs) to ensure proper planning for their businesses to succeed.

This is just as the agency urged existing SMSEs in the country to be resilient in the face of the current economic hardship in the country, assuring them that they would definitely overcome the situation with time.

The SMEDAN Administrative Officer in Kwara state, Mrs Adava Ometre, stated this during a lecture she delivered at a seminar organised by the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kwara state Council, for it members as part of activities marking it’s 2024 Press Week.

According to her, SMEs in Nigeria contributed 46.31 percent to Nigeria’s GDP and over 6 percent to the country’s export, affirming that the figures were strong indications that they are doing well despite the current economic challenges.

“SMSEs in Nigeria should be resilient, they shouldn’t give up, they should not close up because of the economic hardship they are currently going through, they will overcome it”, she said .

The SMEDAN official urged existing businesses to leverage on various federal government’s intervention to grow their businesses by ensuring good packaging and branding of their products and services.

“If you want to succeed in any business today, your business must be well planned ahead. There are businesses that existed for 5 years but still closed because they were not well planned”, she said

She advised practicing journalists in Nigeria to explore the opportunities in their profession to also own their own personal businesses.

“As journalists, one of the ways you can own your business is to make your online presence very strong. As journalists, it is important you maximise online platform. You have to be creative with what we do, you can create a niche,” she admonished.

She advised journalists to consider developing their personal brand, sponsored content, and offer paid services expertise in areas like media training, writing or social media strategy through paid consultations or workshop.