One standout value the USAfrica Retail Incubation and Supplier Program brings to you is ensuring you provide value in all areas of your business by mentoring and guiding you for success as you expand into international markets.

Business owners can be considered not only disruptors or innovators but also painkillers or vitamins, depending on how they deliver and serve their clients. Painkillers are businesses that solve an immediate problem for their clients, while vitamins are businesses that provide a nice-to-have service or product.

Mahendra Vora, the founder of Intelliseek (sold to Nielsen) and now a Cincinnati-based venture capitalist, advises entrepreneurs to make sure their startups are building “pain killers, and not vitamins” for their clients to get their attention and build a sizable business of scale.

Vitamins are often “features or functionalities” and are optional whether or not you use them. They are often priced at a major discount to the expensive pain-killing prescriptions behind the counter that you have today to make your immediate health problem disappear.

On the other hand, painkillers help their clients to materially drive more revenue or materially lower current costs out of their business. They do so with established line item budgets, not requiring new budgets to be created, which can take time and slow down your sales closing process.

As a business owner, you should strive to be a painkiller rather than a vitamin. Although the effect may take time to be seen, in the long run, you will see that you have been providing immediate value to your clients, a facet of a successful business.