You may or may not have any interest in soccer, but I bet you were aware of the big UEFA Cup final match between Barcelona and Juventus. It’s been all over the news recently – and the number of people who watched the match in Zimbabwe was staggering. Because I wasn’t sure of my electricity, I ended up watching the game in a bar in Harare CBD, at 9.45 in the evening as the game was broadcast live. Barcelona ended up winning the game although some thought Juventus deserved to win.

But what really caught my attention were the reactions of people to it. Suddenly people who know nothing about soccer became experts. A drunken man sitting behind me in the bar was shouting his ‘advice’ to Neymar. He knew he was right of course. I cringed every time this guy opened his mouth – he was totally obnoxious. He occasionally mentioned that Lionel Messi should be taken out yet he was instrumental in the buildup of the crucial goals. I felt like explaining to him why he did not know what he was talking about; but knew better.

Now, I myself am no football expert but I have a soccer coaching badge and have been playing in a social league. I’ve been following soccer since I was 10. I know enough about soccer to know what was really happening on the pitch – and to immediately tell if someone else commenting has no idea what they are talking about. People who’ve never kicked a ball in their lives are suddenly giving advice on what each player could have done better. And online, it was even worse. Check your Facebook newsfeed for that and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

So what does this have to do with investment and your business? Everything. When it comes to the pursuit of mastery in any field – whether it’s selling mobile phones in-store, retailing, barbing, building a manufacturing or services enterprise to exploring farming as a business or anything – you’re going to be offered a lot of free advice. You’re going to get a lot of opinions. People will happily give you their view and their advice, as if it’s the absolute truth.

Some will do it with absolute conviction (these are the most dangerous).

It’s fine to have an opinion of course, and everyone is entitled to one. But when you’re on the receiving end of someone’s opinion or advice – you really need to be able to discern whether their opinion or advice should carry any real weight with it. If you’re new at entrepreneurship and start-ups – just be careful where you get your advice from. Always question the source.

Do they have a motive for having a certain view? Do they have the results you aspire to have? If they say they have the results, can you verify this to some extent? (at least half of the claims marketers make online are grossly exaggerated). The great thing about the internet: freedom of publishing. The bad thing about the internet: freedom of publishing. Ever noticed how everyone seem to be doing so well in their life on Facebook. You end up getting an ocean of unqualified opinions, and when you’re reading those opinions trying to find the real answers, it can be very difficult to discern the qualified ones from the unqualified ones just like the social commentators in the pub when we watched the Barcelona Juventus game.

Here’s my advice: if you want to get ahead in investing in Zimbabwe, ignore 99% of the opinions and advice you read on news sites, period. There’s just so much garbage out there. You can listen to the opinions of course when they are given with well-meaning intentions. Ignore most of the free advice you get. If you want quality advice, then go find people who’ve achieved the results you aspire to – or have direct experience in the topic you want clarity on – and PAY them for it. Free business advice is often worth what you pay for it; nothing. Many times it’s worth less than nothing. It costs you money, because if you act on it you end up making the wrong decisions.

The best advice I’ve got and profited from, has being advice I paid large amounts of money for. I’ve paid thousands for 8 hours of consulting before. In one case, I paid that sum to the same company twice.

And it was worth every penny. Literally some of the best money I’ve ever spent. That is why here at ziminvestors we go the extra mile and head hunt experts in different fields whom we interview and validate as experts so that they are worth every penny you would have paid for. If you have a comment on this (or the Barcelona Vs. Juventus match) leave it HERE – I’m curious to hear your thoughts).

To your continued success