Happy new year! Welcome to a brand new year, 2009. Welcome to a fresh year of business opportunities. This year holds great potential for every diserning entrepreneur.

Each of us are presented a unique opportunity to build on our previous successes and correct past mistakes. All it takes is the right attitude and frame of mind. Believe that you can achieve success this year in your private life and in your business ventures. Work with a fresh enthusiasm and your dream will become a reality that will make people marvel.

Remember that as at this time last year (1st Jan. 2008), Barak Obama only had a dream about the US presidency. But today he has the people’s mandate because he believed his dream and worked for its fulfilment..

See you at the top! Cheers

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Entrepreneur, New Year

What did you learn from blogging in the year 2008?

It is the eve of the year 2009 and a ripe time to review the activities carried out in the year 2008. I see people around me taking stock, setting new goals for the new year and drawing up plans on how to do better in the year 2009.

As I go about my own review of how I have spent the year 2008, I realize that blogging as Nigerian Entrepreneur, took a considerable chunk of my time. So, I ended up asking myself the following  questions:

What value did blogging add to my life in the year 2008?

Well, not an easy question to answer, but simply put, I can sincerely say that blogging helped to highlight my personal strengths and weaknesses first as a person and secondly as an online entrepreneur. Some hidden traits were discovered and some real bad habits that I need to get rid-off were brought to the surface.

What have I learned from blogging?

I learned several lessons, but I will love to talk about four that I consider very crucial:

I need to make up my mind what I want in life, I need to have an overall goal that I am willing to stick to. How did blogging teach me this? I started the year 2008 blogging on all kinds of topic without any particular focus, but in March, I set a goal, drew plans and stayed focus on a particular niche. Of course that action paid off. Instead of remaining lost in the midst of millions of bloggers, Nigerian Entrepreneur has become a unique blog.

I have to be very specific and write down my goals and objectives in life, that will help me stay focused. Blogging can be fun and sometimes, ideas run like torrents in the head of a blogger. While this is good, sometimes, it becomes a curse as the blogger begins to write about everything and anything. Eventually, because the energy is not focus on a particular goal, irrespective of how hard the blogger works, he achieve poor result and gets discouraged.

I should give priority to people and activities that will help me achieve my goal in life. Online activities can be the greatest time waster! If you don’t know who you need and activities that helps you achieve your goals, you will end up wasting valuable time doing things that adds no value to you. Belonging to all the social media networks and attempting to be famous on all of them will only get you fatigued and discouraged. So, I have learned to  identify and give priority to people and activities that have proven to be the 20% that yields the 80% result (Pareto Principle).

I am responsible for the direction my life takes, not anybody, however, I need God and people to accomplish any worthwhile goal I set for myself. Blogging is a great tool for conducting business experiment online. I studied how regular readers and visitors reacted to changes I made on my blog. Studying their reactions has taught me some valuable lessons on human behavior. I have watched how some decisions I took increased my traffic and comments while some sent the traffic away and made my blog an island!

What did I lose by blogging?

Well, I lost some wonderful moments that I would have spent with friends and family members as I stay glued to my computer.

My overall leisure hours drastically reduced.

Also, I lost some hours of sleep as I read and study what the gurus have to say about issues like Website Traffic, Website Quality Content, Website Promotion, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Promotion, Online Marketing Techniques etc. Some of the lessons helped, while some did not.

At the end of the day, I lost some of the wrong conceptions that I had about making money online (good for me!)

Overall, I am happy and grateful to God and all my wonderful friends online and offline who encouraged me to keep blogging even when I felt like giving up. I wish to thank you all for your support. I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

So you can look forward to reading better posts and articles from Nigerian Entrepreneur in the year 2009, because I am getting better. I will love to hear from you in the comment section what you learned in the year 2008. Your comments are highly appreciated. Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogging, Entrepreneurship, New Year

How do you cope with your business challenges? For almost two weeks, I was unable to blog because my V-Sat equipment was faulty (apology to my regular readers). The supplier of the equipment do not really care much about after sales customer relationship since they maintain a monopoly in the market.

So, instead of being treated as a king, I was begging for attention. Their support staff were in holiday mood and not quiet supportive. I went to their office, (which is several kilometers from my base) at least four times.

At first I was angry that the first staff that attended to me on phone was ignorant of what the solution to my problem is, yet he spoke authoritatively as if he knows what I needed. He told me that the problem was from their transmission base and not my equipment! Almost five working days was wasted by that guy who kept on telling me to be patient that the fault will soon be rectified.

When I eventually got tired of waiting and I went to their office, it took four trips before the engineer attached to the case could figure out what exactly the problem was.

My reaction

I have learned the hard way that health is indeed wealth. After doing my utmost to get the fault rectified before the Christmas holiday, I left the issue and went on an holiday trip where I thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas celebration in the midst of family and friends.

I resumed this morning and took another trip to the ISP office. Within 3hours, the whole fault was rectified and I am back online. Of course, I had to pay a huge amount of money for the replacement of the part that was faulty. Did I feel the payment was fair? Far from it. I am just waiting for a competitor to arrive in the area and I will abandon the present Internet Service Provider because I feel cheated and I rate their after sales service at 1 out of 10marks.

Perhaps you are having a business challenge and you have done all you could, but nothing sheems to work, I suggest you take a break. When you return you will be better prepared to tackle the challenge head on. Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business Challenge, Entrepreneur

A Nigerian Company, Superflux International Limited has won the Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Awards 2008. Who says good things can’t come out of Nigeria?

I’m using this post to congratulate Superflux International for winning the Awards and also to challenge other African Entrepreneurs not to relent in their efforts. Media organizations within and outside Nigeria give wide publicity to con-artists that are bent on destroying the image of Nigeria. However, they give little or no publicity to honest entrepreneurs in Nigeria. I believe it is time to correct that.

Pioneers of Prosperity Awards

The Prosperity Award Programme was developed by Michael Fairbanks and
co-founded by S.E.VEN Fund, Templeton, Legatum and OTF Group. It aims at bringing together top African businesses, investors, presidents, policymakers, the press, and NGOs to celebrate and recognise torch-bearing companies and entrepreneurs in Africa.

The long-term aim of Pioneers of Prosperity is to turn these companies into powerful role models that will inspire the next-generation of African business leaders and COW-F entrepreneurs. A commendable effort at encouraging African Entrepreneurs, I must add (Some people still believe in Africans and they put their belief in action, not political statements to gain cheap applause).

Year 2008 Award

The Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Awards 2008 was a two day event, which started on 19 November, 2008 and took place in Kigali, Rwanda – the land of a thousand hills (good things happens in Rwanda too). The 2008 Awards program was open to entrepreneurs from ten African countries including Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda. Businesses were judged using the COW-F framework for good business practice. Ten finalists eventually emerged in the event.

Judges for the competition were: Andreas Widmer, co-founder of S.E.VEN Fund; Alan McCormick, managing director of  Legatum; Malik Fal, business marketing and operations group lead for west-east-central Africa at Microsoft; and Ariff Shamji, CEO of AAA Growers – 2007’s Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Awards Grand Prize Winner.

The Grand Prize for this year event was a whooping US$100,000 and it was won by Superflux International, a Nigerian Company. The runner-up companies, AAR Health  (Kenya); Safi Cleaning  (Uganda); Africa Polysack Industries (Uganda); Gahaya Links  (Rwanda) and Integr8 Group  (South Africa), also receive $50,000 each.

Successful Nigerian Entrepreneur Superflux

The awards were presented by His Excellency President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, at a ceremony dedicated to the late Sir John Templeton. The ceremony was also attended by H.E. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. I wish President Musa Ya’ardua of Nigeria had sent a representative to the occasion. That would have shown that the government is serious about promoting small scale businesses in Nigeria.

Tidbits about the Grand Prize Winner

Superflux International Limited is a leading secure prints solutions provider to major financial institutions, corporations and government agencies in Nigeria. She offers outsourced mailing services that require variable data printing (e.g. bank statements) with an increasing presence in the West African region.

Empowering clients to operate securely and efficiently through the provision of high integrity documents, Superflux International’s operations are guided by the principles of quality, integrity, dependability, confidentiality, teamwork and human capital development.

Conclusion

Thumbs up for Superflux International for making Nigeria Proud. I wish them many more success in their future endeavors. Hey, this is not a paid review and Nigerian Entrepreneur is not affiliated to Superflux International Limited in anyway (though I will be proud to be their Internet Marketer, who won’t like that?).

Since I am an entrepreneur that is proudly Nigerian, I could not but write about this achievement that has given a boost to Nigeria’s image as a nation. Thanks to Elizabeth Hooper of Pioneers of Prosperity for giving me a hint about the event. I will be presenting more reports about successful entrepreneurs that makes Nigeria and Africa proud in the future, you can get future updates freely by subscribing to my RSS feed, Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: African Entreprneur, Entrepreneur, Nigerian Business, Nigerian Entrepreneurs, Successful Entrepreneur

WordPress 2.7

Nigerian Entrepreneur is now powered by the new WordPress 2.7! I first noticed the update prompt on my blog admin dashboard yesterday. It may have been there before then, but it was yesterday I noticed it. I took a mental note to Google and find out if anybody was having a hitch upgrading from WordPress 2.6.5 to WordPress 2.7 I was not ready as at then to meddle with my blog setup, having experienced some WordPress upgrade headache in time past.

This morning, I decided to take the bull by the horn and upgrade (I was ready for any eventualities that may crop up). After backing up, I started the Automatic Upgrade Plugin. Frankly, I was not expecting the upgrade to be smooth since WordPress 2.7 is a major upgrade from WordPress 2.6. 5 Earlier I had read about some major changes made in the new upgrade. So, I was actually expecting the Automatic Upgrade Plugin to spit out some error messages like it did in one of my previous upgrade.

Guess what, I was disappointed (and I’m happy about that). The upgrade was smooth and everything was over within 10minutes. This upgrade ranks among the best 3 I’ve had so far.

My First Impression About WordPress 2.7

To be sincere with you, I was at first not happy about the changes at the new WordPress admin dashboard despite what ShanKrila has to say in his post. I wanted to complain about the changes in the layout and the positioning of tools that I frequently use.  The changes made it look like I was using WordPress for the first time! I was ready to rake and complain (even though it is a free software, and I am yet to donate to the developers).

Well, I guess I was just being human. I was just exhibiting the normal human resistance to change. The WordPress team did a fantastic job with the new WordPress admin dashboard. Within 10minutes, I was able to figure out the new admin dashboard layout and settled down to normal blogging activities. So it was indeed a smooth transition.

By the way, I am happy that future WordPress upgrade will no longer be stressful as it is now automated. Upgrading will now be at the click of the mouse. That is good news to non-tech bloggers like me.

Conclusion

I am impressed and grateful to the WordPress Team for the wonderful job they did. Please join me to say kudos to the WordPress Team. I don’t expect any hitches in performance after now. What do you have to say about the new WordPress 2.7? Say it in a comment. You can get future update by subscribing to my RSS Feed. Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogging, Wordpress, WordPress 2.7

That online business is easy to start and cost little capital to kick off does not mean you can just start one and achieve success without proper approach. Just as easy as it is to start, so it is easy to pack-up.  Experts claim that about 90% small scale businesses fail within the first five years. The failure rate for the online home based business is worse. Too many home based online entrepreneurs get confused and frustrated within the first six months and they end up packing-up.

If you are really serious about starting a home based online business and making success of it, then you need to learn from the pitfall of others so that you do not end up like them.

1. No written Goal and Plan

If you don’t know where you are heading to, you will end up arriving nowhere. Starting an online home based business without having a proper written Goal and drawing up a blueprint of how you intend to arrive at the goal is sure road to business failure! If you write out your goal and spend time developing a blueprint you will discover potential pitfalls and hurdles that you are likely to meet on the way. Also, it will be easy to evaluate your progress by comparing result with expectation.

I know you want to ask, is it necessary? Are those stuff not for big entrepreneurs? Well, you want your home-business to be as successful as that being run by those big entrepreneurs, don’t you? If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, then you must think and act like a successful entrepreneur. If you think and act like a mediocre entrepreneur, you will end up failing. Don’t join the millions that pack-up their business within the first year because they failed to follow tested business principles that ensures success. If you are into a hobby and don’t care about establishing a business that will outlive you, then this point can be neglected.

2. Failure to Learn from Successful Entrepreneurs

Why will you embark on a journey into the unknown without a guide? Why will you put your business at risk when you can safely learn what it takes to be successful? To be a successful home based entrepreneur, you must be prepared to learn from those who are already successful. The learning process is continuous and cannot be boycotted.

You can be rest assured that more than 90% of successful entrepreneurs were not born with special skills or as genius. They all learned the skills that make for success. Now, you have two options to choose from. You can either learn everything from scratch all by yourself, or you learn from those who have already paid the price!

If you ask for my opinion, I can assure you that you will save yourself a lot of heartache by learning from the mistakes and success of others. You will make better progress if you take time to research and identify those who have achieved success in the area of business that you are interested in. Gather as much information as you can about their experience. Then go ahead and replicate what they have done.

The fastest way to achieve success in any endeavor is to get a mentor who has already achieved the kind of goal that you are aiming for. That way, you can cut down the amount of time you need to learn the vital principles that produce success. So, I will recommend that you get a business mentor to guide you.
It is not a difficult thing to do. Simply approach one or two successful home based business owner and politely request that you want them to be your business mentor. Hey, will a successful entrepreneur be willing to share his secret? I used to think that successful entrepreneurs won’t be willing to share their success secrets. Well I know better now. Quite a good number of them are willing to teach their home based business secrets free of charge.

You also need to learn from your peers. Get at least two other newbies like yourself and network with them. It doesn’t matter if you are in competing in the same niche (market), the opportunity available is more than you all can exhaust. So instead of hoarding information from each other, you can share tips and tricks and offer help to one another. Such business networking will provide you will much needed resources.

Here is a practical example. There is this set of online entrepreneurs that I admire so much, they are commonly known as WAHM (Work At Home Mums). They make good use of the principle of networking and mentoring. If you happen to be a WAHM newbie, I suggest you join one of the WAHM communities by visiting http://www.wahm.com . Just ask for help in the communities and you will be surprised at the kind of warm responses you will get.

3. Attempting to Build Successful Business Empires overnight

If you want to achieve success overnight, I suggest you stop right here because  reading further will be a waste of your time. Patience is a virtue you must learn as a newbie entrepreneur. Irrespective of how well prepared you are and the kind of opportunity you get, you will need to spend some good quality time in growing your business. If you want to build a business enterprise that will outlive you, then you must be ready to work hard and delay gratification.

You will be better off if you view your business as an empire being built instead of a get rich overnight venture. Too many newbie entrepreneurs have fallen victim to scammers because they wanted to become millionaires overnight. If you are looking for “Get Rich Quick Magic Formula” you will simply get scammed!

4. Failure to Make Budget and Keep to It

One of the temptations small business owners faces is that of wanting to launch their home business with the latest business gadgets and tools. This usually is the first step in a wrong direction. Since you are new in business, you are better off keeping your home business budget very low.

While I encourage you to think big like well established home based business owners, I don’t advice that you spend big like them. Why must you insist on starting your business with the latest Apple Mac when you can use your old desktop PC? Nobody will know what I used in typing this article if I don’t tell them.

You will need to make several financial decisions. For example, you may need to buy office equipment/tools, purchase software, pay for internet connection, set up a website and pay for advertisement. As a new entrepreneur, you must be wise enough to distinguish between necessities and luxury. I suggest you make optimal use of available free resource first before spending money on commercial products. Always avoid embarking on a spending spree that will send your budget into deficit. Why must you spend several dollars for the latest Microsoft Office Suite when you can make do with Open Office for now? Nobody will know what word processing software you use in typing a letter or email if you don’t tell them!

5. Failure to Study The Market and Keep Close Watch on Competition
The business world is dynamic and not static. You must keep yourself updated on what is currently working, what is in vogue and what the consumers are doing. There is no room for vague assumptions. If you don’t know what the consumers want, then you won’t be able to satisfy their need and they sure will go elsewhere. So, always keep a close watch on the market and the trends.

Also, you need to study what your competitors are doing. If you study what they are doing and relate it with the current trend in the market, you will be better informed to offer quality products and services.

6. Jumping From One Business Idea to Another

Several home based business owners lack focus and commitment to their vision. After working on an idea for few months, they abandon it for another idea that looks more appealing. This is not the right attitude to business.

Be prepared to work on your goal until it becomes a reality, or you discover beyond all doubt that it is not feasible. Jumping from one half-completed project to another cannot make you a successful entrepreneur.

It is natural to feel discouraged at some point, but you must remember that Quitter’s don’t win, and Winners don’t quit. Hurdles are natural part of the entrepreneur’s journey. So, don’t give up.

7. Failure to Keep Proper Business Record

Successful Entrepreneurs keep proper records. Not just of financial transaction, but of every issue around their business. If you keep records, it will help you during periodic review of your business performance.
Also, it will enable you to know over time, methods and principles that work and those that leads to failure. It is compulsory that you keep a journal (hard-copy or digital) where you record the day to day happenings in your business. This can be very valuable later in life.

Of course, proper financial record keeping is a must. Your financials will tell if your business is healthy or not. There are free resources you can use to keep financial records; however, it is advisable to employ the service of a professional accountant for this aspect of the business. If you look hard enough, you can get a professional accountant that will be willing to offer charges that are negotiable instead of the normal professional fees. Please note that if you fail to keep proper records and pay your taxes as at when due, you can either lose your business or even end-up with a lawsuit initiated by tax authorities.

This post is pretty long, so I will stop here. Your feedback will be much appreciated. You can get future updates on 7 Mistakes Home Based Online Entrepreneurs Should Avoid by subscribing to my RSS Feeds, Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business Ideas, Business Startup, Business Tips, Entrepreneur, Home Business, Online Home Business, small business

How Do I Withdraw Money From My AlertPay Account?

I wrote about AlertPay sometime ago in a post titled How to receive Payment Online. AlertPay, which is a Canadian Online Payment Processing Company,  is a competitor to the widely know PayPal Online Payment Processor. PayPal has refused to allow many African Entrepreneurs (especially Nigerians) to use its facility in conducting business online. Their reason being that those nations harbor SCAM Artists (I wonder if PayPal action can be justified as being fair, since every nation has their own set of black-sheep).

I strongly encourage African Entrepreneurs, especially Nigerian Entrepreneurs to subscribe to AlertPay service. Opening an account with them is free. You only pay fees when you are withdrawing or spending money from your account. This is similar to the bank charges that local banks takes for providing you with their service. You can get your free AlertPay Account by clicking any of the links or the banner below.

Free AlertPay Account

Well, AlertPay has proved to be a good competitor and they allow African Entrepreneurs including Nigerians to do business online using their payment processing facility. Of recent, I have received mails and IM’s requesting to know how an African Entrepreneur can withdraw fund from the AlertPay account into a local bank account.

The answer is simple and can easily be found on their website at the following url www.alertpay.com/info/worldwide.aspx (please, copy and paste url into your browser) However, for convenience sake, I will simply explain what is written there.

Depending on where you reside there are three (3) ways you can withdraw money from your AlertPay account.

1. You can request for a Check from AlertPay

You can then pay same into your domiciliary account with the local bank. All countries that are allowed to subscribe to AlertPay are eligible for this. In some countries, the cheque might take about 21days to get cleared.

2. You can request for a Direct Deposit into your local bank account

You can only use this method  if your country of residence is eligible for such service. Please note that Nigeria is not eligible for such service. Only three countries in Africa are eligible, namely South Africa, Reunion and Mayotte.

3. You can request for Bank Wire Transfer

Almost all African Countries are eligble for this, except Republic of Congo.

I do hope this brief explanation puts to rest the fear of my fellow African Entrepreneurs who want to know How they can withdraw Fund from AlertPay into their local bank account. You can get free updates to this article How to Transfer Fund from AlertPay and other Small Bsuiness Survival Tips by subscribing to Nigerian Entrepreneur RSS FEED, it is free. See you at the top, Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: African Entrepreneurs, AlertPay, Business, Online Payment Processor, PayPal

How Do I Ensure Consistent Customer Patronage?

An entrepreneur is consider successful when he has gotten a good number of customers who consistently patronize his products or services. It is the dream of every business man to have satisfied customers returning time and time again to make more purchases. Here are five tips that many successful entrepreneurs use to build such customer patronage.

1. Build Good Personal Relationship With Your Customers

Don’t just aim at your customer’s purse or pocket! Render quality services that will truly satisfy their need and then back that up with a personal touch that shows you are genuinely interested in their welfare. When you do this, they will come to consider you as a friend instead of a salesman that is after their money.

Remember that everyone craves for attention and recognition. Don’t wait for them to ask for it. Give them attention, make them feel special. Treat them as friends! Research has shown that about 80% of customers who complain are just seeking for attention, not that they actually have a serious issue with the product or service they are complaining about.

Don’t wait for such customer to ask for attention, give it to them cheerfully. You can be assured they will return for more.

2. Be Courteous To Customers

Treat each client as a king. Believe it or not, without their patronage, your business is as good as dead. Also note that an unsatisfied customer can cost you so much in terms of bad publicity. He or she can make you loose potential income by discouraging others from doing business with you. Unfortunately, you may not be given an opportunity to defend yourself before such potential customer pass a vote of no confidence on you and your business. Do all within your power to treat each customer with respect, kindness and offer extras as much as you can afford.

3. Business Integrity

This is your greatest asset as a business owner. Deal with clients honestly and insist that your employees do likewise. Never make a promise that you cannot keep. Always keep your promise even if it requires a sacrifice to keep your word. This will win your customers trust and make them have confidence in you.

4. Reward Clients Patronage

Devise a means of compensating clients who patronize your business often. Make them feel they are special because indeed they are special to you. They are the ones that gives your business stability. Give discount and if possible render some additional services to such consistent customer without demanding for payment. This will enshrine you to their hearts.

5. Add Value To The Society

In all your dealings, always seek for a way to add value to the society. This pay huge dividend on the long run. Human beings are intelligent, they know the difference between a business man who adds value and the one that seeks for profit.

Summary

If you make up your mind to render quality services and products, beyond what you are paid for, in due time, clients will be eager to pay you for more than you offer. Many successful businesses have built such goodwill that people are willing to pay more for their brand of product even when it is the same quality with that of a competitor. You can get future updates to this post 5 Tips For Ensuring Consistent Customer Patronage by subscribing to Nigerian Entrepreneur RSS, cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business Tips, Customer Patronage, Entrepreneur, Marketing

Small business owners in Port Harcourt are counting their losses in millions of  Nigerian Naira as government bulldozer brings down their offices and shops. The government of Rivers State of recent decided to give Port Harcourt which is the capital of Rivers State, Nigeria a face lift. The new executive governor is desirous of re-modeling the city after the Federal Capital Territory. This sounds like a good vision, but tI am of the opinion that the implementation is faulty.

Small Business Owners Contribute to Economy Growth

A greater percentage of the population of Port Harcourt relies on petty trading and provision of artisan services to earn income. In Port Harcourt, any entrepreneur who employs and pays two or more workers is considered a “big businessman”. The business climate is quite harsh. Too many big enterprises in the state are struggling to earn enough income to pay their workers salaries. It is common story to hear workers of such establishments lamenting that they have not received any salary for months.

In other words, the small business owners are majorly responsible for providing employment and stable income for at least 50 percent of the population in the city. Unfortunately, about 65% of this category of small scale entrepreneurs are now in trouble. Their business places have been demolished to pave way for road expansions.

Most of the small business owners rented offices and shops along the major road to carry out their business activities. They considered easy accessibility as a fundamental factor for achieving  success in  business. Of course this is correct, the location of a business can seriously affect its sales.  So it is no wonder many of them located their businesses along the major roads.

New Government Policy Spell Doom For The Entrepreneurs

Unfortunately, what was once an advantage has become a curse. All those offices and shops are being pulled down by government to pave way for road expansion. The policy made by the government for road expansion is a good thing and it has been long overdue. However, necessary preparation were not made . One would have expected the government to do the following:

• Give adequate notice (at least six months notice) to the public before implementing the policy. There was no press release given notice. Rumors only filtered from the grapevine about two months before the execution of the policy started in full swing.
• Open new layouts that small businesses could relocate to. There is no such thing in place.
• Carry out the road expansion in phases, so that the number of small business owners relocating at a time will be minimal. The policy is being implemented in the entire city at once, so there is serious commotion as too many small business owners try to relocate at once.

No Compensation For Displaced Small Entrepreneurs

The government claims they are paying compensation for buildings being demolished. This has been confirmed as being true, but unfortunately, nothing is getting to the small business owners because such compensation are paid directly to the landlords of such premises. The landlords are complaining that the compensations are grossly inadequate as it cannot commensurate with the huge loss they have incurred both in terms of capital loss (building destroyed) and loss of potential earnings from rentals. So, they are unwilling to refund prepaid rents to the small entrepreneurs. Of course, they can hardly be blamed. So, the small business owners were the end losers! There is no single compensation for them and nobody cares how they will re-start

Socio-Economic Impact Of Entrepreneurs Displacement On Society

It is unfortunate that the government never consider the socio-economic impact the displacement of the small business owners will have on the state as a whole. Already, the prices of foods and other essential commodities have skyrocketed (there are fewer sellers now).

Also, many small business owners have been rendered jobless. Too many are not able to recover from the loss of huge rental prepaid (some have paid 5years rental in advance).  Too many had to sell off their wares on auction because there was no place to pack them to.

While talking to one of such badly beaten small business owner, he confided in me that he will not return to Port Harcourt after the Christmas Holiday.

It is heart-breaking to note that while international bodies are fashioning ways to encourage small scale entreprenuers, a state like Rivers State will make a policy that have adverse effect on small scale businesses without weighing all the options. The question that begs for an answer is “What are the displaced small business owners to do?”

The state governor might wish to look into this issue in the light of the common saying that “an idle mind is the workshop of the devil”. Young able bodied men that are jobless are potential recruits into organized crime.

Suggestion

The government should come up with another policy that will help the badly beaten small business owners to settle in other locations and restart their business activities. Leaving them alone  to count their losses is not in the best interest of the society as a whole. At least those of them that can show that they were doing well financially should be helped with grants or soft-loans from government so that they can re-build their businesses.

Also, in the future, the government should get inputs from small business owners before implementing a major policy that can affect their business activities.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Entrepreneurs, small business, Small Scale Business

Starting An Online Business

Starting an online business is a lot simpler than starting an offline business. So, if you have been thinking of venturing into entrepreneurship, online business is a good way to test the water and check if thoroughly you are cut-out for the adventure of running a small business.

I have personally observed that almost all the fundamental principles that make for a successful offline small business will still be relevant in your online business. Though, the competition online is much more keen than that you have in your neighbor-hood. You may actually be competing with millions of small entrepreneurs who offer the same product or service that you offer.

This means you really need to establish good business practices and lay a strong foundation that can stand the test of time. Your success online as an entrepreneur will be hinged on your ability to build long-term business relationships with your online customers by providing quality products or services at a price that is considered competitive.

Why Start An Online Business?

There are several reasons why people start online business. Let’s look at some of the advantages that an online business have over an offline business.

Low Initial Capital - Starting an online business requires little or no capital. It is actually possible for you to start without removing a cent from your savings. If you can get online all the basic resources you need initially can be sourced freely on the internet. You only need to Google for them. Also, there are tons of tutorial and HOW TO articles that will freely guide you in whatever venture you want to embark on online. I am yet to see another business that is that cheap to start.

Ease of Outsourcing Tasks - Unlike offline business, you can easily outsourced most of the task you need to carry out in your online business. There is hardly a task that cannot be outsourced to professionals. For example, if you desire to set up a simple website, all the tasks such as; choosing a domain name, getting a hosting company, designing and building the website, can all be outsourced to professionals. Even if you don’t know where to find the right professionals, you will still get to them by simply asking for help from forums and online communities.

International Market Coverage - Rather than struggling in your locality to be the local champion, you can compete in the international market by offering your products and services to customers across the globe. If the cost of product and freight is still lower than a local substitute, the customer may consider buying yours instead of the local alternative.

Ease of Monitoring Business Performance - There are several tools and gadgets (quite a good number of them are free) that you can use to measure the performance of your online business. You can track important facts such as, customers preferences, their demography, how often they visit, how often they buy, their likes and dislikes etc.

International Business Relationship - Even if you do not think of your business as an international business, you must recognize that your visitors are likely to be from all over the world. You should consider whether or not you are prepared for international shipping and other transactions with countries other than your own. You should also strongly consider having your website translated onto languages other than English. The percentage of non-US businesses on the Internet has risen dramatically in just the past year!

Corporate Identity - Even when your business cannot boast of owning $100, yet it can be presented as a corporate entity that deserve attention. A well designed website can give you the attention you deserve from the online consumers. An average online customer cannot easily distinguish between a website owned by a multi-million dollar corporation and one that is owned by a college student. There are so many free resources online that you can use to design a professional looking website for free. The online community is also rich in free support services. If you don’t know where to start, use a forum to seek for help.

I bet you are excited at the possibilities and you want to ask some questions.  Well, let’s examine some possible questions you may want immediate answer to.

1. How do I set-up My Online Business?

Start your online business with a free blog. Anybody can dream, however, successful online entrepreneurs are people that did not only dream, but they took action. So, you need to take action. I strongly suggest you create a free website that you can use for internet marketing and other online entrepreneurship tasks by signing for a free account with BLOGGER. It takes less than 20minutes to get a free account and set-up a simple website that is capable of making money online. Here is a short video tutorial to get you started.

2. How much capital do I need?

It all depends on you. You can start with zero capital. Yes, you heard me right, you can start your very own online business with zero dollar, and yet the business will be capable of making money online right from day one. Well, don’t be over excited, your earnings may start from cents.
Also, you can start with over a million dollar. It all depends on what you want. If you ask for my opinion as an online entrepreneur, I will strongly advise you to start with a free blog. If you cannot earn money with that, then online business may not be for you. Success online is not about how much you can throw around, it is more about skills you need to develop. You can get some tips from my post on

3. What resources do I need?

Any simple computer that can connect to the internet. Once you can get online, every other basic resources that you need can be gotten free. You only need to search for them. If you don’t know where to search, ask questions in forum and other online communities. You can also ask me I’ll gladly lend a helping hand freely (of course, this will be dependent on my schedule at the time, but be rest assured that there are several people that will be willing to lend a helping hand to a newbie entrepreneur)

4. How long will it take to set-up a website for my online business?

It depends on how sophisticated you want the website to be. However, a simple free website which I recommended above can be set-up in less than 20minutes.

5. How do I get paid ?

There are several payment processors online. Paypal is the most famous, but there are alternatives. You can get more details on how to receive payment online from my previous post on the topic, click the link How to receive payment online.

5. After setting up a website what next?

That is the million dollar question! Online entrepreneurship is a journey. The very first step is venturing online and registering your presence with a website. After that, you will need to start learning and practicing how to earn income online. At first, it is hard-work, but on the long run, it is quite rewarding. If you set-up a good system, the business will be able to run even when you are absent on a vacation. That is one of the beauty of online business. You must not be tied to a daily routine. So many tasks can be automated or outsources such that you only need to take critical decisions.

Please note that how much you earn, will depend on how much useful lessons you have learned and practice. So, you can assume that the more you learn, the better you become and the more you earn. How long you will need to learn before you can earn fat income is entirely dependent on you. However, you can shorten the length of time it takes by learning from successful entrepreneurs who are practicing what they teach online. Looking for short-cuts or get rich quick schemes being offered by faceless “guru online marketers” will only get you hurt.

This post is already too long, so I’ll stop here. In subsequent posts, I will elaborate more on the topic starting an online business, you can get free updates by subscribing to Nigerian Entrepreneur RSS feed, Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Entrepreneurship, Online Business, small business

Start-up entrepreneurs, especially the home based small business owners often ask me this question “Does a small business website design and layout really matter?” Yes, it does. If you can afford to hire a professional website designer to develop and manage your business website set-up, it is good and worth the cost. The simple reason been that a professionally made business website design will give your small business website that unique look that separates it from the millions of websites on the net. You sure don’t want to be lost in the crowd

Online Crowd

However, when starting a small business website, I strongly advise you to worry less about website design and work more on getting quality content for your business website. The average online visitor wishes to spend less than 60seconds on each site he or she visits. So, you have a hard job to keep him or her long enough to pass your marketing message.

Stand Out Online

If you have spent at least a month online as an online entrepreneur,  (internet marketer) you would have learnt that getting visitors to a new website is a herculean task, except if you are ready to pay for traffic (using services like Google Adword, Bidvertiser, Text-Ad-Link etc). If you are not willing to pay for traffic, then you need to be an expert in satisfying your website visitors so that they will visit again and again and tell others about your small business website.

A beautiful business website with professional design showing all the desirable eye candy (dynamic html, beautiful graphics, flash presentation, video clips, audio podcast etc), will not make up for poor content. Have you not visited one or two business websites that looks so promising because of their beautiful design but left disappointed because they simply had nothing to offer you? I have visited many. It can be very upsetting for visitors to discover that the website that looks so promising is actually lacking in quality content.

So, if you ask me, a website rich in Quality Content is way better off and will get better result than a professionally designed website that lacks useful content.

More reasons why an entrepreneur should choose quality content over website design:

• Professionally designed website can be quite expensive.
• Quality Content brings and keeps visitors (Google searches for quality contents and send free traffic to such) while professionally designed template only appeal to visitors when stumbled upon (they must be discovered first) and they lack the power to keep visitors or motivate them to return.
• Quality Content can generate money and pay the bills while a professional template alone does not guarantee income.
• If I have not convinced you yet, then consider this. Google is one of the most popular website online as at today, but it is as simple in design as any website can be. Yet, you cannot compare any other site to Google when it comes to satisfying visitors needs.

So to be a successful entrepreneur, you must focus on  satisfying your visitors needs by providing quality content. Soon enough, you will earn enough from your effort to employ the service of a professional website designer to add all the eye candy that your heart desires. That way, you end up having the two and that is the best for any small business owner. You can bet Nigerian Entrepreneur is moving towards that goal.

If you still insist on having a professionally designed website for your small business right from start, and you are not willing to pay a fortune to hire a professional to design your website template, then I highly recommend you visit Revolution Themes They have some free Wordpress themes that you can easily customize to fit your need. By the way, I should warn you not to fall into the trap of spending endless hours tweaking a free theme to get that perfect design you want. It is not worth it!

I discovered the hard way that tweaking a free theme by yourself can be so time consuming and energy sapping. For over three months, I have desired to change from my former website design, a Remix Premium theme to another theme because I was unable to make something function well in that theme. (The multi-tab that contained my Archives, Categories and Recent Post was not displaying properly in IE, though it displays well in Firefox).

Getting a free theme that fits my needs was difficult. I spent hours endlessly searching and trying out some themes. Eventually, yesterday, I stumbled on Revolution Theme 2 and I got a theme that fits my needs. So, Nigerian Entrepreneur now wears a new look. I hope my regular readers love this theme.

If you are new here, thanks for visiting, I look forward to seeing you again. and again You can drop your comment below. Also, you can easily get updates to this post and other tips for Small Business Owners and Online Entrepreneurs by subscribing free to my RSS.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Entrepreneur, quality content, small business, web design

successful online entrepreneur

Make Money Online, by Promoting Local Small Scale Businesses. You can earn easy money by advertising Small Scale Businesses Online. African Entrepreneurs are not as tech savvy as their counterparts in the developed nations. The only thing some of them know about the internet is that con artists use the internet to defraud people abroad.

In Nigeria an estimated ninety percent or more of small scale businesses conduct their business transactions offline. Searching for their name in Google will produce no result. Many of the Nigerian Entrepreneurs in this category knows next to nothing about the great potential that online advertisement offers.

Hope you are getting the gist. This obvious need for web presence among the local small scale entrepreneurs in Africa is a wonderful opportunity for any online entrepreneur. You can easily package an offer and make presentation to such local entrepreneurs who are only doing their business offline!

If you are able to get the following four points across to them, you will surely get some for clients:

1. Yellow pages, Television and Radio Advertisement are no longer as effective as they used to be. People now search for information using Google! And it cost a tiny fraction of what they already spend on TV and Radio to advertise online!
2. Small scale businesses that do not have their presence online will soon find themselves at a great disadvantage against business competitors.
3. It is an established fact that more and more Africans are getting online to search for information. Some are getting used to conducting their transactions online via internet enabled cell-phones.
4. Every small scale entrepreneur, be it a chef, plumber, hairdresser, grocery seller etc, can have a presence online so as to capture the local market effectively. Why will I go out looking for a grocery store that offers my special body cream when I can simply use Google to search for such?

Stand Out Online

The business opportunities that can be developed from this NEED are quite numerous, but let’s quickly look at three of them that easily come to mind:

• Offer cheap website design and hosting for small scale business. An all inclusive package works best.
• Develop a localized website portal that serves as an online yellow page.
• Offer webmaster services to businessmen who already own websites but hate doing the technical stuffs.

Let’s face it, you only need to scratch your head a little and you will get an opportunity you can work on. I’m already working on this idea and I have two local businessmen as my clients already! It took less than a day to convince those too to buy my service, and do I need tell you that it is a profitable business! Hey, give it a shot, you too can start earning money online legitimately. These idea does not even require PayPal. (You can collect local cheque or physical cash, if that makes you really comfortable as a Naija Infopreneur!). Those local small scale business owners will love you for helping them promote their business to the millions out there. If you need assistance in any way, drop a note here at Nigerian Entrepreneur, I will be willing to give all the help I can. See you at the top! Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business Ideas, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Internet Marketing, Make Money Online

Does your business create true wealth by building assets and adding real value to the society? Does your business create wealth from accounting entries? What really does your business contribute to the society? Please do not get me wrong. Services such as medical practice is considered as real value adding products in the context of this article. However, some activities adds nothing and yet they “demand” the lion share of the cake!

Accounting Entries

I just read an article written by PACE. It was a good read as it provoked me into deep thought about the activities of several business enterprises in Nigeria. I encourage you to read the article, Burble Burst or Wealth Re-distribution?

For some years now, the agricultural, manufacturing and other sectors in Nigeria have been struggling to survive due to poor infrastructures and other challenges that are almost insurmountable. Funny enough, the financial sector, especially the banking sector has been declaring astronomical figures as turnover and profits at the end of each financial year.

Real Sector Of The Economy

The question that comes to my mind is, where do they get the profit from? If the real wealth producing sectors that the financial institutions are meant to service are not doing well, where do the high profit come from? Well, PACE gave a wonderful analogy which explains the situation in layman terms. The banking and other financial institutes in Nigeria have been creating “fictitious money” through double accounting entries.

Yes, while the real asset producing sectors are dying, the bankers are getting wealthier by cheer double entry accounting. They are helping to create more debtors in the system, and guess what, the chunk of the liability is owed t