Sow Quality Service, Reap Great Profit

September 19th, 2009

An essential principle of business success is Sow Quality Service, Reap Great Profit. If you really want to be rich in life, you must change your orientation from that of a grabber to that of a giver. Instead of thinking and devising ways of getting more from your customers, think and device ways of giving your customers more than they paid for. If you give quality service, you will eventually reap great profit. That may not seem like a sound business advice in this period of global economic crunch, but take it from me, this business principle works even now.

Poor Service Eventually Brings Bankruptcy

I get bothered when I see businesses attempting to increase their profit by cutting corners, capitalizing on consumers’ ignorance to cheat them. The truth is that those entrepreneurs are not wise. You may record a high profit today because you succeeded in cheating a customer, but be rest assured that the customer will eventually discover (even if it takes years) that he or she was cheated and will never patronize you again. If your business is undergoing financial crisis due to the global economic meltdown, it is time you start giving your customers more than they deserve, that way, they will stick with you until the trouble is over. I will share two story with you to buttress my point.

The Nameless Restaurant

Last week, while out of the office on an official assignment, I saw a little restaurant. It lacked all the Zeon signs and gorgeous display that makes eateries in Nigeria cities stand out. However, the place was filled with customer and my colleague volunteered to give me a quick lecture. He explained that even though the place doesn’t look beautiful (it was indeed plain looking), the quality of food being offered there is better than that of bigger competitors. Bankers, oil workers, businessmen etc (with their designer suits, babariga) prefer eating in that small spot instead of the bigger ones because of the quality of the food and the attitude of the staff to customers. So the customers come from far distance and park their Porsche cars to eat in that plain looking restaurant, the bigger competitors must be envious. The place doesn’t have a name, but I can’t forget the location.

The New Zealous Commenter on Nigerian Entrepreneur

Well, an incident this morning reminded me of that restaurant. As I was checking the back-end of my blog, I noticed a new commenter who took time to drop high quality comments. Even though I wasn’t in the mood to go checking other people’s blog, I couldn’t help but checkout the guy that was zealously dropping comments that are best described as half-posts.

Each comment was his personal view expressed with all sincerity. He wasn’t sounding like a praise singer, a keyword back-link seeker or a con-artist advertiser. I believe one of the reasons it made so much impression on me is because a lot of fellow Naija brothers have been trying to use my blog as a free advertisement board. They advertise their wares in a most annoying manner. Some do it in such a way that I really get angry and delete such comments (no matter how busy I am, I still moderate comments as much as I can, I hate spamming).

Well, since I wasn’t in the mood to spend time on the net, I dropped only two comments on that fellow’s blog. He didn’t ask for it, but I know he deserve more than those two. I’ve made up my mind to repeatedly visit his blog and add my little contribution to his blog.

To be successful, give quality service first, then expect great profit

The lesson from the two stories is to; Give Quality Service, Reap Great Profit. Ask any successful entrepreneur, he was first a giver before he became a receiver. Forget about grabbing and cheating your way to the top, even if you succeed at it, you won’t stay there long. If you doubt me, you can ask those Nigerian bankers who are currently singing to EFCC.

Thanks for visiting my blog you can get future updates to this post Give Quality Service, Reap Great Profit by subscribing to my RSS feed. Cheers.

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Posted in Entrepreneur, small business | 3 Comments »

How Needs Give Birth To Business Opportunities

September 12th, 2009

Have you observed that needs often give birth to business opportunities? If you haven’t it is time to take a look around you. While a lot of people are getting depressed because of the global and local economic crunch, some guys and gals are actually making money from the present situation.

Human beings are quite creative. I’ll share a practical observation that I made with you. I live in the part of a city where the roads are so bad that individuals often prefer to park their private cars and use commercial vehicle (just to save on maintainance cost). As the situation got worse, (the government agencies simply closed their eyes to commuters plight), some smart small scale entrepreneurs started importing motorcycle and were giving them out to jobless young men on hire purchase. That was the begining of okada business in my community.

Those entrepreneur made so much money while the okada business last. Unfortunately, some criminals took advantage of the situation also and started using motorcycles as quick-get-away vehicles for their criminal activities. It became an everyday occurrence to hear story of people being robbed or assaulted by motorcyclist. The complain from the public was so much and the only solution the state government could think of was to ban the use of motorcycle altogether (never mind the fact that it sounds funny that it is now unlawful to use a motorcyle in my neighbourhood).

The ban was a great misfortune to many entrepreneurs and many youth who earned their living via okada business were thrown back into the unemployment club. While some entrepreneurs went home counting their loss, the smart entrepreneurs went home brainstorming on the next opportunity to catch on. For your information, the roads are still as bad as before.

Well, those smart entrepreneurs settled for a new business with TRICYCLES. We call it “KEKE NAPEP” At first, people were reluctant to enter the tricycles (human beings naturally resist changes). Well, it wasn’t long before we were forced to change and embrace keke napep as the best means of moving from one point to another.

The reason being that they are better at navigating the bad road and they also find it easy to pass in-between on-coming and on-going vehicles whenever there is traffic jam. The CAB-DRIVERS in my neighborhood hates those tricycle with passion. As far as they are concern the tricycles are business spoillers. They carry more passengers than the taxi (you may not believe it, but some carry as much as 6passengers beside the driver, that is Naija for you) and also make more trips per day.

Why am I discussing this? Well, I have being facing a lot of challenge with my online businesses. The soucrce of the challenge is just my ISP (Internet Service Provider). My company relies heavily on internet for communication with clients. Unfortunately, after dishing out a whooping sum of $200 per month (thirty thousand Nigerian naira) per month as rental for VSAT internet connectivity, we are stuck with a bad service provider that gives excuse instead of quality service. It is not easy to dump the ISP and go for another because they are still the best available in my neighborhood, and our present subscription covers several months.

So, I’m just praying and looking for an opportunity to get rid of them. When I get the right opportunity (I’m really on the look-out for it), I’m going to start an ISP company to serve my community.

If you’ve been wondering why my posting hasn’t been consistent, now you know. I’m not quitting blogging, I’m just fighting the challenges hindering me from getting online as I want to.  However, I’ve been busy exploiting some offline business opportunities too. I do really believe in multiple streams of income, so I have several baskets for my business eggs, not just one. Are there needs around you? Think deep, those needs will birth business opportunities for you. Cheers.

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Posted in Entrepreneur, small business | 3 Comments »

Can You Still Trust Your Banker?

August 26th, 2009

Can you still trust your banker? I know that sounds like a foolish question, but hear me out first. As an Entrepreneur, I agree w to the fact that my business success team will not be complete without a trustworthy banker. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs in Nigeria, are being made to doubt if really the bankers  actually deserve a place in the success team. The recent Home Grown Financial Crisis rocking the Nigerian Banks is a real concern to Nigerian Entrepreneurs especially the small scale businesses.

I was chatting with a friend some weeks back and she asked if a particular Nigerian Bank was financially healthy. To me the question was absurd and I told her so. I even boasted that the era of banks going distressed is gone forever. Oh, how wrong I was. I had believed the lies that were told by my bankers. I believed the false reports tendered by the bankers as proof of health to the general public. The particular bank my friend was making enquiry about was among the five banks recently placed under searchlight by the CBN.

The five Nigerian Banks, according to CBN concentrated too much effort in granting loans to businesses in the highly risky oil and gas sector. As if that wasn’t enough, they set aside the rules governing loan approval and were utterly reckless in granting personal loans to insiders. Much of the loans were not properly collateralize as required by law. Simply put, they were playing lottery with depositors funds and jeopardizing investors funds.

While some people praised the effort of the CBN, some criticize the crude method used by the CBN. Recent information has shown that the CBN didn’t fine tune her findings before rushing to the press. Now the public is in a dilemma of what to believe! Well, I am not interested in the accusation and counter-accusations being traded by the CBN and the affected bankers. My personal concern is the effect of this ill wind on the economy of Nigeria.

Can I still trust my banker?

Until this millenum, small scale entrepreneur in Nigeria were quite skeptical of using banks.  They trusted their ‘Esusu’ ‘Akawo’ and other local cooperative societies better than the banks. However, it is practically impossible to expand ones business and play in the bigger market without making use of banks. So, many were forced to imbibe the culture of using the banking system.

Beside this, the activities of petty thieves and armed robbers have thought many that it is not a wise idea keeping large quantity of physical cash at home. Also, the introduction of ATM machine encouraged many entrepreneurs who are merchants to imbibe the culture of using banks for transfering money from one location to another. Gone are the days when merchants travelling from Onitsha to Lagos or any other part of Nigeria carries money on their person while travelling. The ATM card is safer and more portable.

Unfortunately, the recent activities of the bankers has cast serious doubts on the mind of the small scale entrepreneurs. The reality is that the average small scale businessman in Nigeria is now scared of putting his/her little fund in the bank. But how can you transact business without using the banks. This remains a dilemma! It is common sense to note that the risk of getting robbed while keeping physical cash is higher and more probable than the risk of a bank getting distressed. However, if bankers tells lies blatantly and engage in shoddy deals with depositors fund, should an entrepreneur still trust them?

I’m sorry if I disappointed you by not providing an answer to the nagging question, “Should I still trust my banker?” I really feel bad that the effort to encourage the public to imbibe the culture of keeping cash in the bank and doing less of physical cash transaction has been badly crippled by the dishonest financial institutions. The truth is, people are really getting scared of entrusting their funds with bankers.

Is there no Solution?

I really wish the regulatory bodies (CBN etc.) will wake up to their duties. Their primary assignment is to prevent fraudulent and illegal practices among the financial institutions. Their effort should be concentrated on prevention (not catching culprits long after the loot has been spent!)

I personally don’t give any kudos to CBN for their performance so far. As far as I’m concerned, they are partly to blame for the rottenness in the financial sector. If their inspectors and auditors are men of integrity who prefer good name to bribe, they would have discovered and reported long ago on the anomalies occurring in those banks books. Since they failed to give accurate and honest report as at when due, then I see them as accomplices who encouraged the bankers to misuse depositors funds.

The issue of non-performing loans

The outcry of the CBN on the mamoth size of the non-performing loans being carried by the banks is another issue that deserve closer srutiny. It is a well known fact that the various tiers of government are owning local entrepreneurs working for them. Instead of using the public fund in the coffer to settle contractors who have completed their job, some political office holders embezzle such fund while hiding behind official beureacracy.

Some of the entrepreneurs accused of owing non-performing loans in  those banks have come out to defend themselves and accused the government of being responsible for their inability to repay what they owed as at when due. If the government agencies refuses to pay an entrepreneur as agreed in a contract, then what right has the same government to insist that such entrepreneur should repay loan taken to execute the same contract?

If EFCC is serious about helping to recover the non-performing loans, then they should start by querying the top government officials in those parastatals that are owing contractors. The accountant-generals, commissioners of finance etc of each state and local government should be asked to explain to the public why they are not meeting up with the contract agreement made with the local entrepreneurs. The truth be told, we will have a better Nigeria if our leaders believe in the slogan, Good Leaders, Great Nation!

I’ll love to hear your opinion on this issue. Share with us in the comment section. You can get updates to this post Can You Still Trust Your Banker by subscribing to Nigerian Entrepreneur RSS feed, Cheers.

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Posted in Entrepreneur, Nigerian | 9 Comments »

5 Tips For Staying Motivated

August 10th, 2009

How do you stay motivated when things seems to go all wrong? This article gives 5 Tips for staying motivated even when discouraging factors abound.

Keeping yourself motivated is crucial for you to achieve your goal in life and business. You need to motivate yourself in other to excel at your job. Also, you need to motivate whoever is working with you if you really want to have a winning team. Coaches understand this issue better. A team that is not motivated will surely get a poor performance irrespective of how talented the member of the team may be.

Motivating yourself to excel at your business should not be something you do only once a while. As a blogger, I have often been tempted to abandon blogging and move on to somethings I consider much more interesting. But then, there is a wise saying that quitters don’t win and winners don’t quit.

Self-motivation is an ongoing process that should include every facet of your business life. This means your mental attitude, physical well-being and appearance, work atmosphere, your interaction with others (clients and employees alike), and your off-the-job environment.

In this generation, there are professional motivational coaches who earn a living by giving talks to professionals and businessmen who are striving for success. I won’t ask you for any money, but here are five tips that will keep you motivated enough to realize your goal.

You Need a Positive Attitude – You may not be in a position to determine what happens to your or your business. However, you are 100% capable of determining how you react to the event. Your reaction to issues is much more important than the events themselves. If you react with a positive mental attitude, you will most likely figure out a way to turn adverse situation to an opportunity. However, whenever you put up a negative attitude, you simply end up magnifying the challenge you are facing until it becomes impossible to tackle.

Have you noticed that when you are around people/things that are uplifting and positive, you feel that way. You have more confidence in yourself, and know you can change whatever needs changing. If you can make your workplace such a place you’ll find happier workers and higher production. You might even find your employees look forward to coming to work!

Keep Personal Challenges Personal – As an entrepreneur, it is necessary for you to keep personal problems as personal and not mix them up with business challenges. You will make greater progress in your business if you keep your personal troubles at home and not rub them off on your employees or clients.

Once you are at work, give your full attention and energy to your business and forget about the challenges you had at home. This gives you a mental break from the troubles at home and also ensure that your team members do not get saddled with troubles they can’t possibly solve. Encourage each team member to keep their personal troubles at home too, except if they need personal advice. Discourage people from transferring personal troubles to the work-place and using it to react to fellow employee or clients.

Create Positive Affirmations – It is true that a man eventually becomes what he thinks about all day long. That means if you change what you think about, you can change your life. One way of achieving that is by taking time to write down positive affirmations on little piece of papers and read them out aloud to yourself all day long. What your eyes see and ears hear, your mind will believe. Try it! After you’ve written them down, read them aloud to yourself and do it every morning when you get into work. You’ll be amazed at what happens. Come up with a set of new ones every month. Statements such as, “I’m an important and valuable person,” or “I know I’ll make good use of my time today.” Repeating them out loud several times a day will help keep you motivated.

Take a Break – Remember that wise saying, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, the truth is all work and no “break” will make any entrepreneur an unhealthy person. Working round the clock without adequate rest is counter-productive. Your body and brain need time to rejuvenate. If you refuse to rest, you simply become less productive, and may actually end up a wreck due to stress. Don’t get wound up with the project or situation you’re working on that you don’t ease up. Thinking that it’ll be solved in the next few seconds, and then you’ll get a cup of coffee can lead you right up to quitting time. Regularly adhering to a specified break schedule, even if you’re the boss, releases the tension. If you work on a computer this is even a greater problem because before you realize it – you’ve been working in that same position for hours. The best answer to this is to set yourself a reminder on your appointment calendar for every 2 hours, and let the computer reminder chime send you the alert to move around. I’ve gotten into health trouble due to long hours of working on my desktop without resting. Eventually, I had to take several days off to recuperate. So, I strongly advise that you take a break, less you break-down.

Exercise Your Body – Your body need to be exercised to keep fit. Remember, health is the first wealth you must possess. A healthy body is about the greatest asset you can ever have as an entrepreneur. Irrespective of how wonderful your business ideas may be, if you are sick in your body, you may not be able to turn such business ideas to money making ventures. It is therefore wise to keep your body fit. By “exercise” I don’t mean that you should go out and join a gym and spend your lunch-time, 3-days-a-week there working out. What is really beneficial and workable is that at regular intervals, leave the task you are working on, get up and walk around your desk or room. Maybe go outside and get the mail and enjoy the sunlight (if you’re an entrepreneur that has a home office), or just get up and do a few stretches. Concentrated, tense thinking – typing – plotting plans – or whatever your work, makes all those muscles tighten up and knot up. Then when we move we “ooh” and “ouch” because we’ve knotted up into a ball of tension. Periodic stretching, even at our desk, or just getting up and walking over to the window and getting a different view can help. One of the greatest disservice modern business décor has done to us, is making our offices pristine, sleek, unencumbered spaces. There is nothing more relaxing than getting up from your desk and walking over to a peaceful, serene, seascape or pastoral painting and just drinking it in visually. Momentarily transporting your mind out of work and into that place does wonders. A few good paintings and less shiny chrome in offices would benefit us all.

I do hope you’ll put this 5 tips to use. They may sound simple or mere repetition of what you’ve read elsewhere. I never told you I manufactured them. However, I can sincerely tell you that the tips works. If you have a tip that works for you that I did not mention, kindly share with us in the comment section. You can get future updates to this article 5 Tips For Staying Motivated by subscribing to my RSS feed.

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How To Choose A Web Hosting Company

July 7th, 2009

How To Choose A Web Hosting Company

If you are wondering how to choose a web hosting company, then read this article. There are thousands of web hosting companies doing business online. Each one have mouth watering hosting packages and makes reassuring promises to keep your business online 24/7. Making a choice among these can be quite difficult. How can you know the one that will truly provide your business the much needed excellent hosting solution at an affordable price?

Web Hosting Server

Web Hosting Server

Big business enterprises can afford to own their own web hosting servers or pay for dedicated web hosting servers. This is not an option for most small scale entrepreneurs. Small scale business owners especially the home based business owners often have to make do with shared web hosting due to their small business budgets. This article is meant to provide help for such entrepreneurs.

What are the qualities to look for in a web hosting company?

1. Excellent Customer Support: Your hosting provider should be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem. Ask them how long it takes for them to typically respond to your problem. A good test is to call them in the mid night to check if you get to a live, level 3 support. There must be provision for Live Chat as this tend to be more efficient in helping to troubleshoot website issues than phone calls or email. Go ahead and use their ticket system for pre-sale support, taking note of how many hours it takes them to attend to you. If their response time for sales is slow, then you can be rest assured that their response time for technical support will most likely be worse.

2. A Sound Infrastructure: Check whether they offer a multi-homed network powered by multiple bandwidth providers to ensure redundancy. Some offer a 100% guarantee on its network availability or network uptime. Getting information about this is not easy though. You may need to spend some time doing research about the web hosting company you have zero on. Read reviews and comments about their services in forums. Avoid website previews as they are often bias. A good place to get information about webhosting companies and their performance is webhostingtalk.com

3. Financial Stability: If you’re running very critical operations, you can’t afford to be with a hosting company that may not be in business in a few months. Check to see if the web hosting company is a one-man business being operated from a bedroom. There is nothing wrong with doing business with such as long as he or she is a reseller for a reputable web hosting company. However, you will be doing yourself a disfavor and courting trouble if you host your business website with a sole-proprietor who owns the servers he is using for business. Web hosting servers cost a lot of money and as such cannot be easily run by small scale business. Incorporated businesses tends to be more reliable.

4. Scalability: Be sure your web host company can easily upgrade your hosting package as your business grows. There should be provision for migrating from shared web hosting packages to dedicated servers or virtual private servers. Ensure the web host can accommodate e-commerce and storefronts, wireless capability, blogs, forums, chats, online interactive helps and anything else you may need to add onto your site as your business expands. The last thing you want to do is change host mid way. It is never an easy nor smooth experience moving your website from one hosting company to another.

5. Provision of Regular Backup: Ensure that the web host company is willing to make regular backup of your website which will be kept on a separate server. This will help to reduce the recovery time in case of a server failure. You need to make enquiry about this as some web host may deman extra payment to provide such service.

Pitfalls to avoid in choosing a web hosting company

Avoid like a plague, free or very inexpensive web hosting services. They often end up creating headache and heartache for entrepreneurs, with bouts of server downtimes. As a small business owner, you don’t want to start spending hours on phone or chatting to find out why your website is not up. Having paid for the web hosting service, you will love to focus on your core business and grow your business. Chasing after web hosting technicians and doing follow-up on support tickets will not increase your revenue. Also note that you are likely to have significant limitations in storage, number of email addresses, FTP upload, ability to install scripts etc when you choose a free web hosting company or a very inexpensive web host.

Avoid web hosting companies whose data centers are located in volatile areas. You don’t want to loose your online business website due to civil unrest in the location where the data center of the company is located.

This post is not a review of any web hosting company. Therefore there is no link to any web hosting company. If you have experience you will like to share as a user of web hosting services, kindly share it in the comment section below. You can get future updates to this post, How to choose a web hosting company by subscribing to my RSS feed. Cheers.

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