When the deal is too good think twice…

By Caroline Achieng Otieno.

Have you ever heard of the English proverb ‘Look before you leap?’ Bet you have, it was one of my favourites as a child, however, most times I thought of it in terms of jumping into a muddy puddle if I didn’t look, so it was literal for me. Just before leaving Kenya years back, there was an interesting commentary in one of the dailies that came in weekly that bears similarity to ‘look-before-you-leap.’ It was tagged, “When the deal is too good, think twice…” It was quite interesting, to some extent hilarious and was a narrative of guys who had fallen victim to some of the conmen prowling the streets of Nairobi. Granted, things were pretty tough that time in Kenya, structural adjustment policies were taking a big chunk out of people’s pockets and there was a lot of hustling and jostling going on. While some folks were really trying hard to pull in that valuable shilling, other folks were busy trying to offload the same valuable shilling through clandestine means.

Now, gone were the days that conmen filled bags with newspapers and looked for desperados who wanted a miracle so bad they would close their eyes and give them cash that would double, triple or quadruple and get back to them that way. Due to hard times, and an audience that could see through their trickery, conmen had metamorphosed into skilful con-artists. Their modus-operandi was sophistication; not going solo but in two’s or three’s, not exclusively male- but of mixed gender; well polished, articulate and highly intelligent. If any response was needed to outdo these con-artists, it was to be as damn smart-ass as they were, fight fire with fire so to speak.

Scenario 1: I recall one time rushing from Kenyatta hospital where I had come from visiting a sick friend. A handsome well-groomed gentleman stops me. I enthusiastically returned his greeting, wondering whether I know him, and step aside to walk on. He waves a hand bearing a gold-watch, and motions for me to sit with him on the pavement.

Would he have a word with me? Sure, I thought, ignoring my rumbling stomach’s pleas to be fed. I listened to a long tale of how he came from a nearby country, and how he was stranded here, and about the love of God to His children. Well, as he is yammering on, in a conversation that has neither head nor tail, out of the blue a pretty damsel barges in and greets him with enthusiasm and acts like she hasn’t seen him for a long time. They carry a brief conversation before he motions for her to join us, she introduces herself to me and does so. Great! Now we are a trio. The conversation continues endlessly, going round and about in circles, and I finally realize that there’s something these two are after. They are by no means interested in my conversion to any religion; rather in how much money I am willing to part with. For the love of all things bright and beautiful, I don’t have squat on me. Not a penny. As soon as they hear me out, they suddenly and abruptly end the wonderful conversation, begging to be excused. They have an urgent matter to attend, and they leave like a harsh dog (Mbwa Kali ) was nipping at their heels. I shrug, scratch my head, brush off my skirt and take off to the nearest bus-stop. My tummy is rumbling twice as loud as before, I have to get home. It strikes me then, the couple are con-artists.

Scenario 2: I am accosted by two women on the streets of Nairobi, at the City Centre. They see something on my forehead and feel I need prayers as to avert some disaster ‘waiting-to- happen. I have to sow seed so that they can pray for me. I see their insistence. I go to the one ATM type in the wrong number, and get my card rejected. I signal to them that this ATM is not working, would they wait for me to get to another ATM. I hurriedly take off in the opposite direction leaving our sisters gazing into space.

Scenario 3: I now live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I am house hunting and doing so rather desperately because the days are speeding on, and by no means would I like to be out in the cold harsh winter. I tell everyone I know, and place adverts in the supermarket, on the websites, you name it. Everyone knows I need a place to stay. A quick response comes in from a man who has read my advert on a site for English speakers in Amsterdam. He writes me a wonderful e-mail, he is a Russian engineer working in London, and has a one-room apartment here in Amsterdam that would be ‘just-right’ for me. The price blows me away; 1000 Euros is way above my budget. I carefully pen down a response that I cannot afford it but if he has alternative accommodation, I can pay for half the amount he has asked for. I add on my number as he has requested it.

Lo and behold the gentleman calls me the next day, “Have you seen the pictures?” is the opening question.

“Um, no, I haven’t, I have to get to the office,” is my response.

“You don’t have internet at home?” he asks sounding perplexed.

Feeling a little bit ashamed yet not daring to lie, I respond, “No, I don’t.”

He continues on and on, about the apartment. He can give it to me at the amount I can afford; all he wants is someone to take care of it.

“You see, my wife and child died, so the garden is in their memory,” he says, “It’s really not about the money, my contract is 1 year here in London, so I really need someone to be there in Amsterdam, and take care of the garden and house as I have already paid for it.”

“I can take care of your garden,” I respond trying not to sound very enthusiastic.

He asks me to call him as soon as I have seen the pictures.

The pictures of the house are beautiful; it really is a dream home.

I call back and say I’d like to take the apartment immediately, when can we meet?

That’s not a problem,” he responds. “I can ask my contact person in Amsterdam to hand over the keys, and you can send the money here, as I cannot come now to Amsterdam, I have just begun a new job-contract and I cannot leave until after six months from now.”

“Very well,” I reply, and hung up the phone, doing a little happy jig.

Somehow, I am not completely at rest. Is this an answer to my prayers? I don’t feel it in my inmost being. People say that you should always listen to your inner voice, the instinct or gut-feeling. Well, my gut is not feeling with this apartment, and eventually my communication with the Russian guy goes about in circles. He states that his contact person is on vacation right now, can I send the money for him to send me a set of spare keys? The next day, he’s talking about his wife; I think okay, his wife is alive now? Into the week he expresses his worry about the keys getting lost in the mail. At the end of the day, my dream house was really, “in my dreams!” A deal that was too good to be true. We always have to think twice. It doesn’t only apply to conmen, it may be a relationship where someone is promising the world, and failing to deliver, it may be a business partnership, whatever the case, Think twice!

I hope someone has learned something, I just did!

Carol.

Who knew that cartoons could be so deep? Tell me this cartoon doesn’t get you thinking and wanting to discuss propaganda?!

The Podcast

Things Discussed

1) How did Benin and Joshua get people to write for African Path (Amazing!)

2) What was the vision behind AfricanPath.com

3) Did the initial writers get paid?

4) How to get advertisers to committ to you and your site?

5) Pamoja Media and the Vertical Advertising Network Business Model

6) The Long Tail Theory of the Internet

7) How did they get people to advertise on African Path

Was it easy to get publishers for Pamoja Media? Was it easy to get advertisers?

9) What you must understand if you are to deal with African publishers i.e. the large African newspapers and magazines?

10) How difficult it was to integrate African publishers to the Pamoja Media advertising model

11) What has separated the African online ventures that have succeeded from those that haven’t?

12) We had yet another feel good session

13) The unique strengths that Benin Mwangi Brown has brought to African Path that have helped it succeed

14) What unique strengths do African people have that they can bring to the West?

Websites and Ideas Mentioned

1)  The Long Tail

ii) Long Tail 2

2) Pamoja Media

3) African Path

4) Open X (Even I use it)

5) CPM

6) CPC

Click here for the interview I conducted with STL aka Stella Mwangi.

The Podcast

Part One of Interview with Benin Mwangi Brown in mp3 form

Things Discussed

1) Brief feel good session before call: Just because I’m corny like that

2) Who he is and what he does?

3) Why does he have the unique mix of the names “Benin”, “Mwangi” and then the surname “Brown”?

4) The relationships between Africans and African Americans: I finally hear the African American side of the story

5) His transition from an Engineering student to Entrepreneur

6) His time in real estate

7) What drew him to entrepreneurship?

The effects of his first trip to Africa: How was Ghana? How did he get there?

9) The journey from his Ghana trip to founding AfricanPath.com

Websites Mentioned:

1) African Path

2) Pamoja Media

3) Entrepreneur Magazine

4) Inc Magazine

In the previous edition, we discovered the niche that I had selected: the bloggers and podcasting niche. On this episode, I walk you through how I selected what products to test and what ultimately got tested.

It All Started with Adsense

Around the time that I was going through the 4 hour work week journey, I was also at the stage where I was about to begin optimizing my Google Adsense on this site, theDisplacedAfrican.com.

For the unitiated, or for those who hate fluff talk and want to know exactly what I mean, optimization means:

The process of getting the maximum results possible for the minimum amounts of input.

In the case of Adsense this meant changing the position, font, colours, shapes etc etc of my Google adsense untilI had ads which were consistently getting clicked on the most and therefore bringing the website the most money.

Necessity is the Mother of All Invention, Innovation and a Whole Lotta Businesses

I realized that nowhere on the web did there exist a guide that taught solo Wordpress bloggers such as myself how we could optimize our Adsense step by step. Specifically I wanted information on:

a) Just what ad blocks I should test and what elements I should test out of the infinite number of elements that can be tested.

b) How to automate the process.

c) A step by step by step guide.

The only guy I could find who was doing this was Joel Comm, but I felt that Joel was far too general, didn’t focus on Wordpress, didn’t have a system of automating it.

A Little A-ha Moment

So I thought to myself, well since I am a Wordpress blogger, a graduate of Blog Mastermind and am kinda frustrated with just how to optimize my Adsense, surely other people must be having this problem too. So, after deliberating with Yaro Starak my fellow Blog Mastermind members, I thought:

Killing 2 Birds with One Stones

Why not go onto a site like Rentacoder and get a coder to:

1) Research the best performing ad blocks for Wordpress blogs.

2) Discover how to automatically test the infinite number of success elements.

3) Automate the process

4) Optimize my Google Adsense

5) Record all that into a book

6) Include a step by step guide so people can do the same

7) Mint money off of that.

Test Number One

And so, I went to Rentacoder and got a coder started on optimizing my Google Adsense and recording the results while I went onto performing research to see if any self-hosting Wordpress blogger wanted to learn how to make the most money they could from their blog’s Adsense.

Tools Used

I made use of 3 tools to do my research:

1) Google Keyword Tool

2) Ask.com

3) Free search term suggestion tool which I first heard about from the Andrew and Daryl Grant website

Quick Digression

Andrew and Daryl Grant are a couple who made $250,000 in their first year as Internet marketers selling ebooks.

When you visit and opt-in to the site , they give you FREE, clear step by step instructions on how they did this.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you see yourself making your online fortunes via ebooks (sadly I don’t make a dime in affiliate commissions ofF this recommendation, but it definitely still stands).

The Research Began

And the results were not good. There were no people searching for information on how to optimize Google Adsense for self-hosted Wordpress blogs. I didn’t get much better results when I tried variations and creative ways to express the term.

And So I Thought

Let me put that to the side and I will try to retail “My Adsense Guide” later using my existing connections in the Internet marketing world once that is ready.

Definitely not enough demand for my maiden voyage, though.

I wanted my maiden voyage to be an area where there is high demand, and hopefully an area in which I have expertise.

Outsourcing

Next, I moved on to outsourcing. I have been outsourcing all sorts of things for the last 8 months. A lot of the work that I do is actually dependent on outsourcing i.e. someone gives me a job to do, I outsource some or all of it while I supervise. So, I know quite a bit about outsourcing using sites like Elace, Rentacoder and GetaFreelancer.

Keyword Research Take 2

My problem when I went to perform keyword research is I didn’t know how to narrow down from the HUUUGGGGE topic of outsourcing to what it is I do:

Outsource Internet marketing related processes using freelance sites such as Get a Freelancer, Rent a Coder and Elance

Well Around That Time

I got one or two questions on my blog about podcasting. Me thought, why not?

KeyWord Research

Specific enough: Check =  When you search for podcasting you are looking for information on a very specific process known as podcasting as opposed to a more broad category like content creation or audio production.

Traffic= Check = The search traffic for terms related to podcasting were enough to at least give it a shot.

Experience and Expertise = I have my own podcast and have been podcasting for 5 months. I also have some contacts in the Internet marketing world who I knew could probably connect me to other experts. I am also part of the Blog Mastermind where we have our fair share of podcasters. So it definitely seemed like a good bet.

Keyword Research

So I set up the site www.mypodcastingtutor.com, began working on my email autoresponder sequence which includes content rich Camtasia videos. (I currently have 7 emails that go out over a month)

And I began my test.

In the next edition, of my 4 hour work week journey, I walk you through my testing process.

How goes your journey? Well, I hope?

Mwangi

As a lot of you will know, one of the things that sets
www.theDisplacedAfrican.com apart is the fact that it has its own
Podcast, the Displaced African Podcast:
www.thedisplacedafrican.com/category/displaced-african-podcast/

I am sure a lot of you have heard it and I hope its been of value
and use to you.

REQUEST FOR HELP

I am basically writing this email to see if anyone out there has
sound editing skills and is willing to help me out with the process
of editing the Displaced African Podcast.

You would help me get the insights of African experts from all over
the world, including Derrick Ashong, David Kobia and Benin Mwangi
from African Path (the next podcast coming up) and share them using
the podcast format.

If you are interested,leave a comment below or contact me and let me know.

Have a great one,
Mwangi

Today I received the physical copy of my first ever newspaper article. It was from the folks at African Bulletin who featured my press release this month and will feature a few of my articles over the coming months.

So I thought I would celebrate that with y’all, say thanks to African Bulletin and to you, tDA’s reader.

Who woulda thought I would have ended up with my own feature in a newspaper and my own show on the radio in such a short time.

If I was to derive a lesson from this then I guess it would be, whatever you want to do, put yourself out there hard because you never know what results you will achieve until you put yourself out there and take action.

Direct Marketing

I love studying direct marketers like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham and of course, Tim Ferriss & Yaro Starak. One of the key ideas I have gotten out of the industry is:

Test assumptions!

Whenever you want to establish whether or not something will achieve particular results, conduct a micro-test and the test will give you much more real world knowledge than hours of abtraction ever would.

Here I am 9 months later and me and my tiny little blog actually have a brand name and a reputation which can probably be translated into something else.

So now, I can honestly say to other people, the greatest use of a blog is to establish a brand, preeminence and mindshare in a particular niche.

Why? Because I have lived it.

I can actually say that putting useful information out there on a blog is a great way to get featured in the media.

Why? Because I know other bloggers who have achieved way more media than I have and I have had a bit media success too.

So in short, I will repeat a message that I have expressed over and over and will continue to express over and over because I believe in it so much:

Let’s not think about it or read about it, let’s BE about it.

Hope that helps and yet again thanks for supporting the Displaced African (tDA).

Have one of those days that will be studied in the history books,

Mwangi

My name is Caroline Achieng Otieno, and I am a guest blogger at the Displaced African, and a regular contributor to The African Bulletin – www.mediablackberry.com. Having lived in the Netherlands for the past seven years, and experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly, I must say that I have observed a lot going on in Europe. I feel sad for the many Africans, who escape war and other tragic situations, come into Europe through very difficult means (some even trekking the desert through Northern Africa) and when they get here, they face other hurdles in trying to build an existence for themselves and their families back home. What hurts the most is that the system set in place makes our African sisters do things they would not ordinarily do, just because of their legal status or the lack of it thereof. The following article is another version of the article I wrote for African Bulletin in the April issue, feedback is welcome…

Supposing you were in Russia, it’s war-time, early 20^th century. You are an aristocrat soldier and you are with your soldier friends. Feeling the loss of your status, money, family and country; you play a lethal game, perhaps to display bravado, perhaps you want to commit suicide. You spin the cylinder of a revolver so that the location of the cartridge is not known. You point the revolver to your head and pull the trigger. Bang! Well, probably you live, and unharmed and admired you walk away, or you die, and that’s the end, it’s final.

While many Africans living in Europe would not dare play the game of Russian roulette, no matter how much money they were offered, many are caught up in a riskier form of a similar game. There are few chances here; it is a ‘no-win’ situation. Young undocumented Africans, eking out a living in the big cities of Europe, find themselves alone in a foreign land. Many gamble with high risk sex, playing a game of ‘Russian roulette’ as it were. For the young African woman especially, illegality is a challenge. She is placed in a very vulnerable position. She may view being undocumented as having ‘no rights, no shelter, no access to medical care, no money, no food, no peace.’ If she is not well informed or protected, she falls into the trap of selling her body. In the big European cities, female migrants are caught up in a fast growing endemic of promiscuity, for no other reason than being illegal. On one hand, these may be women who are fleeing dangerous situations in their countries, where men have raped women as a weapon of war. Others have undergone traumatic and often brutal genital mutilations. Yet when these same women arrive in Europe, only to find their applications to stay in the country rejected, and out on the streets, the harsh reality begins to set in and sex becomes a strategy for survival.

Research done by SOA-Aids Netherlands in October 2006 among the heterosexual Black community, established that sex was used as a ‘salient exchange commodity’ by women. Men gave them money, and women in return took care of all their needs. When money begins to flow and the women are past survival, they find themselves at a point of no return and trapped in a life on the fast lane. Free-lance writer Zack Bigalke from Portland, Oregon writes, “Women, smarter than ever, have learned that their bodies are money-generating machines which can easily draw much larger pay-checks than most other jobs.” And that is the main problem, sex does sell, and many African migrant women get addicted to the business of having myriads of sexual partners.

There’s a mysterious pull to hang in there.

Probably it’s the bad company, or the lack of social skills, or the low-level of education coupled with the rush to make big bucks quick. Friends encourage some to join them, stating the fact that money comes easy in the business. Ultimately, there’s the attraction of the ‘invincible’ Euro, the demands of relatives back home, and the desire to mirror the lifestyles, the dress and the mannerisms of the of the characters played out by the beautiful West African actresses of Nollywood; keeping up with the latest designer fashions, smelling like a queen, and owning the latest gizmos at the drop of a hat.

There are risks involved, the risk of pregnancy and the greatest risk of all, that of catching a Sexually Transmitted Infection (S.T.I).

Let’s admit it, most men initiate and control sex, paying for it with their greater wealth.

However many women bear the burden of the consequences of sex. Due to the fact that a woman’s body is well structured to receive, a woman is eight times more likely to become infected from a single sexual act with an infected man than a man is likely to become infected from a single sexual act with an infected woman.

Not only is the likelihood for infection for women greater, but also infection can be present in and spread by them when they do not have any symptoms of the disease. The disease becomes a silent killer.

A breakdown of the most common S.T.I’s follows:

Gonorrhoea is one of the oldest known S.T.I’s. However, like the condition Chlamydia, most women who are infected by the disease frequently have no symptoms of it, especially in the early stages. Both of these diseases, left untreated destroy the Fallopian tubes and cause Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (P.I.D). This can lead to ectopic pregnancies or infertility. Another well-known S.T.I is Syphilis. It operates in stages, which can be in gaps over a period of many years. The last stage of Syphilis is most fatal. It can cause problems throughout the human body such as heart abnormalities; brain malfunctions leading to stroke, meningitis, deafness or blindness. The Human Papillomavirus (HPV), another S.T.I has long been known to be a cause of cervical cancer. Infection with the Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) weakens the body’s immune system and increases vulnerability to many different infections. HIV at its’ final stage is referred to as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS, when full-blown, many infections overwhelm the body and this results to death. Treatment options exist for HIV-infected people that reduce the multiplication of the virus in their bodies thus delaying the progress of the disease to the final stage, which causes death.

Solutions are quickly needed.

Condoms may be useful in decreasing the spread of infections such as Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea, but should be noted that they do not fully protect against infections such as genital herpes, HPV, syphilis and AIDS. Public awareness and education about STI’s and methods of preventing them is imperative.

African migrant women should be empowered and educated about their sexual health and reproductive rights. There is the need to practise good social skills that include the ability to negotiate safe sex, a better understanding on the working of their bodies and the risks of a promiscuous lifestyle.

Global agencies, international policy makers, African leaders and civil societies should push to make education for the Girl-Child in Africa free at all levels; such an action would encourage society in Africa to send their female children to school. Migrant churches and faith-based organizations in Europe need to address sexuality and behaviour change among both men and women.

It is my prayer that the article has helped someone in some way or another,

Blessings,

Carol.

Hey,

If you didn’t think I was odd before, get ready to believe I am. I was reading a great free report by Rich Schefren and in the midst of it, he asked us to create a faux-advertisement to hire staff to our organization.

Rich proposed that instead of thinking of what we offer as simply a job we should think of our firm as standing for a higher purpose and giving folks a chance to join that.

Now, I don’t own a firm, hence, the unedited, unproofed, “quite different” article today.  Felt good to write it, pretty darn good.

Some time ago, some frat kids, some rock stars and a whole lot of celebrities got together and held Live 8. The premise of Live8 was to end poverty, particularly African poverty forever. Now, I know that you, just like me, knew that Live 8 wouldn’t result in much. Sure we knew they would sign dance and wave their glow sticks. We also knew that like politicians since time immemorial, the G8 leaders would step forward and present their latest way to increase the compound interest loans that have helped keep Africa under their boot while declaring it “relief” or “charity” or “their divine gift to us”

Sadly we all knew that a few weeks later, no one would remember Live 8 and more importantly, no one would remember your family and mine who are still living in a poverty that they never helped create.

Well it is time to put an end to that. My name is Tony Chomba Mwangi Njanja and I am going to tell you how.

First of all we need to change our focus. The focus of Live 8 was to make poverty history. We need to first change our focus to creating wealth today. I should be clear though, I am not just talking about Mercedes Benzes and 5 Star mansions. I am talking about a depth of spirit, relationships based on love, respect and friendship and a country and environment that we can genuinely feel proud to leave to the next generation. So, instead of focussing on how we will get our family members out of poverty and into that vacuum where they will now be middle class and ignorant, let’s change our focus to making them the best human beings possible and leave signs of divine blessings all over them.

The question then becomes, how can we help them create wealth. The answer is quite simple. By creating wealth ourselves and then teaching them how to do it. This is where you come in. For the last 8 months, I have run the blog, theDisplacedAfrican.com, where I have poured my heart and soul into revealing the best knowledge I had on how we can become true stewards of wealth in this world.

Over the past few months, it became increasingly clear to me, that trying to teach a hungry man how to have a better psychology is like trying to play tennis with an elephant as a racquet: very illogical to the point of being ludicrous. So I paused to reflect and realized something:

I wasn’t helping people take enough action.

I mean, you and I both know that this is where the success truly lies. When we take the greatest gift that God gave us, our free will and use it to take action and bring about results. My blog, however, was nothing more than an intellectual pitstop. A place where people could stop by and feel good about themselves, bad about me, bad about others, inspired, relieved etc etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love inspiring people, and I love having positive nurturing debates. But we don’t need any more Pursuit of Happyness movies, what we need are Chris Gardiners. We need more people so dedicated to results that they take action each and every single day.

And so, I expanded the Displaced African and opened up  the Displaced African mentorship program. Here, I take all my successes, the successes of all the great African immigrants I can find and process all this into a practical, get it done course, dedicated to helping people take action and achieve results in their life.

This is where you come in. You see, most people don’t understand immigrant law. In truth, most of us, don’t care. When we do, it’s usually because we have problems. We usually only care when we have a DUI that threatens to deport us, or our visa expired but we had no money for the ticket home or our friend has been arrested and we want to help them stay in the country. But a lot of this time, these people have nowhere to turn even in these desperate moments.

The Displaced African is committed to putting an end to that. We want to ensure that no matter the day, someone always has access to a sound mind that is well versed in immigration law. And so, I am inviting you to join my mentorship program as an immigration consultant, as part of my emergency team.

Whereas it may seem like the emergency team isn’t linked to the Live 8 goal ( remember that), I can assure you it is and I’ll tell you how.

Mark has been working so hard on creating a business thanks to the strategies presented in the Displaced African course that he doesn’t realize that his Visa application is due.

He is in a bind and doesn’t know what his options are.

One call to the helpline and his mind is put completely at ease: He can apply for the next six months, which he does through the firm and two weeks later he has his Visa in the mail.

Mark continues to work on his business which turns into the largest supplier of faux fur to the Alaskan people since the Eskimoes left.

He is wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

One of the conditions of attending the course is that you must find a way to use your wealth to both educate and resource permanently the leaders and growth of our great home. Mark has no problem with this because he has had this gnawing desire to go home and work on something meaningful for a while.

Upon returning to his homeland of Kenya he realizes that he can quickly and easily revive and expand the late great Fideli’s MICH project which took certain parts of Nyanza from poverty to excess. Using the business skills he picked up abroad, he expands the project so quickly that within 2 years it is not only in Nyanza province but the whole East African region, with plans to expand to Central Africa.

While he does this, he notices that the level of rape in his native community of Nyeri is quite high. Using skills he learned from the mentoring program, he starts up, and much to everyone’s surprise, succesfully implements sexual sublimation classes. Who knew men didn’t always have to succumb to their base level desires? They can just redirect the stuff. This program is also so succesful that it becomes part and parcel of the revivied MICH program and begins to expand throughout the region.

I could go on and on and on, talking about how he creates a church for young men committed to taking positive, aggressive action to improve the community every single day. I could talk about his Sri Lankan wife, who he actually chose as opposed to settled for. I could also talk about his business building courses which he teaches every Sunday.

Instead, I will remind you, that all this happened because on that fateful day, when Mark could have been deported, you were there. You gave him guidance, you have him comfort and now, you have given Africa a future.

Do you want to be that missing piece in our jigsaw puzzle. If so, call XXX-XXXX and let’s talk about whether you are right for the vision of the company. Are you just looking for a Just Over Broke (JOB) that will pay your bills do not apply? Do you just want paper? Next!

We want people who care so much about the mission above that even if they were poor paupers living on the Street in sackcloth, that’s what they would work on. We want people who have such a gnawing in their heart to see African immigrants and Africa do better that they will come to the office early and leave late every single day. We care about your heart much more than we do about your credentials, though we definitely need for you to have credentials in…………………………….

So if that is you, and I have described a place where you want Africans to be, then please call XXX-XXX and speak to Tendai about coming in to speak to us.

Have an absolutely magnificent day,
Mwangi