The Business Man

Video Rentals Business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:35:00 +0000

Introduction

This type of business used to be very popular in the nineties. I used to think they had gone under until recently I saw one on my street. Well I didn’t take it serious until I started noticing a couple of them around my area. I counted about 5 in my area alone. That was when I decided to take a closer look. On looking into one of the places, I realized they had mostly Yoruba movies and the number of people that were at that shop that day indicated that there was indeed a need here.

What you need

A shop (or actually a store front) where you can display your videos and your sign post. You can share a shop with a friend. You just need a staff to register all videos available, register all your members, register videos that people borrow etc.

Type of Videos: This is a tricky one. From looking at those shops in my area, I see that they have more of Yoruba Videos. I live in Lagos Nigeria, if you live in any other locality, find movies in the local language. Also have a couple of foreign movies. They will do very well. For a while I though the African magic channel on DSTV would kill this type of business but I have now seen that they have very unique market segments. You also have to ask your customers questions once in a while to find out what they would like and also try to be on top of the all the latest movies.

Costs

Cost of renting a video

The cost should be reasonable and comparable to that of your competitors. The price for local videos should be higher for local videos.

Cost of registration

There should be a cost of registration. You need to know your customers (especially where they live) in case you have to go recover a video yourself. Your customers must fill a form identifying them. The cost should not be higher than your competitors but low enough to encourage more customers.

Other Things

You can include certain management processes like different prices for different classes of customers, text messaging to your customers when there are new videos, competitions and awards to the best customer etc. The list is endless. Your success will depend mostly on how unique and relevant your business is to its environment. Also you should train your staff on how to effectively handle customers.

Risks

The main risk associated with this business is people not returning your videos at all. If people don’t return your videos on time, they get to pay for each day they hold on to it. Its different when it’s not returned at all. There are a lot you can do but the ultimate is to go visit them to recover your video. Also videos maybe returned damaged. A lot of people do not handle Video CDs and DVDs properly. A training here for your customers may be very important here. Since these two risks are inevitable, you must set aside some money each month to replace damaged and unreturned videos.

Conclusion

This business may not make money for you overnight but if you can increase your shops to at least 3 in different neighborhoods, with an efficient management system, it can really contribute significantly to you income. From here you can even start selling videos etc.

Disclaimer

This is presented here to provide an insight into a possible business opportunity. You are advised to do a proper analysis before you go into it. The Business Man is available to help you in all you need from business ideas analysis, business planning to setup and financing your business.

Convenience Store Business – A hidden money maker

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Sun, 29 May 2011 20:19:00 +0000

Introduction

This is really an interesting business if you look closely. I didn’t quite realize it until one day the man that runs the small kiosk near my house gave me my bill. Well I had been taking stuff from him on credit for over a month and he then billed me. The bill didn’t come as a surprise to me but what did was the amount on the bill – N5,500! How did only me consume that much in a month on just little things? I couldn’t believe it until he showed me his record and then I realized something, this guy was making money! How many other people staying around me consume that much?

What you need

Starting this type of business is very easy. You only need to find a space in your neighborhood that you can use as a shop. In choosing your shop or kiosk, make sure there not more than two shops on the street.

Getting Customers

You don’t need even to do any type of advertising, just open your shop and display your products!

Product Selection

You need to be very careful here. Take a walk around your area and sample other shops – see the range of products they are selling. Don’t focus on selling the best products, focus on selling convenient products even if other people are selling it. Your selling point is your location; the people who live closest to you will buy from you since your products are as good as the next seller’s.

Another thing here, keep to the cheap products and keep your total cost to under N5,000.

Staff

Actually, if you’ve got a lot of free time, you could do it yourself but it takes a lot of time and attention to keep up with the supplies for each product and attending to customers – it’s a fulltime job!. I suggest you find someone who would do it for you. A relative would be ideal but whoever it is, just make sure you put in certain controls to check his activities. For example, you could have a written price list and a record of the quantities of all your products. Then you could count your products regularly like weekly or monthly – the official word for it is “stock taking”.

Conclusion

It’s true that the profit from this could be slow but with dedication and discipline, you can actually grow this business into something big in a matter of months. This is another great business you can do with little start-up, just find a little space or construct and place a small lock-up kiosk or even one on wheels; then stock it up and you are in business!

Dump Truck Haulage Business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 16:26:00 +0000

Introduction
If you are in Nigeria, this is a business that can easily make you NGN350,000 (USD2,334) per month although it requires a considerable amount of capital.

What you need
The Dump Truck

A good Dump truck (faily used) starts from NGN7Million (USD47,000) but its usually cheaper if you buy from outside Nigeria. My friend Mr Mike Edo who is into the business has a business partner in Spain who buys these trucks and sends them down to Nigeria. He is available if you are interested in getting a good truck.

If you decide to buy it in parts that is, buy the Head first and then the bucket later, the head alone costs about NGN4Million (USD27,000). You can also import them at cheaper rates. The Tipper Bucket (the back portion) costs about NGN2.5Million (USD17,000) to construct and install but NGN36,000 (USD240) to rent for a day in the eastern part of Nigeria.

Business Structure

According to my friend, the business is simple, get your truck, lease it to a construction company (currently handling construction works) for use in conveying dirt or gravel, get a Truck Manager to handle your relationship with your driver and the construction company, then you smile to the bank every month - the construction companies pay as much as NGN150,000 per day plus NGN20,000 for your driver per day.

How you make money

Making any money in this business is guaranteed if you take care of the following;

The Company

You need a company currently carrying out a big construction project - preferably road construction. My friend currently has a trucking lease agreement with Setraco, the Construction company handling the expansion of East-West Road in PortHarcourt, Rivers State Nigeria.

Legal Entity
Such Construction companies would always deal with corporate entities and not individuals. So you have to register your trucking company as a limited liability company to be able to do business with them.

Agreement Structure
The agreement between your company & the construction company is basically for you to lease your truck to the company for a period ranging from 1 to 6 months. You will provide a driver, do your maintenance and fuel your truck while the construction company pays you monthly according to number of trips per day and your driver is paid per trip.

Truck Manager
This is the main core of your business. You need a truck manager is you are new to the business or if you have another job one if you don't have time to monitor your trucks. The truck manager usually takes care of your truck and makes sure it meets up with all the contractual agreements. This also means that he will be in-charge of cash flow and will remit to you the agreed amount every month. This is the person you have to trust and treat very well if you want to succeed in this business.
My friend, Mr Mike Edo is a truck manager and currently has 4 trucks under his oversight. According to him, "the more trucks I manage, the more money i get". He is also available to Handle more trucks or questions on this business. You can request for his contact address and I will send it to you.
You just hand your dump ruck over to him with some money to cover expenses for the first month and you sit down and watch the money pour in month after month!

Conclusion
This business is really very lucrative and you can recover your initial capital in less than two years if you have a truck manager and even much sooner if you manage your trucks yourself.

Disclaimer
While The Business Man strives to always present accurate business analysis summary, this does not replace doing your own due diligence before you go into any business.

For more information, please feel free to comment below or contact me.

Stencil Design Business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:30:00 +0000

Introduction

I was visiting a friend who makes cakes the other day and I saw a very beautiful Cake she made with the Arsenal Football Logo as a big design on the cake. I was really impressed with how it looked and I asked her how she got the design so well. She showed her design stencil and guess what, she bought it for NGN1,500 ($10)!. Can you imagine that? I mean I cut that design myself!

Description

Finished Design Stencil

Manchester United Logo on Cake

The business part of this is simple. I made some enquiries and I found out that you could find more Popular logos and designs, cut them really well on stencil material and sell them to people who make cakes,make banners, screen printers etc

Profiting Estimate
Seriously, you the profits here can be insane!, you use a stencil or two (less than $1), about 1hr of your time for very delicate designs, and you go home with about $10!. Multiply that by 10 in a month and you don’t even work every day.

What you need

The Design
You have to first do a little market survey. What designs are popular? Talk to people you will meet to buy your designs. Ask them for designs you can make for them. Football designs are popular, Current Cartoon characters will sell with kids, but you need to be sure they are not popular in your area.

The Materials
You need to have your knife cutter. You could get this from a hardware shop for under NGN500 ($4). You also need the material to use as your stencil. I recommend you use transparent Plastic Material used for document binding. A pack of 100 goes for about NGN1300 ($9) and you are set. The best thing about this is you get better at cutting after each job you complete.

Marketing your Designs
Start talking to people who make cakes-cake shops, banner producers, people who do screen printing, Monogramming ( printing on T-shirts, Cups, Suveniers etc.). You can find these people in the markets like where you buy plain T-shirts, plastics in bulk etc.

For designs that are not popular, you need to have a picture of what it would look like on anything. For example, for the Arsenal Logo, I would get a picture of it on a cake. Just get creative, make a picture album of designs compared to possible finished products. This could come later but if you start with one design, the people you talk to may ask for specific designs.

From Here
You could go ahead to get a website-put you designs online so people can see them and place orders, make a Business card, make posters etc. Make sure you take advantage of every person you meet by making sure they have your business card.

To make it easy, you may need to talk to someone who does this business, why read more here http://www.workabusiness.com/index.php?link=business_mentor.
Please comment on this if you need help here.

Website design business can make money for you

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:26:00 +0000

Introduction

Website design is simply the process of creating websites for people and getting the websites live, online. As a business, it costs very little to learn and start. You can learn on your own free of charge. Free tutorials are available here

In the business, you could get paid from NGN10k to NGN100M depending on the extent the website required and your clientele.

There are generally two approaches to the business. You could
(A) Design websites for cash and or
(B) Design websites to address needs or solve problems

Lets look closely at both approaches

(A) Designing websites for Cash

This is the most popular form of this business. You find your clients, design sites for them and then you get paid.

What you need

- Get a Computer
A laptop preferably. This is because you will have to make presentations. A fairly used one here in Lagos Nigeria goes for about NGN60k.

- A Business Profile
Prepare a company profile. This just a document introducing you to anybody. It should say who you are, what you do, your mission, vision, contact address and more. Yes this very necessary because big businesses need to see that you are organized before they do anything with you. This also means that you should register your business. You could start an enterprise now and or Limited Liability ( LLC) later depending on what you can afford.

- A Business Proposal
This is also a document in addition to what is in your profile, it also shows a formal proposal or request to carry out a particular service or work. It is more detailed than your profile as it shows jobs you have done and a timed schedule/plan of carrying out the particular service.

As an extension of the above, you should build a couple of websites and put them on different free hosting plans. This is to show what you can do. You also need to create your own business website, it will also be part of your experience.

- Create and Print Collateral Materials
The most important ones are you business card and letter headed paper. Believe me,the first month will involve alot of writing and meeting people.

- Go find clients for your business
I won't go into the basics of tidying your appearance-believe it or not, you are now a CEO, you should look like one

(i) Tell everyone you know what you now do. You can never tell if your neighbor needs your services. Apart from word of mouth, try sending an email to all your contacts introducing your business.

(ii) Send / Drop your proposal in as many companies as possible. This step will require you to meet with Advertising executives, brand executives, CEOs, etc of companies. You should try to research the company you are going to, it maybe that what they need is a website manager, not a brand new website.

Try as much as possible to get contact details of decision makers in the companies you go to so you can keep intouch with them as often as once in two weeks. If you get more than 20 contacts, it could become economical for you to use bulk sms at NGN2.00. Click here for some bulk sms providers.

(iii)Get creative, there are so many ways to market a business. I once read one interesting book on this subject matter. Get it from your local bookshop or click here to get a copy of 101 ways to market your business.

From here
You can go then go a step further to offer further services like website hosting services. You could buy a reseller plan for a start. The sky is your limit if you keep to all this.

(B)Design Websites to fill a need
This is the second aspect of webdesign business. You build a website to solve a problem, answer a question, fill a need, give information then get paid from adverts on the website.

Examples of such websites are job search sites (jobberman.com worth $32,107), gossip/forum sites (nairaland.com worth $461,042 ), social networking sites (facebook.com worth $500,000,013). Source mywebsiteworth.com

These sites were setup to address certain needs and they became successful. The fundamental principle common to these websites is they tried to find what a lot of people are searching for on the search engines and then they give it to them in a way that is better than their competitors. Let's look at this principle in greater detail.

Find out what a lot of people are searching for
Use online keyword tools like wordtracker.com, google adwords keywords tool etc for free or Brad Callen's Keyword Elite Software for a token. You choose keywords with very high demand or searches/month

Find your competitors
For those high demand keywords, search google and go through the first and second pages of your search result. Those websites are your competitors. You need to visit these websites one by one and see how you can complement them i.e. offer related services to what they are offering.

From experience I'l advise, do not compete with these guys by offering the same things they are offering. Now if you decide on complementing them, you can then request them to link to you. This is important because people searching for things on the internet usually go to the search engines.
Now these search engines produce results for the searcher and then your site is found and ranked high if it is listed on websites on the first two pages.

Build your website
Take time to build your website. Take into account all the data gathered in the earlier steps and do proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO).Find more SEO tools here The life of your website depends on this.

Marketing your website
Apart from aproaching the websites in the first two pages of search results for your chosen keywords, you need to also get links alot of other places.

Write five articles related to your website, including a link back to your website and submiting to the top 5 Article directories.

Submit your website address to link directories. Get a free copy of Directory submitter software here

Use social networking, facebook, twitter etc to create more awarenes and write a blog to keep intouch with your website visitors. There is no hard and fast rule to getting more visitors to your website. I just takes you choosing some of these webmarketing strategies and doing them often.

Analyze Your marketing
Install google analytics on your website to monitor web visitors. It would enable track how many visitors you get, which countries they come from, which websites are sending visitors to you so you can decide on which websites you need to concentrate your marketing on

Make money
Since you have people coming to your website for your keyword, you could sell advert space on your website. To make it easy, just signup for Google Adsense. Its an adverting program where google will send you adverts related to the content on your page and you get paid if a visitor clicks on the advert. This can really be a sizable sum if you get up to 100 visitors / day to your website.

From here
You could go ahead and research another topic/keyword and build another website around it repeating the steps above.

Conclution
Every business takes time and effort to start and even more dedication for i to grow. Be consistent and work diligently, you will succeed.

If you know someone who is into this business, you could go ask him, it could be your shortcut to success. Read more on finding a Business Mentor

GSM Recharge Printing Business now Online!

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:54:00 +0000

I just came across a website today where you can get all the information required to start printing GSM Recharge Cards here in Nigeria for the first time, free of charge!

Business Prospects
Recharge Cards will continue to be bought and sold in Nigeria as long as the mobile phone technology is here. It will always be profitable depending on your market share.

Visit the website today for all information to go into that business. www.bizruns.biz

The Business Man, her agents and websites are not sponsors, partners or agents of that website. We just love it.

Don't forget to be grounded in your business basics before you go into any business. Get all your basic training here

You can make extra cash from flyers/posters

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:58:00 +0000

This is another business you can start with very little capital. The business is as simple as getting the materials & distributing / Posting them then collecting your cash.

What you need
Get a business name. It will help with branding / distinguishing you from others
How to get Customers
Get your customers by

1) Post Posters of your business.
Your advert should say it in a very simple way. For example

“We Post Posters / Distribute Flyers. Call 080…… email …..website…. “.

Design something that will be quite cheap to produce. No fancy colours- black and white will do just fine. The most important thing in your advert is the size. Make sure the “Poster” part is in very large characters. The idea here is that if your own posters are visible enough for your clients to find you, then you have posted in the right places.

2) Newspapers
Do the small/smallest size of advert. It shouldn’t cost you more than 7k. One good thing about adverts is that YOU WILL SURELY GET RESPONSES. You need to be careful here, your advert is only for one day, make good use of it.

Where to Post Posters
You need to be careful here. I don’t advocate posting on newly painted walls, if you are the owner of that property, you will know how it feels. Find other places. Start with your immediate environment; take a walk around to identify places you could post. You could post on existing old signs, Electric power poles, un-painted walls etc. The visibility of your advert depends on “leg traffic”-how many people walk by that area. Bus stops are good candidates. Big office complexes usually have public notice boards.

How long your posters stay on the walls (before someone tears them down or another poster goes on top of them) will depend on how appropriate the place you posted them.
Also you should mind where you post; you could be arrested and charged for littering etc. Keep your posts a bit higher so it would be a bit difficult for someone to get their hands on them and then most importantly, post at night so you will have less disturbance from area boys, security men etc.

Where to Distribute Flyers
This one can be a little tricky but one good thing about it is that you can select the type of people you give them to – i.e. you get to choose your audience.
The same locations for the Posters apply here too but in addition, you can go a step further here, you can share flyers at occasions, parties, after your church services etc.

Another thing about this is that people will choose to accept your flyers depending on how you are dressed. So if you are promoting a kids party, wear a funny hat or mickey mouse!.

Conclusions
It is fairly an easy business. If you are shy to stand and distribute flyers, you could stick to posters or get somebody to do them for you. Posting can be as lucrative as between NGN100 & NGN500/poster. Flyers can go as low as NGN5000 for 3000 flyers.

One more thing
Some companies usually ask their customers how they found their company. They use this to measure the impact of adverts. So don’t just collect their flyers / Posters, collect their money and use their flyers/posters for rough sheets, smart companies will know.

Do you have an Open space & not making money from it?

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:58:00 +0000

Introduction

Over the weekend, I was searching for an open space with a friend where we could do some driving practise. After driving around for some hours, I realized something. Lagos does not have open spaces! We went as far as Ikoyi from the mainland, and then we headed towards Mile 2 through Oshodi.

It was so striking that the only place we saw was along Oshodi - Apapa expressway, close to Mile 2.
It was a space of about 8 plots joined together. We got there only to find out(from some rough looking boys) that we had to pay about NGN500 to practice there. Can you imagine that?

They even offered to teach us if we didn’t have a car and then they gave us a little driving manual.
This is a good idea if you have such a plot of land lying somewhere.

What you need
of course you need a manager (who knows how to drive)and an assistant who should also know how to drive.
If you have an old car (Manual transmission preferably), it would be great but if not don't worry. People will still come with their cars.

Get a sign post/board for you business. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. You need to consider Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA), they will come for registration of you sign board. You can always do without it for now.

Get you staff name tags/badges or uniforms - it makes your business look professional.

Clear your land and make it fit for driving a car. You don't want flat tyres and muddy soil on your business premises.

How to get people to come
Your customers are probably people who own cars, drive cars or about to buy cars. The Where do you meet them?
You can design a one page flyer for your business which should include
-you location
-how many cars can drive comfortably there
-how cheap it is for a whole day etc

These flyers can be distributed at
-bank lobbies
-your church, after church service
-public notice boards
-Car sellers and also help you give fliers to their customers and so many others. Just be creative

From here
You could easily go ahead and upgrade the center to a driving school complete with cars and attractive female instructors, just let your imagination go.

One more thing
You could go into a partnership with someone to build a temporary bar/relaxation spot where your guests can relax after driving sessions (of course they have to sign an agreement that they won’t mind being run down by one of your trainee drivers lol!)

Cheap Business Training

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:25:00 +0000

As a business person, it is very important to attend trainings and conferences on business and business related issues to help you keep abreast with current trends, technologies and most importantly identify new business opportunities.It also prepares you to start a business and get better at it.

Fate foundation is organizing a Training on "Developing and Applying Negotiation Skills in Your Everyday Business: How to Win People and Businesses” .

Fee: N3000,
Date: 19th May 2010,
Venue: Fate Foundation, 1st Floor, Water House, Ijora Lagos.,
Time:1pm – 5pm

For more information on registration and other upcoming trainings, visit their website here:
http://www.fatefoundation.com/onlineSchedule.htm.

Make Money While you are on Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Tue, 04 May 2010 07:46:00 +0000

Introduction
Isn’t it a good idea to just go on vacation and still have money going into your bank account? This is the dream of all aspiring business men and exactly what most of the successful business people have in common. The good news is that it can be achieved in almost any business. Most people start a business so as to take control of their life so they can have more time and more money. 80% achieve the second goal but the rest end up making their own business another job. Exactly what they were running a way from!

What you stand to gain
The advantages of a system like this are countless.
• You get to spend more time with people you love,
• You share tasks in your business making it easier for all
• Other people do the hard work for you
• You can then channel your time to other things
• You can successfully run up to 5 businesses this way

Requirements
To successfully implement this concept in your business, you need to be very careful. Doing this incorrectly has ruined a lot of businesses. Some people have also lost their businesses to their subordinates. You need to have put some systems in place to tell your workers what to do and to check them to make sure the job is being done properly.

This will require a system of teaching people how the job is done (Training), Showing the business what to do in different situations (Policy), Directing the business to its ultimate goal (Strategic Plan), make sure the different tasks are being done correctly (Quality control) etc. There are two books I have read and dwell on this subject. The first one is Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
. This book lays the foundation of what components or systems a business needs to be successful. The Second book is The E-Myth Revisited by Micheal Greber. This one goes into details with a very vivid example on how to structure a business for success. This two books are recommended if you want to start and grow your business successfully.

Has it been done before?
Yes it has been done successfully in a lot of businesses around you. Take a look at the big businesses, the banks, the telecoms companies etc, do you think the owners of the business need to come to work? That is exactly what they do.

They start a business, train other people to run the business and then go home and maybe start another business tomorrow. It could be you.

If you decide to take that step today, there are some ready-made businesses that can start you off very fast on this route and make sure that in a few years or less, you could retire. The challenge is in the first 1-3years. Once you get it right, you may not need to work again.

Affiliate Programs
In this program where a business pays you for referring someone else to them and the person makes a purchase. All you have to do is just to promote that business. The internet has made it very easy for a lot of companies. There are several internet affiliate programs like Commission Junction (Various Products), Amazon (Books) etc. A search on google for affiliate programs will show you many more. Most affiliate programs are free to join.

Network Marketing (MLM)
This is where products are promoted through a network. The beauty of Network marketing is that you only concentrate on recruiting (introducing) a certain number of people you know to the network and then teach them to do the same thereby creating a network. You get a percentage paid for all your referrals and your referral’s referral. Some go deeper than that. So basically, you work for a certain period then you stop.

You can get more information on Network marketing here

Most Network Marketing businesses are not free to join.
These two types of programs are very attractive to start a business with because
• The business structure has been created for you, just bring customers and the company handles the rest from follow-up to closing the sale
• Its cheap or free to start and
• Your work hours are flexible, you work at your own time.

Well a lot of businesses now combine both types of systems in their marketing strategy. The idea is that a lot of people buy from a business if someone they know refers them there. Also why not pay people for not only referring people to your business but for also telling their friends to refer more people?. It works!

Conclusion
You don’t have to struggle with getting time for yourself from your business. There is a better way. You don’t also have to quit your current job to build your business. You can build a business in which you don’t have to be there for the business to run. This is the foundation of businesses that outlive their owners and create great wealth.

If you have can’t get the books, let know, I’ll get them for you. If you have any question or need help structuring your business, feel free to comment on this post, mail me (cagbakwuru@workabusiness.com) or drop a comment on The Business Man on facebook page.

Selling information as a Business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:14:00 +0000

Introduction
This just as the name suggests, selling information!. This can really be a very profitable business. Well it costs a little money to start but the rewards are very encouraging.

What its all about
Lets dream a little(Literarily) , what if you find a way of solving a problem for a lot of people? then you put it in a book and advertise it. How many responses do you think you would get?

That is the foundation of this type of business - you give people information of exactly what they want. That was the easy part.

How do you know what people want?
This is the hard part. This part actually accounts for 80% of your success in this business. I have written an article on this subject. It will help you brainstorm. Click here to read it.

Similarly, people also search for what they want on the internet. There are a few tools available to help you. Try the Google Adwords keyword tool or Wordtracker for free or Keyword Elite for a little fee. The Paid tool makes it extremely easy for you to accurately amass a large number or hot keywords.

Generally, there must be something you know very well that most people don't(Invent or learn one if their is none).

Gather the Information
Now that you know what people want, get the information about it. You could research on the subject, attend seminars and trainings or even learn about it. Keep you eyes and ears open, buy related magazines etc. The information you want may just be as easy as talking to your neighbor!

Package the Information
There are many ways of delivering your information. You could put them in CDs, DVDs, electronic books, hard copy paper books, Magazines, Membership Websites, Workshops etc.

Now from experience, do yourself a favor, go with the ebook for now. The hassles are far less when compared to the others.

How do you write and ebook?
There are different formats but the easiest is the Portable Document Format(PDF). This is as simple as writing and typing out your information in form of a book and converting it to PDF. There are different software available for this. Download this one free. Now your ebook must not be as long as 200 pages (of course that would be appreciated) but the focus of an ebook is to go straight to the point on any issue. Don't forget that. So it could be as short as 5 pages!.

Selling your ebook
This is where you make money. If you are in Nigeria, the most effective form of advertising for your ebook is on the Newspapers. The logic is simple, people who buy Newspapers, are the type of people who would buy and read your ebook. Facebook is really catching on but the challenge with that is you need to create a webpage where people who clicked on your advert would be sent to.

You now pray that your page would be convincing enough for people to take action, like buying your ebook etc. This is risky if you are not good at writing webpage sales letters.

After deciding how you want to go about that, you now have to write your advert. Don't start writing- wait!, its not that easy. Please go to http://www.adcopywriting.com and spend at least 1hr on that site to learn how to write sales letters and adverts. The site is very straight to the point and interesting. My first advert got me more than 600 responses in one day!.

The most popular Newspapers in Nigeria are This Day, The Punch and The Guardian. Don't mind my advertising them, its true.

Also, the bigger the advert, the more effective it is but to get things started , keep your budget to NGN20,000.

Lets go with the Punch. Visit them, design and get your advert running.

One more thing, for people to check out your advert and respond effectively, you have to sound too good to be true. Yes, ridiculously interesting but NOT MISLEADING or PLAIN LIES at the same time. You need to practice a lot to get this right. You don't want to get 100 people paying for a "bigger bank account" while you end up giving them "a list of banks in Nigeria". This will land you in Jail.

Setting up your Selling System
What to Put in your Advert
Because of space, you may not be able to write much in your advert so I suggest you use an autoresponder. Use only the most important words in your advert. There are various autoresponders available. Please see my 5 day Tutorial on How to Setup and Use an Autoresponder Effectively.

The Autoresponder is simply a service that responds by an email automatically to customer request for information. In your autoresponder, you have to create a letter, describing your product and how it will solve your customer's problems and most importantly, it must describe how your customer can order(your bank details and how to notify you of payment) and get the ebook(by email or by download).

How to Receive your payment
Get a bank account. If you can't get a corporate account, use your personal account. People like to trust people with "faces" - they like to associate your face to your product. If you are outside Nigeria and your product is international, you could use a Paypal account

How to Deliver your Product
Since we are selling an ebook, the easiest way to deliver your ebook, is by attaching it to an email and saving it in your draft messages. Once you receive a payment notification, you just go to your email and send the email to the customer.

Conclusion
This is a business you can start with ease. In Nigeria today and all over the world, so many people are looking for the way out of the financial crisis, so many people that lost their jobs and business need answers that work. why don't you provide this information?
If you are not in Nigeria, you can modify this to what what works in your country but the concept is still the same whether you sell cars or information about cars.

If you've got any questions, just comment on this or contact me.

Make extra cash Doing Laundry for people at home

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:34:00 +0000

Introduction
This is another business that doesn’t require much to start. It’s like this, get a customer (maybe your neighbor), go to his house at the weekend and wash his clothes using his own water, clothes rail and soap!

I must say t requires a lot of strength- it is manual labour. The other down side of it is that you can’t charge as much as the drycleaner-you are using the man’s materials!.

Getting Customers
The process required to get customers in this business is similar to that in the Private Home tutor Business. Please review it here

What you need.
Just fill up your stomach and try to very humble. I’m guessing you know how to wash clothes. Just like in all business, always make sure you have the right personality. Click here

Well that’s about it.

From here, you need to decide where you want to go. You may not make a lot of money doing this but if you employ more people, you could make more. From here, you could then go for a full scale drycleaning business.

This business may not appeal to a lot of people but if you have ever been broke and frustrated, this could put food on your table and keep you from robbery.

Re: How Lucrative is Bulk SMS business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 02:33:00 +0000

Bulk SMS business is all about sending large number sms messages at very reduced prices.

Making money from it depends on which part of the business you want to enter into. If you decide to go for the reseller option(cheaper option), your success will depend on ur market.

My brief survey of the providers show a trend; its cheaper to buy my sms units.
Check out the pages of some of the dealers
http://www.aratext.com/pricing
http://www.signonsms.com/price_list.asp
http://www.smslive247.com/
http://www.50kobo.com/
http://www.etextmail.com/
http://www.bbnsms.com/
http://www.signonsms.com/price_list.asp

The setup is simple, get a website and integrate your site with the sms services from some of the websites or just create an account on any of the sites above and send your sms from their website, this way you don't have to get a website. You then concentrate on getting customers.

What is your strategy? how do you get customers to use ur service?...this is the crux of the matter.

With the pricing(I'v not seen any one cheaper than N2 per sms), you need to really get a lot of people to use your service for you to make any money.

The good news is that setting up the website is something you pay for once. The maintenance costs are very minimal(below N10,000 per annum).

The bottom line is this, all businesses can either be lucrative or not, its up to the business person. You need to upgrade your marketing skills both online and offline.

Make Money from Private Home Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 10:53:00 +0000

This is one of the small businesses you can start with very little or no cash capital. In Nigeria today, one of the most pressing issues is that of securing admission into higher institution. Nigerian publics schools are not doing greatly in this area and the private schools are so costly that they are not for the majority of the population. This means that there will always be a demand for private tutorials.

Requirements

A Sharp Brain
Well, to tell you the truth, you need to be good academically, for this. This will show in the quality of Results your students turn out and ensure people trust you and your business with more students. You don’t even need to know every topic, you could teach just one subject.

Business Card / Flyer
This shouldn’t be too fanciful or costly-you could do the flyers for now. You could just type your information on your computer and print on A4 sheets of paper. Your aim is to make sure the information circulates as widely as possible not on the quality of the flyer.

Materials
You need books and resources like Secondary School Syllabus especially for UTME, WAEC , GCE etc. As for textbook, you could ask the parents of the students to provide that but you will still need to get yours at home to prepare you lessons.

Perseverance
The “will to go on” especially when things are not working out. Believe me, you need this 100% even if you haven’t got the rest 100%.

Getting Customers
To get customers or parents to allow you into their house to teach their kids, they’ve got to see you as someone of credibility. The big problem is how to get them to trust you that much.
Now this is where your church comes in. This might be a good time to start going to church and participating in church activities. Now the strategy is for you to introduce yourself and business after the Church service. Don’t forget to distribute your flyer / business card)

Look Good
Your success in this business will depend largely on your personality. People will decide to give you their kids based on their impression of your personality and appearance plays a significant part. You need to always look good to enhance your personality. I don’t mean you should always wear costly clothes but aim to always be smartly and appropriately dressed.

Deliver the Goods
This is by far the most important part. Make sure you put in your best and teach. This is the deciding factor for your business. If it’s a topic that you are not so sure of, get help. The result will always show.

Don’ts
I don’t need to tell you to behave yourself. Keep away from the usual temptations like indulging the kids when the parents are not available, dating your female students etc.

Conclusion
This business is a very interesting and challenging one but it could really pay off. I remember turning down and offer to teach mathematics for a 2 hours for N2,500 on each day I show up. N2500 in two hours?! Think about it.

From here
The business doesn’t have to stop there, you could go ahead to rent a place and open for business, expand your number of courses/subjects, teach just computer appreciation(that’s another hot business), Creating and Selling tutorial CDs and DVDs, books etc.

Am I crazy to start a business?

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:53:00 +0000

Hi

I briefly looked at this topic over the weekend. Read more on the personal challenges a Business man needs to go through in starting a business. Read more here http://hubpages.com/t/12f366

There is Money to be made in Events Centers

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:24:00 +0000

The other other day by Alausa Ikeja in Lagos and looking out my window I saw the little park around the State Secretariat. Well it wasn't the first time but it suddenly hit me; one can actually make money with an empty well landscaped and decorated piece of Land!

Let’s face it, Lagos or even every where u go, people always want to have an event and would do anything (including pay anything) for the best event center.

It’s very simple to setup
Just buy the land, a plot should do for start, plant trees. You could mix it up with pines and umbrella trees. While the trees are growing you could rent Plastic/artificial trees.

If you can, you could include fancy lights in the flowers
Get a Landscaper to do the flowers. Nothing too fancy for now but it must be beautiful.

Do some Concrete seats. But you could start with plastic seats for now

The main costs will be
-cost of renting chairs (your guest could bring theirs or rent from someone you know)
-Cost of landscaping
-Cost of land (a plot), this is the hard part but even in rural areas (where land is cheaper), people still party!
-Toilet Facilities, you don’t want to start something like that without that but this should come later
-Cost of paying the Center Manager (this is just a guy with the keys to the gate)he doesn't have to be very educated but focus on excellent customer relationship skills
- You don’t even need to fence the place (you can have your flowers for that)

Even if you open only weekends, the cheapest place I’ve seen is about 25k for a whole day. Think about it. You can’t just have a plot of land and let it waste.

Seriously, if you have one and don’t know what to do with it, just let me borrow it and in one year you’ll want to eject me from your land.

For a full business plan on this idea or any other one just contact me.

Drinking and Relaxation / Entertainment Bar Business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:58:00 +0000

Do you know that people always drink? No matter the situation, people especially the young professionals always have a a favorite drinking spot. The best part of this is that people drink even more when things are bad. Just think about it for a minute, do you know how much is consumed everyday in different joints, bars, parties and clubs throughout the country?

At the going rate of N200 for a bottle of star, and an estimate using just one bar with 50 guests during a football match ; assuming each guest take a bottle(which is really below real expectations); we'll have 50x200 = N10,000 ! for just one evening.
If you spend 1,500 on fuel and all other things being equal the business is lucrative.

Requirements
1 freezer(100k plus) and a Standing see-through refrigerator(80k plus) -The drinks have to be chilled, hot beer is dangerous to your health and your business

Power supply
Forget about Public Power Supply (PHCN), prepare to run on Generators 24/7(between 30 and 50k). If you get public power, it would be an added bonus

Premises Set-up
Basically you need a single room(Rent at about 100k per annum) for storage of crates, housing your freezers(You could get a reliable supply of ICE BLOCKs for now), modify a part of it to look like a bar where u can serve drinks over the counter. Then just outside the building, you can arrange for plastic seats, tables and Canopies depending on the weather. You can also store the seats after closing in the building. It doest have to be romantic or beautiful. People usually know where to go when they get romantic.

Initial Drinks supply
Looking at the market, people drink more of Star and Smeroff Ice brands. You have to focus on buying more of these. From the estimate above, you could need at least 50 bottles which is just 2 crates only!
So if you could buy 3crates of Star, 2 Crates of the rest (Smiroff, Guiness Stout, Heiniken, Gulder, Maltina, Coke/fanta and I carton of big Juice)

Personnel
You need a Manager to oversee your bar man(You could be him for now but personally, I wont want to be around, I'd rather use my time for something else as far as my money goes into my account)

You need a bar man to serve the drinks
1. to some guest directly who come to the counter
2. to your attendants (busty ladies! sex sells people!)

You need (uniformed busty) ladies to take orders from customers(may be 2 for now), fill their orders and account to the bar barman at the end of the day or before collecting a new set of drinks for another order

You need two guys or one to carry crates and bounce where necessary

Total staff 6

If you can find an Aboki to locate a suya spot(berbercue) close by, your in business.
Another way could be to find someone who prepares pepper soup or any other delicacy that you could arrange a part of your out fit for her/his equipment.

Getting Customers
Yes you need a sound system..just make some noise and share flyers at a popular school or event near you. Also drop your fliers in banks and public places.

To keep start-up low and cheap, you could start and open only weekends or evenings

Other strategies
Make sure your attendants collect your money

Use very big glass cups. The idea is that the guest empties his drink at once into the cup...he would surely buy more

Try to get a TV and Hi TV..this could come later but it will boost sales especially during games.

Get the business registered as a limited liability company...trust me you don't want to get sued or pay for any issue that arises form the business with you personal assets.

and in the long term
You could consider the other aspects of the hospitality and entertainment industry like attaching a hotel to the joint....getting a comedian to entertain your guests maybe once a month or a week. The same can also be done with a professional dancer or singer.

This is just a teaser for the full report which will be available shortly at http://www.workabusiness.com/index.php?link=business_oppurtunities

Ladder Rental

noreply@blogger.com (Chidozie Agbakwuru) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:48:00 +0000

A few years back, when I was living with my uncle, I was once asked to go and hire a ladder from a neighbor. When I got there I saw some other people there and on enquiry, I discovered that they all wanted to hire the same ladder. Unfortunately, the owner was nowhere to be found.

That opened my eyes to another business opportunity.
Renting at N200 per day was quite affordable for the normal cheap ladder. If your ladder is hired twice a week, you have 200x2= N400 and in a month N1600. In a year you will have made 1600x12 = 19200. So assuming you bought your ladder for 15k, you would have made a profit of 4k. It is not a big business but if you multiply it....in 3 locations....with costlier types of ladders..or if your in a very high construction area....it could really pay off. Why I love it is, it is a business you can just start and the business runs on its own.

Requirements
A good ladder. You could ask a carpenter to make one for you or you could buy an industrial type of ladder like the one used by fire men or for climbing Electric Power Poles. The cost ranges from 15k to 75k.

Premises Set-up -You just need a space to keep your ladder. If you cant find a warehouse or where to shield the ladder from the weather (rain, sun etc) you need to also get ready to replace the ladder soon.

Personnel
One person is required to make sure the customer fills a form(giving his full address phone numbers, email, guarantor) and signs the hiring/lease agreement(this is necessary to ensure u don't get into trouble with injuries and insurance) before releasing the ladder. It could be necessary for your members to register with you first with a security deposit in case your ladder disappears. If don't do this, you may have to make sure you know each person you lend your ladder to.

Total staff 1

Getting Customers
Advertise in your local church bulletins, posters by the road side(very effective), flyers, having a sign outside your door, Talking to people at construction sites around you. etc

Other strategies
Make sure you collect your money before the Ladder is hired

Get ready to buy different types and sizes of ladders to serve different customers

This business thrives well in areas with a high level of development

Keep the price cheap

and in the long term
You could consider renting more related equipment to customers.

The best part of this business is that the ladder could last for as long as 7 years.