Thousands of people around the world enjoy blogging, and most think of it as a small hobby that they couldn’t hope to live on; but it’s surprisingly easy to turn your blog into a modest, successful small business. There are already plenty of blogs that discuss Google Ads and affiliate marketing, so we’ll focus on how to make your monetization strategy (whichever you choose) more profitable. There are no “dirty tricks” here—these are all tips to make a blog that is both useful to your readers and attractive to legitimate advertisers.

1. Find a niche

For your blog to attract the attention of users, advertisers, and search engines, you need to select a theme; ideally, one that isn’t already populated with big-time sites. For instance, if you want to start a generic cooking blog, you’ll be competing with thousands of others, including giants like Betty Crocker and The Food Network, and your blog will never get past the twilight zone of page 8 on Google. If you select some specific, underserved niche, however, you’ve got a shot at reaching people.

Before you nail down your blog’s theme, do a bit of Googling on the topic. Check to see how many people are searching for key words related to that topic, and what pops up on Google’s front page. If very few people are searching for that specific niche, you’ll struggle to bring in traffic; but if the key words are bringing in a healthy amount of searches, and you’re competing with other small personal blogs, you’ve got a good shot at topping the Google rankings and becoming an important source of information on that topic.

2. Create user-friendly content

This is more than just “writing well”, although that is important (and could be a blog post all to itself). People read online content differently than they read books and magazines, so you need to modify how you write to suit an online audience. Follow these tips:

• Break up your content: Reading long blocks of uninterrupted text is harder online than it is in print, so you need to separate your content. Select the best funny videos or images related to your topic and use them to chop up your content into smaller, easy-to-read pieces.
• Numbered Lists: You’ve probably seen a lot of “Top 10” lists on the web recently, and that’s because it really does draw more traffic than content posted in other formats. Numbered lists provide an easy way to organize and simplify your content so that busy readers know what they’re getting into before they click
• Keep it brief: With few exceptions, most online readers lose interest after about 1000 words, so if your post is longer than that, you might consider a more focused topic, or breaking up your post into installments.

3. Get Connected!

This is by far the most important way to start pulling traffic and getting money from your advertisements. Find successful bloggers (or better yet, a blog network) that is related to your niche, and offer to guest post on their sites.  Don’t be afraid to submit high-quality content in guest posts; you might feel like you’re sacrificing good work, but it’s a small price to pay for the awareness it will create for you and your blog. At the bottom of each guest post, most bloggers will allow you to include a link to your blog; and that’s how you’ll bring in users and start earning real ad revenue.

As you cultivate relationships and continue creating trustworthy, quality content, other bloggers will begin linking to your site on their blogs, increasing traffic directly and improving your Google ranking. Keep expanding your network, reaching out to more and more blogs and establishing connections. It’s this growing network that will draw in ever-increasing traffic to read your posts, click your ads, and bring in revenue.

About the Author: Tiffany Ganttis a staff writer for ApronAddicts.com, a website dedicated to the love of cooking and looking good while you do it! You can often find her getting creative in the kitchen as she whips up something yummy in one of her flirty, color coordinated aprons.

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Post tags: Blogging, Business Ideas, Make Money Online, Online Business, Online Income, Small Scale Business, Tips & Tricks

Improving productivity and profit

One of the most important things to remember in running an efficient business is to ensure that your company provides a quality service or product at a fair price.  In other words, don’t charge exorbitant fees just to make a buck.  Your customers know you need to make a profit, but a fair price with excellent customer service goes a really long way.  Here are some ways to improve productivity and profit overall.

1. Get online.  You’ll be hard-pressed to find a company that doesn’t already have an Internet presence.  Getting online allows customers easy access to your business 24-hours a day, seven days a week.
2. Maximize networking.  Participate in business organizations to make connections.  This may even open the doors to potential partnerships, investment opportunities, and growth.
3. Join forces.  Working with complementary businesses can be a real win-win situation.  Drive traffic to each other’s sites; engage in link and ad swaps, and work together to promote each other.  It’s effective and cost-efficient. 

Ensure smooth running

Do you know what the first step in having an efficient business is?  It’s to hire good employees.  You should be able to depend on your employees – they should know what they’re doing, what your product or service is, and be a good reflection on you.  Here are some things to help keep your business running smoothly:

1. The atmosphere.  The atmosphere at work has a big impact on how smoothly your business operates.  Make sure that the workspace is clean and welcoming.  A friendly yet professional feel can go a long way for both your customers and staff.
2. Continual training.  The direction of your business can definitely shift over time.  That means your staff’s tasks can as well.  It’s a good idea to engage in periodic training to make sure everyone is on the same page.
3. Keep updated records.  Make sure you document everything.  That means if you run a promotion, note it.  If you make updates to your website, document it.  Keep your files up to date.

Hire an Umbrella Company

There is no doubt about it, as a business owner you will typically have more responsibilities than you have time.  Running a small business takes a lot: marketing, human resources, advertising, management, and so forth.  So, what can you do to make the most of your time and resources?  Many small businesses actually hire umbrella companies.  An umbrella company can provide a number of benefits and services including, but not limited to:

• Finance management
• Accounts receivable and accounts payable services
• Human resource management
• Payroll services
• Private medical coverage and additional insurance
• Marketing and advertising services
• Business connections

Using an Umbrella Company can free up valuable time, and allow you to concentrate on making your business a successful venture. Do not expect all your problems to be instantly solved once your business is up and running; owning your own business is time-consuming and involves lots of hard work.  Ensure you employ reliable staff, and take advantage of all business opportunities offered to you. With the right time and dedication your business is sure to be a success.

About the author: Katie G. enjoys writing articles on business related topics especially small businesses.

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There is a tool i just found out and it was created by a Google engineer. Google engineers are given opportunities to personally pursue projects as per ideas they conceived. It was during this moment of opportunity that this Google engineer created this feature.

This tool is the browser size tool

The feature helps to discover generally how much of your website is easily visible to readers. Websites appear differently to readers because of the sizes of their monitor screens, the browsers, the toolbars installed and so on. Thus some very important part of your website might not be easily visible to some readers unless they scroll down or sideways the page. Believe me some visitors do not bother to scroll through your page.

This I find very useful to website owners; especially if you have adverts or donate button positioned in places on your website. After checking out your website with this tool, you might want to reposition that advert so that it can be easily seen and clicked by visitors. Isn’t this a lovely revelation?

But you interested in how I found this out?

I made a call to a friend asking him to check out my website and make a comment on the design. He reported back to me that my website was okay but that it had just 2 Google adverts by Google and suggested I should include a last one allowable by Google. I replied that i had all 3 ads on the site. He checked again but this time he had to scroll the page before he could see the website. I immediately noticed and recognized this problem and jumped into the Google search engine to search for how I can correct this issue.

But then I decided to find out first how my website does look like to readers and boom………I bumped into this wonderful tool.

Whenever you are at the newspaper stand, you will see the front page headlines at the top of the newspapers before anything else. You won’t see the bottom headlines of some newspapers because it is folded. This is why adverts placed at the top of newspapers are more expensive than their counterparts placed below. This is also the same concept of how a website appears to the visitors at first sight.

So go check up your blog or website now and see if there are things that are hidden but you need to be visible on first look. Go to www.browsersize.googlelabs.com. Once you get there, type in your website url and you have a view of what we are talking about here.

About the author: Jide is an internet publisher. He publishes in hubpages and he also publishes jobs in jobnetworknigeria, a job platform where job searchers finds new jobs in Nigeria.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogging, Tips & Tricks, Website Traffic, Wordpress

Getting started

Log-in your Google+ account and scroll down to “Create a Google+ page button. On this page, you will see a menu which has many categories. Click Company, Institution or Organization button to create your business page. On this page, you will get a form to fill. Enter page-name, your website (optional) and then select a category in which your company deals. After filling these infos, you will get an option to choose to whom your page would be visible. Further, read the Page terms and click “agree to the page terms” and proceed.

Upload images and videos

Now Google Plus asks to upload images for the page. A nice tweak we get here is that the picture can be modified a bit with the help of the Creative Kit. Once this is done, the user is ready to go.

It is not yet over!

Google+ has an option to share the news of the creation of the page. But, thinking in a wise manner, some more work is yet to be done. It is advisable to add some photos or add photo albums to the page of the website. On doing this, it is better to share those albums and share it with people.

The photos can be automatically viewed in the photos section of the profile page. Now the “About Us” section is to be filled up. It should have a brief and precise description of the page and the website is to be setup. Here also, photos can be uploaded to be much more informative.

Detailing

In the “Contact Us” section, the address of the website can be given so that people can easily hover directly to the official website. Phone number, address can also be given so that people can contact easily in times of need. After all this if the user still thinks of hoping of getting some more publicity, then he can go for adding videos on the page.

After all this is done, the user can go and readily share on Google Plus about the publishing of the page to different circles like friends and acquaintances.

Finally Over….

All of this may have seemed a lengthy session, but doing this is just a matter of couple of minutes.

About the author: Margaret is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on automotto and technology. Beside this she is fond of books. She recently did an article on automotto. These days she is busy in writing an article on mobile phones.

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It is not uncommon to hear tense words, or undesirable comments, from an employer while the potential customer is keeping a watch. You may ignore the short ‘discussion’ as a momentary outcome of an unfavorable situation, but the customer has a smart insight of what actually goes on in the company which engages in such type of workforce. He/she may not even proceed to see your best (of the best) power-point presentation, or the balance sheet, to derive a conclusion.

Some of the customers can even feel otherwise to roll back with bag and baggage. Truly, they are not supposed to be blamed if they feel offended.

Pressure is predictable, so can be the customer

Pressure is inevitable to any business, but handling the pressure is crucial to avoid the bad vibes from entering the ‘front room’. Whether it is exchange of words or gestures, all speak disapprovingly of the business (and those involved in the business).

Customers look forward to having long-term relationships in business, and disapprovals can be red flags. Some customers can go beyond being mute spectators of undesirable interactions between an employer and the employee; their revelation that such acts are unacceptable should be considered warning signals. The revelation can come as withdrawal from a potential deal which could have delivered successfully (but for the ‘front room’ episode).

Studies on the subject indicate that there is considerable damage from employees who quarrel in front of customers. The study, which was led by US academic Valerie Folkes, found that 92% of the surveyed customers who had been witness to an uncivil gesture (between an employer and its employee) showed pessimism about the company and its services. About 50% of them revealed less willingness to purchase the services (or goods) of the company. The reluctance to deal with such a company diverts business elsewhere.

Bad vibes can go beyond tumbling sales data

Somebody’s loss is other’s gain. Customers shifting business due to lack of solidarity between employers and their employees can emerge more a problem in the near future. Customers pay due attention to how employees interact before arriving at a conclusion on the company and its brand.

A company may spend resources liberally to train its workforce regarding welcome gestures to be adopted when dealing with potential customers. However, a small mistake on sight can potentially upset all the efforts and training sessions. The message is clear – nobody wants to indulge in companies which mistreat their staff, or adopt undesirable gestures of expression.

Moreover, the damage is not limited to customers. Employees also feel incredible damage to their self-esteem when mishandled in front of others. The humiliation can reduce motivation and reap negativity within the family (of employer and its employees). This can reflect (adversely) on the company’s sales data and productivity.

A cultural version

The Feng Shui, which is an ancient art and science developed by the Chinese, is implemented for balancing the energies to assure health and good fortune. Another Chinese term, shar chi, is used to refer to negative vibrations. Over time, negative energy can build up in an atmosphere arising out of conflict, tension and stress. Declining productivity and profitability are indicators of negative vibrations in an atmosphere.

A matter of choice

With increasing job insecurity, slower wages growth and rising living cost, the matter may turn uglier if left unattended. It is desirable that organizations adopt a healthy perspective of criticizing their workforce which does not yield unfavorably. Encouraging cultural diversity among workers can work favorably. Organizations can employ workforce belonging to different age-groups to inculcate a healthy workforce. Successful enterprises give the liberty of unbiased positivity, which magnifies manifold and also gets revealed in a strong customer base, with flourishing productivity.

About the author: Margaret is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on autos and technology. Beside this she is fond of books. She recently did an article on polar graph paper. These days she is busy in writing an article on bonhams.

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Simple yet powerful

Whatever may be the business type but online visitors always want things which are easy to find and easy to use. Easy and simple GUI of business portals makes comfortable browsing experience. But users with diverse background and changing technology make this task difficult. However, keeping generalized things in mind and building a business portal according to that requires updated knowledge and technology which makes website more user’s friendly.

Focusing on navigation

Site navigation is a crucial task for creating a successful website. Navigating users throughout the website depends on how well your navigation skills used in a website design. Generally, websites must include easy main navigation bar, proper tabs, consistent look and feel and should always let customers know their current location on a site. Make sure the keywords and phrases in website navigation are relevant to its work.

Images & Icons

To grab user’s attention towards website, it is necessary to include images and icons. An important point but often misguided: people always want to see themselves in your business. Images and icons are always preferred while connecting online people. Instead of text images and icons are user friendly.

Create better about page

Mostly, people ignore or do not concentrate sufficient enough in making of About Page. Most of them just show some bio information, address and some images. Some of them thought that no one is interested in about page. But remember an about page of a website can make or break its working. This page decides whether to gain trust on your business, customers learn working of your business and see what business is about.

Update your blog

Sometimes bringing users or customers back to your business portals is not that easy. By spending some time in updating blog, creating new posts that shows your business insight, solving online consumer problems and sharing your thoughts on business helps in getting your customers or users back to your portal. Posting on your blog not only attracts users to your portal but also it helps in finding your business portal in search engine with updated things.

Summary

In recent years web domain is on high demand. With increase in globalization and generalization, people are getting engaged in international market and trying to extend their business across the globe. So, building proper website and making them more user friendly is an important task.

About the author: Margaret is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on environment and technology. Beside this she is fond of books. She recently bought a  one wheel motorcycle. These days she is busy in writing an article on mimeo.

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 If you’re just staring out and working hard to develop your small business, you probably already spend a lot of your day glued to your iPhone, BlackBerry smart phone, Samsung Galaxy, or Android phone. So using technology as a partner in business isn’t foreign to you. That’s great news because there are thousands of apps on the smart phone market that can help make the life of an entrepreneur even more convenient. Business owners need to be connected at all times. A deal can go down in the middle of the night or a problem can occur when you’re in another country, so your smart phone is really a lifeline to your businesses prosperity.

The following 5 apps for entrepreneurs are, in my opinion as a business owner, irreplaceable. I use them frequently throughout the day to make business deals, keep track of important projects, touch base with my clients, and even to get paid.

1. Start Up Checklist (for iPhone & iPad)

When I decided to quit my day job for a large corporate and start my own home-based business it’s an understatement to admit that I was scared. I needed a tool to help me set up my small business, a checklist of sorts that would guide me through the necessary things that I needed to get in order. That’s when I found the Start Up Checklist app! This app is a start up entrepreneur’s best friend and business ally. It features an easy to follow 36-step checklist for new business owners so they don’t forget about things like filing out certain tax forms, registering a business name, and etc.  With Start Up Checklist, you will find every government resource, grant, and professional tip you’ll need to strike out on your own. Plus, Start Up Checklist also donates 10% of all proceeds made from this app in support of small business loans around the world!

2. TimeMaster + Billing (for iPhone & iPad)

Another app that I rely on multiple times throughout the day, TimeMaster + Billing keeps me connected with my clients and gives both of us an overview of projects before, during, and after they are complete. This app is virtually a central time-tracker t at opens a secure, two-way communication portal between you and your client. This means clients can add inspirational photos, notes, instructions, emails from their team, and you can send draft copy, proofs, track your hours, and keep a running tally on the client’s budget so you don’t go over.  TimeMaster even automatically generates an invoice for you at the end of the project.

3. Bento (for iPhone & iPad)

I don’t care if you’re a newbie entrepreneur or a business novice with chains all over the globe, Bento is a unique task management database app that tracks your internal projects. So where task master gave the client a view, Bento keeps the work for internal eyes only—so you can add client notes, import pictures and video, brainstorm, forecast accounting costs, and communicate with your team securely and privately without the client seeing a thing.  Plus, Bento allows business owners to customize projects by fields such as task, project name, individual name, price, time, approaching due date, and etc. And if a project is due soon, Bento will send automatic reminders so Jim in writing gets the copy done and handed over to Sharon in design.

4. Square (Free – for Android)

Stuck in a client’s corporate jet to Madrid without your debit machine? Well Square is the smart phone app you need! Never get caught without a cash register again. This app virtually converts your Android phone into a payment accepting cash register using a dongle (or electronic key)—so you can instantly scan clients’ credit cards, transfer cash from one business account to another, or pay vendors from absolutely anywhere.

5. MightyMeeting (Free – for Android)

The MightyMeeting app keeps you looking client-ready—even when you’re not! The hero of all presentations, MightyMeeting lets you upload and store your multimedia and slide presentations, proofs, project files and marketing videos, and all speaker notes so you can access them anytime a meeting unexpectedly pops up. As long as you have access to Wi-Fi, 3G or a 4G wireless connection, you are presentation-ready!

 This is a guest post submitted by Melaine Gray of GoingCellular hope you enjoy it!

Author Bio: Melanie Gray is a writer for GoingCellular, a popular site that provides cell phone news, commentary, and reviews of popular providers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: iPad business app, iPhone business app

Since the public debate started, I have not been able to make up my mind which side of the debate to join. Sincerely speaking I couldn’t vote for removal of subsidy non removal. After listening to several public, private and expert speakers on the issue, I was more confused than before. Not that I possess a low IQ, but for the fact that each party were presenting facts and figures that do not agree.

I didn’t realize at first how serious the whole issue is, until about three days after when I started noticing the actual effect of the removal of fuel subsidy around me. The cost of transportation went over the roof. Several people that travelled to their remote villages to celebrate the holiday were stuck in the villages because they could no longer finance their trip back to the cities due to the sudden increase in transport fare.

When the labour union called for a strike action to protest the increase, I knew there was going to be trouble. The fuel stations shut down and there was immediate scarcity of fuel. At first, instead of buying petrol at N65 per litre, I bought at N80 per litre a day before the strike. As at today, eight days into the strike, I had to buy at N160 per litre. Some friends told me they but at N200 per litre.

Weighing the options all over again, I guess the issue is not choosing between removal or retaining fuel subsidy. The real issue is, what is wrong with our leadership? Why can’t we have honest men and women as leaders? Why all the corruption? It is only in Nigeria that thieves are celebrated and given honorary awards. It is time we say no to corruption and corrupt men and women wasting our resources and inflicting hardship on the masses.

I vote for removal of corruption in Nigerian government. In my humble opinion, that is the solution to the controversial Fuel Subsidy.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Corruption, Fuel Subsidy, Occupy Nigeria

Nigeria is 51!  We celebrate our fifty-one years of independence from colonial rule today. On 1st October, 1960 Nigeria was granted independence from colonial rule. Ordinarily, it is an occasion that warrants jubilation and celebration. But as I look around, I feel uncomfortable. While our leaders are busy wining and dining, people on the street are asking what is there to celebrate!

Proudly Nigerian

I have always insisted that there is enough reason to celebrate Nigeria’s Independence Day irrespective of the challenges we face as a nation. However, this year, it has been much more difficult convincing friends and relatives that there is reason to celebrate.

The pessimism about the future of my great nation seems to increase as the days go by. Even those who were formerly enthusiastic about the Nigerian Dream are no longer confidence that the change we desire will come in our lifetime.

They ask me the familiar question which is tough to answer. “In the face of unemployment, bad roads, deteriorating education system, corruption, hunger, lying leaders, pen robbery, kidnapping, militancy, religious intolerance, insecurity… what is there to celebrate?”

Well, I may not have a perfect answer. My answer may not satisfy all. But I believe we need to celebrate, and I indeed celebrate with my family. My reasons for insisting that we celebrate as Nigerians are as follows:

• The fact that it could have been worse, but for God’s mercy upon us as a nation.
• The fact that when there is life, there is hope of a better tomorrow!
• The fact that evil cannot triumph over good for ever, Nigeria shall rise again!

Remember, just before the dawn of a new day, is the darkest moment of the night! Nigeria will rise again! Nigeria will be great again!

To all Nigerians at home and abroad, I say a hearty HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! Long Live Nigeria!

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Nigeria, Nigerian

A Successful entrepreneur won’t have the same answer as you are having in your heart right now. Too many small business owners assume that the mission or goal of their business is to make money. If you set your eyes on making money, be rest assured that your business won’t last for long.

Businesses are practically packaged solution to people’s need. Businesses are meant to satisfy the need of individuals or organization. If that is the case, then making money cannot be the mission of a successful entrepreneur. An entrepreneur that aims at making money will only survive until an entrepreneur that aims at satisfying the need of customer comes around to dislodge him.

Customer Satisfaction Should Be Your Mission

Successful entrepreneurs often encourage their staff to aim for two things. First, attract customers. That is the whole essence of internet marketing and all the gimmicks internet marketers parade online. Everyone is trying to get the attention of customers. The competition for customers attention is very keen. Even though you have the capacity to satisfy the need of a market better than your competitor, your inability to attract the customer will make it impossible for you to prove that you are better!

The second goal is to satisfy the customer. Whatever you do, aim at satisfying your customers. A satisfied customer will safe you thousands of dollar in advertisement. His or her recommendation may earn you better return than you can ever get on paid advertisements. Also, a satisfied customer repeated patronage pays huge dividend which cannot be easily quantified. Instead of attempting to subtly grab a few hundreds of dollar from a prospect work at making the prospect a satisfied customer and watch him spend thousands of dollars in repeated sales while recommending your business to his friends.

Quality Customer Support Service Holds The Key!

Irrespective of how good a product or service is, poor customer support service will run the business down. People love to be treated with love, care and respect. Every human being is craving for attention. You will agree with me that everyone, including yours sincerely will love to be treated as Royalty.  When this fails, customer support service should come to the rescue.

To err is human, so it is not out of place for a business to fail in its bid to satisfy customers. However, whenever such failure occurs, customer support service personnel should spring into action to ensure that the mistake is remedied. Customer support service must ensure that the dissatisfied customer does not leave the business because of such failure. Everything should be done to redress and win back the customer’s confidence.

This is one area that small business owners in Nigeria need to look into. It has been discovered that too many big enterprises dump inexperience and ill-motivated personnel in their customer support service departments. Such personnel when attending to dissatisfied customers are often rude and abusive. Some even act as if they are doing such customers a favor. Instead of treating the customers as royalty, they actually demands subtly that the aggrieved customer be grateful that they are spending their precious time attending to such trivial complains. This is a golden opportunity for small business owners to tap into.

Give The Customer Royal Treatment and Watch Your Business Grow!

Since the market is already full of lots of aggrieved customers, take advantage of this! Build a first class Customer Support Service Department for your business. Ensure that the department is staffed with the best behaved, smooth talking, diplomatic, courteous staff you have. Explain to the personnel that they are the last hope of the company in retaining any aggrieved customer. So, their attitude should be such that a customer having come in contact with them will find it difficult to leave.

Get Feedback About Your Customer Service Department

If you really want to stay and grow in business. You need to get direct feedback from your customer on what your customer support service personnel are doing. You need to know if they are striving to keep customers for you or doing otherwise. Too many businesses have lost valuable customers because an aggrieved customer was not well attended to. Getting feedback from customer is not so difficult. You only need to be creative and you will be surprised that customers are willing to comment on how your staff treat them.

Reward Good Support Staff and Fire Bad Support Staff

It is your business, so be bold enough to reward good support staff and fire without hesitation any support staff that is killing your business. It is foolish to allow an arrogant and uncultured support staff to continue in your employment. Any staff that does not accept the fact that it takes the income from satisfied customer to keep the business running must be fired. Customers pay for satisfaction and it is the responsibility of any business that takes a customers money to provide such satisfaction or refund the money taken. As such, it is compulsory that every staff understand and agree to treat every customer like royalty.

This post was provoked by a recent experience I had with a business organization. Having failed in keeping their promise, their support service staff are acting as if they are doing me a great favor listening to my complain. If I were to have my way, I will recommend that the entire customer support service department of that business be overhauled, because their response to customers sucks!

Your business mission is to attract customers and satisfy them. Never forget that if you truly want to be a successful entrepreneur.

Do you have a story to tell about customer support service? Do you have a tip to share that will empower a small business owner? Please do so in a comment. Cheers

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2011. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Customer Care, Customer Support, Nigerian Entrepreneurs, small business, small business opportunity

Bulk Sms

I am not a Bulk SMS reseller. But I’m a heavy user of bulk SMS. I subscribed to one of the most reliable bulk SMS reseller and I have been enjoying their service until recently when I noticed that my sent messages were not getting delivered. I thought it was just a hitch in their system, so I went online and chatted with one of their representative.

Well, I was treated to a very good customer service and I thought that the situation will be rectified. Unfortunately, a week after, the same situation is still persisting. Over 60 percent of the messages I sent doesn’t get delivered and that was really embarrassing.

I was actually thinking of switching to another reseller because I was loosing money. Every time a message sent is not delivered, I loose the money spent on sending the message while at the same time I suffer the embarrassment of intended recipient of such message calling that they never got the message. That is not good for an entrepreneur like me. So I made up my mind to switch to another reseller. But the question on my mind was, which of the myriad of bulk sms reseller parading themselves as the best solution provider in the market should I subscribe to?

Should I join the bandwagon and become  a bulk sms reseller myself? After giving it a thought, I decided that I’m not ready for sms reseller business. I already have my hand full for now. I believe in giving my best in whatever I lay my hands on. Since I don’t have the time to commit to the business of reselling sms, then there is no point going into it for now. My good name is my greatest asset. So the option left is to subscribe to another bulk sms reseller.

Well, while searching for the best provider to subscribe to, I discovered that I’m not the only one complaining about undelivered messages. Some of my friends are complaining also. And funny enough, we subscribed to different bulk sms resellers. So that showed me that it wasn’t only my provider that was having hitches with their services, many more in the bulk sms business are experiencing the same.

Now, someone suggested that GSM operators in Nigeria are responsible for the undelivered messages! How true is that? Whenever, I send messages from my phone using the GSM operators (I have 3lines, MTN, Glo and Etisalat) the messages get delivered. However, when I send bulk SMS to the same operators some get delivered, while some don’t get delivered. A friend suggested that the GSM operators are sabotaging the business of bulk sms reseller. That sound ridiculous to me. But could it be true? There are too many questions and little comforting answers.

What has been your experience as a user of  Bulk SMS in the past one month? Do you have answer to the questions raised above? Kindly say in a comment. You might save a business by doing so. Thanks for reading. Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2011. | Permalink | 53 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bulk SMS, Entrepreneur, Nigerian, Online Business

If you talk to an entrepreneur and mention charity you would expect them to hiss like a snake and curl up into a ball, or is that just the entrepreneurs I talk to? Either way people rarely expect business and charity to mix well, one is about making money and the other is about giving it away.

Give A Car To Charity

But sometimes you can find the perfect angle. A way to make money while also making the world a better place. That may sound impractical, but a little bit of creativity makes it feasible.

Giveacar is a company that specializes in letting you donate your car to charity. Most people with an old car they don’t want any more tend to just get rid of it at any old price just to be rid of it. Giveacar takes the responsibility off the customer’s hands by finding the best price for the car and giving the proceeds to the charity of their choice.

The preferred charity is a matter of your choice. Irrespective of the charity you choose, an additional benefit is that you can have the peace of mind that you are contributing to a cleaner environment by allowing Giveacar to handle the proper recycling of your old car or van. It is on record that every year on average, just over 2 million cars and vans reach the end of their useful lives, and the average new car requires the energy equivalent of 1540 gallons of petrol to manufacture.

This is why Giveacar will either sell your car on to a dealership that will fix it up and get it back on the road for as long as possible, or have it drained of any hazardous fluids and stripped for parts and materials in a safe and environmentally friendly manner.

Whether you choose a charity for the environment, the poor, the blind or the sick, you make the world a greener place by putting your car to use somewhere instead of adding it to the heap at the junk yard.

It’s hard to argue with a company that makes money by supporting hundreds of charities across the UK through taking old cars and recycling them to save the environment. In the film Wall Street, Michael Douglas made that speech about how greed was good.

It’s businesses like Giveacar that show us that greed is not good, it just shows lack of creativity. There is a joy that you derive when you lend a helping hand to the needy. Giveacar can help you do just that. You can get more information by visiting their website at Giveacar. Cheers.

I sure look forward to when a successful entrepreneur will implement this concept in my country. It is actually possible to make money while making the world a better place. You only need a bit of creativity to merge the two goals together.

Note: This post is not a paid review, it was born out of my chat with Daniel of Giveacar who visited this site. This piece is my idea of spreading the knowledge that entrepreneur is not just about making money, what you actually do with what you have determines how successful you really are! Feel free to drop your thought in a comment.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: charity, donate, Entrepreneur, GiveACar, make money

1. Using dot NG will enable organizations and individual to use domain names that are otherwise not available. For example, while it might be impossible (or uneconomical, due to high pricing) to purchase short and memorable names that had already been taken up by the early birds, it is now possible to have same using .ng.com or .org.ng as the case may be.  For example, you can’t get www.love.com, but you can easily purchase www.love.com.ng
2. The use of NG will easily identify a domain as belonging to a Nigerian business or entrepreneur.
3. Search engines may rank dot NG domains higher for subjects relating to Nigeria.

While those arguments sounds logical, only the first argument really  holds ground. Even though this website is registered as .com, yet it is well identified as a Nigerian website because the content focuses on Nigerian Entrepreneurs and issues pertaining to Nigerians. Also, search engines will list Wikipedia first before any other website if it has sufficient content to cover an issue even if the issue is 100% Nigerian.

In order words, while it is desirable to have a short and memorable domain name, I don’t buy the idea that registering my website as .ng is of any advantage to ranking in SERP. In order words, calling your website www.nigeria.com.ng does not guarantee you traffic from Nigerian web users.

If you write or provide information that Nigerian web users need, they will come seeking for your site. It doesn’t matter if it was named www.nigeria.co.uk.

Also, many web users are “lazy” and “hasty” they often ignore the prefix that follows the dot. So they end up typing .com at the end of any url they put in their browser.  So registering www.love.com.ng may not be an effective method of sharing from the traffic of www.love.com.

The only reason why I will subscribe to using dot NG is because it is Nigerian and I’m Proudly Nigerian.  I won’t assume that buying a domain name that contains dot NG will increase my traffic. Well, that is my candid opinion. I’m waiting to hear your argument in favor or against the use of dot NG. Cheers.

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2011. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Government workers in Nigeria are getting excited about the newly approved minimum wage of 18,000naira. Does this really call for jubilation? I’m not trying to be pessimistic, but I personally feel that what Nigerian workers need is not a new statutory minimum wage. They will be better off if the government focus her attention on arresting the factors responsible for eroding the purchasing power of the workers income. If the present attitude of our leaders in maintaining the social infrastructures continues, the newly approved statutory minimum wage will have less than the purchasing power of the old 7,500naira minimum wage.

It is not the volume, but the value!

I personally feel that everyone would have been better off, if government has concentrated on improving the supply of electricity and repairing the roads. Those two factors alone cost an average worker thousands of naira per month. so much fund is wasted from each workers income as they struggle to provide energy using petrol generator.  The cost of transportation is also high because commercial vehicle owners pay heavily for maintenance of their vechicle due to bad roads and poor road networks.

Will The State Government Pay?

The state governments are already crying foul over the federal government action. They claim they can’t afford to pay the new minimum wage. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to us, knowing fully well that some are owing their workers more than one month salary (at the old minimum wage rate). How on earth do we think such states will be able to pay their workers the new minimum wage which is more than 100percent increase on the old rate.

Will The Private Sector Pay The New Minimum Wage?

The private sector will now have to contend with disgruntled workers who will be expecting automatic increase in their salary because of the pronouncement of the Federal government. Unfortunately, many workers in private organisation will be dissappointed. Such automatic increase in salary is not realistic. Presently, a lot of private firm are having challenges with running their operations on diesel driven generator, because there is a hike in the price of diesel. Unlike before when a litre of disel sold for 110naira, now it goes for as much as 140naira per liter. That is a sudden increase in overhead expenditure.

Just two months into the new year and there are already many challenges for the Nigerian Entrepreneur to combat with. Unfortunately, our leaders are too pre-occupy with the April election to bother about the state of the economy. They are not helping matters in any way as their reckless spending is putting pressure on the economy. The warning from the Central Bank of Nigeria on the need for the executive to cut down on recurrent spending seems to be falling on deaf ears.

Nigerian entrepreneurs need to re-strategize in order to cope with the unforeseen result of these government policies. Every wise entrepreneur need to watch his/her overhead expenditure this year. It is obvious that there are challenges ahead. What is your opinion about the new minimum wage?

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2011. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Nigerian, small business, Wage

Happy New Year 2011

I’m looking up to Jesus the author and finisher of my faith. He says ALL SHALL BE WELL this year!

© NaijaEcash for Nigerian Entrepreneur, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Happy New Year