NIGERIAN ENTREPRENEUR

The Right Computer For Your Business

2009-06-20T00:37:00.001-07:00

If you want to know how to choose the right computer for your business, then read this article.

We both know that in this present time, your business cannot function effectively without engaging the use of computers. Computers have become essential business tools which you need daily for carrying out various business tasks. Gone are the days when you can do it all with just a paper, pen and your brain. Time and accuracy makes computers an indispensable business tool for entrepreneurs, the small scale business owner inclusive.

Choosing the right Computer for your Business is one of the critical decision you need to make as an entrepreneur. There are so many brands of computer and each come with different packages of features and price tag. A quick search online will reveal that you have so many models you can choose from. The question then is How do you choose the best one that fit your purpose and at the same time is affordable? It is actually a tough decision to make. The truth is that it is not easy. You need to be well informed to make the right decision.

Bearing in mind that computers can be very expensive and the technology behind them changes at an average of six months or less. It will be a bad decision if you purchase a state of the art high-tech equipment only to discover that it has been rendered obsolete by recent technology before it could complete its ROI (return on investment).

Well, the simple guide that has been recommended by several small business entrepreneur who are running their own shows (not the academia or the salesmen, who only run business with their lips) is that you sit down and ask yourself some important questions. For example, you need to sincerely answer the following crucial questions:

1.What will the Computer be used for?

2.Do I need a Desktop computer or a laptop computer?

3.What is the Right Computer Specification For my Business?

4.How much can my business budget for the computer? 5.What is the cost of maintenance, cost of upgrading parts, and are the computer parts readily available?

6.Will there be after sale service or warranty?

7.What softwares will I need to make the equipment fit my business tasks?

8.Do the needed software come bundled with the computer or I need to buy them separately?

If you still don't know how to choose the right computer for your business after going through the list above, then you might as well ask for help. Never assume that it is dumb or it make you look less intelligent if you request that a friend or relative should assist you in choosing a computer for your business. A knowledgeable friend or relative can offer great help in making the right choice. I should warn you that your decision to purchase a computer should not be based on the suggestion of a salesperson. Irrespective of how friendly or how intelligent the suggestion he or she offers, you must remember that you are the one parting with hard earned money. So don't get sweet talked into buying a start of the art gadget that is too expensive for your business.

Identify your need properly and pick a basic equipment that fits your budget. It is better to pick a basic computer that you can easily upgrade than to pick a state-of-the art gadget that will go out of vogue in another six months. Since the computer is meant for work, then you don't need to impress anybody. It is the ability of the computer to perform the business task you needed done that is important, not the brand name or the fact that it is the newest in town.

If you need further help, you can get more suggestion from the following article, How To Choose The Right Computer For Your Business. Each point is discussed in greater details by a practicing entrepreneur, using examples to illustrate what is meant.

Are your a small business owner, or a home based entrepreneur? You can get free advise, tips and suggestion on how to run your small business with less expenditure and less headache. I am a practicing small entrepreneur, visit Small Business Tips and Business Computers. You'll learn one or two tips on how to run your business effectively at a cheaper cost.

Small Business Opportunities - Soap Making

2009-06-16T05:11:00.000-07:00

Soap making business is a small scale investment option you should consider. Since it is a low tech business requiring simple technical skills, you can actually get started and start making money within a few week of startup. To start soap making business, you require a very small startup capital. Most likely you can even use your kitchen as the startup workshop. Your returns will depend on the volume of production.

Here are some things you need to consider when starting a soap making business.

1. Start Small

This business is safe in that everyone need soap. If you produce a little amount and you are unable to get it sold, you can actually convert it for domestic use.

2. Get the soap formula right

When you have satisfied yourself that the soap you are producing works in your own kitchen. That is, you can use it to clean things around the house, then you can start working on perfecting it so that you can introduce it to close neighbour and friends. It is good you start small and introduce it gradually to avoid the disaster of unsold inventories.

3. Start supplying soap to small retailer

If the feedback from your friends and neighbours have been positive so far, then you can go ahead and introduce the soap to the local store owners around the neighbourhood. You should give your soap a unique name (that will later be its brand name). Supply little quantities to the store owners on credit as a means of introducing the soap into the local market.

4. Increase Production Base On Demand

As the demand for your soap increases, expand your production outfit too. You may need to employ one or two hands on a part-time basis to help out with your growing soap making business. Don't be too optimistic though. Remember that small businesses do go through cycles too.

5. Register your soap brand name and get necessary licenses

At this stage it is crucial that you get a lawyer to advise you on the necessary legal documentation you need to file in order to get your soap making business registered and recognized by law as a corporate entity. It is not adviseable to continue operating as a sole-trader once you start selling your soap to the wider society. All the gains of several months or years can be wiped off with a single lawsuit from a consumer of your product.

Well, those tips will add no value to you if you don't start acting on them. So, start your own soap making business today. Cheers.

Hosting Headache, A Blogger's Nightmare

2009-06-08T06:36:00.000-07:00

The prayer of every blogger is that his/her blog should be on 24/7 receiving visitors non-stop. It becomes a nightmare when your webhosting company makes your site dissappear for hours.

That was my experience sometime ago. The website that was doing really fine all of a sudden started greeting visitors with all manner of database error.

It was weird. It was frustrating as I watched visitors complain. Some of my friends call on me asking what the matter was.

Well, there was nothing I could do until the servers were fixed by my hosting company. It was an experience I do not wish to go through again.

It set me thinking, which is really the best webhosting company that a blogger can rely on?

Happy New Year to all my Friends!

2009-01-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers. May this year bring you lots of goodies. Cheers.

Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing

2008-07-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

How to get Started with Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing seems to be a the new money maker among Small Entrepreneurs working online. The concept is not new even though the phrase is new. So many successful online marketers have been Affiliate marketing on the internet for quite some time. Here are some tips for getting started with affiliate marketing as an online entrepreneur.

Many of the big and successful enterprises all over the world, have Affiliate marketing programs, and people are making money from them every month. Many Affiliate programs are free to join. You act as an agent to the company and they pay you an affiliate commission for any items that are sold through your Affiliate referral ID number. The great thing about affiliate marketing is that the amount of money you can earn is based only upon the effort you put into referring people to the company products or services.

How to Start Your Affiliate Marketing with zero capital
First, identify your natural passion. What you are interested in as a person. It may be a hobby or a business idea. Next, search for an affiliate marketing program that aligns with that interest. Please note the fact that if you are not passionate about a product, you will find it difficult to convince others to buy such product. If you fail to persuade others to buy the product, then you will earn zero affiliate commission. re not going to tell others about it. If you don’t tell anyone about it, you won’t earn a commission for sales. Determine what interests you, something that you have a passion about, and then search for Affiliate programs that market that type of product.

Initially, it is advisable that you start small choosing one niche to begin with. When you have recorded some success in that niche market, then you can work on getting other products and service. Focus on learning how affiliate marketing works first, before diversifying into different markets. It is also advisable that you start with one program and work with that for some time before joining other affiliate programs.

Once you record success in a particular niche you will find it a lot easier to identify other profitable affiliate marketing programs that can earn you more commission.

Carefully search for affiliate marketing programs that have a generous commission. Most companies will have this affiliate commission spelled out so those interested will be able to see how much they can potentially earn. Be careful, however, not to sign up with a company because it promises the highest earning potential . That particular program may be saturated and you will be competing with a lot of well established affiliate marketers commonly refer to as Super Affiliates.

Setup a website for your affiliate marketing
Even though you can market a product via email, having a well setup website to carry out your affiliate marketing is a better option. You don’t need to spend money to do this. You can easily set up a free blog using Blogger. There are several professionally made themes that you can use to make the website look professional. Never mind the myth that free blog don’t sell. There are affiliate marketers who uses blogs hosted by Blogger to earn good affiliate commissions.

Passionately promote the products on your website and imbed your affiliate id in the links that points to the products or services. Do sincere product review of the product you are recommending. Avoid exaggerating or “sales talk” just to convince potential customers. Be honest and frank about your product reviews. You can learn from other well established affiliate marketers by watching how they go about their affiliate marketing

Don’t be afraid of failure. However, avoid affiliate programs that request that you pay money to register. It is better to start-off with programs that provide you with free resources. The skill you require to make success in affiliate marketing is better earned by practice. Supper affiliate marketers are not born, they are made. So I encourage you to get started with affiliate marketing today by opening a free blogger account, then you can return here periodically for more tips.

Wordpress Blog vs Blogger Blog

2008-06-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

Which blogging platform is the best? Wordpress or Blogger? This is a debate that has been on for long. As a newbie online, I have discovered that each blogging platform has its own distinct advantage over the other.

For starter, Blogger platform is easier on the newbie. You don't need to know technical stuff before you can have a beautiful looking site and start earning income online. The reverse is the case for Wordpress. You must be committed to long-term learning except you have fund to employ the service of professionals.

Wordpress Blogs hosted freely on Wordpress.com do not permit bloggers to advertise. How else can one learn a trade if there is no hands-on experience. The Blogger cares less about what you want to advertise. As long as you are not engage in Adult content (so the service Agreement reads) even though some bloggers still violate this subtly.

When it comes to professional self-hosted blogs, then the table turns, blogs using WordPress have tons of addons which makes them look more professional and sophisticated unlike their blogger counterparts that are limited in features.

My conclusion is this. If you are a newbie blogger and you intend making money from your blogging activities now or in the future, then you are better off starting on Blogger. Immediately you have garner enough experience or earned $100, then I will recommend you buy yourself a domain name and a hosting plan. That way, you will not wake up one morning and discover that your website has ceased to exist because it has been shut down!

By the way, I discovered today that while it is easy to migrate from Blogger to Wordpress, the reverse is the case if you want to migrate from Wordpress to Blogger. I wonder why Google does not have a solution for its subscribers to import their posts from Wordpress platform into their blogger accounts. If you have a solution to this issue, kindly post it in a comment. Thanks.

Lights! Camera! Results!

2008-05-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Even with the plethora of multi-media technology, television (TV) is perhaps still the most powerful and effective tool in today’s multi-media world. Unfortunately most small businesses also have really small advertising budgets to match. These financial limitations keep entrepreneurs from thinking they can afford TV advertising for their business.

It’s a fact of business that marketing and advertising is what makes your company grow and flourish. In today’s competitive market place, you can have the best product or service in the world but it won’t matter much if nobody knows about it.

One sure way to generate the “WOW Factor” to your potential customers is with TV advertising. Making lasting impressions and strengthening the quality of your brand is important to the image you present. TV advertising provides a very powerful vehicle for delivering a message about your product or service to the widest audience possible.

Although it may seem like a daunting task, you can write and produce your own commercial at a television studio, or at a local college or high school that has an audio-visual department. The costs of producing a fifteen-, thirty-, or sixty-second television spot will vary depending upon the sets, special effects, talent, equipment, and crew necessary to pull off your concept.

According to Small Business Administration, 5% of an entrepreneurs gross sales should be budgeted for advertising. With that in mind, the end product may not look like a high-quality professional unless you have experience and a bigger budget. Therefore taking on the task of writing and producing a TV commercial for your business is probably not the best option.

How can an entrepreneur or small business owner start reaping the benefits of a TV commercial even on a shoestring budget?

Imagine an interface that would allow you to buy generic but easily customize ads to run in targeted local TV markets. The business owner can add the name of their business to generic video ad templates, select where and when they want to run ads and make minor changes in the voiceover script.

Internet-based ad agencies offer a complete solution for television advertising, commercial production, media planning and media buying in a single self-service system. The entire process, which traditionally takes months and hundreds of thousands of dollars, now takes just days at a fraction of the cost.

With these internet-based ad agencies you’ll still be able to do it your way-only better!

Even if you have diverse media channels including print ads, radio ads, emails marketing, etc. one medium complements the other which helps increase awareness of your brand to your potential customers. Adding TV to your advertising mix will help your company stand out from your competitors.

Lights! Camera!! Results!!!

Yes, you can afford TV advertising.

Tonya R. Taylor, is an entrepreneur, consultant and publisher of “Fake It Friday” ( http://www.fakeitfriday.com ) a FREE weekly e-newsletter for NEW small business owners who want helpful technology tips that will save time and money. You’ll get insider secrets that will propel your business to the next level! Make a change in your business TODAY sign up for the newsletter NOW at http://www.FakeitUntilYouMakeit.com

Feel free to reprint this article on your website or in your ezine, just include all information including the author’s bio and copyright.

Opportunity to Win 15,000 Entrecard Credits!

2008-05-20T01:08:00.000-07:00

The Entrecard Team is conducting two contest to promote their newly launched official e-book. The first contest offers 2,000EC as reward for participants while the second contest offers a whooping 15,000EC as reward for each winner in the five different categories.

The 2,000EC is easy to win. All you need to do is post about the contest, link to the official e-book and drop a comment at the official blog here. (That is it, I have just won 2,000EC, that is the cheapest winning I have ever had!).

The 15,000EC is not as easy. You need to register a new blog to the Entrecard community or add an existing blog to your group. You will get better details of how to participate here. I encourage you to participate as you have nothing to loose, but at least 2,000EC to gain, no matter how pessimistic you are! Entrecard rocks.

Privacy Policy

2008-03-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Privacy Policy

We respect your privacy and we are committed to safeguarding your privacy while online at this site Nigerian Entrepreneur The following discloses how we gather and disseminate information for this Blog, Nigerian Entrepreneur.

RSS Feeds and Email Updates

If a user wishes to subscribe to my NaijaEcash RSS Feeds or NaijaEcash Email Updates (powered by Google - Feedburner), we ask for contact information such as name and email address. This subscriptions provide easy tools for users of this blog to opt-out of these communications at any time. Your personal information will never be sold or given to a third party. We hate Spam as much as you do.

Log Files and Stats

Like most blogging platforms we use log files, in this case Statcounter. Statcounter stores information such as internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring, exit and visited pages, platform used, date/time stamp, track user’s movement in the whole, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information. The data gathered are meant to help the webmaster optimize the website.

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What is a cookie? A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. This blog doesn't use cookies. However, some of our business partners use cookies on this site (for example - advertisers).We can't access or control these cookies once the advertisers have set them.

Links

This Blog contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. We suggest our users should be aware of this when they leave this blog and advise that they read the privacy statements of each and every site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Blog.

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We use outside ad companies to display ads on this blog. These ads may contain cookies and are collected by the advertising companies and we do not have access to this information. We work with the following advertising companies: Google Adsense, Kontera etc.

Contact Information

If you have any questions or concerns please contact NajaEcash(at)gmail.com This privacy policy updated November 2008

NaijaEcash - The Journey So Far

2008-03-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, here is the progress report of my journey so far.

I have succeeded in Getting a domain name NAIJAECASH
The new blog NAIJAECASH is hosted on a paid hosting package, not a free blog.
I am using WORDPRESS software which I consider more flexible than the free blogging softwares.
I am spending time learning what it takes to make it as a successful online entreprenuer, check my post on the subject, how to get rich quick as a Nigerian.
I am tweaking the new site to make it much more appealing to visitors while I avoid killing their bandwidth with poor load-up time.
I have registered with ENTRECARD and I am consistently dropping cards so as to introduce my blog to the Entrecard community.

You can check out the progress by visiting NAIJAECASH.
Enjoy.

Proudly Nigerian

2008-03-06T02:50:00.000-08:00

Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria Call Obey ...........

Nigeria is a country of black people.

Yes that is true and it is not a crime been black. In fact, black is beautiful.

Nigeria is a poor country.

No, that is a lie, my country is wealthy because of the abundance of natural resources given to us by God. We only have poor management problem, and we are working on that.

Nigeria is listed as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Who made the list? Who taught our citizens the tricks? When our past leaders stole from the national treasury, who gave them safe haven for the stolen wealth? The so called non-fraudulent nations. Please, leave us alone.

I am not ashamed of being called a Nigerian. That few individual (just as is the case all over the world) are greedy, selfish, totally depraved, unrepentant scammers doesn’t make my country a black sheep among the nations of the world. Let those whose country have no fraudster, no scammers, lying politicians be the only one to criticize my country.

I am Proudly Nigerian. For your informations, I am just one among the millions of sincere, honest, hardworking, God-fearing lovely men and women that God ordained to be citizens of this great country. Wait until you meet a true Nigeria, then you will be proud of my Nation, Nigeria.

Alternative to PayPal!

2008-03-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

Every dreamer will surely have challenges to combat before bringing his dream to reality. I have a challenge. PayPal which is the foremost internet banker does not do business with Nigerians. They actually intentionally omitted my country Nigeria from the list of countries where an online entrepreneur can register.

A friend recommended AlertPay. That name doesn’t sound familiar. I checked out their website, they seem to be operating from Canada but at least they allow Nigerians to do business via them. But then the major issue is, a greater percentage of online users deal through PayPal.

This is quite a challenge. If you have a suggestion on how I can combat this, please do well to drop a comment. When I get the solution, I will sure post it right here for others to benefit from. For now, I will register with AlertPay, hoping and praying that PayPal will either change their mind or AlertPay will become famous! Either way, I win, I just want to earn honest income online.

I Want To Make Money Online!

2008-02-29T05:57:00.000-08:00

I have read several articles on how to Make Money Online! Some, I read on websites that I visited, some I got unsolicited. Some, from websites that were phishing.

Coming from a country whose image abroad has been bastardize by some greedy and unscrupulous citizens, I want to demonstrate that a honest Nigerian can earn money online without indulging in fraudulent activities.

Well, this being my very my first post, and I want to state clearly what my aim for starting this blog is.My main goal for starting this blog is to achieve the following:

Make Money by rendering services online.
Get famous in the blogosphere while retaining my Nigerian Identity.

To achieve this, my targeted audience will be

Newbie bloggers (like myself),
Newbie entrepreneurs online and
Nigerians in the blogosphere.

My plan is to start a business blog with zero dollar. I will be investing the following resources.

Time
Skills learnt online
Other peoples experience
Friends and Readers Contribution

After raising income online (it will be entirely raised online), I will move the blog to a paid hosting package.

Just like any offline business I have my goals well written out, I have set targets, and I am drawing out comprehensive plans on how to achieve them. Most importantly, I am determined to work relentlessly until I have achieved my goals stated above.

Since the success of any business online can be zeroed down to a single phrase “quality traffic = profit” (that is the understanding I have for now), I will be focusing most of my resources on getting good content on my blog and then using various social networks media to draw visitors to the blog.

I will measure the success of my blog using the following parameters:

Numbers of Visitors.
Number of Comments
RSS Feed Subscriptions.
Contact Forms.
Newsletter Sign-ups.
Business Directly Generated

That is it. Thanks for visiting and reading this article. If you like my post, encourage me by dropping a comment. Subscribing to my RSS feed will surely be much appreciated and of course I am looking forward to your return visit. Enjoy!