Don’t just browse for fun, sell your product on line!

Have you ever wondered what the myriad of youths who visit the internet or access Facebook on their phones do with the connection? Easy, discuss exchange small talk with one another, check out profiles of loved ones and discuss the latest trends in music and fashion! It is amazing that the internet that has become a powerful marketing and business development tool is being underutilized in this part of the world. Just think of about these figures: In Nigeria there are about 43,000,000 people on line. A majority of these people use Facebook, twitter, Google and Yahoo. These are their first portals of access when ever they engage in the browsing activity.  Elsewhere in the world the internet is being used as a tool for marketing and promoting business opportunities. In some countries, business is actually carried out on the net. The question in Africa is with a population that is over a billion today, why are we being left behind in this modern trend of doing business? Our access in Africa is growing by the day: Telecoms companies are selling modems on street corners in many parts of the continent and what do those who snap them up do with them?
The youths' well spring of imagination and creativity that is unrivalled among any other age group is wasting away in Africa. Whenever you go into a public cyber café all the youth seem to be doing is surfing the web to get into relationships. I have had  a few single ladies approach me on line for friendship although I see nothing wrong in this as long as they approach the right people.(I am way over the hill and happily married!) I believe that we as a generation are not challenging our youths enough to use online access for creative business ventures. There are numerous opportunities available.
Blogging for instance is a great opportunity to make money. It may not be instantaneous but a committed blogger can make money if he or she has an interesting choice of content and can make it a habit to upload material on a regular basis. Google is ready to partner with anybody who has the knack to upload interesting content on a regular basis. An associate of mine has two blogs that contain nothing but photographs. He has a string of photographs on scenery in Lagos and Accra. So anyone who wants good pictures on Lagos and Accra can actually go to his blog and see them. He has had media groups write in to use some of his photographs, the idea is if he continues with his photoblog and gives it enough publicity on line he would eventually make money out of it!
If you are marketing any product or service, the internet is an ingenious medium to market the product or service. Social Medium like Facebook actually enhance free promotions of any service or product you provide and your audience is unlimited according to the people you can attact to your page. Another young friend of mine covers entertainment on his web page. Reporting events in Ghana , Nigeria and the world over, gradually he is  acquiring a reputation for being the hub of entertainment in Ghana. He has traveled out of Ghana to two major music festivals as a result of his web page and has appeared on television in Ghana where I believe he would soon have a regular segment.
One web based business that is making waves the world over is avenuestowealth.com another is quibers.com. Both clubs are discount, holiday and investment based. They encourage internet multilevel marketing and sell amazing products at large discounts.  So the question remains if there are a small group of people making a lot of money from internet based activity what is happening to the energetic restless youth who spend more hours on line than the adults?
Every body has a product or service to sell and the big question is what stops that person from selling that product or service on line? Often when I speak to company executives I ask them if they have a website. The common answer is: "yes, we do". But when you get to the question: how interactive is your website, then the answer comes slowly and hesitantly. The reason is because a majority of the websites that are available in this part of the world are inactive or totally "uninteractive" if I may use the word. Aerocontractor, a Nigeria based airline has been able to revolutionize air travel booking by using the internet. Passengers are promised cheaper fares if they book their flights ahead of time and this has encouraged passengers to plan their trips and advance the service provider cash, while they believe they are saving cash in the process.
So far we have only highlighted two major means of making money via the web. There are several others. The main objective of this piece however is to encourage us, whatever we do, to find a way to enhance our marketability by using the internet, instead of just socializing on it. A couple of months back a young man imported a large consignment of black berry mobile phones. He wished to dispose of them as soon as practicable, so he put an ad on one of the web clubs mentioned above and within two weeks he was asking that the ad be withdrawn! Why? He had sold out the consignment and was still being inundated with orders via telephone long after. There is something attractive about getting a discount and something more attractive when an enquiry is made via the internet or the telephone. A recent survey realized the number of operable mobile phones in Nigeria as 98,000,000. That is a large audience. Now there are very few companies that have succeeded in capturing a worldwide audience via the internet or telephone. We have mentioned a few, but that is not to say we can not get a bite of this market, especially in our home country. Microsoft is one of the companies that has been able to capture a world wide audience.  Their activity is spelled out adequately in their mission statement.  “A computer in every home, with Microsoft software on it."  It could seem asking for too much to want to address a world wide audience and market a product that is in demand all over the world, but there are people that are doing it! Authors , speakers, Pastors, automobile salesmen, radical thinkers, inventors. The list is numerous. Wouldn’t you want to join them?  If your answer is yes, start with your product or service to day and start marketing it online!

What is Senegal known for?

“The lady in the  airline office was very polite and she really tried to be helpful. But I told her that the conditions she had laid out were just too harsh for me. She had told me with such finality that the only way I could disembark from the Lagos bound aircraft in Accra was to pay $300 for a one way ticket and discard the return ticket I had to Lagos”.
 It was May the 7th 2011 and I sat in an economy seat of a Lagos bound   737 Passenger plane. I was fuming because we were on the ground at Kotoka Airport in Accra and even though I had a morning class on “Business Time Management” at the Graduate School for Leadership and Governance in Accra, I could not disembark because I had vehemently refused to pay for another ticket that would enable me board the same plane from Dakar, only to disembark in Accra. For me it did not make sense. Okay so my agent had purchased a promotional ticket that was marked Lagos-Dakar-Lagos, he had unwittingly booked the return date to Lagos to be Sunday whereas I was due to be in Accra Saturday morning. I had made frantic attempts to reroute my journey. Speaking broken French, I had launched myself from my hotel room in Yur Grande area of Libertie 5 as early as Thursday morning to the Leoplod Sedar Senghor Airport to fix my ticket.  On arrival at the airport I was told that I should come at 10pm to meet the Airline crew. They did not have a standing office at the airport! Instead of going back to the hotel I decided to go on a search for their offices in Dakar. I was told by Airport Information that the corporate office of the organization was located down town on the Mayor of Dakar road. I was able to describe to a taxi driver where I was going. He told me the office was “down town” and characteristic of city centers around the world ,we soon found ourselves in slow moving traffic.
During the drive I got into a discussion with the driver and was able to ask him characteristically: what is Senegal known for. His answer was stunning: Coffee and Cigarettes! He said the men smoked too much and that they also imbibed too much caffeine. This was no exaggeration. I noticed that the weather was chilly the night I had arrived.  The airline flies into to Dakar Senegal at 2am Local time! Such an unholy hour. The sights around the airport with the lights beaming up are quite impressive, especially if you have a window seat and are able to gaze at the millions of lights and colors that smile up at you after almost four hours of a non-stop flight to the Senegalese capital.  Home at last!  And as early as 6.30am if you take a peek outside your hotel window you would find Senegalese, mostly men both young and old walking the streets with either a cigarette drooping from their lips or a cup of coffee held in one hand on the trot.  Their appetite for caffeine and nicotine seemed to be insatiable.
Soon we found the airline office and not wanting to be left alone in such unfamiliar territory, I told the taxi to park in what appeared to be a no parking area. The lady in the  airline office was very polite and she really tried to be helpful. But I told her that the conditions she had laid out were just too harsh for me. She had told me with such finality that the only way I could disembark from the Lagos bound aircraft in Accra was to pay $300 for a one way ticket and discard the return ticket I had to Lagos. For me, this was a waste of money. To change my ticket to Saturday Morning I had already been billed a cost of $50. The world at that moment seemed to be filled with ironies. I was supposed to speak on “Business Time Management” in Accra, yet I could not make the appointment on time.  And my beloved  airline was willing to strip me of an additional $300 just to get off the aircraft in Accra!
I told the lady at the airline office in Dakar that I would never fly  her airline again! She seemed naturally hurt by my statement as she complained that it really was not her fault that it was airline regulation. As I reminisced on these facts on the ground at Kotoka International Airport I made a call to the Graduate School just to be sure that my replacement had arrived on time. Discovering that it was virtually impossible for me to make the appointment, I had told an associate to take my place in class. In spite of me having a day off speaking, which I enjoy very much, it was a very painful experience for me and I have still not forgiven  the airline in question.

How much did you make last year?
How much money did your really make last year? I am not talking about your salary, you may earn a huge one. Neither am I talking about your contracts you may have pulled off some big ones worth millions last year! What I am talking about is: after all the money you expend is sent and spent and it remains you. How much did you have left? One vital thing about financial planning is the amount of money you keep aside for future investments. I was going through the list of billionnaires in 1999 that’s about 16 years ago and I made an effort to compare them to those on the list today. There are only a few changes. Most of them kept their fortune. Now you and me may not have billions yet, but one thing we must learn is from every job you do or every salary you earn you have to keep something aside. There should be no time of the year when being totally broke means you broke your bank account and your piggy bank(if you have one).
You should have a savings account where you earn money on interest(no matter how small) that is not touched at all. In fact, you should have at least three accounts and as your income grows you could use one for investment, one for savings and one for on going spending.
A lot of these ideas seem difficult and impractical but trust me, there is nothing that beats keeping some money by the side and having target accounts for specific plans. Now the issue of banking and banks would probably lead us to examine the banks. Everything is definitely not well with them. So why should I keep my money there? Well the answer to this is where should you keep your money? In stocks? Bonds? Insurance? Of all the safe keeping places that you may think of keeping your money, the banks are still the safest!
Banks are duty bound to continue no matter how hash the investment climate is. Even though many businesses have closed down in Europe and America and indeed in Africa and Asia, the banks backed by government are still standing. No government anywhere in the world would allow a bank to go bust and thats why even in Nigeria the CBN is making sure that banks are standing and are standing well, even in the face of economic challenges and troubles.  We ought to do a little bit of bank bashing here just to assure you that even the banks are not perfect. Take Intercontinental Bank plc for instance. The bank sent text messages around in January assuring customers that it is strong! Not a good strategy if you ask me. If the bank is strong why do you have to assure customers via text messages? Such an assurance would only make customers like me feel uneasy.
These days it is easier to deposit your money than to withdraw it. Even with the advent of the ATM machines. Now that rule does not apply at GT Bank at Abule Egba area of Lagos. That bank has a wonderful way of taking deposits from customers. There is a machine in the banking hall that allots numbers to customers who wish to deposit money so that there are no queues and there is no rushing. It is a brilliant way to do things. Only trouble is in the periods of rush the bulk deposit rooms are over crowded and even the automated system does not work as fast as the customer would want it. How I wish GT Bank could adjust to customer turn out and create alternatives in the event of a rush.The executives of GTB ought to take note here. One of them made an appearance on Youtube to answer questions for 15 minutes recently. It is an ingenious idea, but I dare say, 15 minutes is not enough! And You tube? Well I can bet that a large proportion of Nigeria’s 43,000,000 on line never heard of the site.
I was at First Bank at U-Turn Alagbado the other day. First Bank has the habit of having a Head Teller who attends to most cheques brought by customers that come from outside. I asked the Head teller if I should bring my cheque she waved me onto a queue. I joined the queue, agonized for a long period of time only to discover that I was on the wrong queue! I had wasted so much time. These days I discourage clients from bringing me a cheque. I prefer for them to credit my account. Going to the bank to withdraw money is such a bore.
But I still think the bank is the best place to keep money, even though a lot of the bankers could do well to understand the true essence of customer care.  Bankers have a way of relating to you according to the way you dress. I have noted that whenever I dress formally, the lady or man at the till behaves very well, but when I dress informally the attitude is a bit different. So how do I get the best of services from the banks? Well for a start get to know your banker. It does not matter how much you keep there. Just get to know them. People work better with those they know.

Why you need Multiple Sources of Income (MSIs)

What is your greatest fear in Life? Loss of income, Ill Health, Loss of job, Family security? The list goes on. Today the world is so insecure. No country in the world today can secure the future of any person, unless of course if you are in government and have a meal ticket that will cover you for a life time. Long ago, Great Britain had a welfare system. Once you were a British citizen of whatever race, and unemployed, you were entitled to a certain amount of money every week. Some people believe that it was this system that made the Caucasian British lazy and reject certain jobs like security men, cleaners, taxi drivers and many others. Nobody ever made real money from a job without having a stake in the company. They can never pay you enough!
But there is a way out. Look for other sources of income and make them work for you. The classical example I give in my classes is a lady who works in the busy city of Lagos, Nigeria in a government office that requires a commitment of hours between 8am and 5pm. Whenever I discuss this topic, the responses I get are varied but similar: “I do not have time”, “It is against the civil service law to do that”, “ I could get sacked if I am caught doing that”! Well all of these responses are right. What you see is what you get. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say: What you look for is what you get!
First of all I talk about writing. There are thousands of civil servants who have a passion and gift of writing and do not embark upon it. Now I am not saying write a column in a newspaper and get yourself exposed or write about your work and go against the secrecy oath you swore on assumption of duty. This is not what I am talking about. Professor Chinua Achebe the Nigerian literary scholar wrote Things Fall Apart as a full time civil servant, many of his contemporaries worked somewhere and wrote their books and periodicals at the same time! All they did was to find time to do what they loved outside of their jobs. And eventually, they made money out of it! Now you may not be a writer. But there is something you can do outside of that daily job that you are not satisfied with. If you do not work in a government office and you have a passion for writing then you can write a column in the local daily and organize an occasional talk shop about the topic that touches your heart.
Most working class people do not think of other sources of income until they are faced with a threat to their major source! Sometimes this can be a major problem because if the only source is drying up then we become under pressure to pay bills and meet family commitments. So why wait? I have promised myself this year that I am going to make two additional sources of income.
Now back to lady I mentioned earlier. She has a passion for cooking. She knows how to cook all manner of soups and stews imaginable. So she decided to change her talent into a business. Twice a week she would load her car boot with soups and stews in plastic containers iced for preservation and she would sell them to her coworkers for a price. There is a case of another lady who saved some money and applied for a visa to China to go and purchase clothing. She worked full time in Accra as an office assistant at one of the radio stations.  She would spread he three week leave over three months and spend a week in China three times in a year. Her car boot also became her shop for women and men’s corporate wear! Before long she also opened a finance and loan business right there in the office. Offering loans at little interest to her colleagues who got broke before the end of the month. Now I have given two examples and there are many more. But the bottom line is if you are reading this you need to create your own source. Not everybody has the passion for cooking or selling clothing. Find what works for you and make a business out of it.
Farming and land prospecting is another source of great income. There are certain crops that require little attention by way of watering and weeding and that nine out of 10 times give a maximum yield. Two crops that have attracted my focus this year are plantain and Cassava. If you live and work in a tropical climate you would be familiar with these crops. Plantain is large kind of banana that is a staple food in many parts of Africa the Caribbean and South America. Cassava is a root potato kind of crop which is eaten in various forms all over Africa and the Caribbean. Plantain trees, like banana trees multiply so fast. It takes a crop of plantain 10 months to reach maturity while cassava takes only six months. Both of the crops are in high demand locally and can also be exported.  Now we do not have the time or space for export details here so you may have to do your own research.
Suppose I do not have the land to farm? Well think of something else. As a newspaper correspondent in Lagos, Nigeria years ago I used to moonlight as a television producer, I even worked as a radio programme producer too. I have a friend who moonlighted as a scriptwriter for the local television station.  Now all this requires extra effort and hours. Suppose you are the kind of person who does not have the energy to do something else, what do you do? Find a way to invest some of the income you have saved.
Now before I address the investment process it is important that we talk about savings. There are a lot of views about savings. A stock broker or investment expert would tell you that keeping money in a bank is like putting fire in your cash! The economists talk about inflation creeping in on your savings and them eventually becoming worthless. But the motivational speakers say if you can save painstakingly over a long period in an account that yields interest at the bank, you could have a tremendous amount of money at the end of the day. Now the overwhelming question here is: which is right? Well my answer might shock you: Both are right! The process and system of investment and savings is outlined in the very interesting treatise, The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason. The books talks about savings and investment. So we ought to do both. One of the greatest challenges of investment is the lack of finance. How do I get the extra money to start ? Well you have options. You can painstakingly raise the money little by little or you can look for a financier. The bank is often the first place that comes to mind when we seek financial aid. In some countries, unless you approach the bank through a Small and Medium Scale Enterprise scheme it is totally impossible to get a loan.
If you can help it don’t go to the bank! If you must go to the bank go with your eyes open armed with questions and make sure that you get a third party to read the loan agreement before you sign it. If you have decided that the bank loan is the best way out for you don’t take the exact amount you need! Take excess. We have often seen entrepreneurs both small and big take the exact amount of money they need from the bank and end up suffering when it is time to pay back. Interest payments on loans from a bank are as regular as every month. Some banks may give you the grace of one month and then you have to start paying. If you cannot pay or if you miss a payment, then it is accumulated. Often you find out that if you do not complete payments on schedule you end up paying more than you bargained for.  Owing the bank and struggling in a business can be a heart rendering agonizing situation. I have seen it happen before and it can make you sick.
So if you can raise a little money through savings then eventually invest it in what you are aiming at you could make head way.  Another question that comes from this is: How do I save? You save by deducting a fixed amount from your salary or income every month or as regularly as you get it.  For adults who are paying schools fees and have numerous commitments this can be quite challenging. One systematic way of doing it is by arranging for your bank to do an automatic deduction from your salary every month. If you can commit to this you would end up saving some money over a period of time and then you can engage in the process of reinvesting it.  We must sound an alarm bell here: as much as possible try not do deplete all of your savings!
Now you can start a new business or you can simply invest a little cash in a cooporative or join an online club and get into network marketing. We do not have enough space to address network marketing in this session.  But there are bona fide clubs we can join and earn money on a part time bases. One of them is avenuestowealth.com.
The bottom line is that there is always something more you can do. There is always a way of earning more money. I am leaving you today with a box of things we list for people who are planning for retirement. But the truth is that these things can actually be done while you are working at that business or holding down that full time job.

• Fish farming    catering
• Livestock Enterprise Water Vending
• Plantain and Potato Chip Production Gas Vending
• Soap Production     Meat Supply
• Soap Production     Vulcanizing Enterprise
• Toothpick production    Child and Elderly services
• Macaroni Production and Janitorial Services
• Cassava Garri Production        Telecommunication
• Laundry and Dry Cleaning       Newspaper Vending
• Car Wash Driving School         photography
• Hairdressing and Barbering Salon   Business Centre
• Dress making and Fashion Design   Security Organization

The Elevator Pitch

It was a freezing morning in an hotel in Nairobi Kenya. Temperatures were close to zero degrees and I was in the hotel elevator riding down to breakfast   which naturally was being served at the restaurant. Me and an associate began a discussion and before we reached the restaurant floor, the other occupant of the elevator said in somewhat accented English: "You are West African, either, Nigerian or Ghanaian! Being born in England but stayed so many years in Ghana and Nigeria, I may have picked up some of the English pronunciations of both nations. My analyst, was able to place me in such a short time and what he did reminded succinctly of the elevator pitch. 
At a recent conference of training the trainers at the Nigerian Institute of Management I told colleagues who attended that marketing consultancies of whatever kind require both a plan and spontaneity. Spontaneity is the ability to market your product, especially if its intangible at the drop of a hat, no matter where you Find yourself. The Elevator Pitch is a concept that pressures you to be able to market in the shortest time possible, putting your best foot forward. The technical term is presenting the person you are selling to with your Unique Selling Proposition. What is so special about your product? Why should I buy it and not go to the competition? It takes just minutes for an elevator to swish its occupants to their destination on one of the floors, what can you do or say by way of convincing the prospect to patronize you before he gets to his floor or you get to yours?
There has to be a central point of reference about your product. A kind of script that you can zoom into and get the message across. If it is concise, well rehearsed and in your head it could work wonders. Now working from a script does not mean you should be dogmatic and inflexible, because often you have to size up your prospect and try to determine what his needs would likely be and how your product can meet those needs.
Everyone who needs to sell a product, service or personality needs to understand the pitch. The bottom line of course is connecting with your audience as quickly as possibly without beating about the bush..The Elevator Pitch is a good verbal tool to use for the selling of an intangible product to a group of restless people. Often it takes four to five minutes for a group of restless people to decide whether they like what they hear or not and whether they are buying or not. We often give the illustration in our classes: Suppose you have a group of the most influential business men at your sales presentation. You only have 15minutes to do a damn good presentation that would sell the product what do you do? Of course you have to start with the elevator pitch from the perspective of the audience. What would be their immediate needs? Everyone has a need no matter how rich, affluent or well to do they are. For the rich and famous, the need is often prestige, style and recognition so if your product can bring them that or if it can make them richer, they will certainly buy.Once they buy, tonnes of people would likely follow them because often it is the rich and famous that set the standards and vogue going in a society.
The elevator pitch is easy to construct. All we need to know is the strengths of our product and the psychology of the people we are trying to sell it to. The beautiful thing about this pitch is even though you may not sell the product within the restricted time, you will certainly make an impression and get an appointment where you will be able to sell it..

The marketing environment in Nigeria

A marketer is not operating in a vacuum and so should understand the environment and seize the opportunities in the environment to be able to succeed and meet the challenges. There are many behavioral paradigms, product  preferences, buying influences and cultural traits that affect the way people buy. Sometimes its interest, moral obligation, desire, wants needs and attractions that make the people want to buy or particular commodity or pay for a service.
Here a few factors that affect the way and the reasons why people buy what they buy in Nigeria:
Godliness: We worship God a lot, its good but sometimes we leave other things undone.
Respect: We are a people taught to respect elders and people in authority. We do this but now the people are doubting a lot of those who hold leadership positions
Honour : We love titles and awards in Nigeria. So we are people that have learnt to honour achievement. So much so that sometimes we honour the wrong people.
Hospitality: Nigerians are a caring people and they welcome visitors and tourists making them feel comfortable in the process.
Gratitude: We are a thanking people in Nigeria. Our willingness to express gratitude has often got us into trouble.
National Pride: We are proud of our country although we are not quick to admit it these days inside the country. But when we are attacked outside we defend our national pride adequately.
Moral values : Moral values have taken a battering in Nigeria but that is not to say that there are no people who do what is right. There are still loads of people who would do the right thing in any situation.
Motherhood, motherliness: Mothers are given tremendous respect, especially those who take care of children the way they are expected to.
Children: Children of all ages are loved and taken care of. Although the present young generation feels neglected to the extent that it appears they could be the ones to start trouble in the country in the future. 
Corruption: Bribery, stealing, graft and dishonesty have become part of our national life. What can be done about it? Nobody seems to have the answer.
Extended family system.Some people say distant relatives and relationships with extended family are part of the cause of corruption. In any case, we care for our family members and some people have as many as 15 dependents because of this system. After my class I would be publishing a more detailed version of this.

What's your style of management?

Your style of management could go a long way to help determine how well you do n business. Beyond the other resources that you engage for a business activity,material, technological and financial, its important for you to note that the most important resource is your human resource. Having the right hands in the team is not enough. Every team looks up to someone for leadership and your style of leading and managing could be a considerable factor in determining whether you get the best out of your team or not. The debate has often arisen over which is the best form of management and leadership, lets consider three or four of the basic styles that are common in all areas where leadership and management are relevant. The major styles that come into contention are autocratic or dictatorial, democratic or participatory, Bureaucratic or red tapism and Lassez Faire or laid back.
The democrat likes to put critical decisions to vote. He wants to carry people along and so he pits ideas against each other and asks people to vote on what their preferences are. The autocrat dictates what he wants done and often, how he wants it done.Usually parenthood and priest hood are dictatorial in nature but managers in certain categories of work have taken to believing they are only in control when they are dictating the pace. The bureaucratic leader or manager is the person who insists on following process no matter the situation at hand. He follows the rules of the book to the letter, not worrying if there is a delay in action or if the process of production is truncated in the bid to go by the rules. The lassez faire is the laid back manager or leader who believes that his team knows what and how to tackle the project at hand and as lassez faire implies: why should I care? he lets them do their job to the best of their knowledge.
The question often arises: so which is the best style of management or leadership? The real answer is there is no best style! Each approach is useful depending on the circumstances we find ourselves in  as leaders. What's important is that we know when to be dictatorial, bureaucratic, democratic or lassez faire!
But styles in management do not end there. We also have to determine the way we handle or teams. Are we emotive in our approach? Do we look at the team and keep making references to higher callings and the vision of the organization? Do we use threats as a management tool? Are we caught saying repeatedly: do your job or I will sack you! Do we refer to the rewards as a source of inspiring the people: hit that target and I'll give you a bonus!  If we know the approaches we should use at any given time, they would help us succeed as mangers and leaders.

Rapid Growth Strategies

No matter what strategy you  use to rapidly expand your business you will have to have three things in place if you want to be successful. A burning desire to see your business grow; a clear cut goal to where you want to be; a deadline for its accomplishment. If these things are not in place you could try all the strategies you want  and still not get there. So before instigating any of these ideas, spend some time defining  these three things you will find  it easier to succeed when you know where you are going.  Micheal Grant outlines five key strategies....
The massive action strategy: Find out what you need to do to get the output you desire in your business. Some people have to talk to a large number of people, some have to manufacture a certain number of goods, some have to write, read or speak. Some have to travel to a foreign country and bring goods into there own country. Whatever it is you have to do, do not relent on your massive action to get it done.
The advertising strategy. One of the major problems with advertising is that the messages hardly ever reach those people who need to hear them. If you message does not get to your basic target then you have a problem. So narrow your messages down to the right channels so that they will go right to your intended audience. There are so many messages in the world today competing for the attention of people that if we do not find a unique way to get to our intended audience, we will not promote our product or service adequately.
The strengths strategy. What is your strength? How can you use it to get what you want. Do you market or prospect very well? Are you good at presentation. Is writing your specialty? Whatever your strength is, it could be the secret to you organizing your business and meeting your targets.
The consistent change strategy. Changing a mode or method of doing business is difficult especially if you have been making progress with what you are doing. But a slight change here and there can bring freshness to business and help people appreciate the innovations you are bringing into your business. So we ought to see change as a tools for attracting  additional business.  
The new product launch strategy. Everyone loves new things. Curiosity often gets the best of us. In a company where we have stabilized in the production of a product or the provision of a service it often works for us to introduce new products from the same stable and offer them to old customers. This can be done until we have a complete product range.

Just how well do you know your customer?

Today's customer is a very sophisticated person. The access to social media often gives the customer the ability to research a product or service at the drop of a hat. In no time whatsoever, he is able to check out the specifications of the product, long before the purchase such that, if care is not taken, he could know more about his intended purchase than the person who sells the product! Knowing your customer in this era of the social media goes beyond merely being able to identify him and possibly knowing the environment in which he lives. That's only scratching the surface. For the numerous companies that have spent billions on the internet marketing of various products, the KYC acronym takes on a larger meaning. Such statistics as age, location, cultural background, education, sex and indeed tastes and preferences in relation to the product you are marketing come into detailed consideration.
Speaking about the ages and locations of your potential customers does not necessarily mean you pick your customers individually and begin to drill them for information. Researchers like to work with trends it is more convenient that way. If for instance, you can determine the number of people who use the internet in your country and try to discover whether your target audience is actually engaged in browsing, then of course you can find a way to get information about your product to their online location. There are numerous social media being used by certain categories of people in this age. A lot of this media is a major attraction to certain  groups of people, such that some people practically live on line! Amazon creator Jeff Bezos who purchased the Washington Post in 2013, looked at how the numbers of people who were using the internet in the US quadrupled over a period of two years and decided to begin marketing and sales of products on the internet. If your audience spends a lot of time on line then you should be doing the same.
Many parts of sub Saharan Africa  have witnessed a quantum leap of youngsters expressing themselves online via various media. Slow connections and power outage have limited their use of this media in those parts, but the youths have found ingenious ways of getting around it.
Before you pick the media for your promotions and advertising, make sure that your audience uses that media or else your message could get lost in the crowd of competitive messages daily vying for our attention. Content is the secret of online media. You may not necessarily have a creative message that helps sell the product you market. But if you have content, whether its related or not, traffic would be consistently drawn to your location on line. Banks would not draw much attention by writing about boring banking activity, but if they could engage their audiences in entertainment or fashion, perhaps people would be attracted to them and the brand they promote would gain prominence at a deeper psychological level that resonates in the surface activity of the people involved.
The culture of the people we target is also a big issue. What are their core beliefs? Are they kind hospitable people? What are their religious sentiments? Even though sensitive issues like culture and religion are not really good promotional points for marketing mass oriented products(i.e products used by a large numbers of people) habits are also a key to marketing. Human beings are creatures of habit. Knowing a persons way of life also helps us to handle them better. It is also a good advantage to know the tastes and preferences of the groups we address in our promotional and marketing activity. The wide range of soft drinks available on the market is a good example of what can be done with the taste of consumers. Sugar is a big issue. Youths crave for sugar, adults and dieting middle aged people try to avoid it like a plague. How do we handle the various audiences?
It also starts with distinguishing the various people. Once we can do that we can stretch our ability to approach them and get the message to the door steps of our customers.

Four levels of Customer Relations

Four Levels of Customer Relations

There are essentially four levels of customer relations and the question that should be on your mind is: Which level am I operating on?
We live in a society in which many people who provide services or sell products tend to believe that they are doing the people they sell to a favor. What a narrow minded way of thinking! The customer is the one who is doing the seller a favor and unless we begin to understand that in most cases, the customer has options and can go to the competition if he is ill treated, we will continue to lose patronage.
It is important for us to realize that the main frontier on which major organizations are competing is Customer Relations. If I open a store that sells burgers and soft drinks and a couple of weeks later someone else opens a similar store with the same products, how can I have an edge over the competition? Well, apart from making sure that my environment for sales is secure and attractive, and ensuring the product or service I provide is not defective, I have to make sure that my relations with my customers is at the very best level.
Service is the first level of customer relations. Everyone wants service and from the providers point of view, service should be the minimal level of relations. What that means is there is a higher level to which we can aspire as providers of goods and services.  Service simply means doing the minimal. Letting the customer make do with as little attention as possible. You let him get what he wants and try to keep your efforts as low key and detached as possible. Service simply means your customer has no identity, no special taste and you treat him as a one off buyer who you probably do not really expect to see again.
Care is the next level of customer relations. You are going beyond mere service this time and you hope to make a lasting impression by showing the customer that you care. So perhaps you go out of your way to get to Know Your Customer(KYC). You begin to try to think and determine what his tastes are like. If you sell food perhaps your asking him does it like spice? pepper?If you are in banking you want to know what kind of business he runs and how you can tailor your services to meet his specialized taste. How often does he make deposits? How substantial is the cash and what can you do to make it easier for him. At the care level you probably find yourself actually knowing his name and addressing him by it. Everyone has an ego and everyone has a little bit of vanity. It does no hurt to be on first name basis with your customer if he allows it. Of course if he doesn't you can call him by a title or simply add the universal Mr, Miss or Mrs which for most people is generally acceptable.
Delight is the next level to care. At this level you don't just show the customer that you care, you go to some length to make him happy. This question should dominate your mind: What can I do consistently that would make my customer happy? Sometimes extras, freebies and remembering anniversaries as well as special days that are linked to the customer can come in handy here. Do you know your customer's birthday, wedding anniversary? If you can't go out of your way to attend the ceremony, can you send a message? Delight is not always about gifts. Gifts are good but often you might be confronted with a slim budget or a customer who does not necessarily value gifts and extras or freebies. There was the case of a billionaire businessman who was celebrating his birthday. His bankers with whom he had several accounts actually held a meeting on what to do for him on his birthday! Suppose the gifts he values are way out of your budget? Even for people with such extraordinary tastes, there ought to be a way to delight them. After a brief meeting the bankers came up with the idea of sending the man a giant sized custom made birthday card that could serve as decorative item after the special day had passed. The got two of the most beautiful customer care ladies in the office to deliver it in the company of the Managing Director of the Bank.  Of course the billionaire was delighted. In fact, even before the delivery crew left his office, he was calling up some of his friends to tell them what the bank had done!
Ecstasy is the highest level of customer relations. Its a situation in which you literally "blow the customers mind". Like street cocaine which sends the sniffer on a temporary island of extreme joy and celebration, ecstasy is that level of relations that is difficult to come by. It is usually achieved easily with customers who have no prior experience with what you are introducing them to. A person who has probably traveled by train or economy seats in an airline is suddenly upgraded and put in first or business class in Virgin Atlantic where food drinks, movies, music and massages are available on demand. Ecstasy is like a trip to Fantasy Island. Everything in the wildest dreams of the customer is made possible and is happening right before his very eyes. Depending on how fastidious the customer is, ecstasy can be achieved. There are some people who are so simple in their tastes and demands that taking them to the level of ecstasy is a simple job. 

Optimum Performance

For us to perform optimally at the work we are called to do, several years of research has shown me that we have to understand, as a matter of principle, five basic concepts: Customer Relations, Human Resource Management, Strategy and Change Management, Managerial Leadership and Communications.
Teaching all of these concepts to a variety of managers in various environments for upward of 10 years has shown me how valuable the information is to our managerial development. Its only right to share this vital information, and so, I have decided to dedicated part of this blog to these five concepts and I would seek to discuss real life examples and scenarios that would be useful to the reader and help the manager improve in his managerial ability. That is what Optimum Performance is all about!