Catch Your Non-Customers, follow this guide!

For everyone who sells a product(a good, a service or a personality) the people you relate with are either customers or non customers. The non customers are those people who do not buy your product and don't buy that of your competitors either. This perspective is targeted at doing two things for you: It will enable you to categorize the consumer and there by fashion and stretch your product to embrace and engage a category of people who were not buying your product before.
Every marketer or sales person must learn to step out of the various attributes of the product he sells, look to the needs of perspective buyers and convince them that the product you provide meets their need. The needs and wants of every consumer are numerous in nature and once we focus on those we are bound to sell more of the product that we have in stock.
Several years ago I  was saddled with editing a fun magazine which had fashion as its major focus. Revenue to print the magazine was a major challenge and so I decided to try to do the impossible: expand the scope of its readers. Eventually, me and the crew of the publication succeeded in breaking into serious business environments covering most of the formal business sectors that were secluded from the publication and we increased revenues  dramatically.
We can categorize the needs of buyers into eleven different groups:
Money: Any product that promises the buyer a chance of making more money will definitely attract a lot of buyers. Various kinds of people would spend money on products that would guarantee them more money.  There are not many people who will pass up the chance of making that extra bit that would help them do more, buy more and get to wherever they want to go.

Security: Every one wants to be safer and to a large extent in a world that has numerous terror threats, security is a billion dollar industry. Ranging from handy defense mechanisms like pepper spray,  pocket tools for self defense onto burglar alarms electronic wire etc. Security mechanisms also have  a variety of house or company based detection gadgets. The more dangerous the world becomes, the more people will spend their money on the security of life and property.

Being liked. Everyone has a little bit of vanity in them and most people would go an extra mile to try and be liked by people around them. A variety of products that include clothing, make up and etiquette training attract a lot buyers who would go to extra lengths to look, smell and behave in an attractive way all with the intention of pleasing people in their environment. 

Status and Prestige is linked closely to the human beings desire of being liked. Everyone wants to be recognized and accorded some kind of respect which status and prestige can provide for us. So products that provide us with such attributes would sell if those promoting them know where to find the people with these desires.

Health and fitness is another multi million industry which people love. Everyone wants to be healthy and so people spend a lot of money on health products, medicare and fitness and wellness training.The campaigns advising people to take good care of their health are in numerous forms and many people are making a fortune off of them.

Praise and recognition: Every human being desires to be praised at some level. Some people would give anything for the applause, trophies and admiration. The human being naturally likes to be appreciated for actions taken, efforts made or achievements in general. If we can find a way to make people attract praise and recognition to themselves through our products, then we can make money out of it.

Power, influence and popularity: Politicians contest elections on the pretense of wanting to serve and help people in their constituencies. Sometimes they do just that, but in many cases elections are contested for self aggrandizement. It is in the nature of man to love power, influence and popularity. Providing a  mechanism for these three commodities is bound to attract people. Providing a product that promises them would definitely make money.

Leading the field: Human beings like to lead in their chosen professions. There are numerous training programmes, orientation workshops and facilities dedicated to the pruning and honing of skills and developmental processes that could give those who are dedicated enough a leap forward in different fields. People are naturally attracted to such processes. How can you shape or reshape your product to promise or provide the leading feeling.

Love and Companionship: The desire to be loved is a human attribute that would be with us forever. Date doctors, relationship seminars, books and magazines as well as radio and TV programmes are dedicated to helping people to relate better. Some people are willing to go through training to help them understand better ways of treating people around them with a view to getting better results in their relationships. Products or services built around this are bound to selling if they are marketed properly.

Personal Growth is another huge industry which is hinged on the practical premise that every person who makes an effort can become better at something. Personal growth could refer to professional or personal development processes, it could also refer to religious or psychological development that positively affects the human beings capacity to perform and function at various levels. Books, tapes, TV series and various other mediums of communication are dedicated to these beliefs and so are various other mechanisms and training processes.

Personal transformation: Change is the only thing that is really constant in human beings. We either change for the better or for the worse. Being transformed to a better, more appreciable level of existence is every rationale human being's wish and desire. As we age, one of the innate desires of people is for us to appear better in our physical and mental capacities. Some people would spend a fortune to undergo various forms of transformation such as plastic surgery, make overs and drastic activity that affects our appearance in public.  Undergoing transformation as we progress in whatever we do is the ultimate dream of every human being.

All of our non customers are associated with at least one or more of the attributes that are our outlined here. If we can find a way to make our products exude  these emotions and promise as well as provide  them for more people, we would eventually find ourselves breaking into new groups of customers that have been hidden from our products.   

Key areas of waste in office administration

One of the major bothers of administrators in the private sector is how to keep costs within a minimal margin. At a management conference recently I discovered that most of the people who attended were worried about keeping operational costs down to the barest minimum. Two bankers asked this question at the conference and we spent a lot of time doing a hypothetical cost benefit analysis on resource management particularly in the banking environment, where most of the participants came from. A cost benefit analysis according to experts is often described as ),  "a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives (for example in transactions, activities, functional business requirements); it is used to determine options that provide the best approach to achieve benefits ..".

We dived right into the areas that attract most of the costs in office operations beyond salaries which is a necessary expense that we cannot readily do away with. 

Research has shown that the areas where costs are on the high in the work environment include energy consumption: diesel, petrol and gas; stationery usages: A4 paper( as well as other sizes) toner for our printers; Data Consumption for internet access and of course the time spent in traffic for people who work in the field. 

A typical office worker who is into document production uses upwards of 10,000 sheets of paper a year, a lot of it is waste since not all goes into producing the final documents that are filed.

Efficiency expert, McCorry says "Paper management costs vary from one company to another, depending on how each company is configured and which costs that particular company associates with paper. Companies that are considering paperless systems need to know not only the costs associated with implementation of such systems, but also the current costs of managing data in paper format. So the question is how does your organization handle paper? Have you put in a recycle policy into your work environment to ensure that paper is managed properly? The other side of this is to put as much as possible on our computers so as to ensure that we have soft copies in lieu of hard. We need to infuse computer networking into our briefings and network meetings, using paper only when its absolutely necessary.

A December 2016 energy report states that Nigeria uses 12 million litres of diesel daily. How much of this does your office consume on a daily basis? What can you cut down on? At the conference we realized after serious analysis that there are ways in which a company that serves members of the public regularly can do without a nine hour consumption of diesel on a daily basis. Apart form the long drawn advise of finding alternative means of powering our offices we have to simply cut the hours in which we we run those powerful generators and see what measures can be put in place to power the offices when the external customers are not necessarily around the premises. Glassy rooms are more difficult to cool via air conditioning than halls with fewer windows. The fewer the people inside an office, the less air conditioning we need. Refrigerators, air conditioners desk top computers and water dispensers can all be switched off when they are not in use. Laptops are known to consume less power than desktops, lights should only be ignited when absolutely necessary. In a small office where most of the activity is field based we can afford to shut down all the power until its absolutely necessary for the lights to be on. 

One area that really shocked me is the use of armed police as protection. Some banking institutions pay as much as N40,000 a week to get the police to man their premises. My answer to that was simple. Large organizations that have enough outlets should register their own security organizations and get permits for their guards to carry weapons. 

Micheal Hammer's theory of re engineering looks at business from  a more efficient perspective. Re engineering is "... the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary modern measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed."The emphasis here is on costs without necessarily losing quality and speed. 

In the areas of data usage, many of our younger operators are wont to spend hours online for non profitable ventures. While we like to furnish our offices with unheeded access to the internet, we need to hold our operatives accountable for the  data they use. Activity outside of the office needs to be timed. Its not all the time that we have traffic on the roads therefore there are periods when holds ups and hiccups can be avoided. Vehicular movement therefore has to be studied to enable us move unhindered in our outside travels. The operational analysis adopted by experts in a cost benefit analysis hinges on a couple of considerations. They include: What options are available? With cheaper options would my performance level be affected? Would options affect the comfort of those that run the business? Would I still be able to meet my obligations to the customer and my staff? With all these taken into consideration there is no reason why we cannot become more cost effective at what we do.

Boost your dominant skills

Now that you know your most dominant skills you have to find a way to do the following:

• 1.       Build on those skills and make them as relevant to your progress as possible: You need to ask yourself who are the best at what I do? How can I get better? How do I embark upon training and development processes that would enable me to make these skills cutting edge? Sometimes it takes membership of a professional body to ensure that you keep up with developments in your area of interest. Sometimes it takes moving in the right circles or getting enough practice time.
  
• 2.       The best operators in your area of interest can teach you some enduring lessons. Read their books if they have any, listen to them speak, literally sit at their feet if its possible. There is always something new that you learn from them. You need to commit yourself to learning if you want to improve.
• 3.       After each cycle of learning there ought to be a time of implementing what you have learnt and seeing what effect it has on your improvement. The most difficult thing for us to do as human beings is to rate ourselves in the area of improvement. No person likes to admit weaknesses and wrong, when we do, these things often come hard.  One ingenious way of rating our improvement processes is to get someone who would assess us dispassionately. There should be no bias. We should be able to distinguish between bias assessment and praise.  This is not to say that we should not praise people who are working at improving themselves, rather we ought to be able to praise the effort to improve and at the same time score

Nigeria's unemployed youth population is a danger to development

I just got back from the amazing Arthur Jarvis University in Akpabuyo, 13 kilometers from Calabar in Cross Rivers State! Never have I seen a university being built and developed so rapidly! I was privileged to sit on a panel that has engaged in recruitment and selection of the staff that would run this new university which would kick off this year with several courses in science, languages, arts and social sciences. It is simply amazing what the founders of this university have been able to achieve in so short a time. The buildings and the layout of the campus are modern and attractive. There are also hostel and staff quarters for the people who would  be taken on, either to study or serve at the university.
The medical center was the venue of my part of the interview on Saturday, the previous day I had sat in the bursar's office with two other academics seeking to recommend Assistant lecturers for the various departments. We had set up interview venues all around the campus for two days and were recruiting and selecting candidates at random.
The number of people who applied for positions there  was a frightening reflection of the state of unemployment in the country today. I sat speaking to several young energetic people many of them whom had never held a job down or had recently got laid off because of the recession. There is an estimate of over 10,000 people who applied for various positions. The influx of people to the Campus for the two days that the interviews were taking place was scary. It appears the spate of unemployment still needs to be addressed by the government before we get an army of unemployed youths taking their frustrations out on the other people of the country. Nigeria may be in for a rough time yet.
One thing that made me happy is, in spite of the complaints of a falling standard of education in Nigeria, there are still many bright young people who can make a difference in Nigeria if they are given a chance. The question is: how many young people would really get a chance to prove themselves with the way the government appears to have disdain for the young people of this country. There is no holistic plan for youth development or sports in Nigeria. No efforts to train our youngsters and make them technically skilled for the future development of this nation. There is simply no vision statement for Nigeria and a gross neglect of a whole generation of young people.
Institutions like Arthur Jarvis University would do there own part and employ as many as they can, but the fact still remains that the Nigerian populace have lost confidence in their leaders. Just as the leaders seem to have lost interest in serving the people who elected them.

The medical center of Arthur Jarvis University

8 things you ought to do to improve your business in 2017!

As the year 2016 runs to an end, its time for us to focus on the incoming year with plans, strategies and prayers that would help us into 2017 and would also enhance our performance at our business. The world is moving at such a fast pace that he who holds back and does things the same way would fall back and find that people have overtaken him in more ways than can be imagined..

• Online Marketing: Now depending on the product or service you provide and the buyers whose needs you address, it just might be right for you to have a presence online and market your products there. Whether your product is tangible(can be touched or seen) or intangible( cannot be touched or seen) as long as your buyers go online via social media and use email, you ought to have a presence there and learn to market your stuff online. 
• Cash Cow Strategy: The cash cow strategy is a method embraced by organizations who have more than one product in the market. Those that have a portfolio of products would embrace the cash cow strategy when the do an analysis of the various products they market and see which one brings in the most cash. Once that is done, the strategy is to give the one that brings in the most cash more prominence in terms of accessibility innovation and promotions. The whole idea is to make sure the product is as close to perfection as possible so that it continues to yield the premium and it also entails taking a glance into the future and determining what the immediate and long term threats tot he product are and drawing up a strategy to deal with such situations. 
• Deals, discounts and options: In purchases of goods and services, the shrewd business person always looks out for special deals, discounts and options that would enable him save money or gain additional benefits. In seeking deals, discounts and options, there should be no compromise of standards and quality so as to ensure that integrity and customer care is not compromised. 
• Adding value to a product or a service is something we ought to strive to do in 2017 especially in an environment where you have competition. A little extra time spent in packaging, cleaning, talking to the customer assuring that he gets what he wants, how he wants it can make the world of difference on the long run! The principle is applicable to people who major in raw material production too. Can we engage in any form of processing that would make the product more valuable, durable and or give us extra income? We started experimenting with smoking our fish at the farm when we discovered that those who smoke it sell it for almost double the price we sell it. 
• Leveraging our networks: Many of us play roles in networks outside of our business that we are not exploiting. Friends, social societies, friends of friends etc. Don't forget to attend that party or gathering you were invited to. Your next client might just be lurking there. 
• Safe and secure investments are the secret weapons of enduring finances in 2017. The question on the lips of those of us who are in business should be what can I invest in, in the new year that would not be threatened by a turbulent economic situation? The answer is simple: Treasury bills and bonds that are backed by the might of a government. Most governments are into mopping up money in their fiscal strategies to control the amount of cash in circulation. The yield might be low but its safe.
• The watch word for business in 2017 should be lets minimize our risks and that would help us cut our losses. Make sure every risk is calculated with the worst case scenario clear in our minds. Its better to be safe than sorry. 
• Boundary hopping( see the article earlier published here) is when you seek to break into markets that have not been really exploited with your product. In 2017 we ought to find a way to exploit clientele that have not been on our normal list.Stretch your products as far as they can go, imagination and creativity could help you touch people that you never even thought of. The questions on our minds should be what can I add or remove from this product that would make it acceptable among a different class or group of people.

The power of positive self talk

Speaking to yourself out loud in an environment where there are people observing might be considered to be a dangerous, if not out of place trait. Those who catch you uttering exclamations to yourself might wonder if you have not taken leave of your senses. But it is a well known approach to engender self esteem and a positive state of mind to speak to oneself in a tone that is encouraging and up building. Positive reinforcement is a powerful strategy for strengthening ones mind, especially in a period of crisis when things are not going the way we planned them.
Psychological research has shown that it is the positive minded people who make headway in their chosen obligations. Such people are known to be so strong minded that no matter what people say about them they are not discouraged .They may not be able to control the environment they operate in all the time, but where they cannot get it under control, the adjust their thoughts and indeed actions to make headway and ultimately get close to the outcome that they desire in the course of things.
The process is a logical flow. Our thoughts determine our actions, our actions in turn out to get us to where we want to be or far away from our desired destination. There are very few actions taken by an individual that are not thought about first. If our thoughts help determine our actions, then those of us who want to succeed at what we do, ought to think about progress, success and all the positive thoughts we can muster to aid us in spurring ourselves into possibilities and progress we never imagined was possible. (Of course, that is not true) You imagined it and that is part of what helped bring it to pass! Remember the powerful thoughts are only part of the process. We have to back it up with action.
Therefore if you want a considerable change to occur in your life, begin by talking about what you want to happen to yourself and see what moves you can make that would take you closer to what you are talking about!

THE SELF MANAGEMENT PROCESS:

What am I telling myself?
What other meaning(s) have I attached to this situation?
How do I feel?
What do I fear?
What do I think it will look like?
What can I do to help myself?
IT HELPS TO ASK OURSELVES QUESTIONS SOMETIMES SO AS TO DEFINE OUR THINKING AND UNDERSTAND OUR DIRECTION

Retain your customers at a higher rate!

 Business is tough in many parts of the world today.  A lot of people who are in business have to rely on old customers and referrals to get by. The new customers are difficult to come by. So while you seek the new ones learn to leverage the ones you have already so that you do not lose them.  Retention strategies are important for you to be able to do this.
What is retention?

•        Customer retention is the act of implementing certain strategies which allows current customers to keep using the brand and potential customers to turn into regular consumers. In order to sustain in the tough market competitions, businesses have to follow customer retention strategies right from the time they get a new customer till throughout the period the person uses the product.Customer retention is not just a matter of offering quality products, but also how the company gives proper services and creates a dependable goodwill in the market. 

         You and I have to foster good will and consistently court the customers' attention if we want to retain them. We must not give room for them to think of the competition as being better in any sense, so we have to frequently benchmark the competition in our sector and find out where we are going wrong and indeed what we are doing right. 

        Retained customers are known to generate much more revenue than occasional or new customers. They feel more comfortable with our services and procedures and do not usually hesitate before paying. Sometimes it possible for us to predict when our retained customers would buy and how much they would commit to new purchases over a period. This helps us to forecast our income and plan our finances.  

 

 

Practical strategies for retaining your customers:

•Membership cards and programs that entitle your customers to special offers, discounts, or preferential treatment.

•Welcome, acknowledgement, sales recognition, thank you statements.

•After sales satisfaction and complaint inquiries and surveys.

•Event oriented communications in which the customer is genuinely interested.

•Enhanced and empowered customer, after sales, and technical support. 

          Companies must begin to institute  conscious attempts to retain their customers before someone else gets in the door and tries to take them over. The whole idea is to have a retention strategy and immediately a sale has been made swing into action with inquiries about the good or service from the customer with a view to trying to ascertain that the need for which the purchase was made is met and service as well as advice is offered free of charge as part of the customer care portfolio. 

Measures you can take to retain your customers:

The current economic climate is causing customers to be more selective. As a result, many companies are losing customers at a rapid rate.  

1. Find out what customers want and what causes them to stay or leave.

First, conduct a survey with existing customers. Ask customers what they want and need, as well as which specific aspects of your business, products, services they value most. In addition, conduct a separate survey with former customers to find out what specifically caused them to leave.

2. Proactively collect and promote customer feedback.

Do not wait until there is a problem to contact or follow up with customers. Instead, set up communication channels to encourage sincere two-way communication with them, and then use those channels to actively solicit and collect their feedback.

Examples of customer communication channels include: a feedback link or feedback form on your company web site, focus groups, comment cards, in-person visits, e-mails, letters, user forums, surveys, etc.

3. Use technology to manage and analyze customer feedback, and ensure the right people hear it.

        Companies can easily have as many as 35 or more tools in place to listen to the customer. These tools frequently duplicate efforts and consume a tremendous amount of time and resources. By the time feedback is tabulated, analyzed and shared, the input is weeks or months old. 

4. Analyze customer feedback to gain valuable insights.

Once you’ve gathered feedback from customers, analyze it to find out:

 The type of customer feedback and the percentage in each category (complaints, suggestions, comments, concerns)

The channel most used by customers to provide feedback (Web, phone, in-person, etc.) 

5. Immediately address customers’ complaints and concerns. 

         If you can address customers complaints and concerns immediately or almost as soon as they are brought to you, you will retain customers because of your promptness. No one likes to be kept waiting least of all the customer who wants proper and tailored treatment from your organization no matter how big or small you are. 

•6. Take action and Measure the Results. 

         Lining up what you will do to retain your customers, a phone call or visit even when you are not selling anything, needs to be followed through. Once you have started doing it then you can measure the effect 

•7. Actively measure and monitor your customers’ loyalty and engagement. 

         Using data based on frequent customers and their purchase behavior you can measure loyalty and determine if your engagement strategies have worked. 

•8. Create and nurture a company culture that embraces and is committed to using customer feedback. 

        Once you have started these strategies and approaches in your company you must makes sure it is sustained on an organizational or at least a departmental level. It should be part of the DNA of the organization. 

•9. Keep asking, listening, analyzing and improving.

       The customer is always right when it comes to quality of goods and services, so listen to him.  

 

Things to note about personal growth!

Personal growth should lead to promotion: the upward movement that increasingly frees you to do more thinking and than actual doing. In a Human Resource Management seminar the debate took place about why bosses who seem to do less actually receive more pay for seemingly being idle! The bosses compensable factors had to be stressed. Picture that all important meeting in your office for instance, a group of foot soldiers sit around the conference table with all manner of documents at hand and various sizes of laptops open to spread sheets and presentations. Then the big boss enters the room with very little. Why is that? Well he was not hired run computers, maintain schedules and carry files! Most bosses are hired for their expertise in a certain area and because of the power of the ideas. In the modern corporate world, organizations want people with the best kind of ideas to be in leadership. So that is why in competitive environments, the promotions and upliftment would go to the men and women who show initiative and potential for growth. How frequently can you generate new ideas in your work environment? Do you show aptitude for learning, are you  well informed, quick to understand things and willing to learn more?
Human resource studies show that there are a category of people who lose interest in their career after a period of time. If you have high levels of intensity and creativity you are not likely to lose interest, rather you are more likely to be spurred into finding a better way to do the job. Growth oriented people are too busy trying to stretch and break records, do the unimaginable and top their category in performance rather than being bogged down by petty details of the day.  Try this: spend more time expanding your knowledge and experience and see what effect it has on your person and your career! Your interest levels and excitement are bound to reach new heights!
When you stop growing there is a tendency for you to stop enjoying your work. The person who is growing continually in knowledge and experience never gets tired. He is always looking for the next level of achievement, the next milestone to meet, the next tape to breast. One way to stay fresh is to start spreading your knowledge or know how. Help other people to grow. See where and how you can identify useful knowledge and information and spread it among the people that need it or could use it! You would be amazed at what would happen. Create a curious mind for yourself. See how many ways a problem can be solved. List the different kinds of would-be solutions and imagine scenarios. Personal growth should help you focus on people, find out what they need and see how you could provide it. When you focus on people, people will focus on you!  It all begins with you questioning yourself: How can I...... Curiosity and drive are often more powerful than intelligence. Intelligence can be of great use, but most of what you need to complete tasks and bring projects to an end and search for new ideas and solutions is found in drive. So drive yourself to personal growth and see if you do not move up!

My learning curve

A question of ethics: Is what I am doing wrong or right?

The world's ethical preoccupation has gone to hell. Nobody cares about rules and regulations anymore. The end justifies the means, who cares how you did as long as you get it done? At a seminar on Management and Administration, I had the opportunity to discuss ethics and ethical dilemmas. The topic made me reflect on the kind of leadership we have in major organizations around the world today and even in countries. Everyone is talking about results these days, not many people are concerned about how those results are attained. Did we go by the book, use a little blackmail, arm-twisting, inducement or extra ordinary persuasion that borders on the ethical? Meet your targets, the boss says, do what you have to do as long as you get what the organization wants. 
If you believe in right and wrong, you will once in while find yourself in an ethical dilemma! Picture the situation you are in, in a sector where everyone is cutting corners to make profit. They know its wrong, you know its wrong. You are lagging behind in your profits and targets would you do it or not? What if you are getting queries for non performance?
Here's the catch: you ought to be able to get the job done within the ethical frame work of the organization and without cutting corners and going against your own principles and beliefs that are based on morals. 
Reviewing the following questions help to serve as a guide to what is ethical and what is not, what is wrong and right. Even if you do not want to answer, your mind will tell you the right answer.

—

Is it legal/ethical?

—Does it feel right?

—How would it look in the newspaper?

—Will it reflect negatively on you or the company?

—Who else could be affected by this?

—Would you be embarrassed if others know about your course of action?

—Is there an alternative action that does not pose an ethical conflict?

—Is it against your policy?

—What would a reasonable person think?

—Can you sleep at night?

The yes/no answer will help you know if you working on the right path.  

Growing a farm from subsistence to large scale: Bottoms up!

Alsatian

Pitbull

Its amazing what you can cram into a little space. At my house in Ota, Ogun State of Nigeria I have goats, banana trees and fish ponds. I like to believe that its a sign of what's to come. I see myself retiring to a serene easy going life on a large farm where I will grow crops for both subsistence and market produce business as well as raise animals. We started the fish with dismal 2000 and the goats with one female. For the fish we have to buy fingerlings but the goats have begun to multiply by themselves. Land is the challenge. I am looking for one acre even though I do not have the cash to buy it yet. But you know what they say: where there is a will there is always a way.
If I have my way, will not stop at the goats, fish and bananas. I fancy myself raising dogs. Not mongrels. Rare breed. There is a security alert in Nigeria today and part of the self sufficiency of the successful business person is  to rely on as few people as possible. There is no doubt that security demands that people should have dogs, so that they can send miscreants away with a bark. But imagine a doberman, Alsatian or pit bull biting its way into an unwanted intruders thigh. The bite will maim the person for life. He will limp like Jacob in the bible who had an angel dislocate his leg.
The focus for many people in Nigeria today is to see what they can do for themselves. The chances of getting a loan are very slim. The agricultural loans that government is singing a song about are for a chosen few. Not everyone can have the opportunity to get them.  So those of us who don't have access have to fight for ourselves.
The soil around the house is very fertile. We have grown green vegetables from that soil. Spinach and Okra to be specific. Although, as we approach the dry season I am aware that those crops will be difficult to raise unless we are ready to consistently water them.
We could do a lot on a acre of land. I understand that poultry farmers have a large demand for maize. I have been thinking that instead of bothering myself with chicken perhaps I should just grow the components of their feed for them. The feed market is another big business. Animal feeds are known to constitute a large proportion that goes into the agricultural market. Fish feed, Chicken feed, goats and cows also have their mash and concentrate that enables them to attain maximum weight for sale. It is said that farmers spend more raising their livestock than they spend on themselves in a life time. The difference is that they get it back through sales.Both chicken and fish feed have hit the roof in terms of prices per kilo in Nigeria. The tragedy for fish feed is the non availability of starter, a component needed to help grow the stock while they are still young. The components comprise of high proteins substances that give fish and chicken the wherewithal to grow to table size. The protein foundation is critical to their survival. Sadly, Nigerian companies have not been able to make much headway with the production of starter feed. Farmers have to rely on imports which are too expensive an investment for the farmer who wishes to break even from his sales. Some farmers  have started milling their own feed so as to reduce their reliance on the imports, but the components are difficult to understand for maximum effect. Most farmers are experimenting. For the fish feed, we find that locally milled feed does not float so the fish hardly get to eat it before it sinks and the farmer would end up draining massive residue with dirty water when he decides to drain the ponds.
Once the land is acquired me and my family have a lot of experience to use on the main farm. I have 20 ponds in mind to raise about 50,000 fish every four months, 100 goats, 20 dogs and at least two plots of banana trees and maize. It would be a worthy investment.

Maize farm

“80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your clients !

Sorry if this sounds like Pareto but:
 “80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of
your clients"
...... and those 20 percent are the people you
are going to have long term relationships with.”


Know your Customers: When your product what you
are selling is the product as well as yourself to the customers. You need to know
  who your customers are and what medium they
would find useful. Find out what your customers do and
what thy read and buy. This knowledge of their habits
will benefit you in infinite ways.                                                                    
You need to know how educated they are, what they own,
what they might want to own, how much money they have.
You should not place  any promotions until you have
conducted solid   research. For example, how
many of your customers own a business? If your customers
are people who need security companies because they
own small businesses, there will be all sorts of other
services they will also need, such as short term
insurance and transportation.                                                                               

One thing you know already about your customers: You
know they are enlightened. If you are reaching the educated        
elite. They will probably want to educate their                            
children. Find out what courses are available for
learning in your country. They are
probably also interested in books. Find out what kinds
of books they like to read.
                                                                                                          

Know your product: Above all, you need to know your
product. You need to know the  quality and availability and have
proof of it.  You need to know where its available.


Developing Categories or variations of your product.
A number of categories of potential clients and
markets that can be developed, if you do that. You also need to                                                                 develop expertise about each category
about these products. You could start looking to find
out what you can learn about them them  

Prospecting clients: 80 percent of sales come from 20
percent of clients. Those 20 percent are the people
you are going to have to build the long-term
relationship with. You are also going to constantly be
trying to get more of your clients into this second
category. When you are prospecting clients you must
ask yourself a few key questions:

First, have they got a budget? Will they be able to
pay for regular products?
Second: Will they benefit from consistent purchases?


Are they reselling at a profit and using your products
as a major process?


Building your Client List: Once you’ve prospected your
clients, you need to begin to build up your client
list.
You do this two ways:
Develop your relationship with existing clients: If
they are still happy with you and still consider
themselves your client, nurture this relationship. If
they have purchased before, it is likely they will
 do it again. So start with your old clients from
your archives.  
Prospect for new clients: How are you going to do
this? Get the clients from your competition!


Keeping track of your clients: When you have developed
a category of clients, you are going to starting
building up your list of contacts. If you are working
with a contact book, you are going to need another
book where you put down the day’s date and you write
down and make notes on every phone call and every
visit you make. You might think this is a lot of
trouble, but it is like gold, because two months or
six months later, you’ll pick up the phone and you’ll
say to them what they told you when they spoke to you
some months ago and they’ll think ‘this person is
brilliant’.

Find a system that works for you! If you don’t already
have a method of building up a contact list, maybe you
can start this afternoon. Buy a book, or start a card
system. Or use a computer. The important thing is to
chose a system that works Even if
just write one sentence about a single phone call!

Africa's richest woman heads Angolan Oil company

Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos will have to explain to his country’s Supreme Court why he hired his daughter, who also happens to be Africa’s richest woman, to head up the state oil company. Dos Santos has to respond within a week, according to Angolan media.

Dos Santos appointed his daughter Isabel in June to manage Sonangol after a surprise axing of the board. But a group of about a dozen lawyers says the appointment breaks Angola’s laws against patronage, and have approached a court to have Isabel dos Santos removed. According to Angolan law, public officials may not appoint their immediate family, reports independent news site Rede Angola (site in Portuguese).

That the Supreme Court did not immediately dismiss their injunction is already a victory, lawyer David Mendes told Rede Angola this week. It’s the first time the president will have to account to the court, he said. They’re confident the law is on their side, he added.

Mendes is the same lawyer who successfully defended a rapper and 16 others charged with trying to overthrow the state after they were caught reading a book on non-violent protest. Mendes also defended Angolan journalist (and Quartz Africa Innovator) Rafael Marques when he was jailed for his reports on corruption. Activists, including the now free rapper, and the former prime minister Marcolino Moco, are also planning a march to protest Isabel dos Santos’ appointment.

On her appointment, Isabel dos Santos promised to save the struggling state oil company by increasing transparency and streamlining its operations. In August, dos Santos oversaw the $1.8 billion purchase of U.S.-based oil explorer Cobalt International Energy’s Angolan interests. That deal, however, was overshadowed by allegations of corruption around the Houston company’s local partner, appointed by the Angolan government, according to the Financial Times.

Angola is Africa’s largest oil producer, but Sonangol has been floundering due to falling oil prices and allegations of corruption. The younger dos Santos’ personal vast wealth, said to be around $3.3 billion, has also attracted scrutiny. Dos Santos and his daughter have yet to respond to the court’s decision.

Strategies for diversification

For companies or countries or companies that have one product as their income earner there is a need to start planning for diversification in a bid to either increase their products or make them more efficient at the production of the product that they have at hand. Diversification can come in the form of collaborative arrangements with other organizations that could help one company produce a high quality component of the product that they produce. For instance, a computer company could buy processors or mouses from another company that has the capacity to produce them better. Some companies often venture into the production of products that have no link to what they were producing before. The Flour Mills of Nigeria recently went into the production of fruit juice in powder form. The intention of the company was to break into the soft drink market which is ever expanding and appears to be very lucrative in Nigeria.
Once a company goes into varying businesses it needs different strategies at the various business unit levels to help leverage its competitive advantage. That means it would look for its strength in the product production and use it to its advantage to try to outdo the competition.
Before diversification there are somethings we ought to consider as businessmen:
1. How attractive or lucrative is the new business/product? Does it have a wide range of strong customers who would be willing to try new products? What are the cost involved in business at entry level?
2. Does the cost of entry eat into future benefits. Would we spend so much money setting it up that it would be impossible to make our return on investment as soon as possible? Can the break even period be measured?
3 There ought to be a competitive advantage in the new or acquired business from the outset. It could be a distribution network, better price,  or even uniqueness of the product.
Bringing significant advantage to the competitive environment is key to success of the business. This would be what the new business strategists would leverage on.
Sometimes the diversification could be a joint venture. Here's how to know when a joint venture is desirable:
1. When there is a need for strong portfolio management which requires another company making an intervention
2. When restructuring is required in terms of the managerial arrangement which could lead to success of the company or the product in consideration.
3. When there is an urgent need for a skills transfer
4. When certain extraneous activity that can not be carried out by one business unit is required for success.