Showing posts with label Entrepreneurship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entrepreneurship. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

How Persistent Are You With Your Online Business? Check Yourself!


How persistent are you? Would you like to know your persistent levels? Would you like to know where you have strengths and weaknesses? In one of my proceeding articles, I shared with my readers the importance of persistence and tips on how one could train himself/herself to become persistent. This time, I would like to focus your mind on this important question: “How persistent are you?”


Through this article, I would like you to carry out a self-evaluation exercise on how persistent you are by using the following guiding questions to weigh yourself. It would be nice to write somewhere your responses as to what exactly you are. This will hopefully help you to know your weaknesses and your strengths. It will also enable you to work on your weaknesses with an aim of becoming a more persistent person. Will you do that?


Well, answer genuinely the following 20 questions to discover your strengths and weaknesses. If your strengths outweigh your weaknesses by a very big margin, then you can consider yourself to be on the right track. But if your weaknesses exceed your strengths, you have a great job of training yourself to become persistent. I believe at the end of this simple exercise you will have known how persistent you are.


1. Do you have a purpose and clear reasons as to what you want to achieve in your business and your life?

2. Do you always find yourself postponing your decisions, plans and actions?

3. Do you have interest to acquire new knowledge and skills and apply them?

4. Do you find yourself doubtful and undecided on some of the important decisions you have to make in your life?

5. Do you feel complacent (feeling of self-satisfaction) about your achievements, what you are and what you have?

6. Do you feel indifferent or unresponsive to issues or obstacles you encounter in your life or in the course of doing your business?

7. Do you find yourself transferring the blame to others for any mistakes made by you?

8. Do you have a strong desire to do online business?

9. Do you create plans to guide you in your work?

10. Do you work according to your written plan or you find yourself doing things haphazardly?

11. Do you find yourself willing and decided to quit what you do when you are faced with some temporary defeat?

12. When people recognize opportunities for you, do you shy away from them?

13. Do you wish instead of taking action?

14. How ambitious are you at becoming financially secure or rich?

15. Do you believe in working to get money and riches or you believe in luck and easy ways of making money?

16. Do you fear to create plans and put them into action because of being criticized by others?

17. Do you feel passionate and enthusiastic about what you plan to do?

18. Do you believe in being a boss of your own or you prefer working for others?

19. Do you believe that you can achieve what you plan to do?

20. Do you pursue your plans, activities and tasks up to the end?


If you took some moments to reflect on the above questions and to analyze them, you now have a deeper understanding of yourself as far as your persistence levels are. The analysis may have led you to discover your strengths and weaknesses.


If you answered positively to questions 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19 and 20, you have strength in each of them and a negative response implies a weakness. But if you answered positively to questions 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13 and 16, you have a weakness in each of them and a negative response reflects your strength. How persistent are you?

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Persistence: The Pillar To Success In Your Online Business

Persistence is an important factor in online business. Success in online business demands a high level of persistence. It should be clearly understood from the beginning that for you to succeed, you have to persist a lot despite any hindrances you may encounter in the course of running your business. You have to consistently work on your business now and gain to convert your desires into their monetary equivalent.  Your will-power to continuously work on your business, day in day out, coupled with your ability to turn obstacles into success stories are key ingredients of persistence.

Since I started online marketing, I have realized that quite a good number of people want to start online businesses. In fact some even start by joining affiliate and networking programs, hoping to make a lot of money within a very short time. But after joining, they work on the businesses for a short time and withdraw. Others just join and leave it to luck. It’s one of the reasons why I have come out to share with my readers, in this article and other subsequent articles, the importance of persistence in online business.

Persistence is one of the great secrets that have helped many online marketers to accumulate a lot of money. Generally, all successful online marketers have persistently worked hard to get money. Hard work and persistence are the driving-forces that help you to turn the impossible into possible and to convert your desires and plans into their monetary equivalent.

If you are really determined to make money online, you must have the energy to work and to work persistently on your business. In online marketing, you can consider yourself successful, if you have been able to make some reasonable amount of money. But one thing you must know is that this kind of success does not come so easily. There are always ups and downs, disappointments and losses that may break down your will-power.

“When the journey gets tough as it sometimes will, rest if you should but don’t quit”, said Robert Schuller. The majority of would-be successful online marketers give up when faced with a temporary defeat. It’s only a few, who carry on until they attain their objectives that make money online. Don’t you want to be among them?

To elaborate this further, let me use an example of my former workmate a reputable organization 4 years ago, who abruptly decided to leave formal employment to do personal work of writing books for sale on Self-Discovery. When he mentioned this, everyone who knew him, especially his family, got concerned as to how he was going to survive without any reliable source of income. But he was tired of working for others and wanted to be a master of himself.

When he finally resigned, he used his terminal benefits to publish the useful books. But the going became so tough. Little did he know that his success depended not only on his skill and knowledge on the subject matter, but depended more on his ability to market the products. He didn’t have any marketing skills. He had used up all his terminal benefits and the books were not selling, as he had anticipated, to raise good income for him. Worse still, he had to attend to his family’s never-ending financial obligations. Each day, he was losing weight, getting disappointed and contacting his colleagues for support. But he never gave up with his business idea.

He worked on his business and looked for the market for his products. In the course of doing his business, he also realized that he could earn from organizing workshops and seminars mainly in schools on the subject. He also realized that he could use his books to advertize other people’s businesses and earn from providing advertising space. Actually his books are now full of various companies’ adverts.

As we talk now, he has established himself as an expert of self-discovery and earns a good living from his business. He is a self-made motivational speaker, writer and a publisher. The key factors to his success are mainly hard work and persistence.

Lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure in online business and a weakness prevalent to the majority of people. To make money online, you must overcome this weakness by having some effort to work on your business consistently and by keeping your desire to make money online burning. How deep is your desire to achieve from online business?

The stronger your desire to make money online is, the stronger the results. The weaker your desires are, the weaker the results. A small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat. My friend, keep your desire strong and burning. It’s a key element of persistence!

Marketers who have made money online are those whose minds are prepared to attract riches. If you find yourself weak in persistence, it’s high time you learnt how to acquire this important behavior of successful entrepreneurs. In my upcoming articles, I will provide you with tips on how to train yourself to become persistent and how you can assess yourself to discover whether you have the character of being persistent.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Internet Home Business: 10 Grounds For You To Start An Internet Home Business

Is starting an internet home business right for you? People have varying motives for starting businesses. Though most people consider joining conventional businesses as opposed to online businesses, online businesses are many times more lucrative, convenient and reliable than most traditional businesses. But having a motive for joining online business, like in any other conventional business, is a deciding factor to building a successful business. In this article, I would like to share with you some of the reasons as to why you should consider starting an internet home business.

1. Chance to make money

The most important reason for starting an internet home business is to make money. Did you know that the internet has opened numerous opportunities for us to make money? Some of the wealthiest businessmen in the world made their fortune from the computer and the internet. Did you know that? Interestingly, home online businesses do not require much startup capital like most conventional businesses. With just a computer and internet access, you can start an internet home business to sell your products.

2. Have an opportunity to join a business that is in line with your pastime

Are you in love with computers and the internet? Do you spend your pastime on the internet? If you are really friends with the internet, then joining online business is the right and convenient idea for you. People who venture into businesses which they love tend to succeed because passion is the driving force to build a successful internet home business.

3. Maintain yourself active upon retrenchment or retirement from your formal employment.

Most people start internet home businesses to get ready for that time when they will retire or be retrenched. If you are currently employed with a nice salary but concerned about what you will do after retirement or after being retrenched, it’s wise for you to start and grow slowly your internet home business.

4. Satisfying your wish to work for yourself.

Are you employed but discontented with your current job? Are you tired of working for others and feel like becoming a master of your own? Are you looking for financial freedom? Starting an internet home business will open for you a dependable opportunity to become self employed and to create multiple streams of income as well. Relying on one source of income is risky. When one source of income dries up, you get stranded. Most successful online marketers had the same experiences, which made them to start their internet home businesses.

5. Investing your accumulated savings in a profitable business.

Fortunately, starting an internet home business does not require much money. If you have saved some money and you are looking for a reliable and cost effective venture to invest it, joining a online business is one of the most gainful and convenient ways of investing your savings.

6. Join a business where you experience some challenges.

Are you tired of doing work where you do not see any growth? Is your aim to venture into a business that gives you some challenges? Online businesses provide a lot of room for creativity and growth.

7. Creating a job opportunity for yourself and your family members.

Starting an internet home business can open great opportunities for you to create jobs for your family members just from your home with your computer and internet connection.

8. Provide opportunities to other people in your community to get employed.

Do you want to create jobs for other people in your community? The internet has great opportunities for all people of walks of life. You can start your internet home business, develop it and eventually use it to train others and to create jobs for them in your community. For instance, you can create article writing jobs for the youth to write articles in different fields of their expertise, which you can buy and use them in your article marketing campaigns.

9. Applying your gained skills and knowledge.

Are you an expert in anything related to online business such web designing and graphic designing? Do you want to put into practice your skills and knowledge? When you start an internet home business, you have high chances of succeeding. Prior knowledge is to your advantage and places you ahead of others in business.

10. Establishing your traditional business online.

If you already have a business like a salon, internet café or restaurant, establishing it online is a sure way of growing it and taking it to another level. In addition to selling your main product, you will also have the opportunity of creating multiple sources of income by selling online other affiliate products related to your internet home business niche.

In conclusion, it’s important to know that your reason for starting an internet home business is a key determinant in the performance of your business. What’s yours?

Charles Kiyimba helps people to discover Great Home Business Ideas needed to start and to grow a home online business. Visit today to find out more about the secrets of building a Successful Home Business.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Discover Great Home Business Ideas To Start A Home Internet Business!

Most people want to start a home internet business either to have a second income or to establish their conventional business online or to get employment but they do not know where to start from. Some people fear to venture into online business due to lack of skills and knowledge to build a successful online business. Others are just doubtful about succeeding in online business, thinking that it’s only for the internet gurus. In this article, I would like to iron out those obstacles that deter most people from starting a home internet business.

There are many great home business ideas on the internet but it takes time and patience to do some good research for those ideas. Each day the internet opens up new opportunities for us to make money by providing solutions to other people’s problems. Take advantage of that to start your own home internet business.

Most of the great home online business ideas require you to be smart enough to make money online. You have to take action by acquiring knowledge and skills through self-help learning, trainings and support programs. Take action by spending some time to work on your business and at times some money to invest in your business. Before you start your home internet business, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I have the courage to start a home internet business? To succeed in online business, you have to be self-driven, hardworking, passionate about your business, persistent and able to take action.

2. Do I love reading? Most successful online marketers started their online businesses with scanty knowledge but through reading and learning from others, they became experts and are now earning good income. Like other newbies, you will have a lot of information to read before you become knowledgeable, skilled and conversant with doing online business.

3. Do I have the time? You have to allocate ample time everyday to work on your business. You need to create time. Remember 99% of the time is within your control.

4. Am I able to spend some little money? Although you can start a home internet business on a shoestring budget, you should bear in mind that business is all about investment. What are you investing in your online business for you to earn what you expect to get from it?

What do you need to start a home internet business?

The following are 10 great home business ideas on what is exactly needed for you to start your home internet business.

1. A computer and internet connection.

It’s obvious that you cannot do any online business without having a computer and access to the internet.

2. A website.

You can only start a home internet business if you have a website. There are mainly 2 ways of having your own website set up:

i. Designing your own website.

You can learn the HTML (the web designing language) to design your websites. Look for web designing e-books on the internet and teach yourself. Learning to design your own websites is a great home business idea I strongly recommend to you.

If you find it difficult to learn, like most people do, then hire a web designer to design it for you at a cost.

ii. Setting up a Blog.

Setting up a blog is the easiest and cheapest way to start a home internet business. You do not have to know HTML and it can be set up in a very short time. What you need to do is to visit blogger.com or wordpress.org and create a beautiful site. If you still find it hard to set it up by yourself, you can instead have it set up FREE by other online service providers.

3. Domain Name.

You need a domain name to do online business. When coming up with a domain name, first educate yourself and become familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so as to compose a good name for your site. Register your domain name with a reliable service provider at an average annual cost of $ 10.

4. Hosting Company.

You need to host your website with a reliable hosting company. Hosting charges depend basically on the hosting period and the package you select. I recommend hosting your website over a long period of time preferably 3 years to save money. It’s not advisable to use FREE WEB HOSTS.

5. A niche.

A niche is a specific area of your expertise or professionalism that you intend to sell to your targeted customer group. You need to focus on a specific area of the market to build a successful business. People buy to satisfy their specific needs.

6. A product or service.

You must have a product to sell to make money. There are 2 ways of going about this: coming up with your own product to sell or selling products of others. I recommend selling your own product along with affiliate products. Some of the top internet sellers include software, information, private sites and internet services. The success of your business will depend on how good your products are and how great your home business idea is.

7. Marketing.

After setting up your website, you now have to market it. Market and market your site! You can only succeed by carrying out marketing campaigns to drive traffic to your website. There are free and paid online marketing methods. Some of the free and most effective methods include forum marketing, blogging, article marketing and social networking.

8. Automation.

As already said, online business takes a lot of time but you can save your time by automating some of the tasks. Use auto responders to capture email addresses of visitors to your website who subscribe to your newsletter and to manage order processing, order confirmation, customer follow-ups, welcome messages and thank you messages.

9. Developing your reputation.

Reputation determines your success. Portray yourself not only as a professional but also as a person with certain good values. Set ethical standards by which you conduct your business and be honest.

10. Organization.

Being organized is a key to building a successful home internet business. Create a daily work schedule, a communication calendar and organize your work e.g. computer folders, email messages, etc...

Using the above great home business ideas, you already know much about what it takes to start and build a successful online business. You do not need to be an internet guru but you only have to take action and start your own home internet business. The rest you will learn gradually.

Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn't. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Your Strengths Determine The Success Of Your Business – Do You Know Them?

Do you know your strengths and your weaknesses? Have you ever taken trouble to know who you are and what you have before you begin any business? If you are already in business, how are you progressing? Don’t you think it’s high time you carried out a self-evaluation to know your strengths and weaknesses better?

The success of your business will depend largely upon your strengths and behaviors. I have noticed that most people find it easy to know about others and do not take the trouble to find out who they are in terms of their behaviors. They instead feel more comfortable talking about their achievements and the behaviors of others. But to be successful in your business, you need to know very well who you are in terms of your behaviors, your strengths and your weaknesses.

In this article, I would like to share with you on how you can develop your self-awareness to discover your strengths and weaknesses. But before I can go any further, let me define your STRENGTH as a quality or ability you may be having that gives you an advantage in any given business. On the other hand, your WEAKNESS is a deficiency or failing in your character.

Ability to identify your strengths and weaknesses helps you to determine the kind of people you will work with to compliment your behaviors, especially in the area of your weaknesses. Let me illustrate this point further with the example of someone who becomes angry easily and wants to start a restaurant. If you are such a person, you could consider working with people who are sweet-tempered.

In another example, if creativity is your strength, it would be better for you to start businesses where you can apply your own creativity. Take advantage of your strengths to grow your business. Where you have weaknesses, seek support in form of learning, being coached or employing others to compliment your strengths.

Additionally, knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses determines the kind of training or coaching you need to grow your business. For instance, if you are involved in affiliate marketing, where you have to use article marketing as a method of promoting your business, but you find yourself unable to write good articles, you can consider acquiring this skill by learning.

Being familiar with your strengths and weaknesses is very important for you to start or conduct any business. Equally important is knowledge about your behaviors because they play a big role in running your business. They determine the destination of your business: success or failure. There is a saying that “A good person with a second class idea is better than a good idea with a second class person”. Change your behavior positively for the success of your business.

How can you know your strengths and weaknesses?

The best way of doing it is to carry out a self-assessment, using the following guiding questions:

1. What natural abilities do you have? What are you talented in? For instance, are you naturally creative, sociable, resourceful, persevering, persistent, honest, determined, self-driven, hard working and humorous? What else are you?

2. Which things do you do better than most people? What are you skilled in? This helps you to discover where you can have an advantage over other competitors in your business industry.

3. How have you grown in the last year? Think about things that have helped you to reach your current level of growth. Knowing them is important for you to strengthen further your achievements.

4. What most difficult things have you accomplished? What helped you to accomplish them? Think about carrying forward those qualities that helped you to arrive at your achievements.

5. What are you proudest of? As you do your business, what do you feel proud of yourself and proud of your business? And what do you feel least proud of? Use the information to build your brand identity and expertise.

6. On what do you receive compliments about? Knowledge about the kind of compliments you receive helps you to determine what to do to target the motivations that compel other people to do business with you.

7. What upsets the people you work with? This helps you to know the kind of support and training you need to succeed in your business.

8. What criticism do your closest friends give you? Getting to know from your closest friend helps you many times to receive genuine criticism that enables you to find solutions to the weakness.

9. What criticism would your boss give you? By boss I mean mainly your customers. What kind of criticism would you get from them?

10. What areas of your behavior do you have to improve in? What skills and knowledge would you acquire? The success of your business will depend largely on your behavior. Besides, many business ideas are generated from the skills and knowledge one has.

Lastly, if your weaknesses exceed your strengths in any kind of business you want to start or you are conducting, then that’s not a business for you. My advice is that you take advantage of your valuable characteristics when conducting a business. But also consider looking at your weaknesses as opportunities and find solutions to them. Your ability to do this will contribute a lot to the success of your business.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Do You Understand What Your Targeted Customers Buy?

Do you understand what your targeted customers buy? Do you really understand it? Well, I have always mentioned that people do not buy to please you but to satisfy their needs. What are those needs? Have you ever bothered to find out what your targeted customers buy?

When people buy from you a product, it’s not really the product per se they buy, it’s the satisfaction, the pleasure or the outcome they derive from buying that product. As you do your business, endeavor to understand what your targeted customers buy so that you can motivate them to buy from you.

In online marketing, there is a lot of competition. So many marketers are struggling to survive in the marketing business. If you simply spend your money and time marketing and advertising your products and services without getting on the drawing board to discover what your targeted customers really buy, you will not be able to target the exact motivations that drive your potential customers’ decisions to buy from you or to join the affiliate program that you promote. That’s why it’s crucial to understand what your targeted customers buy.

For instance, when one joins an affiliate program of the auto responder service you promote, it’s not the auto responder per se he wants. It’s the benefits and satisfaction he derives from using it. As long as you get to understand those benefits and satisfaction, you focus your marketing campaigns on them to motivate your potential customers to buy. By understanding what your targeted customers buy, you find it easier to turn them into buyers because you will have solved their problem.

As already said, people buy outcomes but not products per se. What someone pays money for when he buys a bottle of beer out in a bar could be happiness, joy, good service, fulfillment or reduction of stress but NOT the mere bottle of beer. If it’s just the bottle of beer, then you need to ask yourself why he chooses to have it taken in Bar X when there are so many other bars within the same locality. Obviously, you will find the answers from the outcomes I have mentioned. Finding out the answers is very important to any business person and to any marketer.

Examples of some of the outcomes that people spend their hard earned money for when buying products and services include mainly satisfaction, results, prestige, solutions, freedom, joy and happiness, saving time and energy, benefits, advantages, value, dependability, fulfillment, support, development, fear of loss of money or something, enrichment and self respect. It’s therefore upon you to probe further and ask yourself what really your targeted customers buy, basing on these outcomes.

How can that information help you?

What your targeted customers buy is determined by their buying decisions. And their buying decisions are further determined by what is important to them. This simply means that for you to influence them to buy from you, you will need to satisfy what is important to them through your marketing campaigns. As you begin your online business, make sure, right from the start, that things like domain name should rhyme with what your potential customers will be buying from you. The choice of words in your marketing and advertising campaigns should address your targeted customers’ values.

To emphasize the above point, let me share with you some of the examples of what companies and organizations promise to their targeted customers upon making a decision to buy their products.

SOS Children’s Villages – “A loving home for children”
Orange – “Internet Everywhere”
SFI – “Aim High, Dream Big”
SubmitYourArticle.com – “Massive Publicity For Your Website”
TrafficSwarm – “Get Traffic, Make Money”

Knowing what your targeted customers buy is undeniably a very important ingredient in building a successful online business. Learn it now that your marketing messages should focus on the fundamental outcomes of what your targeted customers buy when they search out for your products and services through the marketing messages you produce. For instance, if you are running a salon, you will motivate your targeted customers more by saying “Come And Transform Your Looks” than by saying “Come And Get Your Hair Cut”.

I therefore conclude by reminding you that understanding what your targeted customers buy does not only help you to have a much greater influence on their buying decisions but it also helps to avoid falling prey to the small marketing mistakes online marketers make. Try to find out what outcomes your targeted customers buy, you will really realize great improvement in your marketing strategies.


Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn't. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

3 Ways To Grow Your Online Business

Do you know how you can grow your online business?  Many marketers focus so much on getting new customers as if this is the only way of growing their businesses. Little do they know that it’s actually the most costly and time-consuming method of growing their businesses. Focusing on existing customers to build your business by coming up with various ways for them to buy more and more often is actually the quickest and cheapest way to grow your online business and to increase your income.


That said, I would like to draw your attention on 3 proven ways of growing your online business, which include getting new customers, selling more to existing customers and selling more often to existing customers. Do you do that? Well let’s focus on one by one to throw more light on the importance of learning to grow your online business with the three methods.


1.      Getting new customers.

    As already pointed out, getting new customers to grow your online business is the hardest and time-consuming method. Persuading new customers to buy from you requires you to do a lot in terms of marketing and advertising.
    People do not easily buy from strangers. For you to convince them, it really takes time. You need to build your online credibility and believability through applying proven ways of presenting yourself as an expert in your field of specialization, to outcompete your competitors. This is time-consuming and is one reason why new marketers find it difficult to break through. Focusing on getting new customers without having a clear plan to maintain old ones is another reason why some marketers fail to grow their online businesses. While getting new customers is very important to grow your online business, you need also to focus on maintaining them so as not to waste the resources you invested in getting them. Learn techniques of getting new customers and maintaining them to grow your online business.
2.      Selling more to existing customers.

    It’s very easier to grow your online business with existing customers than getting new    ones. This is because they already know you and know your products. Because they have already used your products, even when you introduce new products it’s easy to convince them to buy.
    Your responsibility now is to create various ways for them to buy more and more from you. You can do this through introducing various promotional programs that will persuade them to buy as they see the benefit of buying again from you. For instance, if you have 4 customers, who buy products equivalent to $50 each per month, you earn $2,400 in a year. If you work hard to get 4 extra customers in the same year, who can also spend on average $50 per month, you will earn $ 4,800 from your 8 customers (4 old & 4 new customers). But if you get 4 new customers and encourage the four old customers to spend 50% more, your revenue will jump from $ 4,800 to $ 6,000 in a year. Do you see how fast you will have grown your business by directing your energy on both old and new customers? In the example above, what you have done is to increase what your old customers buy from you by 50% and this is what is known as the TRANSACTION VALUE. Always focus on your old customers by coming up with ways of increasing their transaction value to grow your online business. Will you do that?
3.      Selling more often to existing customers.

    Growing your online business will largely depend on how often each of your customers buys from you. This is very important. You need to come up with ways to keep them coming back to buy from you.
    Let me illustrate this by building on the same example above. If each of the 4 old customers you have spent $50 per month, you would earn $2,400 in 12 months. But if you worked hard to encourage them to increase their transaction value by 50%, each customer would spend $75 per month and you would earn $3,600 within one year. If the 4 customers increase the number of times they purchase from you to 3 times per annum, through your promotional efforts, they would spend a total of $10,800. Can you imagine your revenue jumping from $6,000 to $10,800 as a result of focusing on the frequency each customer buys from you? In the example above, your assumed revenue has increased from $6,000 to $10,800 due to the number of times each of the 4 customers returned to buy from you. You have not got new customers but your revenue is increasing. That’s what is known as THE FREQUENCY OF PURCHASE. Grow your online business by focusing on the number of times each customer buys from you!

As you work hard to grow your business, ask yourself the following questions and make sure you find the answers.


                      i.        How many customers do I have currently?
                    ii.        How much do they spend on average in one transaction?
                   iii.        How many times do they spend in a month or in a year?
                   iv.        What would happen if I increased their transaction value by 5% to 50% or even more?
                    v.        What can I do to increase their transaction value?
                   vi.        What can I do to increase their frequency of purchase?


When you successfully find answers to the above questions, you will obviously find no obstacle in building a successful business. You will have known how to grow your online business.  Will that help you?

 
Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn't. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

How To Foster A Culture Of Entrepreneurship In Your Children

Fostering a culture of entrepreneurship in your children is an important factor in supporting them to become self-reliant and financially independent as they grow into adults. It's a gradual process that requires you as a parent to be actively and effectively involved in your child's development.

Though formal education is very important and we cannot avoid it, relying on it solely is no longer enough to deal with the changing demands in our life. You need to help your children to understand money and how it works. You need to begin early enough to deal with the obstacles that deter educated people from achieving financial independence. These obstacles include mainly fear, cynicism, laziness, bad habits and arrogance. By fighting against these behaviors early enough, you foster a culture of entrepreneurship in your children.

Fear is a very big obstacle to success. Fear of losing money or losing anything should be fought early enough. Let it be properly understood that there is no rich person that has never lost money and there is no successful person that walked his way to success without any challenges. But there are a lot of poor people, who have never lost money. Whom do you prefer?

Cynicism, a belief one may have that something good will not happen, prohibits many people from venturing into business. Being doubtful about success is a major hindrance to financial freedom. Guide your children to be optimistic about what they set their heart to do. Opportunities are so sly that cynics tend to wake up when it's too late. That's one reason why they remain poor.

Fostering a spirit of laziness in your children is a very bad tendency among some educated and well-to-do people. They tend to provide everything that their children request, thinking that their children will be happy. But they forget that by so doing, they ignorantly kill the children's ability to solve problems, to make good choices and to be creative.

Arrogance kills the spirit of seeking information. Many people tend to ignore the things they don't know and ignorantly consider them to be avenues for losing money. If you find yourself ignorant in a subject, the best way to become knowledgeable is to find an expert in it to coach you or to look for a book and read it. Help your children to seek information on what they don't know.

Our habits are reflected in our lives more than education. For instance, he who was loved is more likely to love other people he interfaces with. But the one who was never loved in his childhood will find it difficult to love others even if he is highly educated. Love is learnt through association with lovely people. Practicing value adding habits is one of the basics of fostering a culture of entrepreneurship in your children.

How can you then foster a culture of entrepreneurship in your children?

1. Train your children to communicate assertively for them to acquire good communication skills that will eventually help them to become successful entrepreneurs. The way people communicate is normally a reflection of their behaviors and beliefs. Most successful people are always assertive while unsuccessful people are either aggressive or non-assertive.

Aggressive communicators' behavior is based on the thinking that they have to win at all cost while the people they interface with have to lose. They think that they have more rights than others. On the other hand, people who are nonassertive think that other people are winners and they are losers. Their submissive nature makes them to develop the feeling that other people have more rights than them. But assertive communicators believe that they have the same rights as others and they are the best communicators your children should emulate.

The best way to foster the culture of entrepreneurship in your children is by resorting to communicating to them assertively. They will learn from you and end up being assertive communicators. Let them learn to assertively say "No" to others, to receive and to respond to criticism, and to respond to aggressive or nonassertive people. This will eventually help them to live independent life and to venture into any kind of life, which is one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. The onus now is on you to communicate assertively to your children so that they can learn from you.

2. Raise entrepreneurship awareness to foster a culture of entrepreneurship in your children. You can purposefully expose them to various situations where they will informally learn about entrepreneurship. For instance, take them to events on entrepreneurship like trade fairs. Organize outings to places where they learn something on entrepreneurship. Engage them in some good talks geared towards discovering something new. Use entertainment like showing them videos on entrepreneurship. Look for other ways of raising awareness.

3. Instill in your children a spirit of hard work, irrespective of whether you are rich or not. Let them learn that it takes someone to work hard to earn money. Instead of just giving them whatever they request you, let them work to achieve what they want. For example, set clear goals for them and reward them with what they crave for upon achieving the goals. When you do that you will be training them to become achievers and hard working people, which is one way of fostering the culture of entrepreneurship in them.

4. Another practical way of fostering a culture of entrepreneurship in your children is by starting a home business. You will not only become their role model but you will also enable them to acquire many entrepreneurial skills that will eventually help them to start their own businesses.

5. Train them to acquire new skills. It's important to interest your children to learn various skills. This does not only unlock their mind but it also helps them to engage themselves in meaningful activities.

6. Another way of fostering the culture of entrepreneurship in your children is by associating them with successful entrepreneurs. Be friends with people, who have worked through to riches or to financial freedom so that they can act as role models to your children.

7. Guide them to take meaningful decisions that can impact positively on their lives in future. For instance, guide them to differentiate "needs" from "wants". While needs are essential items you cannot live without such as food, wants are things you can live without. Guiding your children to make right decisions basing on what is essential to their life as opposed to luxuries is important in fostering a culture of entrepreneurship in your children.

8. Take them to schools where programmes on entrepreneurship are organized. Such programmes may range from activities like music, dance and drama to programmes like essay writing competitions, funding winning business proposals, debates and entrepreneurship award schemes. These help to sharpen your children to acquire behaviors of successful entrepreneurs such as being innovators, problem solvers, hard working people, information seekers, committed persons, persistent and many others.

9. Inculcate in your children a culture of reading to get knowledge and apply it. Let them know that knowledge is useless unless it's applied. Applied knowledge is what makes a difference in people's lives.

In conclusion, I would like to reemphasize the need to help your children to develop behaviors of successful entrepreneurs. Formal education alone is no longer enough to lead people to financial freedom. A doctor who has entrepreneurial skills is more likely to begin a business in his field of expertise and succeed than the one without any entrepreneurial behaviors. The onus is now on you to put in practice the above practices as a way of fostering a culture of entrepreneurships in your children.
Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn't. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

Friday, December 2, 2011

15 Characteristics Of Successful Entrepreneurs - Do You Have Them?

Most people are longing to start their own businesses. But do they know what it takes to become successful entrepreneurs? What about you? Which characteristics of successful entrepreneurs do you bring in the business you have or you intend to begin? Before going any further into the details, let me define an entrepreneur as someone, who makes money by starting businesses with some kind of financial risk-taking involved. Is that what you are?

Well, every person joins business with various reasons. These reasons usually determine the performance of the business. I have discovered that many people think that success in business depends upon being highly educated, having lots of money and a supportive family. However, the bottom line of success in your business is motivation, fuelled by the desire to achieve and the enthusiasm to do your business. A highly motivated person tends to behave in a certain way that leads to success and it’s a distinguishing factor of all successful entrepreneurs. How motivated are you?

Through this article, allow me to share with you 15 characteristics of successful entrepreneurs that are fundamental to building a successful business. If you are aiming at succeeding in your business, then it’s high time you started acquiring the following behaviors.

1. BE AN INNOVATOR. To succeed you have to be creative. All successful entrepreneurs think a lot differently from ordinary people. They see things other people have not yet mirrored and are able to introduce new things and new ways of doing things.
2. LEARN TO SOLVE PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS. Successful entrepreneurs are problem solvers. They have the ability to identify specific problems of a given customer group, which require their products or services to be solved. As they solve their customers’ problems, they end up making money. Turning people’s problems into great opportunities is one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
3. BE AN INFORMATION SEEKER. There is no successful entrepreneur who is not hungry for knowledge. You have to get new knowledge, new information and new skills for you to become successful in what you are doing.
4. PERSISTENCE WILL HELP YOU TO SUCCEED. All successful entrepreneurs keep on and on no matter how hard the going may be. They are success-conscious and believe in succeeding despite all roadblocks. They believe that riches come only to those who work hard and long. Indeed! By working hard and consistently long, riches begin to power so quickly and in such a great abundance that you even wonder where they have been hiding during all those years of toiling.
5. LEARN TO SET GOALS. This helps them to know where they are going and how to go there systematically. Without setting goals you are like someone who is blindfolded and asked to shoot the target. You will never know where the target is and you will only be gambling.
6. COMMITMENT TO WORK. How committed are you to your work? Successful entrepreneurs are able to initiate and to pursue their work contracts to the end. They are self-driven and do not need anybody to drive them, to supervise them.
7. DEMAND FOR EFFICIENCY AND QUALITY. Demanding for efficiency and quality is one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. They detest mediocrity and can never settle for that. They are able to achieve the desired results without wasting their energy. They always aim at offering goods and services of the highest quality.
8. BE HARD WORKING. Successful entrepreneurs are hard working people. They spend a lot of time, energy and other resources working on their businesses to achieve the desired results. They inspect to get what they expect. They think big and strategically.
9. AIM AT ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS AND DESIRES. All successful entrepreneurs are achievers. They do not give up when faced with a temporary defeat. They do not despair because they are highly motivated people. Whatever they put their hands and their minds on, they commit themselves to achieve it. Until they achieve it, they do not stop. Even after achieving it, they look forward to strengthen their achievements.
10. BE A RISK TAKER. Taking moderate risks is another characteristic of successful entrepreneurs. They don’t fear to take risks. FEAR to take risks discourages initiative, brings about uncertainty of purpose, destroys ambition, kills enthusiasm, destroys good reasoning and stops you from taking action. Besides, there is nothing you can engage yourself in without any risks involved.

For instance, by just driving your car to go to work, you risk getting involved in an accident. But if you already know it, you take precautionary measures to avoid getting an accident other than opting not to drive. That’s how successful entrepreneurs go about their business. They anticipate the risks involved and think of how to overcome them in case they manifested.

11. DESIRE TO BE INDEPENDENT. Desiring to become independent is one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. They have a strong drive to be masters of their own life, to take their own decisions and to pursue their own destiny.
12. LEARN TO CONTROL YOUR OWN DESTINY. Successful entrepreneurs control their own destiny. They don’t lose focus of what they pursue. Having a strong desire to walk their road to riches is one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. The end justifies the means.
13. BE DETERMINED. Successful entrepreneurs are so strong-minded that they do not give up despite any obstacles. They are always determined to transform their desires and thoughts into their monetary equivalent at any cost.
14. HAVE SELF-CONFIDENCE. Successful entrepreneurs don’t depend on luck. They are able to visualize and they believe in the attainment of their desires at all cost. Ability to visualize and to have faith in the attainment of your desires is an important factor in building your self-confidence.

Developing a high level of self-confidence is a key element in effective business management and success. You need to be sure of yourself to tackle the tasks at hand. You need to have high expectations of achieving success. If you think you can, then you can. But if you think you can’t, the chances are that you cannot. “Yes, we can”, is the winning formula President Obama applied to become president. You, too, can follow the same principle to become a successful entrepreneur.

15. Last but not least, BE CREDIBLE. Credibility is an important element to the success of any businessperson. In my article entitled “Personal Branding, A Key To Success In Your Business”, I emphasized the importance of credibility. Let me not overemphasize the same point but it’s the absolute truth that successful entrepreneurs are credible and honesty paves the way for them to succeed. Will this information help you?


Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn't. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.