Dear Friend, if you are ready to turbocharge your home-based online business, then, pulp up a chair and read this carefully. It may be the most important message you’ll read this year.
Six Tips to Grow Your Home-Based Online Business in Nigeria
But, wait, how do you go about this without wasting time energy and money?
Let me simply walk you through the steps you’ll need to follow or add to your strategy, that will make your home-based business a seamless ride.
Come with me….
TIP 1 – APPEAR NOT TO WORK FROM HOME:
This is odd, but it’s the truth. When you work from the comfort of your home, one of the hardest challenges you’ll have to face is to make it seem you’re working from your office. The fact is, it’s not professional. I remember how I lost a number of serious clients after telling them I have no physical office. They took me as ‘unserious’.
Imagine receiving a business call while the kids are ranting, dog’s barking, ‘sounds’ from the kitchen, and other domestic noises painting an off-the-wall background for the call.
So, how can we tackle that and appear more professional? It’s simple.
"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good: His love endures forever."
First, call your family members to order, and let them know the ethics of your work. Outline your office rules to them. You can set working hours. Be ruthlessly strict and faithful with this, so that you can strike a balance between work and family. Brainstorm. What time of the day they can have access to your home office –or where you choose to work. Doing this will not only make you more professional, it will also increase your effectiveness. And you know what that means.
TIP 2 – HAVE A CLEAN, PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE WITH YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME:
Probably, you’re saying, “We’ve heard all of that before”. But, right before you slip to the next point, give me 15 seconds and hear me well on this:
In order to appear more serious, you need a professional website designed with a domain name that reflects your name, or business’ name. Never be tempted to go for a free-hosted website that has another domain as a prefix, or suffix. It’s even better not to have one than to go for such an option. On the other hand, you can sacrifice and invest in a professional website, and watch the return on investment (ROI). If you can’t afford this now, you can simply barter this. There are a lot of Nigerian professional web designers out there who need what you do. Simply offer them your service in return for designing a professional website for you. I believe that’s a win-win deal.
TIP 3 – GET A SEPARATE PHONE OR ANOTHER SIM CARD AND SET ANOTHER RING TONE FOR THAT LINE:
This is plain simple. It’s wise to have a separate phone line for your business. You’ll only have to switch it on during the working hours. Or, better still, activate the ‘silent’ mode after your working hours, especially if you work with international clients. This saves a lot of mix-up and stress. Since, we don’t use voice mail or answering machines in Nigeria, voice mail message or answering machine wouldn’t be an option.
That said, let’s take another leap into another electrifying tip that can boost your online business.
TIP 4 – TIME MANAGEMENT:
Although, this is an all-time tip, but, time management isn’t all about keeping the checklist, and tick as you accomplish each task. I am not suggesting that it’s not part of it, but it’s more than that! Let me expand on that.
The time management techniques that we used before the advent of social media hardly work for people today. The number of things competing for our attention has drastically increased. Way beyond what those old rules can handle. The game has changed. So, we must be update the rules.
Somebody said and I quote, “One minute has 60 seconds. One hour has 60 minutes. One day has 24 hours, and one year has 365 days. A year also has 525,600 minutes. We rarely think of a year in that direction, maybe we should.”
What an eye-opener for we Nigerian!
What if we could reflect on that statement, when social media is calling, and other things are popping up on the screen to steal our attention? It could be a strong shield.
We lavish our time as if they’ll always be around. We’re glued to those pages and flimsy things that eats up our time. Sometimes, we don’t even care if we’re missing a lifetime deal. The essence of my message is for you to awaken –to zoom out, and zoom into how you allocate and spend your time. It will do more good. Another smart thing to do is to break down your tasks into bit sizes.
Do I need to explain further? Okay…, read on.
TIP 5 – YOU MUST TAKE RISKS:
“If you are not willing to risk, you can‘t grow; and if you can‘t grow, you cannot become your best; and if you cannot become your best, you can‘t be happy; and if you can‘t be happy, then, what else is there?”
The great motivational speaker, Les Brown should know more when he made that statement up there. Yes. You must take risks to grow your home-based business. If you choose your comfort zone, and conform to the ordinary things, I’m scared, you won’t grow. One of the risks you’re going to take is advertising your services.
You can’t afford to own those skills, or have that product, and sit down on the couch, eating ‘dodo Ikire’, or sipping ‘Fura de Nunu’, and expecting the Naira to walk with its legs.
No matter how bad it is. Every new move you make leads you to something to explore and learn from. I can’t bet that you’ll win every time you leap into new zones. All I know is that, there are only two fears that hold people down from taking risks. One is the fear of failure –“what if things don’t work out?” And the fear of success –“what if things work out and I can’t handle it?”
My friend, I’m here to hit you right in the face. Fear is a grand delusion! Engrave this upon your heart; when you take calculated risks, your home-base business will grow beyond what you could predict or plan. Believe me.
TIP 6 – KEEP READING ARTICLES FROM WWW.INFORMATIONHOOD.COM
Finally, I would wrap it up with this take-it-to-the-bank kind of tip. No hype, no-questions-asked, www.informationhood.com is the best website you can visit as a self-employed Nigerian. They hold people by the hand on their journey to wealth and financial freedom. Trust me on this. I didn’t want to say this before. So, take me literally.
To sum it up, I want you to be creative. Think of other things that can help you and other Nigerians to better their work-from-home business.
While you do that, I believe, I have given you the plank, the nails, the harmer, the pinches and the saw, what are you going to build with it? A better home-based business, you bet!
