Archives for April 2010

How To Be A Freelancing Genius

April 16, 2010 by 2 Comments

From my experience on Like Chapaa, lots and lots of people would like to be freelancers. Probably even you, yes?

While it is true that many try and succeed, it is also true that many try but fail. This could be due to many reasons and, probably, one of those reasons is that many people simply do not know what, exactly, to do when starting out. Are you a freelancer trying to set up and you do not know what to do?

This e-book will help you to build the foundation of a prominent and successful freelancing career. Taking you from the first steps in building your name through to a deeper understanding of how your thinking can affect the results you achieve, How To Be A Freelancing Genius Pt 1 will assist you through the most important stages of your growth. All this for for free!

Download it here: [download id=”29″]

Filed Under: Make Money, Small Business Tagged With: ,

The Average Is Irrelevant

April 12, 2010 by 5 Comments

The average Kenyan reads 0 books a month. It is what they say. Does this mean that bookshops in Kenya should close down?

No.

The truth is, the average is irrelevant. There are lots of people who buy 0 books a year. But then there are some who buy on or two books a month. Still, others buy hundreds of books a year. What do you think keeps mega bookshops like Text Book Centre in business?

When starting or running a business, it makes little sense to try and treat all your customers the same. As Mr Godin says, “When you can’t figure out the best way to treat all your customers, the best way to price things, the best thing to offer, realize that the problem is almost always this: you’re trying to treat everyone the same. Don’t. Break them into groups with similar attributes, and suddenly the path becomes a lot more clear.”

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With:

The Perfect Business Model

April 9, 2010 by 1 Comment

Making ItThere are a lot of different business models out there that you can use as a foundation upon which to build a business. But creating a business requires more than just a formulaic model and a systematic approach. It also requires a lot of creativity, inspiration, hard work and individuality. You need to know your market and to be able to differentiate yourself and your product or service from everything else that is already out there on the market. You need to be unique.

You will want to start with something that you know you are good at, this is a really important aspect of creating your own business. One thing that you need to consider though, is how popular your craft is. For example, are there already a lot of people who are offering these services? If so, how successful are they? Do they have a corner on the market? Is there something about what they are offering that you can add to, or supplement?

You will also need to consider whether or not what you are good at is a viable basis for a business. Quite simply, it is more difficult to make money at some things than others. For example, you can make money in a commodity business, but the problem is that you can’t differentiate yourself. The only way you can succeed in this business is if you do your job extremely well and that is tough to do.

What you will need to do is to differentiate yourself in some way to the other businesses that already exist in your field. You can do this either through your marketing techniques, how you acquire customers, how you run your business, or the product itself. Your idea has to be something that not any other company or person can do. This is vital.

So, if you are trying to run some sort of an affiliate business or a web design firm, your problem is that you’re no different from the over 1 million people who do it today. Try to find something new that you can bring to the field that has not been done yet. It is so important that you don’t simply offer a copycat rendition of a business that is already out there and functioning. The already-functioning business will have many advantages over you as their competition. They will have a realized client base, experience in “weeding out the bugs” of the business and they will always be 10 steps ahead of your game. They’ve “ been there, done that“ and they have the t-shirt.

So, you need to go out there and get your own “t-shirt” as it were. Heck, get your own pair of jeans as well, while you are at it. Because when you offer something unique, something that is missing, it will open up a whole new market for your business, and you will reap the benefits.

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With:

The Secret Is Out;THe Easiest Way To Make Money Online

April 5, 2010 by 5 Comments

Do you have trouble explaining exactly what you do?

Are you confused or overwhelmed when it comes to making money online ?

Do you hate your current situation?

Are you tired of wasting precious hours and money looking for the perfect job opportunity?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’ve come to the right place!

Let’s face it…With almost 3 million jobless sprawling the streets of our country and another 700,000 young school leavers pouring into the job market every year life couldn’t be tougher. With the infighting within the government and the worsening of our economy it means our future becomes even dimmer. The truth is, life is a misery out there.

While I am not an Economist, today you could change your life by just reading this piece .Simply put, I want to spill the beans and show you how you can turn your life. Am sure you have read articles here or else where on making money online but you still don’t know where to start.

If you can read, type or touch a mouse then you can do it.

FREELANCING is where you will start. And the secret is PASSION for what you do – something that holds interest, something that you find enjoyable, something that can motivate you or anything that creates hunger.
PASSION = the key ingredient of success

  • Do you love reading? Then you can write.
  • Are you always fascinated by data, research or figures? Then you can try web research or data entry projects.

What do you need?

  1. A computer, and Internet connection – You don’t need to own one. I myself started from a cyber café.
  2. Your Skills – Combined with passion. You cant succeed online if you are skeptical.
  3. Time – You need to treat this as a job. You will need to allocate this opportunity some time.

Once you have put this together then you are good to go.

How to get your first project
Branding Yourself
One of the first things you will need to do as a freelancer is decide on a brand for yourself.. Whatever it is you will need a business identity to work under and for clients to know you as. Along with your new name you will naturally need a logo, business cards and a website. Remember that you are now a business and all your materials need to be polished and professional.

Building a Killer Portfolio
Tip: Go to Google, Browse and see how top freelancers have crafted theirs. You are not here to invent the wheel are you?

What To Include:

  • An introduction of some sort – usually just a statement is best
  • Your services, or else how will anyone know what you do?
  • Examples of your previous work.
  • Contact details.

Where do you find work?
This is where the challenge lies. Where do you find your first jobs and indeed your later jobs too? And what do you put in your portfolio?

What If you don’t Have The Experience
If you have nothing to show for yourself for whatever reason then you had either better be a great talker or find something to put as a sample. How to go about it:

  1. Create an imaginary job for yourself and execute it.
  2. Offer your services for free to people online
  3. Talk to your last employer into allowing you to show some of your old work for a specific period of time.

How To Build Your Portfolio
Offer your services for free and ask if its possible to get a testimonial. Alternatively you can use the work(sample) for your portfolio. You can try this by looking at

What it if you find it hard to find work
In any case it’s difficult for a client to hire you on the strength of your word alone then try free pitching, where the potential client will ask you to do some of the work prior to payment.

Once you have worked a fair amount of jobs, you should find that you steadily get an increase in repeat work and referral work and that you depend less and less on new jobs. If this is not the case

  • you are either too expensive,
  • getting the wrong types of clients or
  • not good enough at your work (which in turn means you’re too expensive)

There you have it. Go out and make some money today and change your life. Remember whatever you decide to do, just remember that nothing happens until you take action.

Or, in the words of the great Abe Lincoln…

“Good things come to those who wait, but only the things left over by those who hustle.”

Are you waiting, or are you hustling? It’s up to you…

Here’s to Your Future Success,

Kihato

Filed Under: Make Money Tagged With: , ,

Do Something!

April 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Helen Keller once said:

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.”

What are you waiting for? Go out and try to achieve your dreams!

“While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.”

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Kalahari.co.ke?

April 2, 2010 by 3 Comments

Kalahari.co.ke have the following as part of their site’s terms of use:

No person, business or web site may link to any page on this site without the prior written permission of kalahari.

What does that mean? Jameni!

Undoubtedly, Kalahari (I apparently do not have permission to link to them) is a welcome entrant into the Kenyan e-commerce scene but why the overly strict terms? Does Google and other search engines have written permission to include Kalahari in their search results?

The web is built on the idea that sites should link between each other. Can you imagine if every website clearly prohibited anyone from linking to them? The internet would become much less useful, in my humble opinion. Moreover, the number of other websites linking to your own site is a strong determinant of how well you have done your SEO.

I suppose the people behind Kalahari know what they’re doing…

Filed Under: Miscellaneous