I remember when I was employed – I use to hate it. I have always thought of myself as a free bird who must not be tethered to one place or one job. And so I dreamt. I dreamt of the day I would be free of employment. So when someone told me to try out freelancing, I jumped on the idea.

Who wouldn’t want to live the easy life as a freelancer? Think about it. No 8-5 hours, no workplace politics. Just you working at home or from Java and closing deals on the phone. Sounds nice, eh? Except it’s not.

From my experience freelancers typically work way more hours than you’d think.

Rob Walling put it best in his manifesto “The Micropreneur Manifesto“:

With freelance work, you essentially trade your one boss for many—except now they’re called clients. And they don’t pay for health care or vacation days, or worry about your job satisfaction. Some won’t even feel obligated to pay you for the work you’ve done.

So as you dream of leaving your job, be careful not to get stuck in a new rat-race. What you should work towards is becoming a business owner (as opposed to becoming “self-employed”). That is, putting structures in place that will ensure that you are not the one-man behind the whole show. Hire freelancers/employees. Do not become your own slave.

Hands up if you are a “web designer” in Kenya. These days it seems that every other person on the streets does ‘websites’. Good for you, good for you (us?) all! It seems that it is boom time in Kenya as far as websites go. As many web designers as there are, there seems to be even more people who want websites….

So this year I have come across many people who want websites and are willing to pay good money to get one. trouble is, most seem to have LITTLE idea of how to use a website for their business. For the web designers in the room, I am sure you have met that guy who wants a quick website up in a week. They send you their company profile and bam! one week later you have them up and running. They then ask you to create a few email accounts based on their domain name and every thing goes well. Or so it seems. One year later, when it is time to renew the domain name, the guy is:
A. shutting down the website (what does this even mean?); or
B. renewing the domain name (for the email addresses) but does not care much about the website (and will try to get away with not paying for the web hosting); or
C. ignoring your emails and calls

So what happened?
Simple. Most people and businesses in Kenya get a website because it is the “in” thing. It is just what people do – you “have to get” a website dammit! But once they actually have their website, they have no idea what to do with it. It will forever remain an expensive “brochure” lost in a sea of millions of other websites and the hefty amount paid to the web designer will be a painful reminder.

You think I am over-generalizing things? Want a quick test to prove my theory? Good, because I have one. Ask three random people who recently had websites made for their business if they ever earned a single shilling from their website. How many of these websites even get more than 20 “hits” a day consistently?

Sadly, in Kenya, we build websites and then we forget about them and get busy “running the business”. The website was just something we knew we had to do.

Think about your business. Do you have a website? What, exactly, does your business gain from it? Is having your website address on your business card enough return on investment for you? If yes, then good, I am happy for you.

If the answer is no. Well, then, you’re in trouble. A website, in my humble opinion, is meant to sell your products and/or your business. You should have a reliable way to measure how much of your revenues were directly or indirectly attributable to your website.

Otherwise, you should not have paid so much for that flashy beautiful site. Maybe next time you should get a picture of your business card as your homepage and leave it at that!

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post: Find A Small Problem, Provide A Simple Solution.

Many have made money and built reputations by solving problems. Doctors cure the suffering of illness, psychiatrists help heal the troubled mind, lawyers protect names from being tarnished, consultants offer marketing advice and a dazzling array of products help to remove any inconvenience you might possibly encounter in your daily life.

Many people are solving problems. They’re all offering solutions to people who need them. Some are giving them away for free. Others are selling them for a price. When problem and solution is a perfect fit, a relationship of trust is built between two parties. If this helps me now, it might help me again. If this solves my problem, it might solve my friend’s problem too.

There’s a connection. The problem solver becomes more popular as more problems are solved for more people. Every time you solve a problem in a way that’s better than others, you add undeniable value to the person in need. After performing a search engine query on a topic, what pages do you bookmark? The ones that offer you the best possible solution.

As a business or website owner, you have to face the challenge of getting people to consume what you’re offering, be it free content on your blog, a piece of merchandise or premium service. You’ll have compete with other problem solvers in the market. Other blogs, other companies in the same field, other service providers. All offering different solutions.

For instance, there are many different products to solve the problem of dirty dishes. A plethora of different washing fluids, sponges, machines and racks. In most scenarios, there are more solutions than there are problems. Solutions themselves become problems to be solved.

Most of the time problem-solvers are already engaging your target audience but that doesn’t mean you should stay away. There’s always room for another solution, especially when its one that addresses the problem with more elegance, more force, more precision or more style.

First, identify the problems facing your target audience. Go deep into the user-generated recesses of the web: monitor forums, social networking websites, blogs and places where people interact and talk online. Understand the problem more deeply than your competitor. Go after nuance. Absorb feedback on current solutions. Know what they want but isn’t available.

Then, create a solution that builds on the flaws of other solutions. Or one that completely circumvents the existing paradigm by addressing the problem from a different angle, using different methodology or a combination of existing solutions. Be daring and creative.

Try going wider for broader appeal or swim in narrower channels to reach hardcore fans in order to gain a support base. The same applies to online publications like blogs on specific topics. What problems do your readers have? How are you solving them with your content? If solutions already exist elsewhere, how can you do better so you’ll be the go-to site?

Nobody is able to constantly solve problems in the best possible way to please every single person. All solutions have flaws because consumers evolve. People are also going to look elsewhere because of boredom. But understanding exactly what problems and solutions are out there, allows you to better score points or gain favor with any audience.

Source: DoshDosh.

One of the most important business concepts is captured by the word “organic”. I actually use this word quite a bit in conversations and in talks and it’s not really because I’m into organic food.

No, when I use the word “organic” I’m talking about what happens when you get any slice of real nature in all its richness, in any sphere of life.”Vitamin C” is a substance called ascorbic acid, something you can make in the lab. You want pure vitamins? No problem, somebody can always sell you some, it’s 100% pure from textbook chemistry.

But everybody knows you can’t live on laboratory vitamins. Plus we all know deep down that vitamins + junk food = self deception. But… if you eat a spinach salad, you get something entirely different. Whether you know what’s in it or not, you know it’s good for you. Why? Because it’s real. You don’t have to go to a health food store to get that; you don’t even need to know what vitamins are. All you have to do is eat real food.

The business version of this might be… Let’s say you’re thinking about investing in a company, or even getting a job there – which would provide you with more information about how healthy they are?

A) Reading all the press releases in their website
B) Sitting in their lunch room for 30 minutes, just listening to the conversations around you

Fact is (B) is probably the better way to go. You’d quickly develop a sense of the morale, the spirit of the company that a piece of ‘official’ communication deliberately attempts to hide.

Malcolm Gladwell refers to this in his book “Blink”, where he discusses our remarkable human ability to make snap judgments based on quickly sizing up this sort of organic information. He calls the process of forming accurate first impressions “thin slicing.” “Blink” is a great read and makes many valuable points. John Fox and I talk about this organic cultural factor in our interview.

I’ve defined marketing as ‘helping people who need each other find each other’ and that is best accomplished by clearly and effectively communicating who you are.Which of course requires that you know who you are in the first place.

If you know that and communicate it effectively, you attract not just the right customers, but the right employees, vendors, partners and investors. The consistency and believability of your message is contagious.

The whole of this article is based on an email received from Perry Marshal

Is there a difference between market research and responding to customer needs? Some interrelate the two and obviously there is a difference.

Market research means you the entrepreneur goes out there and source data about your customers needs and wants. At this stage you are not yet responding to a need, you are merely finding out if indeed there is a need. How many Kenyan entrepreneurs can say with a serious face that they have carried out their market research and that is why they are in fact offering the service or product that they are?

Responding to a customer need means provide the customer with a solution for an issue that they have brought out to you the business person. Are you able to respond to your customers need at the right time or do you do it when it suits you best?

The importance of carrying out market research will actually help you know and understand your customer, you will actually be able to meet their needs easily, you’d ordinarily be better prepared.

You normally find that a brand such as Bata has done its market research when it comes to its line of Marie Claire shoes for women. The shoes are classy, they are affordable, comfortable and Bata actually change the range every now and then so a shoe you buy in this month will be replaced by a different design in a month or so. The brand has really worked hard to get itself back to where it once was. The average Kenyan lady wants to look good and these shoes do that. Don’t fret, Bata didn’t pay for this, I am simply speaking my mind.

Responding to customer needs is difficult because sometimes you simply are not sure how to respond or for that matter how much it will cost you to respond. Mobile phone operators in Kenya really had to respond to the customer needs by reducing their costs, remember the tariff battle of 2010. Well perhaps not the best example since there were many other factors that preempted the changes. Responding to a customers need could range from simply producing an additional report for your client to reducing a transaction cost for your client.

Have you done your market research or are you continually finding yourself trying to catchup to your customers needs?

Naomi Kinyanjui is an aspiring entrepreneur, a Procurement Specialist by profession with a passion for life, writing and making a difference. Follow her on Procurement Mentality 101 blog where the talk is all about supply chain and procurement and maintaining professionalism in such a controversial field.