Taxi Driver In India Uses Youtube to Find Customers

March 12, 2010 by Leave a Comment

So, I read this over at Alootechie and felt that I had to share it with you, dear readers.

Apparently, Divesh Mishra, an Indian taxi driver was worried that his business was going down. This was in January 2008 when the Indian travel industry was experiencing a downturn. Divesh knew he had to do something to keep his business going.

“I wanted to advertise about my services but could not do that as I did not have much funds,” Mishra said. “This was the time when I met a friend from Singapore. He was one of my customers and I discussed my problems with him. He then suggested me to upload a video on YouTube. Though I knew about internet, I had never heard about YouTube before.” (Source)

The rest, as they say, is history. Divesh’s video has been viewed 24,000+ times and he reportedly gets hundreds of emails a week – from foreigners asking about his services for when they visit India. According to Mishra it was amazing to get such response and this made him understand the power of internet. “It was a wise decision as I eventually understood that I could not have reached those consumers if I had advertised on some other media. Internet helped me to reach out to foreign customers,” he said.

Embracing the internet changes lives, and businesses. What about you, though? What are you doing to tap onto the opportunities provided by the internet?

Filed Under: Internet Culture, Small Business Tagged With:

Are You A Slave To Your Business?

February 24, 2010 by Leave a Comment

By The Lazy Business Owner

As a business owner, it is tempting to wear many hats at one time and take care of all the departments by yourself with some (very limited) help from employees. Speak to any successful businessman and he is likely to tell you that this is a mistake which you should avoid. Of course, this does not mean that you can delegate everything within your business to others….it just means that you need to MANAGE more and DO less.

It is quite easy to fall into the trap of taking on more and more work for any of the following reasons:

  1. You can do it better than most people in the business
  2. Delegation takes a lot more time than actually doing it
  3. Cost saving in man-hours as you are doing most of the work yourself
  4. It is a matter of habit

Now, unfortunately, this may cause your and your business a whole lot of problems. Problems like:

  • Too many items in your TO-DO list leaving you simple exhausted
  • Too little time for pro-active business management activities. Who is going to do your business strategy when you are doing all the ‘dirty’ work?
  • Employees do not learn nor take on added responsibilities
  • Your business will stop growing as much as it should be growing
  • Creates a poor impression on customers ( imagine a customer always getting to speak to the business owner for support, billing and account managing issues)

If you have already realized that you are doing too much in your business which in turn is creating the problems listed above, then it is time for some change. Here are some suggestions of what you can do to reduce your micro-management activities and focus on the BUSINESS.

1) Delegate smartly. I have seen many business owners delegating to their juniors…some of them do it well and some of them….well they end up delegating their own work to the employees as well. Smart delegation means explaining your employee what you need to get done, defining the goal well and giving helpful suggestions on how the task can be completed. If you give broad instructions (Let’s work towards increasing sales), you are unlikely to see any results.

2) Departmentalize clearly. As a growing business, you need to ensure that you have clear departments which can handle the growth as it happens. Making departments with clear demarcation of duties is likely to help you grow lot faster than your competition. Review each department’s progress, their problems and recruit good people to lead these efforts ( I know this is easier said than done, but there is really no other way out) .

3) Direct more. As a business owner, I feel the most important thing I do is direct my team. In measurable terms. Giving timely feedback and responses to employees, showing them the direction in which the business needs to go and tackling overall issues of managing the business.

4) Put in systems. Automation is the best thing since sliced bread. I am serious, I mean it. You can now take mundane tasks and automate them. You can even take complicated tasks and automate them intelligently! Not only does this reduce the time you need to do some pieces of work , it helps mitigate the risks you face when an employee leaves. Automating accounting, HR, Customer service and sales are just some of the things which help you grow well. The initial costs may be high, but automation tends to pay for itself with 12 to 24 months of implementation.

So the next time you catch yourself doing multiple tasks in the business, stop right there…and delegate it to the right person.

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With:

Business Sense In 8 Easy Steps

February 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Common business sense suggests that you should give the customer what they want. After all, they’re always right, and unless you’re a shrink, nobody is going to pay you for telling them they’re wrong.

So what happens when what the customer wants is bad for them? Well, you get smart.

Case in point. For quite a while now, I’ve wanted a haircut. Several hairdressers refused to oblige me, mostly because it is considered sacrilege to chop off such cultured hair; I’ve been growing my dreadlocks for years.

But I am quite stubborn, and each time the guy or girl in question denied me scissors, I started looking for someone else.

Yesterday, I finally found someone to cut my hair. She didn’t want to, and she whined the entire time, but she cut the hair.

It looks … well … I like it … but I’m definitely not doing it again.

In doing what I wanted, Fatuma earned herself – and her salon – a lifetime customer. It will be difficult to pry me away with Exposé.

That hairdressing session has taught me a few key lessons about business.

One, always give the customer what they want; but do it well. Cutting my hair was not the best idea, and Fatuma knew it. But she used her skill to make a bad idea look pretty. Fatuma is already established as an expert – I went to her on a direct commendation from another satisfied customer. She proved herself, and now she has one more client giving her free advertising.

Two, build your team. When I walked into the salon, I asked for Fatuma by name. But she was busy, so she politely offered to let someone else do my hair. I was quite happy with the person she gave me. She could have hogged the limelight, made me wait for her, and maybe earned a commission for having more clients. Instead, she boosted her workmate’s experience, earned her trust [and mine], and showed me that good as she is, her colleagues are equally skilled.

Three, know your specialties … and your limits. The lady who was assigned to do my hair was great at twisting – not so good at cutting, so she asked Fatuma to do the scissor-work while she handled the rest. Result being my hair was not messed, my hairdresser’s ego was not damaged, and everybody ended the day smiling.

Four, good work sells. Exposé is a new salon; so new that they don’t have the sign up yet. The person that sent me there asked me to “Go to the new Bishop Magua building and look for the salon on the ground floor. It doesn’t have a name.” A name is good, but a reputation is better.

Five, develop your brand. When I got to the building, I asked at the reception and was told there were two salons, but if I knew the hairdresser’s name, then they could show me where she worked. I knew the hairdresser’s name – and so did they. Make sure people know who you are.

Six, be damn good at what you do. There must be hundreds, thousands, [millions?] of hairdressers around. There are five in my building alone. But only one agreed to do what I wanted, and only one took a potentially distastrous idea and made it work. Anyone can wield a pair of scissors, but it took Fatuma to effortlessly give me the exact look I wanted. While I will certainly not be cutting the hair again, she has earned my respect and trust. I will let her work on my hair, swear by anyone she recommends, and next time she tells me it’s a bad idea, I’ll salute and say ‘Yes Ma’am, what works better? … surprise me.’

Seven, gimmick gimmick gimmick. I noticed something about the salon. I saw this lady there – she might be the owner; she had this air of authority about her. At first I wasn’t sure if she was white or just light, and I stared at her for a while trying to figure it out. She had her daughter with her, and the girl was even more interesting. She must have been five or six years old, very bubbly, and had the cutest way off tossing her hair.

I noticed two things about the little girl. One, her hair looked exactly like her mother’s – brown shoulder length, pretty and shiny. And two, she had no accent. Or rather, she had a Kenyan accent.

I later realised that while the girl was quite caucasian, her mum wasn’t any specific race, and had a beatifully planted weave on her head – more props to the salon. She’s also warm and friendly. This mum-and-baby are the perfect stage prop.

The final lesson I learnt is that all customers are equal and should be treated equal. Customer care goes a long, long way. I walked in with faded jeans, a scruffy look, and a pink acrylic handbag, but I was treated like a diva. I was received politely, offered coffee and a newspaper, and felt generally pampered. I don’t get that often.

Fatuma didn’t even ask who recommended me until after my hair was done. Her reaction suggested the recommender is VIP, but because the question came late, I felt special just for me.

Lessons worth noting if you want to make money in Kenya…

Crystal Ading’ is a professional author, editor, rock lover and mother. Her work is available through www.threeceebee.com.

Filed Under: Case Study, Small Business Tagged With: ,

The Simplest Way To Find Something To Sell

February 15, 2010 by Leave a Comment

A question I get asked a lot is, “What is the simplest way to find a good product or service to sell?” Well, there is no “simple” way to come up with something that one can both believe in and convince others to believe in enough to buy it. There have been many great products that have sold poorly, and just as many impractical or inferior products have flown off the shelves . There is no sure-fire way to test whether a product will be successful, no matter how much you believe in it. The only way you are ever going to learn whether a product is going to sell is by jumping in and selling it.

Running studies to test out whether a product will succeed is not a novel idea. People give away products as gifts, or even (in the extreme internet case) sell things on eBay to figure out what markets well. Introducing a new product or service into any market is hard and downright scary – most people want some kind of assurance that they will be successful. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to get any amount of reasonable and reliable “assurance”. A product or service may test just fine, but run into problems in the real world when competing with something of equal or lesser quality that simply seems better because of how it is being marketed. The best marketed product often is the highest-selling product, whether it is superior in function or not.

One may think that introducing a new and unique product may guarantee success. This works only sometimes. As certain as you may be that a new product is exactly what people need, new concepts or products can backfire on you. If a great new product comes to the market, and people have nothing like it to compare it to, sales typically do not take off until a later version or a competitor’s version has come along. This is counter-intuitive, but it is how people make shopping decisions – they want to make the best choice, and to do so, there need to have choices.

If a product or service does not sell well at first, you have options. First, do not be afraid to slightly alter what you are offering. Slight alterations provide one way to repackage a product as a new, different product. You must also consider presenting it in a new way. A different marketing campaign, the addition of incentives and targeting consumers in subtle ways are all viable ways to boost sales if they might be lagging. You may also try and ask your customers and fans about what to do next. This can be through surveys, polls, and even services like SitePal.

Remember that anyone can sell anything. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.

Filed Under: Small Business, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: ,

Why Does Your Business Not Blog?

February 8, 2010 by 2 Comments

A recent study by HubSpot found out that businesses that actively maintain their blogs draw as much as 7 times more visitors to their websites than businesses which do not have blogs. What does this mean?

Does your business depend on getting many visitors to your website? Or, would it benefit your business if your website had more visitors? Yes? Then you need to have an active and well maintained blog for your business.

What makes a good business blog? It may surprise you, but the big accounting and consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers once did some research on what makes a good corporate blog. Here are their published results. From reading their white paper, some of the main points, in my mind, are:

  • Demonstrate expertise – Position an employee and/or the business as the industry thought leader.
  • Build customer relationships – Develop personal, long-term relationships with customers; collect feedback, insights, suggestions, complaints and endorsements; and increase intimacy by giving the business a human voice.
  • Enhance company credibility – Utilize a high-profile, press-monitored venue to directly address and respond to issues related to the company. During times of crisis, explicitly address needs and concerns of stakeholders. In other words, use the blog to paint the best picture possible for your business.
  • Expand company visibility – Link the blog to related Web sites via RSS to generate interest from new parties, including the media and competitors’ customers. Basically, use the blog to increase the number of people who know about you, and can find you.
  • Increase collaboration – Create a workspace in which project teams can interact.
  • Promote knowledge management – Provide employees with information and resources in an easy-to-navigate format.
  • Strengthen recruitment – Generate interest in the business from potential recruits by demonstrating candor and credibility in the blog.
  • Test progressive ideas – Gauge public interest to out-of-the-box thinking by posting ideas and monitoring responses.
  • Heighten search engine rankings – Raise rank and profile of business by building a high number of links to the blog.

Apart from those pointers, the white paper goes further and lists some additional tips:

  • Remember that blog readers are not passive consumers; they are actively seeking a ‘scoop’ or insight from your blog.
  • Do not just blog for blogging’s sake. Make sure that what you write about is interesting and engaging.
  • Authenticity is critical to creating a successful blog; readers know when content is primarily focused on marketing the firm/company.
  • Updating the blog on a regular basis is key to engaging readers and driving return traffic.
  • Be sure to incorporate RSS feeds. RSS feeds allow readers to receive blog updates in real-time.

So, why exactly does your business not blog?

Filed Under: Blogging, Small Business Tagged With: , ,

How To Monitor Your Brand Online For Free

February 5, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Monitoring what people say about your business online is very important. Everyone and anyone can talk about your business on their blogs, twitter or facebook. However, the very nature of the internet means that what people say about you online can reach millions of people in a few weeks, a few days, or even a few minutes! What if a disgruntled customer talks ill of you and suddenly millions of people hate your business? You need to monitor what people say about you so that you can understand how people view your business and respond to what people say. This is called online reputation management (ORM).

A common challenge for businesses seeking to do ORM is that the internet is too large and it would not be feasible to effectively monitor everything at an unacceptable cost. Well, that used to be true. Today, though, you can monitor your brand very effectively, for free. Watch the video below to learn more.

The strategy is based around using online tools to generate real-time feeds which you can monitor from one central location, Google reader. (You can use any other feed reader).

If you need help or any clarifications feel free to leave a comment below. Good luck.

Filed Under: Internet Culture, Small Business, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: ,

Online Business Done Right [Interview]

February 4, 2010 by 8 Comments

For the readers that don’t know, Wainaina is the brains behind Corporate Staffing Services, an innovative recruitment agency that delivers! He is also one of the partners behind the massively popular Career Point Kenya. The really interesting bit, though, is the fact that Wainaina uses the power of the internet extensively in his work. A good number of his clients are as a result of his savvy internet marketing efforts.

Q. You’re quite an achiever, tell us about you
My background is in finance and HR. I am a certified public accountant and hold a higher diploma in HR. I attended my undergraduate studies at University of Nairobi six years ago. I began my career at a local bank rising from a teller to a finance officer but all along I knew finance was not my thing. While working at the bank I realized how much potential was out there. I interacted with young folk who were making it despite not have a graduate education. That’s when it hit me that college education in Kenya can sometimes be a hindrance to achieving your life goals, especially when you look upon yourself as privileged simply because you are a Bcom,CPA,CFA or whatever. I remember a friend from high school who was a client of the bank and I could see how profitable his computer business was. And here I was earning less than 35K a month with little or no chances of career progression. There and then I decided to learn all I could about self employment as I look for capital. While still at the bank I started consulting on HR on part time basis. Later I partnered with a colleague and the firm has two directors.

Q. How did you start?
I started with one client at a time. I would say my contacts at the bank came in handy. Actually I would advise anyone wishing to go into business to try this route. Obviously without antagonizing your current employer you can use the contacts you have gotten at your workplace as a launching pad. These are the chaps who know you and as long as you have a solid reputation it is very easy to make inroads. I also chose an industry which I understood – I didn’t need much training in HR, I knew the do and don’ts and, most importantly, I had a workable business model in mind.

Q. What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?
Money was and has always been an issue. To establish yourself as a credible brand you have to splash a few thousands by way of advertisements or engage a PR firm to put a good word out there. To achieve recognition we have endeavored to provide exceptional service and this way word of mouth and referral is the main source of business. There is also the issue of ethics. Recruitment firms in Kenya have been known to charge candidates for services even when they don’t deliver. We did away with some charges i.e. CV placement and this way we have established ourselves a credible firm that keeps it word. We have also utilized ICT a lot and as earlier stated most of our clients find us through this method. We noticed having a website and a functional one at that matter would greatly reduce our cost. Most jobseekers are online on facebook or using google search engine to look for latest jobs in Kenya. By having a website where we post vacancies we didn’t need to pay exorbitant cost to advertise in the mainstream media.

Q. What are the challenges of being an entrepreneur in Kenya?
There is little support from the public. A lot of people will look down upon what you are doing preferring to deal with recognized brands. Big does not necessary mean better results. Remember Nakumatt started as a small supermarket somewhere in Nakuru and two decades later they have expanded to the whole of East Africa. It is high time we started rooting for the underdogs so long as there are delivering. Funds are also an issue. I may have this computer idea but if I don’t have sufficient capital my idea will remain grounded. That’s why I advice one to start small and choose an area which is not capital intensive.

Q. What was critical to your success?
Not giving up. I left the secure world of employment to chart a new course. On several occasions I have come to the verge of going back to employment but then when I look back and see how far we have come I encourage myself that the future is bright. I have a strong network of friends who all happen to be in biashara and this way I get support and ideas on how to make it. It has also been a trial and error thing. We have lost money on ideas that didn’t take off. Some ideas have been successful beyond expectation. We have also utilized the power of internet and consulted with experts like Nickel Pro who have been instrumental in our internet marketing efforts. All in one we have allowed ourselves to grow a step at a time and looking for creative ways to solve most problems that afflict start ups.

Q. What about the competition and marketing, do you need to advertise, print flyers participate to conferences or is it mostly word of mouth?
We tried putting adverts in the main stream media and this was a cropper. Those things don’t work! We haven’t tried print flyers but with our earlier experience with newspapers, I wouldn’t put much hope here. Conferences do work especially if you target the right market and also inform the attendees in ample time. The best marketing method so far is a satisfied client. You don’t need to pay someone to put a good word out there. Just perform the task or duty procured to the best of your ability exceeding expectations where you can and the clients will go spreading the great news about your service. For an SME this is the only tool you have in dealing with competition from the big boys who as we know in Kenya offer awful service.

Q. Do you think that in order to “make it big” online you have to live in a Western country? Or does Kenya offer more or less the same opportunities?
Kenya does offer more. I am extremely lucky to be in this moment. Many business owners large and small in Kenya haven’t realized the power of internet as a competitive advantage. Anyone who has recognized this is already doing good business. The internet world doesn’t recognize how large you are on the ground. Provided you are able to articulate your message well online and your services are impeccable customers will troop to your door. Many Kenyans are now researching for opinions on anything over internet and if you have positioned yourself well the future is bright.

Q. Where do you see yourself and your business (es) in the next 5 years?
We will be one of the most recognized brands in HR consulting offering a wide range of services. We still want to concentrate on the mid sized firms and SME’s. With the success of our online HR campaign I am also looking out for another business model that can utilize the presence of the improved internet services now that the fibre cable is here.

Q. If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?
Much of what I know in internet marketing is self taught. The disadvantage of this is that you might take years cracking it up. Myself I took a cool three years from the time I took it seriously and I am still learning! However if we had outsourced this service earlier maybe we could be far. I am a firm believer in engaging experts and Nickel Pro have been instrumental in our internet marketing efforts. Always consult the experts and you will save yourself money and valuable time.

Q. What advice do you have for internet business entrepreneurs in Kenya?
Learn continuously and be patient. Internet marketing and SEO is not a magic pill that will work instantly upon implementation. We have done a lot of work, toiling daily and engaging experts. Lastly, internet business is it’s infancy stage and the market is waiting for any bold entrepreneur.

That’s all for today readers. If you’d like to hear more from Wainaina, please visit their website: www.staff-kenya.com or www.careerpointkenya.com

Corporate Staffing Services offers HR consultancy services to medium sized firms in the areas of recruitment and training. They also offer soft skills training for job candidates in the area of CV writing, Interview preparation and career coaching. They know their candidates personally and vet who they are, ensuring there are no surprises. Talk to them and let them run your HR docket freeing you important time to concentrate on your business. Email them at jobs[at]staff-kenya.com

Filed Under: Interviews, Small Business Tagged With: , ,