Niche Marketing in Developing Countries

July 27, 2012 by 2 Comments

The basic challenges of creating, maintaining, and growing a successful business are the same worldwide. In developing countries, these challenges can be amplified for a variety of reasons, including widespread poverty, lack of infrastructure, and unstable government.

The objective is not to overcome these challenges overnight, but to work within them and make them work for you!

  1. Identify a niche. In order for small business to thrive, it needs to create a product or provide a service that is both unique and relevant to the target community. Creatively thinking outside the box and developing complimentary yet separate services to those that already exist can boost not only your own profits, but those of an entire community!
  2. Begin locally. Often, the best resources can be found at home. Identify partners who understand the needs and culture of the target community. Let them guide you through the proper channels to help minimize vulnerability and maximize opportunity. Consider forming a cooperative with local entrepreneurs who are willing to share not only the business and investment risk, but also the skills and rewards of a grassroots partnership!
  3. Develop your brand. As a small business, you want to build recognition, trust, and loyalty around your product, sustaining its value long after its initial reception. This requires confidence and objectivity to step outside yourself and see your product or service as others perceive it. Only then can you commit to improving your brand with a recognizable logo, a catchy tagline, and an overall image that speaks well of its origin, of its grassroots.
  4. Partner globally. Yours might be a business that started out as local, but if perchance to dream, why not go global? In this way, with proper and careful management, an entirely new market can open up. Products considered essential or custom in one country can take on new meaning in another, where a shrinking world view creates a consumer preference for ethnic goods from far flung places.
  5. Go social. There is no better way to advertise a product then by word of mouth. In developing countries, reaching rural or underserved populations can still pose a challenge, but working within the local framework of community connectivity and tradition can open doors. And, with technology reaching new frontiers every day, going social not only means recommending a product to the neighbor next door, it also means bringing your product to a worldwide consumer base linked via online social networks and video sharing.

Launching a business in a developing country takes courage, foresight, creativity, and a plan that is flexible enough to allow for a little experimentation and risk. Without risk, we cannot reap the rewards!

Author Bio:
Paul and his wife Julie both spend quite a bit of time coming up with ideas, blogging, and researching all things related to childcare. They take care of all the necessary information related to “babysitting”. He personally thinks his blog will help finding information on all things related to a babysitter.

Filed Under: Small Business

How to Avoid Online Job Scams

July 12, 2012 by 3 Comments

As more and more employers are making the shift to listing potential jobs on online job boards instead of traditional media, it is becoming harder for job seekers to flesh out which ad postings are legitimate jobs and which are nothing more than a scam. Because job scams seem to be on the rise it’s imperative for job seekers to do some research ahead of time before applying for each and every job listing that seems to fit their criteria. Here are five tell-tale signs that the job you’re applying for might not actually be a real offer:

  1. The job requires a sign-up fee. No legitimate job will require its employees to pay for a position, and any that says they do is likely just after your money and will disappear once you’ve paid. No matter how good the offer sounds, if it requires a fee of any sort then it’s probably a scam. The employer is supposed to pay you; you aren’t supposed to pay the employer.
  2. There are misspellings in the ad. One way to spot scammers is frequent punctuation errors and word misspellings. This is because their postings are usually generated by a bot somewhere. Any respectable employer will take the time to post a well-written ad that has been proof-read ahead of time and is free from errors. And even if it isn’t a scam, do you really want to work for someone that doesn’t care enough to double check their ad posting for errors? Probably not.
  3. A quick internet search turns up the company’s name + the word scam. You should research any company you’re applying for ahead of time, and a quick internet search can usually tell you if it’s worth your time or not. If the search engine results generate the company’s name with any ties to being a scam it’s probably an ad that you want to skip responding to.
  4. The ad promises extreme profits in the first week. Anything guaranteeing that you’re going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars right off the bat is more than likely hoping to rope you in with the lure of quick riches and then scam you once you’ve taken the bait. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
  5. Red flag words. According to privacyrights.org, there are specific words that typically show up in job listings on Monster that denote a job scam. These words are generally “package-forwarding”, “money transfers”, “wiring funds”, “eBay”, “PayPal”, and “Foreign Agent Agreement”. If any of these words turns up in the ad listing it’s time for you to move onto the next.

Don’t let the desire to find a new job cloud your vision when it comes to job scams. These warning signs are all indicative that the ad you’re reading and applying for is probably not there to provide you with an actual job, and is really just there to get your money or your identity.

About the Author:
This guest post is contributed by Debra Johnson, blogger and editor of nanny housekeeper. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: – jdebra84 @ gmail.com.

Filed Under: Internet Culture

Sitting in First Chair, but Playing Second Fiddle

December 12, 2011 by 1 Comment

Before I start out using a musical metaphor, I better define a few things. A ‘first chair’ is the leader of an orchestra. When the conductor is not there, they take over. It is usually the best violinist or ‘fiddler’ of the group. The person next to them is usually ‘second fiddle’, or, to use another metaphor, an understudy. If the first chair gets sick, they take over.

But what happens in business, and in life, when the conductor is almost always absent, the first chair decides to take an extended leave, and YOU are the second fiddle?

You’d think playing second fiddle would be easy. It isn’t. Being first chair is hard, everyone agrees to that. They have all of the responsibility of the conductor, plus they have to play an instrument. Being the conductor is a breeze in comparison. But when the first chair hits the road- your supervisor goes out to lunch mentally, your spouse says adios to responsibility- you, as second fiddle, have to take over.

Second fiddlers are not respected. They have to fight for every ounce of power they have. They not only have to take over the responsibilities of first chair, but they have to prove that they are capable and that the position, in fact, does need to be taken over. How do you prove the absence of something? Especially if the person is still, technically, there? Let me tell you, it is hard.

But somehow, you succeed. You are sitting in first chair. You have taken over the ‘seat of power’ and now it’s all up to you. There’s only one problem. You’re not ready.

It’s one thing to get the power; it’s a whole other thing to be able to wield it correctly. In your family: can you be both mother and father to your kids? Disciplinarian and comforter? Judge and intercessor? In your business: can you be co-worker and boss? Leader and listener?

You’re in the hot seat now. You are sitting in first chair, but you’re still only a second fiddle. You know that at any moment, the real first chair could speak up and you’d be knocked back to your former position. But, at this time, someone has to take control. How do you survive?

First, remember who you are. You are second fiddle. Either by choice or by design, you are who you are. And that’s fine. Not everyone is cut out to be first chair, not everyone wants to be first chair. Your objective is to do the best you can with what you have.

Second, relax. This isn’t your job and everyone knows it. If you take yourself too seriously, you’re doomed to failure. Listen to others, keep a cool head, and don’t make the same mistakes your predecessor did.
Last, be prepared to step down. Eventually, someone will come in to take over. Don’t fight it. Do your best to help out the new first chair, or support the returning one, without censure or blame. It won’t help anyone to add conflict to an already difficult situation.

Many second fiddles are taking on first chair responsibilities nowadays. Just remember who you are and why you’re doing it. You can only do the best you can. Everything else is in the Lord’s hands.

Author Bio:
This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service providers in my area. You can reach her at: laurabackes8 @ gmail.com.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

What is The Future of Forex Trading in Kenya?

November 8, 2011 by 5 Comments

Retail Forex trading is no doubt a booming business in Kenya as people search for several investment alternatives. It is currently estimated that the global forex market could be exchanging over $4 trillion dollars every single day and the market is still growing. Kenyans are moving out of the conventional investment options of just buying shares and there is a growing number who have now invested in forex. There is some information that the Kenyan government is planning to start an exchange centre in Nairobi and the question we need to be asking ourselves is what is the future of forex market in Kenya? Are there some good investment opportunities for Kenyans or just but another opportunity that will see thousands of Kenyans lose money?

Let us reflect on what happened when the stock market was ‘opened’ or let us say, people got to know for sure that they can invest in stocks. First there were those who were a little bit skeptical about the whole scenario. This was a time when the president Kibaki government was gaining roots and few people could not trust the government promises. The fears that people had due to the former regime were with them. The IPO for KenGen came and there was a massive 300% over subscription. Those who were lucky to be allocated shares by this time made some good money. Those who never knew what an IPO is got an opportunity not only to trade in the stock market but also to sit and wait for the next IPO. The next major IPO from the most profitable company in east Africa safaricom came. People sold their cows, took bank loans and withdrew their savings in order to get some safaricom shares. They even sold shares they held with other companies, destabilizing the Nairobi stock exchange with the result being that several listed company shares were undervalued and the big players in the market went fishing for them.

The result for many was a pure disaster. Besides paying the bank for the loans they took, they also had to pay interest on the loan, deal with the issue of refund (and before you get the refund, you are still paying interest on your loan), plus the major negative fact that the shares never gave people the returns they were expecting. The other day I watched a heated debate on parliament with members of parliament arguing why there is MTN network in Kenya. I may assume that maybe the problem is not the MTN network in Kenya but what will the future of safaricom shares be when another major competitor penetrates the market ? Brokers who were selling the shares succeeded in giving the true image of safaricom future but I think (this is my opinion), they did not explain the arithmetic part of the shares. The result, people pegged their investment decisions on hopes but not on the reality.

Why am I talking about safaricom shares in an article about forex ? It’s simply because there is a very high likelihood that what happened to the safaricom IPO may repeat itself when the government does move ahead and establish the forex exchange centre here in Kenya. At this time, forex trading will be in the news, journalist will dissect the information and present the great investment stories such as the current forex billionaires who only started with small amounts of money. They will instill nothing but hope and the government will be praised for the job well done. People will be so ‘grateful’ because they will have finally secured an investment opportunity to “solve” their problems.

BUT will this be the situation ? Most people do mass following. They do not take time to study their investment, they follow others. A good number of people will by this time have heard about forex trading but probably doubted but now that the exchange centre is here and having been brought by the government, they will most likely believe, and repeat the same investment mistake; rush into the forex market without clearly understanding the market. I may assume people will take loans, sell their cows and others assets again, pump the money into the forex market but because the forex market happens to be highly volatile, the new beginners will most likely lose everything. The result is that they will go back to the journalist complaining of what is happening, write bad comments about the forex brokers they are using, tell everyone not to invest in forex, ….but the actual problem would be, they never knew what they were doing in the first place. If so many people lose, which is highly likely because I doubt if people will get training on how to trade forex before trading, the government maybe forced to come up with some measures to protect people from losing more money. Basically, you might hear of such regulations as one must be having a certain minimum amount of capital (in millions, which will block out several people and eliminate the use of high leverage) to invest in forex while at the moment you can open a forex account with as little as $25. The brokers operating in country may be required not to offer high leverage (not more than 1:50) like it is the case now in USA.

What is the way forward ? Only those people who adequately train in forex eventually make it. The rest juts lose their money. Kenyans should take the advantages being offered by the forex market but do so in such a manner that our hard earned money is not lost but rather gain more capital which we bring back into the country. There are different places where one can traine and www.kenyaforexanswers.com is a Kenyan site offering you free lessons on forex trading. You need to learn the dynamics of the market before you can benefit from this mega market. Should you wish to get more information on forex or one on one training, you can call me on 0727 29 29 60. My name is Patrick and I am a full time forex trader. I will be glad to help you out and see you succeed.

Filed Under: Make Money Tagged With: