The Entrepreneurs Guide is a free online class Powered by BeTheBest Network to help young adults and individuals, who want to go into Business or become an Entrepreneur to get the essentials of Entrepreneurship before starting out. This Class would start tomorrow 11th November,2013. It would run from Monday- Friday.

Below is the Course Module:

1. Introduction to Business Enterprise
2. Business Orientation/ SWOT Analysis
3. Goal Setting
4. Decision making
5. Introduction to Business Plan Writing
6. Creativity in work place
7. Writing a Marketing Plan
8. Improving your productivity
9. Writing a Production Plan
10. Interpersonal skills 1- Listening
11. Effective communication
12. Interpersonal skills 2- Delegation
13. Record keeping
14. Interpersonal skills 3- Persuasion
15. Presentation skills
16. Writing an Organisation and Management Plan
17. Interpersonal skills 4- Coaching
18. Effective Negotiation
19. Writing a Financial Plan
20. Customer Loyalty
21. Time Management
22. Building a Corporate Brand

See You in Class 2moro
Have a great week

Hello

Good morning Class, I am Olusegun Moses Adenuga but you can call me OMA. We would be starting lectures today on Introduction to Business Enterprise.

The word Business has three usage depending on the scope:
1. Singular: A particular market sector/Industry
2. Generalized: used when referring to a market sector e.g production of service for a particular item
3. Compound: Combination of singular and generalized

A Business enterprise is an operating entity within a business enviroment dedicated to making profit from the sales of Goods and Services.

Factors to consider before setting up a Business Enterprise:
1. Business Location: Your business location is very important before starting your Business Enterprise. If you situate a business in a wrong location, it may lead to the end of that business.

2. Capital: so many people mistake only money for capital when it comes to Business. You don't only need money, an idea is capital, also you can have people/relationships as capital to start a business. For example, if you want to start a recharge card business and you have a friend or family member that sells it in bulk, all you need to do is approach them and based on your relationship, they can offer to give you on credit to pay back after your sales; that's people capital.

3. You also need to consider your profit from the business, that is why you are advised to have a business plan before starting out (Business Plan Writing would be taught later in the course).

4. Customers- without customers, there cannot be sales. You need to do your homework well on the incentives you would add to your business to attract customers. Its may not neccessarily cost money, it could be just a smile, excellent customer service or discounts on products, you just have to come up with something to get people to keep coming back.

5. Raw materials- if you are planning to run a production outfit, are the raw materials readily available? If yes, that's a good one but if no, you really have to look for an alternative.

6. Competition- This is very vital. You need to study your competitors and generate ideas and ways to beat them.

7. Skills and Knowledge: Are you skillful in your new area of business or you need to employ someone to run the business for you, this is also important in setting up a business enterprise.

8. Government Policies- Government policies affect so many business enterprises when it comes to importation of raw materials, so many companies have closed down because ban was placed on the materials they use for production.

9. Technology: does your business need the use of technology?

10. Ease of Implementation

11. Labour: Are you employing labour or you are starting a one man business? This is also important to plan to pay yourself or employee an amount as salary at the end of the month.

12. Family Influence: Family influence on a line of Business can sometimes lead to emotional stress, so be careful to understand if your family is in support of your new proposed business or not.

Work on the Factors above and see you 2moro

Ride on bro.

Good job, more ink to your pen.

Good morning friends, welcome to another day. Trust your night was great.

We started the class yesterday looking at factors we need to consider to start a business. Today we would continue the class by looking at Business Orientation- ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Entrepreneurship is the process of becoming aware of Business Ownership. Someone who is willing to become an entrepreneur must have the following traits:

1. He/She must be prudent
2. He/ She must have at least a general knowledge of the intended business.
3. He/She must have the ability to make good business decisions (Decision making would be taught later in the class)
4. He/She must be hard-working
5. He/She must be able to set goals (goal setting to be taught later)
6. He/She must be persuasive (Interpersonal skills- Persuasion to be taught later)
7. He/She must be enthusiastic
8. He/She must be Confident

Functions of an Entrepreneur

An Entrepreneur perform three basic functions:
1. Visionary Function- The ability to see and set goals for the future.
2. Technical Function- The revenue generating part of the Business
3. Managerial Function: Coordination, Planning, Organising, Staffing, Delegation, Controlling, Motivation and Marketing.

Potential Benefits of starting a Business:
1. Individual: It boosts your self esteem
2. Family: It increases the standard of living thereby increasing the family income.
3. Community: Creates employment and reduce crime rates.
4. National: it increases the Gross National Domestic Product of a Country

Entrepreneurs also face problems which emanates from:
1. Lack of record keeping: Most entrepreneurs don't keep records and this affects a business.

2. Low Patronage: some business run out of business when there is low patronage, this can be worked on when you create a market strategy (writing a marketing plan to be taught later), enhance customer service (Customer loyalty to be taught in the course) and building a brand for your business (Corporate branding to be taught also).

3. Too much stress: Seek the assistance of family members /friends to help out if there is not enough money to employ.

At this point, we would end the class today. Hope you are learning?

See you 2moro

welcome to class today

we would continue the class by looking at Swot analysis

S- Strengths
W- Weakness
O- Opportunities
T- Threats


Strengths

What are your advantages?
What do you do well?
What relevant resources do you have access to?
What do other people see as your strengths?
Consider this from your own point of view and from the point of view of the people you deal with. Don't be modest. Be realistic. If you are having any difficulty with this, try writing down a list of your organisation's characteristics. Some of these will hopefully be strengths!

In looking at your strengths, think about them in relation to your competitors - for example, if all your competitors provide high quality products, then a high quality production process is not a strength in the market, it is a necessity.

Weaknesses

What could you improve?
What do you do badly?
What should you avoid?
Again, consider this from an internal and external viewpoint: Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you do not see? Are your competitors doing any better than you? It is best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

Opportunities

Where are the good opportunities in front of you?
What are the interesting trends you are aware of?
Useful opportunities can come from such things as:

Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale
Changes in government policy related to your field
Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyles, etc.
Local Events
A useful approach to looking at opportunities is to look at your strengths and ask yourself whether these open up any opportunities. Alternatively, look at your weaknesses and ask yourself whether you could open up opportunities by eliminating them.

Threats

What obstacles do you face?
What is your competition doing?
Are the required specifications for your job, products or services changing?
Is changing technology threatening your position?
Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?
Carrying out this analysis will often be illuminating - both in terms of pointing out what needs to be done, and in putting problems into perspective.


After answering this questions, generate 10 business ideas that you know you can try after analyzing your Swot.

Then tabulate those ideas against the factors considered in starting a business treated in the first class.

Your Business ideas on the horizontal plane and the factors on the vertical plane.

For each of the business ideas tabulated against factors, use the following to score your self

1-None
2- Fair
3- Good
4- Very good
5- Excellent

At the bottom of the factors, total all the scores.

This would help you know which business is likely to succeed.

See you 2moro

Good morning friends, hope you are doing gr8.

You should have decided now, the type of Business
you want to go into after the exercise of yesterday.
Now that the foundation has been laid, you need to plan.

Today, we would be looking at Goal setting.

For any establishment/ organisation to have an edge,
they must set goals. Even individually, we all have goals set
to be reached at a particular time, whether short term
or long term.

An entrepreneur must set goals for his/her organisation.
A goal is a written document/instruction to be achieved
within a period of time.

When setting goals, your goals must be SMART

S- Specific: Your goal must be specific
M- Measurable
A- Attainable: it must be something you can do
R- Realistic : Your goals must not be out of the blues
T- Time bound: Every goal must have an expiry date.

Principles of Goal setting
1. I don't have it and I need it : Achieve It
2. I need it but I already have it : Preserve it
3. I don't have it and I don't want it : Avoid it
4. I have it but I don't need it : Eliminate it
See you in class 2moro

Have a Great day

Good morning class

The quality of decisions is very vital to the success of
any establishment. The daily decisions name will
either make or mar the organisation.

Decision making is therefore the cognitive (reasoning)
process of choosing a course of action out of alternatives.

It involves making predictions about what you want to do
in the future and selecting between two or more
alternatives and estimating the outcome of the decision
made.

Types of decision making
1. Strategic decisions: Its a long term decision process
which puts into consideration your vision and mission.
It involves you, your business and the environment.

2. Organisational decisions: This has to do with the
organogram which states the hierachy of staff and their
duties. Its a medium term decision.

3. Operating decisions: This is the day to day running of
the organisation.

Phases of decision making includes:
1. The Exploration Phase: At this phase, a challenge has
appeared and you need to find a solution.

2. The Analysing Phase: At this phase, you need to
analyse the challenges. Collect and present information
in an efficient manner. It can give insight into the problem
If done well.

3. The Exploration Phase: At this phase, alternatives are
generated to tackle the challenges at hand.

4. The Final Phase: At this point, you make a decision.

Good morning class.
Hope you had a great weekend.

We would continue the today with an introduction to
Writing a Business Plan.

After you have succeeded in choosing the kind of
Business you intend to venture in, you would have to
write a Business Plan for your Business.

Writing a Business Plan starts with the Executive Summary
But we cannot write it first,cos we would need some more
Variables from other parts of the Business Plan.

First, we would consider the Business Overview.
1.0 : Description of the Business: give a short
Introduction of your business including the name,location,
and what you will do.

1.1: vision and mission statement
Vision- state as clear as possible what you want your
business to be or become.

Mission- state in 30 words, the core purpose of your
business.

1.3: Business Objective: definr your main objective, what
you want to achieve within a specific period of time,
set SMART goals. You can focus your objectives on the
growth of sales volume, profit e.t.c

1.4: value preposition: what are the unique features of
your business?
1.5: critical success factors: what factors will make your
business succeed?
1.6 : what are the potential challenges in the business
industry that you have choosen?

With all these, you are set to start writing your Business
Plan.

Have a nice day and see you in class 2moro

Gud morning class.

Creativity is the act of doing something new/
developing a new idea.

Constraints to creativity includes:
1. Wrong assumptions
2. Desiring to solve problems very fast
3. Too much faith in rationality
4. Failure to believe that you are creative

Behaviours that can stimulate creativity
1. Always try to improve on quality
2. Put all your ideas on paper
3. Look for as many answers as possible
4. Do not be afraid to ask stupid questions
5. Accepting errors as an obvious consequence of a
Creative process
6. Collecting data from various sources

Thanks for showing up in class today, see you tomorrow

Seriously following prof! carry on!

Prof, which business books will you recommend for me?

Friends, sorry for the break, out of town, class would
continue on monday.

@Emmy9ite: most of those business books are just
Summaries, would help you check one out.

Gud morning friends, welcome back to class.
Trust you had a great weekend.

Today, class continues with learning how to write a
Marketing plan.

When writing a marketing plan, some critical questions
Needs to be answered.

1. What is the product or the service you intend to
market?- describe the most important features, what is
Special about it, the benefits and what it will do for the
Customer.

2. What's the quality of the product?- for you to have an
Edge, the service you intend to render or the product
Should be of a high quality.

3. Location- is my office or shop situated in a good
location?, can my target market get an easy access to me?

4. Target: are your target the high income earners,
middle income or low income earners?- identify ur target
Customers, their characteristics and their geographical
location.

5. What share of the market can be captured by your
business?

6. Competition: list and describe your major competitors,
and define your niche. Draw a competitive analysis with
your company and competitors on the horizontal plane
and the following factors on the vertical plane- product,
locality, expertise, stability, appearance, sales method,
advertising, company reputation etc. This will help you
In making a good marketing strategy.

7. What's the price of your product?

8. What promotional method are you going to use to sell
your products?

9. What marketing strategy is needed to ensure sales is
achieved?

10. What are the strategies to distribute your product?

After all these, draw a sales forecast for a period of 1year.

Hope you have learned something today, see U 2moro

@Emmy9ite: I will advise you get the Book :
Grow Your Business By Mark Henricks,

Good morning class. Today, we would continue the class by learning how to improve productivity in business.

When you’re starting your own company for the first time, you experience many ups and downs and go through big changes, both good and bad. You no longer have any bosses who check your work or make final decisions. Instead, you take responsibility for your decisions, take care of nearly every task required to start a business, and overcome any obstacles that get in your way. For first time entrepreneurs, these sudden changes can be initially overwhelming and hard to adjust to.

When I first started out as an entrepreneur, I thought I would be able to maintain a healthy work-life balance and wouldn’t be too work-obsessed. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, I found myself working more unproductively than ever, creating unnecessary stress and working long hours. My weekends were often spent working on tasks that were not even urgent. And I thought, this was not what I signed up for! A couple of months later, I realized that I had to start changing my work habits to boost my productivity. Here are five easy ways for first time entrepreneurs to improve productivity, which made my work-life more enjoyable and less stressful.

1. Set daily goals and stop working when you achieve your goals

Every night, set daily goals for the next day. I suggest writing a checklist of daily tasks, which may include contacting target customers, managing social media channels, or creating an advertisement. Then, the next day, follow your list, put a checkmark in every checkbox, finish your work, and call it a day. Spend the rest of your day doing something else, like meeting your friends or going out on a date. A healthy work-life balance can keep you energetic and happy at work in the long run.

2. Establish a time limit for each meeting

Spending too much time in meetings can waste everyone’s time. So, what is the best way to run productive, effective meetings? Let’s say your team plans to discuss your company’s marketing plans during the meeting. One day before the meeting, you can make a list of marketing ideas to be discussed, such as whether you should make a YouTube video or whether you should focus on Facebook or Twitter. You can show it to your team, and they can edit the list if necessary. Then, when the list is finalized, you can establish a time limit and let them know at the beginning of the meeting. By setting a time limit, you can run more focused, tighter meetings with your team.

3. Let go of work on the weekends

When I started out as an entrepreneur, I realized I was constantly working on the weekends, which often made me exhausted the following week. Unless it’s a week before you launch, I highly recommend that you explore the world or take time to relax during the weekends. As an entrepreneur, it’s very important to stay inspired!

4. Learning something new? Find experts and ask them how to learn quickly

When you are a first-time entrepreneur, you need to know a little bit of everything, including finance, law, marketing, operations, and strategy. You may also find it useful to learn web design or coding if you’re building an app. Before you learn anything new, find shortcuts to make learning quicker. If you can find experts or friends who know how to do it, ask them how to learn it fast and efficiently.

5. Outsource small tasks

It’s a great idea to outsource trivial tasks that are not important but time-consuming, like editing images or finding data. By outsourcing, you can focus on more important and urgent tasks.

After I implemented these strategies, I was able to develop a stable work ethic and became more productive at work. I realized that it’s not about how much you can accomplish but about how much you can enjoy your experience as an entrepreneur. Once you follow these tips, you too will be able to find yourself much happier and stay focused at work

Have a great day.

Gud morning class, trust you had a great night rest.

Today, we would be looking at writing a Production
Plan. Like it clearly states, its a plan you use for the
Production of your products.

The following is what constitutes the Production Plan.

1. Location/factory- what qualities do you need in your
Location? Describe the physical requirements eg space,
Building e.t.c

2. Raw materials- list and describe all the raw materials
Or consumable needed for the operation.

3. Production equipment- list and describe all the equipments
Needed for the operation as well as their use and source.
Draw a depreciation table to know the life-span of your
Equipment and how to plan maintenance and repair.

4. Production process: Give a technical detail of steps &
Processes involved in the production/operation.

5. Production cost: clearly list your production cost (direct
& indirect) and give estimation of your production cost per
Unit.

Also draw a table of your cost analysis

Have a great day.

Good morning. Today we would be looking at interpersonal-
Skills: Listening.

Listening is hearing with a purpose, trying to get a meaning
To a sound.

Listening is one of the most important skill you can have.
How well you listen has a major impact on your job
effectiveness and on the quality of your relationship with
Others.

We listen to obtain information
We listen to understand
We listen for enjoyment
We listen to learn

To enhance your listening skills, you need to let the other
person know that you are listening to what he or she is
saying.

How do you become a active listener?
1. Pay attention: give the speaker your undivided attention,
and acknowledge the message. Recognise that non-verbal
Communication also speaks loudly.

2. Show that you are listening: use your body language
and gestures to convey your attention.
- occasionally nodding
- smiles and facial expression
- open and inviting gestures
- introduction of verbal comment like yes, uh , oh, ok

3. Provide feedback: as a listener, your role is to understand
what is been said.

4. Defer judgement: interrupting is a waste of time. It
frustrates the speaker and limits full understanding of the
message.

5. Respond appropriately

Start using active listening today to become a better
communicator, improve your workplace productivity and
develop better relationships.

Have a great day

Gud morning class. For us 2 communicate effectively,
we need to be able to have perfected the skills of
Listening.

Communication is listening to understand and speaking
to be heard. So many individuals are poor communicators
Cos they don't follow the rules.

They think too fast during communication
They are impatience
They keep incorrect attitudes
They don't keep up appearance
They are over-confident
They are anxious
They lack understanding
They are absent-minded

If individuals can work on these flaws coupled with
mastering their listening skills, they would become
effective communicators.

Have a great day

Good morning class, welcome to a new month and
a new week. Today, our class would proceed with
learning the art of Persuasion as a skill.

Persuasion implies having to convince a person of a need
to choose a certain action. This is different from power
and authority which are means of compelling someone
to do what you want them to do.

Effective persuasion is the ability to present a message
in such a way that it leads others to support the message.
When an Entrepreneur/ Manager needs to get something
done by his employees, he cannot rely on his positional
power but persuasion.

Effective persuasion is a subtle way of winning people
to your side and you can do this by:

1. Building credibility
2. Search for common grounds
3. Develop compelling positions
4. Connect with the employee emotionally
5. Speak calmly and clearly
6. Be willing to praise and openly appreciate employees
effort.
7. Use practical examples to illustrate your points
8. An excellent way of diffusing tension during persuasion
is the use of Humour.

Have a great day

Gud morning friends. We would be looking at Record
Keeping today.

Record keeping is the act of documenting all activities
of the day to day running of a business.

The importance of doing this includes:
1. To have a clear picture of the finances of your business
2. It gives a clear picture of transactions to compare the
activities of the organization.
3. Its a tool to convince bankers, suppliers and investors
4. It assists entrepreneurs in the development of their
Financial plan
5. It serves as a basis to monitor the progress of the
Business
6. It makes it easy to account for money borrowed or donated
7. It helps to differenciate assets from liabilities.

Types of records
1. Cash day book
2. Day book
3. Reciept
4. Petty cash book

Have a great day

Gud morning friends, Today, we would be xraying the
Topic- Delegation

Delegation is shifting power and responsibility to a
surbodinate on setting tasks.

For you to effectively delegate, u must do the
Following:

1. Be as clear as possible when delegating a task
2. Never delegate the task that u really have to do
yourself, even if you have little or no time to do it
3. You clearify to what extent the employee is
independent
4. You must supervise the task
5. Never make the control mechanism too strict
6. Remember delegation is pointless if you have no
Confidence in the person.

Great day