Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,143,393 members, 7,781,132 topics. Date: Friday, 29 March 2024 at 09:29 AM

How Every Nigerian Can Make More Money In This Recession - Career - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Career / How Every Nigerian Can Make More Money In This Recession (504 Views)

COVID-19: Which Professions Earn More Money During This Pandemic? / NNPC Tasks Workers On Recession / Low Income Earner? Top Secrets To Earn More Money (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply)

How Every Nigerian Can Make More Money In This Recession by 10mobile: 12:39am On Sep 20, 2017
I’m almost sure everyone here is familiar with that famous joke, in which an American asked a Nigerian, “is it true that you Nigerians answer questions with questions?” and the Nigerian retorted, “who told you that?” Lol!
I once read of an interview granted by a Coca-Cola CEO in a distant past. The journalist asked him, “why does Coca-Cola still need to spend so much on advertizing every year after becoming the most household global brand name?” The CEO asked back (he must have been a Nigerian), “what would happen to an electric train on a high speed if you switched off the power supply?”
“I guess the answer to your question is obvious” said the journalist. “The train will crash suddenly and completely”
“Cool” said the CEO, “you answered right. Coca-Cola is that train and advertizing is her power supply”
What lesson can we take from this? This is it (again we answer a question with question): If Coca-Cola, with all their global popularity, still considers advertizing so important, then no business can reasonably toy with it. Advertizing is the power of every business. In this article, I want to show you a new set of advertizing technique to help you make more money in your business even while the recession lasts (Sorry, are we still technically in recession? Well all I know is that the economy is down, but YOU can be up).

Every Nigerian Has Got A Business
I am supposed to be here talking about how EVERY NIGERIAN can make more money; am I not? That’s what the title promises at least. And that’s what I’m doing. But why did I suddenly begin to talk about businesses instead of individual Nigerians? Well the truth is that every Nigerian has got a business except that some (or many) seem not to know they have. Let me explain:
“The rule for making money has never changed since the coin was invented in Asia Minor: Just find a need and fill it”, a saying goes. According to the American clergy man Robert H. Schuller, “anybody who succeeds is helping people. The secret to success is: find a need and fill it; find a hurt and heal it; find a problem and solve it”. But then, if making money – and not just Heaven – is your aim in solving a problem, you surely want to be paid. So, to the above wisdom of the sages, permit me to add this: how to make money is to find a way to get paid solving people’s problem and that’s what the word ‘business’ means.
Everyone has got a problem he can solve better than others. That’s what we call talent. I call it your God-given business. If you want to be wealthy and happy, that’s what you must do. You discover your own God-given business by looking inside and asking “what good can I do better than many?” That’s what you will be doing for many and be getting paid. That’s your business.

But I Don’t Have Money; What Do I Do?
Many people are going to the grave with great talents that never benefitted anybody. Why? Most of them will say “I had no sponsor; my talent needed financial support and I never had it; I came from a poor background, etc”. Well, excuses are the easiest products to manufacture. When it comes to sponsorship, my answer is “seek and you shall find” (Mt 7:7). There are many ways to raise money if you really have something to offer (see TWAPIN eMagazine www.twapin.com.ng for example) but you can’t take advantage of them by just sitting out there and complaining of your many woes as if you are on the Planet alone.

Take Advantage Of the Phone Culture
Once you have discovered a problem you can solve better than many (ie. your business) and you have discovered those who have those problems (your prospects), the next step to the money is to find a way to let those who have the need know you can fill it. That is advertizing. And today, the most effective advertizing is the one that takes advantage of the phone culture that is sweeping across the entire globe. As Andrew Liszewski noted a few days ago with reference to the recent iPhone X launching, “PC and laptop sales have been on the decline because more and more consumers are using their phones as their primary device” (Gizmodo, September 19, 2017).
The success of that your business as you saw above, depends on the effectiveness of your advertizing it. Why? Even if you have the best products (goods or services) but those who need it do not know you have it, you might as well die of poverty. And it is a loss-loss situation because those whose problems you would have solved also suffer without the solution only you would have provided. And, with the phone culture that is upon us today, the most effective adverts are the ones that target people’s phone. You might run a radio or TV jingle and your prospect is somewhere else at the time. You might place a billboard and he’d drive by without taking notice. You might buy a space on the news page but he doesn’t even read them. But, if you send it to his/her phone, it meets him wherever he is and he cannot ignore it.
A good medium for phone-based advertizing is Whatsapp. But most people either are not registered or do not have phones that run the app. This now leaves bulk SMS as the mobile advert platform of choice. There are many bulk SMS providers in Nigeria but the one I recommend most is BBN SMS (www.sms.bbnplace.com).
To make a real impact, go ahead and design an advertizing that targets peoples phone via bulk SMS. You may also want to consider this (it’s very effective as you will see):
o Ask yourself where are my prospects? Are they international, nationwide, only in my state or in my town? For example, if you run a food restaurant in Surulere, it would surely not pay you much to inform residents in Kano. You should rather target your adverts locally. But if you sell an app that helps Adroid phone users solve some problems, you can target Android phone users nationwide and even internationally.
o Collect phone numbers of your target audience. If they are in your town, collect from your town. If your state, collect statewide. If nationwide, do the same and so on.
o If your goods or service is new and needs some persuading your prospects, create an online pitch page like that of TWAPIN eMag cited above. If you can’t do it yourself, I can help you. You can get it all done with your own domain name, expert content and design at a very low price. If your product is old and already known, you may not need this: for example, if you sell cooking gas or fish.
o Then send your SMS telling your prospects you offer so and so goods or services and place your phone number for contact. If you have a pitch page, you should direct them to your pitch page instead. See an example SMS for a regular product: “GOOD NEWS!!! You now have an expert plumber at FESTAC Town. A trial will convince you. Call 080xxxxxxxx.” Then, see a sample SMS for a new product: “DO YOU KNOW there is an Android app that helps your baby to learn how to read at three? Try it for free at www.xyz.com.
o Sit down and start enjoying the fruit of your effort. Bye bye!

(1) (Reply)

Help!!! I Need To Share A Ride With Someone. / Niit Diploma In Softawre Engineering, How Good?  / Fleet Manager And Solution

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 21
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.