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How do you grow a small online business with little or no money? I believe this article will provide the basic answers you need.
Now it’s one thing to start an online business but growing the business is where the true business challenge lies.

I have started and grown several online businesses from scratch with little or no money. I believe in running a business on a lean budget.

1. Focus on the business mission
The first strategic step to growing your small online business on a lean budget is to focus on fulfilling your business mission. On the entrepreneurial journey to growing your business, I will advise you start from the business mission. Why?

“The thing I really care about is the mission; making the world open.” – Mark Zuckerberg

The reason is that the business mission is where the entrepreneurial spirit dwells. It’s the heart of the business; it’s core. Most importantly, your business mission is the reason why your business exists.


2. Develop a challenging vision

I will advise you set challenging goals; goals that will force you out of your comfort zone. Don’t develop a vision you are comfortable with; develop a vision that makes you uncomfortable, develop a business vision that forces you to use your critical thinking skills.


3. Reposition your business team

“Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company’s ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.” – Bill Gates

The third key to growing your small online business from scratch on a lean budget is to reposition your business team. To grow your business, the right people have to be in the right position.

Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your business team and delegate duties to them according to their strength. If there is a weak chain in your business management team; consider bringing someone in to fill the gap. A strong business management team is essential to business growth.


4.Emphasize the need for speed, effectiveness and efficiency
Are your employees aware of the need for your business to grow? Are they aligned with your business mission? Do they understand the vision? These are questions you must put to rest.

“The most important ‘speed’ issue is often not technical but cultural. It’s convincing everyone that the company’s survival depends on everyone moving as fast as possible.” – Bill Gates


5. Strengthen your business internally
What is internal growth? Internal business growth entails strengthening your bottom line, improving your employee’s effectiveness and machine’s efficiency. It may also mean repositioning your business team and automating your business processes. Once a business effectively grows internally, growing externally will be seamless.


6. Keep an eye on the cash flow
“Cash never makes us happy. It’s better to have the money burning a hole in Berkshire’s pocket than resting comfortably in someone else’s.” – Warren Buffett

Cash flow is the lifeblood of business. Remember that you are growing on a lean budget, so every penny has to be accounted for. You must know your numbers and above all, you must know your financial position at all times.

“The most important word in the world of money is cash flow. The second most important word is leverage.” – Rich Dad


7. Take care of your customers and encourage word of mouth
“Focus on your customers and lead your people as though their lives depend on your success.” – Warren Buffett

While growing internally, you can instigate external business growth by taking care of your customers and encouraging word of mouth. Customers are the reason you are in business so make sure they are not ignored during your growth process.

“The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth’s most customer-centric company.” – Jeff Bezos

8. Go strict with employee performance evaluation
So you want to grow your small business on a lean budget? Then you must maximize every resource at your disposal, leaving no room for inefficiency and waste. You must also evaluate your employee’s performance rate at regular intervals and any employee that doesn’t meet your standard should be fired.


9. Seek strategic alliance
“Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.” – Bill Gates
Forming a strategic alliance is an effective way to grow big, while still remaining small. Look within your neighbourhood first for opportunities to form strategic alliances and if you can’t find any; create one.


10. Focus on the core and outsource the rest
If there’s any secret to growing a small business from scratch on a lean budget; then it’s definitely outsourcing. Outsourcing is the reason my entire business keeps growing; yet, I remain small. To the outside world, my business size is still the same but on the inside; my profit is doubling.


11. Re-invest the profits
Growing on a lean budget requires you re-invest every single profit into the business. Re-investing profits is essential to business growth.

12. Stick to the process; keep growing
The last but not the least step to growing a small business is to stick to the process. Building a successful business is not an overnight process; it’s a process that takes time and requires persistent. To stick it through to the end of the process, you need to see the big picture of where you are heading to; you need to envision the end point of that process.


“Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” – Ray Kroc

ARTICLE SOURCE

With the economy in the doldrums, and unemployment reaching highs not seen in decades, people are hurting all over Nigeria.
With reduced incomes comes the necessity to cut back and get by with less, to reduce, re-use and recycle the things we have.

While getting by with less is great, you don't have to completely do away with everything. There are a lot of easy (and crazy!) ways to reduce your spending and save money every month especially when you have plans to start a new online business.

Today I thought I'd put together a nice long list of easy ways to save money every month on recurring expenses, on money leaks and on just about everything else. So let's get started.


Save On Recurring Expenses
One of the first places people should be looking to save money are on the big recurring expenses that we all have every month. Let's look at a few places you can save.

Internet service:
Try switching your internet service to another provider in order to take advantage of new subscriber deals or promotions. Switch from one internet type to another – DSL to cable or fibre-optic internet.

Switching can often get you great initial deals, and then you can hop providers to get another great deal when the promotion ends (sweet right?).


TV and entertainment:
There are a variety of ways to save on your TV and entertainment costs. First, you can switch cable providers from one to the other to get in on a promotional offer (StarTimes, GoTV and DSTV). You really do not have to pay for the premium bouquet. If that doesn't work you can always cut the cord altogether, and save a ton by setting up a home entertainment system using streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Iroko TV, Deezer, BoomPlay, Mobdro, etc,


Utilities:
One of the first things you must do is to ensure you get a prepaid meter for your electricity, a lot of people pay more than three times their monthly electricity consumption because of estimated bills.
After this, you need to cut back on how much you power you use to limit costs. When you're not using something, turn it off or unplug it.
Look for energy leaks in your home by getting a home energy audit, and find ways to maintain your home to cut costs – like cleaning your AC condenser coils or changing furnace filters regularly.


Save On Money Leaks
There are times when money just tends to leak away because we've always spent money somewhere without thinking about it, or because there are hidden costs that we didn't even realize were there. Here are a few to be aware of, or to look for in your own house.

Buying coffee on your way to work:
I'm using coffee as an example here. Normally, I just buy things like puff puff and other snacks before or after work. Every one of us is guilty of this one. I buy snacks just once in a while and I realised it saves me a ton of money every month!

Hobby spending:
There are certain things we spend money on out of pleasure. That new phone (no, you do not have to change your phone every three months), new Beats Headphones, etc Whatever your hobby, you can often spend a ton of money every month on buying the latest and best associated with your hobby. You don't need to cut it out completely, but cutting back on how much you can spend can save, and you'll have more money for other things.

Eating out too much:
At our house, especially for those bachelors and spinsters, our dining out budget is one of our biggest problem areas. Just by cutting the number of times we eat out in half can save us a lot of money!

Getting drinks:
You don't have to buy drinks at every opportunity, those things cost you a lot of money when you finally calculate how much you spend in a month, you will realise that money will be better spent on something more productive.



Buying brand names:
Quite often people will buy brand names just because they have always done that. In reality, the generic brand is often just as good or even better than the brand name item.

Buy less of things that spoil:
When buying provisions and foods, think about what types of things tend to go bad at your house, or that end up spoiling before you eat them. Buy less of that item, or cut it out altogether.



General Ways To Save
Here are some more ways to save that you may not have thought of.


Start a budget, stick to it:
This may seem like an obvious tip on how to save, but it's something that not a ton of people do. Just keeping track of where your money is going has a tendency to help you realize a lot of areas that you can save.


Wash your own car:
Instead of going to the car wash and spending some extra bucks, you can just wash your own car!


Do your own maintenance:
If you're handy with all things automotive, change your own oil to save on a trip to the mechanic. Maintain your own home appliances with help from the internet!

Stop a bad habit:
Are you a smoker? Quit! It's better for your health and will save a ton of money. Drink lots of soft drinks? Stop! Drink more water instead..

This list is just the beginning. Saving money can really become a way of life if you want it to be. You just have to be creative, have a reason and a goal for why you're trying to save, and think consciously about the decisions that you're making.

The changes mentioned on this page may seem small when you look at them. The truth is, however, that the small changes listed here can be the basis of your financial security.

Have your own ways to save? Tell us what they are in the comments!
There are a lot of easy ways to reduce your spending and save money every month.

ARTICLE SOURCE

Do you want to promote your online business and find customers on Instagram & Facebook? If YES, here is a practical guide to growing your business fast on social media.

These days, social media has become an indispensable tool that every business owner must take advantage of in order to grow their business and brand.

From Instagram to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and all the way to Google plus, there is a wide array of opportunities that exist for any entrepreneur who takes his or her time to carry out carefully managed social media campaigns. In fact, 82 percent of online business owners are already using one form of social media site to grow their business or the other.

Having a dominant social media presence can help to tremendously grow your business but yet, for you to get to that level, you will first have to cultivate a large number of followers and learn how to dish out content that they will crave for.


What Does It Take to Grow your Business on Social Media?
A lot of people have the erroneous belief that a few blog posts, daily or random status updates and a healthy number of likes and followers will automatically translate to business growth. However, the truth still remains that it is not that simple. It takes real strategic planning and dedication to be able to translate social media to actual business growth.

In order to properly harness the power of social media, you will have to incorporate some certain ingredients such as listening to your audience, sharing relevant messages that your audience will appreciate and also getting others to share your message. Having engaging and relevant content will allow people to share such content and as such will widen your audience to a lot of subscribers, potential fans and customers.
Here are some effective tips that you can use to grow your business fast using social media.


How to Grow a Business Fast on Social Media (Instagram & Facebook)
1. Identify your aims and objectives: before you even create an account in any social media site for business purposes, it is best to first identify your aims and objectives of doing so. You should make sure that you are in the know about how each of the platforms works, what audience you can reach with each of them and what your aims are so as to get off on the right foot.



2. Interact with your audience: when managing a business account on a social media platform, it is advisable that you show your audience your professional and softer side.



You can show your audience your softer side by interacting with them quite often. Respond to posts from your audience and interact with them when they show interest. When your audience sees your softer side, they will feel more connected to you and thus be more loyal to your brand.



3. Be consistent: consistency should be one of your keywords if you intend to grow your business using social media. You should be consistent with your posts, messages and the frequency in which you use the various platforms that are valuable.



You should have a plan as to what you are going to post and how often you will be making these posts and then follow it. It is advisable to adopt a system of posting a few times a day or in a week. Going from posting once a month to a couple of times a day and then back to the former will definitely disengage your audience.



4. Use all social networks: a common mistake that is made by entrepreneurs when they try to boost their business with social media is to go for the social media platforms that they themselves are most comfortable with, forgetting that many potential customers may not feel the same way. If you want to grow your business with social media, then you should spread your tentacles to all the major platforms that are available such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.



5. Tailor your posts to meet the needs of each platform: having an account in all the major social media platforms does not necessarily translate into posting the same thing in all the sites. It means tailoring your posts to meet the needs of each of the platforms.

For example, you should post pictures on Instagram, long posts and articles on LinkedIn, Videos and memes for Facebook and Short announcements on Twitter. So even if you have the same content in mind, they should be bespoke for each platform.



6. Understand what your audience needs: understanding the thing that your audience needs will help you to interact and connect with them. Knowing the types of videos, pictures, articles and posts that they like to see or read will help you to be able to understand what you need to be giving them. Once you have gotten a firm grasp on their needs, you will be able to use this to your advantage and grow your business.



7. Intensify your efforts on the platforms that have worked well for you: even though it is advisable to use as many social media platforms as possible, you will find out that some may be working out better for you than other networks.



When you have identified the platform that works really well for your business and customers, it is best to intensify your efforts on that platform in order to take advantage of that opportunity. This, however, does not mean that you should abandon all those platforms that are not working out too well for your business.



8. Align your content with your message: when building a strong social media presence, getting likes and followers is great. However, you should look beyond the number of response that each of your posts gets in the sense that you should not just deliver content that draws attention without actually being in line with your brand. Everything needs to fit within your brand identity and promote what it is that you are trying to say to the world.



9. Some important content will not be popular but you will still need to post it: certain types of content such as testimonials, charity pots, press features and even some important blog posts do not usually get a lot of likes or shares.



However, it does not mean that you should not post them because they are unpopular. These unpopular posts are a really important piece of content when it comes to establishing your validity in the market. Though unpopular, they will ultimately help to build the foundation of your company.

In conclusion, any marketing plan you have must try to capture social media or else you will be missing a lot of customers. A solid social media marketing plan also helps to add to the efforts that you are putting using various offline media. Social media is affordable but yet a greatly under-utilized platform that can help with virtually every aspect of your marketing plan.


SEE ARTICLE SOURCE

Yesterday, I started talking about online businesses you could try to make some extra bucks so you can finally quit that job and start living large.
Today, I will continue the post. So back to the list.


13. Membership sites
If you are an expert in your industry, then you should definitely think of starting a membership site. A membership website is a site that offers “specific information” to people; all for a monthly recurring fee. A successful membership site can generate income monthly without you lifting a finger.

14. Build your own Blog network
One of the best online businesses you can start today is a blog. The downside of a blog is that it’s not a short term profit maker, but it can bring you fortunes and fame. Owning a blog network is definitely not an easy thing to do, but it can be done. However, it’s advisable you start from only one blog. Once your blog or blogs are up and running, you can enjoy steady streams of passive income.


15. Programming Services
With the growing demand for software, applications and plugins; offering programming services is definitely a business to beat because of the steady demand. But a downside to offering programming service is that it requires specialized knowledge that doesn’t come easy. If you are patient enough to learn the ropes of programming; you are sure of a steady supply of contracts. Remember that Larry Page, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg started out as programmers.

16. Web Copywriting
Web copywriting is a service business you can start today and begin to make money because of insufficient copywriters on ground. Affiliate marketers and info product marketers will be your major clients because they are always on the lookout for possible ways to increase the clickthrough rate, subscription rate and conversion rate of their websites. If you have a passion for playing with words; then you can start a web-based business offering web copywriting services.

17. Virtual Assistant
The next web-based service business opportunity you can start today is to provide virtual assistance to web entrepreneurs. Your duty will be to carry out assigned tasks that your client considers cumbersome or not-too-relevant.

18. App development

19. Web Design
Web design is an online service business that has been around for quite long; yet, the market is not saturated. With an ever growing demand for websites, forums and blogs; the momentum for web design services will never die down. To get started as a web designer, all you need are some artistic talents, programming knowledge and time. As you design your websites, you must ensure you build your portfolio and look forward to having additional clients through word of mouth.


20. Start a Local SEO Company
The battle to be on the first page of Google is getting hotter by the day. Companies are now paying huge sums of money to search engine positioning experts to help increase their PageRank. Do you know how to get a web page to rank in the top ten search results of Google? If yes, then you have a money minting skill on hand. Aside from providing search engine optimization services; you can actually build a successful business around this single service, big time.

21. Become a Freelance Writer and Make Money Writing Articles Online
One of the most outsourced online business processes is content creation and written content happens to be one of them. In fact, ghostwriting as a service business is so broad that you can fill it all. Do you have a passion for writing? Then start a business offering ghostwriting services to individuals and companies. You specialize in guest blogging for clients, article writing, ebook writing or freelance writing.

22. Proofreading
Do you have an eye for spotting grammatical errors? If yes, then you can make money online by offering proofreading services to online publishers.

23. Website Appraisal
Just as businesses are bought and sold offline; so also are websites bought and sold online. You can become a website valuation expert and offer appraisal services to website developers (virtual real estate developers).

24. Blogger to WordPress services
Most blogs are hosted on Google’s free blogging platform Blogger, but bloggers are switching over to WordPress because of its usability and features. The only fear of moving from one blogging platform to another is that you may lose your content and PageRank.

Most bloggers don’t want to go through this nightmare, so the reliance on blogger to WordPress service providers. If you can switch from blogger to WordPress and vice versa without a loss of PageRank or content; then you have a profitable business on hand.

25. Web Development
Web development goes beyond web design; it encompasses website critique, forum installation, eCommerce site development and specialized website building. This is a profitable business opportunity; though it’s capital and time intensive, it’s a guaranteed money maker.

26. Lead Generation Services
Do you know how to generate leads online? Then you can help businesses build their mailing lists. Most internet marketers attest to the fact that the money is in the list and they are willing to do anything to have this list. You can start a lead generation business and charge either per lead or on a bulk basis (per 1,000 lead).



27. Recruiting and Online Headhunting
If you know your way around the web and you are good at digging up people’s profile, then you can become a contract staff agent to some companies. Your duty is to go online and search for the right candidates for specific positions within a company and the company will pay you when the hire is made.

As a final note, I want it to sink into your skill that you can become a successful entrepreneur simply by taking advantage of any of the web-based service business opportunities listed above. All you need is the right knowledge, the right marketing skill and determination. Once these three keys are locked in synergy; the sky will be your starting point.

28. Resume writing service
A resume writing service can make a big internet home business, especially during economically difficult times and in areas where the unemployment rate is very high.


29. Internet marketing services
Assisting people to drive customers to their websites can be an excellent online business with strong profit potential. Doing business on the web is quite tough because things change so fast online so it will be your job to help the online entrepreneurs keep up with the ever-changing trend.

Example of services you can offer includes pay-per-click (PPC) advertising services, blog marketing services, article marketing services, guest blogging, link building service, etc.

30. Graphic design
There are lots of graphic designers on the web. So if you have the plan to succeed in this area online, serving a particular target audience will be your best friend. Suppose you are specialized in fashion and you have a good graphic design skill, you can try your hand at launching an online graphic design firm that focuses on graphic design for fashion designers. You can also choose to focus on infographic designing, ebook cover design, etc.


More Internet Based Business Ideas and Opportunities to Start
Online Coaching
Direct sales online
Transcript service
Online video editing service
College Entrance Essay writing
Baking school online
Computer repair Remote
Social media for Non-profits
Online custom baby clothes
Online personal finance coaching
Web Promotion
Website Critique
Joint Venture Brokering
Niche Research services
Software / Script Installation services

There are boundless opportunities on the internet and I believe if you try one of these for a year wholeheartedly, you will become an expert and start making cool cash.

SEE ARTICLE SOURCE

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