Agriculture business has to be modernized in other to realize the financial dreams that it was set up to achieve. Using the right tools is very important. However, many business owners over-concentrate on technical tools. They do not use the right financial tools especially in agriculture because it is considered to be the "business of our fore fathers". But the fact is BUSINESSES ARE SET UP AND RUN TO MAKE MONEY.

Using the right financial tools such as SpendoGram can help you see how your business is doing at any instant.It not only monitors your expenses but also tracks your incomes, assets,customers, debts, vendors,profits, business net worth, etc. while you remain anonymous because you choose your own userID.It is mobile/web based.Hence far ahead of ordinary spreadsheets.

Visit www.SpendoGram.com to try it for FREE.

It is an excellent tool for small start up businesses as it does not require any knowledge of accounting.

afam4eva:
You have a point there. That's why i think total democracy may not be good for Nigeria at this point in time.

Right on point. No single developed country has been built by democracy. Autocracy builds, democracy sustains.

It is sad to consider that they spoke anything other than Igbo in the first place. Good sense of judgement by Governor Okorocha. We need more actions like this.We need to believe more in what is ours.

The funny thing is that none of them will post such hate laced statements on facebook or any other forum where their identities are well known. They can only hide behind anonymous userIDs. That is a definition of cowardice. I have more respect for people who will make themselves and what they want known regardless of what it is.

Are you trying to cut down the tree with bare hands or with a chain saw? Are you trying to handle your personal or family financials with bare hands or with the right tool? Visit www.SpendoGram.com to help you. Try it for FREE.

Money is a very important factor in running a family smoothly.However many people do not use enough time and tools to plan and monitor their earning/spending pattern and general family financials. They do not do in-depth analysis and budgets yet they expect miracles to happen such that they become self sufficient or even rich overnight.So, they helplessly feel trapped in a cycle of Work => Earn => Spend => Work => Earn => Spend... (the cycle never stops). Do you use any tool to know if your Net Worth is increasing over time? By how much?

Truth be told. Many people know that they need a higher degree of effort and discipline in other to achieve their personal and family financial dreams but they try to do it without the right tools or worse still without any tool.That is similar to trying to cut down a big solid tree with bare hands. So, it is not just about what you desire. You MUST use the right tools to get things done.

@OP,
QBasic/ Fortran learned in school can not do u much help bro. You need to learn practical programming. You can DIY but you are definitely not going to become a pro overnight. Not even in a month. In fact not in 6 months. I'm not discouraging you but do not promise to deliver anything to your church yet until you have learned and done actual programming.

If you like open source then go for php/mysql. You can learn online for free at www.w3schools.com

If you are not getting jobs you need to know what is wrong? Two things can be wrong.

1. If you are not being invited for aptitude tests/interviews it is because your application/CV is just not right. Fix your application/CV.

2. If you are often called for tests/interviews but you still don't get the job offers it is because other candidates who's CVs are similar to yours are assumed to be more suitable than you for the job OR the company is too poor to pay you because of the amount of wages you are requesting. Show the interviewer that you are the best candidate for the job and ask for the right amount.

Simple as it sounds most people do not make it to stage 2. They are filtered out right from stage 1 (application/CV).


If you love sports especially football you can picture it this way:
Shooting stars football club wants to bring in 5 footballers to join their team. They publish it in newspaper. 15,000 people applied.Which 5 will they pick?

@OP,very nice tips. I just wanna add one more.

Do not ever respond to emails asking you to change your ATM card PIN online. Change your PIN only a a bank's ATM and watch your back.

Dual Core: Are the owners related to the dealfish/kalahari freaks? Common behavioral trend.

Get a brainwave > pump money into the brainwave > create a brand via Google Adwords > Jam reality > Accept the harsh reality > Rebrand/Die/Merge > Damage control telling the world how wow everything will be now that it has "evolved" or gone through a "rebrand".

Am I the only one wondering when Mocality will die? It looks like the next in line.

Guy you harsh ooo.
But then you are right on point. Nigerian government needs to create policies that will help serious minded local businesses and prevent unhealthy competition from strong foreign businesses.

This is what i call excellent if that picture is real.

@OP,very good post.

Mbeki: Any sensible person should draw up a strategic exit plan the very first day you started working, so that, in case you don't resign, if you were suddenly fired, you'll have something to fall back to.

@mbeki,very good advice.

This is damn funny.

Solving other people's problems creatively.
Praising my wife for making all my sweats worthwhile.

The OP only spoke about the cost of producing it at the farm being N6. Of course you will get it at about N10 near the farm but if they have to transport it to the city with the current poor road network you will realize that they are justified for selling at N50.

Generally speaking, raw materials are cheap in Nigeria but the cost to deliver to the final consumer is usually too high because of poor infrastructures.

Guys, there was absolutely nothing grammatically wrong with the letter.

The fact is that in a country where unemployment rate is rising at an alarming rate, local production must be encouraged. So, the government move is a good one. However, like all other government policies since the inception of Nigeria, there is hardly a will to drive the policy to its logical conclusion as no yardstick is ever set so that we may know when a policy is working or failing. Does this policy sound any different from Operation Feed the Nation or SAP? So, fellow Nigerians,it is not the policy on paper that matters but the framework and will that will drive it to its logical conclusion.

For starters, true federalism must be practiced as lack of it was a major contributor to the failure of all similar policies in the past. Also, specific sectors must be targeted and tax policies must be reviewed to encourage massive investments in such sectors.

As an example,if the government wants to encourage use of our local fabrics they can go thus:


1 Auction licenses to X companies just as it was done with the telcos. The license lasts Y years
2 Only those X companies have the rights to produce all the fabrics that will be used in Nigeria
3 Anybody that imports fabrics into Nigeria shall be seen as an enemy of the state and shall be killed @firing squad and aired live on National TV.

I have used the textile industry because it was the highest employer of salaried labor and right now it is basically dead as all our fabric are imported,ankara inclusive.

This is a good development but we should bear in mind that Messi may not have been able to perform the miracles he is performing now if he is playing for Wigan. The other team members matter and of course the philosophy of the "club" too matters.

Used to love the song.

Very creative student.lol

spendogram: The reason why people won't pay back their debts is simple. Mathematically speaking for example if you have an asset(i.e money or it's equivalent) of say N100,000 and you are owing a debt of say N80,000. It means you are worth
Your Worth = YourAssets - YourDebts=100,000-80,000=20,000=twenty thousand naira.

However, a person who has N100,000 but is worth just twenty naira in reality from the above calculation, will not like the feeling of having a worth of just 20,000. Hence, he will prefer to hold on to the money he is owing so as to have a feeling of being worth N100,000.

Collateral is the best option.

Consider the same debtor with asset of 100,000 and debt of 80,000 but has used his asset of 100,000 as collateral to obtain the 80,000 loan. He has the asset of 100,000 with him but he knows he will lose it if he doesn't pay the 80,000 debt. If he loses it he will now worth 0 (zero) naira. He won't want that.

Hence,
1 Collateral is important
2 The value of the collateral MUST be greater than the loan sought.

Just to make the issue of collateral clear from my former post., collateral does not always have to be material things especially when dealing with friends and families.It may be the reputation the person's reputation. In that case there is still collateral since the person's reputation serves as the collateral.If he doesn't pay back he loses his reputation.
Hence, do not lend a person more than the amount you think the person's reputation is worth with you.

The reason why people won't pay back their debts is simple. Mathematically speaking for example if you have an asset(i.e money or it's equivalent) of say N100,000 and you are owing a debt of say N80,000. It means you are worth
Your Worth = YourAssets - YourDebts=100,000-80,000=20,000=twenty thousand naira.

However, a person who has N100,000 but is worth just twenty naira in reality from the above calculation, will not like the feeling of having a worth of just 20,000. Hence, he will prefer to hold on to the money he is owing so as to have a feeling of being worth N100,000.

Collateral is the best option.

Consider the same debtor with asset of 100,000 and debt of 80,000 but has used his asset of 100,000 as collateral to obtain the 80,000 loan. He has the asset of 100,000 with him but he knows he will lose it if he doesn't pay the 80,000 debt. If he loses it he will now worth 0 (zero) naira. He won't want that.

Hence,
1 Collateral is important
2 The value of the collateral MUST be greater than the loan sought.

Sweet thread.

But why are you guys not asking if dangote's allegations are true? Does any part of our constitution ask you to allow yourself to be cheated just because you already have more than the other man? Isn't it unlawful to selectively decide how much tax each individual pay without recourse to the tax policies ? If the government gets away with the Ibeto case, we would have prepared grounds for further serious corruptions as your tax burden will no longer be based on government policies but on man-to-man negotiations.We know what that means...

My point is:
If government wants to encourage smaller businesses to grow they should make policies to support it. Not allow individuals personal favors.

FYI:
I believe that dangote may be more guilty of using unfair advantages than most other businesses but two wrongs don't make a right.

Anybody has more reliable info on this?

Nice to hear this.

Very nice thread. This is how we should start thinking in Nigeria.

Mehhhn ! This thtread is bleeping hilarious ! Thank God nobody is around. They would have suspected me of coloeing.

The fact is we do not know the future of either. A single twist in one of them can make the other extinct faster than we can imagine.But for now I do not see say a programmer using ipad for his work.

Immediately I saw the topic I was like waooooh ! This is a very clever invention.

Well, there is not a single thing that is not taught in schools. There is always a school for anything you wanna learn. But if by school you mean only elementary,secondary and uni then you are on point. It is hi time we stopped talking schools down. They made us more useful to ourselves and others. The only difference between school and the real world is that the information in schools is more definite and had been pre-organized for you unlike the real world where you have to do the organizing and the using i.e you are both teacher and student. Even in that case what you have learned in schools still make it easier for you to know how to organize the chaotic information in the real world.

The reason why Nigerian web developers fail is the same reason why Nigeria as a whole fails. We are too vague in our approach to anything. For web developers business models and solutions are often too vaguely conceived.

Please note that it is our culture that encourages us to do things the way we do. Our culture kind of rewards physical power more than mental power. Things are just gradually changing as we are embracing new cultures and concepts. Have you ever wondered why we easily match the west in terms of consuming new technologies and concepts but can not replicate the same "copycatism" when it comes to producing new technologies and concepts?

We need to develop a culture that gives great rewards to mental power not physical power. We should also note that mental power does not mean we being good tape-recorder-playback but being good at seeing seemingly unrelated pieces and gathering them together to proffer useful solutions to our local problems.