Joseph Enueme

SMART WAYS TO CREATE A PROFITABLE BUSINESS RIGHT FROM THE START Ninety one days in and James knew it was all over. His business had collapsed. Sales were poor. In fact sales had stopped all together. James found it hard to understand. He had put in all of his cash into this business and this was happening. What would he tell his creditors? Why are customers not rushing for his products? It was a hard blow but he knew he had to retrace his steps. Money was not coming as he had expected. Time to count his losses. As the traffic streamed past, James was counting cars. His mind was made up; he will never be in this situation again. Businesses are started all over the world each year. Like James in the story above, people decide to go into business for different reasons. Sadly, many of these businesses will fail due to one reason or the other. And when this happens families suffer. Many factors lead to business failure. We will not go into details about business failure, but this article will help to address just one important factor in business collapse. Not knowing what to sell or provide a service for is a problem for aspiring entrepreneurs. This is due to inadequate information. Many people want to go into business but are confused. Nobody wants to go into business and fail. Thus wherever you are reading this guide you are in luck. It will show you how to have business ideas which are already profitable from the start. If you can find a business venture which you know will be successful from the beginning, then you have hit the jackpot. So how can one find profitable business ideas? Business Ideas that will create cash and income to do all the things you want. These are some of the steps to take. THE MINDSET OF AN ENTREPRENEUR The major characteristic identified with entrepreneurs is the ability to find solutions to challenges or problems. The more people who encounter this problem the more customers they have. So having the mind of an entrepreneur will lead you to find solutions. In doing that you are not just finding solutions for yourself but also for others. Entrepreneurs find opportunities where we find problems. Two people can be affected by a challenge and they will act differently. While one may complain and bitch about that problem, the other will find a way out of that problem. Thus to an entrepreneur, a problem or challenge is an opportunity. Having the mindset of an entrepreneur means we must activate our solutions barometer. Many businesses have been started because someone looked at a problem and offered a solution. This does not mean the solution is novel. It may just be an improvement of an existing idea. For example, before the social media website facebook, there was myspace. Today everyone has forgotten myspace. What did facebook do to command the kind of following they have today. One of the things they did was to allow people use their real names instead of pseudonyms. This personalized the platform and people loved the fact that they could be identified with their real names. So the fact that we seek solution to a problem does not mean the solution must be new. It might just be an improvement on the current one. Instead of griping and cursing, find a way out of that problem. This is a sure way to a profitable idea. Many people walk away from cash because they are too mad to observe the challenges around them as opportunity. So what is causing you so much stress today? It could potentially lead you to your millions. Try and carry out this exercise. Get a list and write down services and products (up to 10) you see every day and you think you could do better. Right now ecommerce is booming in the country. Citizens sit in their homes and at the click of a button, buy whatever they want. The purchase is shipped to their doorsteps. No stress of going to the market or supermarket. No fuel to burn or the hassles of finding a cab. This is a solution for people who do not want to leave home to buy these products. It is also an opportunity for the discerning entrepreneur to make cash. Now it does not have to be this big or complicated. Look at that list again and start offering solutions. Profitable ideas are not far off. But we must train our minds to see opportunity instead of problems. News & Trends There are instances where the news and trends in our society give birth to profitable ideas for business. When we read in the news about an item, product, service, event or situation over and over, then we must take note. For example the availability of power is a big challenge Nigeria currently faces. The government has invested much into this sector and not much has improved. Smart entrepreneurs are importing solar panels and developing solar plants in the absence of national grids in many places. This is a whole new industry being developed. From the business man who imports the solar panels and inverters to the technologists who fix them, money changes hands. Jobs are created here without the support of government. Alternative energy millionaires are being created. News and trends in our society if used well can lead to profitable business ideas and cash. If we take a careful look at the newspapers and magazines, we will find many avenues where people and organizations are not measuring up. We will find where the government is throwing money on. This is in order to solve such problems. For example power and agriculture are sectors the Nigerian government is looking at critically. Due to the attention paid to these sectors, business men and women are not averse to investing here. It is becoming fashionable and trendy to own a farm. But what makes this area profitable is the huge demand for food due to the large population. You can find profitable ideas browsing through magazines and newspapers. For example I was listening to one of Nigeria’s major news TV channel and found out some interesting information. In the report about fish farming the statistics showed that Nigeria was importing fish to feed its population. With all the fishing activities in the country not able to satisfy domestic consumption, it means there is enough space for business men who want to go into this sector. Demand means this is a likely profitable business idea. If we take time to read between the lines when we listen and read the news, we will most likely find areas where we can start off. ADS and Advertising. This is really simple to apply. From day to day we are bombarded by ads. From newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, on the road and the internet, it never stops coming. Most people just sort of unconsciously tune out the ads. They refuse to hear or see these ads. But we can turn this bombardment to our advantage. The logic is to notice ads which are repeated often. Ads you see day after day, month after month and year after year. Ads you continue to hear on radio. Ads you see over and over on the internet. So once we take note of these ads, we can research the product or service they are selling. If an ad is repeated year in year out, it means just one thing. It means it is selling. Now to make a distinction. We are not talking about big companies with big budgets for advertising. Look at small businesses and medium sized companies to find this. To continue to advertise a product ultimately means the owner is making profits. If he or she is not breaking even, there will be no cash to run the ads. So taking note of these ads and researching them, can lead to profitable business ideas. No businessman will continue to advertise a product or service that is making him losses. Hope you get the drift. THE SHOULDERS OF ONLINE GIANTS Udemy Udemy is an online learning, teaching platform. It has thousands of courses and millions of students all over the world according to its website. These courses are created by individuals and sold to students on the website. There have been success stories around Udemy and its courses. Many of these courses have thousands of students. This means one thing they are popular. The teachers make cash by selling these courses. Udemy can be used to find that profitable idea that you are looking for. Let’s find out how. What to look out for are the reviews and the number of students taking the course. This is showing a search for the topic “kindle publishing”. What you get when you search are many courses related to kindle publishing on the website. But what we really want is a way to find out which course is profitable so we can take steps to benefit from them. Once we know how to find such, you can copy and adapt for yourself and environment. This research is to quickly identify what can bring in the profits if implemented. See the screen shot below: One can see from the screen shot of the Udemy course above the potential of recreating this type of course or creating something close. The ratings confirm that there are students already paying for the course and this is a good sign. Also from the above screen shot you can see the number of students enrolled. It says over 321,000 students enrolled. This is massive and a sure sign that the course is popular and sells. One must do his or her research to unearth ideas to profit from. You must not go on Udemy to teach same course. The research is merely to show you what people are buying so that you can adopt and adapt. ADOPT AND ADAPT This short report is not to help you just copy. It should help to expose you so you can take action. Ideas can be replicated. Due to human nature our wants and needs are not very different from other people. We all want to be healthy and look beautiful and handsome. We want to be rich and able to take care of our families. So our ideas sometimes align with the ideas of others. From the developed world to the developing world people act the same more than we acknowledge. The best way to get to our dreams and aspirations after a report like this is to adopt and adapt. Adopt the ideas that appeal to you and adapt them to your environment, your local population. Adopt by implementing the idea. You don’t have to copy everything. You can fine tune. You can add your own insight. Try to make the idea yours. This is the concept of adopt and adapt. For example after visiting a site like Udemy. After knowing some of the courses in demand, one can put up classes offline to teach such courses. You must not go on this site to teach. You can bet that if people are going online to look for such courses they are also doing so offline. Or you can just produce a similar course with areas not covered by the tutor. Sell it on your site or create the ebook version and sell on amazon. ADOPT and ADAPT Technique will lead you to a profitable business. In conclusion you will only find a profitable business when you act on profitable business ideas. ACT on your ideas and move to the next level.