Like Chapaa

  • How NOT To Make Money Online

    Posted: September 30, 2010, 8:35 am by Kelvin

    One of our nice readers sent this email:

    “I spend too much time on the internet doing nothing. Sometimes it is fun but it does not pay the bills. I’ve been sort of freelancing for awhile and paid a web designer to do a fancy website that I couldn’t maintain myself, and that thing didn’t generate any leads. Now I don’t have a website, but I have a blog that I don’t even use. Nini mbaya na mimi?

    Hakuna kitu mbaya na wewe!

    What we all need to do is to stop building all these fancy websites and complex marketing strategies. Are you making money online? Would a blog and Twitter and Facebook help you get your first three paying customers? The plain simple answer is NO. At the beginning your focus should be to get three paying clients (because one or two may just be a fluke).

    After you do this, you will have established that your business idea is actually viable; you will have proven that people will actually pay for whatever you are selling. Afterwards, you can start thinking of the blogs and Facebook and other fancy stuff. Not before. I’ll say it again: skip all the fancy stuff that you hear (SEO, social media, etc) and just get your first three paying clients!

    The funny thing is that almost everyone who hears this advice does not like it one bit! Instead, you like hearing things like:

    • You need a Twitter page with lots of followers
    • Everyone spends his time on Facebook, you need to get a facebook page
    • You can’t do business without registering a company…and don’t forget business cards

    You know why most people prefer the above to actually getting down to work and getting paying clients? Because it is so much easier to start a blog and Twitter and pray that somehow money will just flow in. It is much harder to sit down and make a plan on how to get three people to pay for whatever you are selling.

    I have been blogging for more than six years and I’ve pretty much seen it all. If you ask me, 99.9999999% of all bloggers make a shameful amount of money, something like $2 per month. Does that really tie in with your high horse dreams of making it big? We have to be realistic about things, my friend. If your goal is to make money, do not waste time on social media.

    Focus on setting up your business, not on the technology; focus on understanding your customer; focus on testing whether your idea is profitable; focus on how to build the best product or service that you can.

    Similar Posts:


  • 3 Steps To Internet Business

    Posted: September 29, 2010, 3:13 pm by tranx

    Step 1: Content
    Good Content is the key to a good long-term online business. Why? Because marketing costs time and money. You want to have content that gets passed on naturally through the internet. You still need to do marketing but you’re hoping much of your marketing will be done freely through word-of-mouth. And to leverage word-of-mouth, you need to have quality content worth talking about.

    So, spend a lot of time planning and producing your content. Create a ‘content blueprint’ to organize your content ideas. For me, this blueprint is a list of different types of content. For example:

    • Tutorials
    • Interviews
    • News
    • Commentary on industry happenings
    • Videos
    • Series of articles on one topic

    Step 2: Marketing
    Next comes marketing. With the growing amount of information on the internet, marketing has become more important. There are many sites with great content that don’t have much traffic because no one knows about them. Marketing is simply the activity of letting people know about your site.

    I would create a ‘marketing blueprint’. However, I spend most of my marketing time in a few marketing channels. It’s not advisable to stretch your marketing efforts too thin. Marketing channels take time to cultivate before they’re fully effective. Of course, if you have a lot of time for marketing or the money to outsource, go ahead and use more marketing channels.

    Here are some marketing methods that have proven effective for webmasters:

    • Blog commenting
    • Social media sites
    • Press releases
    • Forum posting
    • Guest blogging
    • Article submission
    • Video submission

    Step 3: Monetization
    Finally, we have monetization. Now that you’ve thought about content and marketing, you can focus on converting your traffic into dollars. The key here is understanding your traffic. Why are they coming to your site? What are their problems? What can you sell them that would solve their problems?

    Also, think of advertisers with products your audience would find useful. Contact those advertisers and see if they would be partner with you.

    Here are some methods for monetizing your site:

    • Contextual advertising
    • Advertising through a broker
    • Direct advertising
    • Reviews
    • Affiliate marketing
    • Sell your own product or service
    • Donations

    That’s it! Do you have any questions? We have answers!

    Similar Posts:


  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #6

    Posted: September 28, 2010, 5:04 pm by Kelvin

    Easy Fax – this is a website that provides virtual fax services, in Kenya! I must say that the site is pretty well done and the user experience just seems miles ahead of most Kenyan offerings, kudos to the people behind this. Now you can receive faxes for free, via email, in Kenya. Check it out.

    Kenyan Listings – well, I would say that directory-type sites in Kenya have a heck of a lot of competition. It shouldn’t be a reason not to try make one successful, though. Kenyan Listings seems to be well done and functional. Good luck to them.

    Flops
    Penumos – this is just a shamefully poorly made website – made by a supposed web designer!!! yet another reason why you should be careful who you hire to do your web design.

    Mike Sonko – for a supposedly filthy wealthy individual, you would expect a better designed website, no? Hopefully it’ll get a face-lift soon.

    Special thanks to Jaffar Mohamed and Shiko Nduta for contributing to this week’s article.

    Update 29/9/2010: The Penumos guys have promptly updated their site.
    Similar Posts:


  • 5 Rules For Your “About Us” Page

    Posted: September 28, 2010, 8:29 am by Kelvin

    Seth Godin shares some wisdom on how to build effective “About Us” pages for our websites. This page is often one of the most important pages on any website but also one of the most poorly done pages. Here’s what Seth has to say:

    When someone comes to your site for the first time, they’re likely to hit ‘about’ or ‘bio’. Why? Because they want a human, a story and reassurance.

    Here are some helpful guidelines (okay, they’re actually imperatives):

    1. Don’t use meaningless jargon:
    … is a recognized provider of result-based online and mobile advertising solutions. Dedicated to complete value chain optimization and maximization of ROI for its clients, … is committed to the ongoing mastery of the latest online platforms – and to providing continuously enhanced aggregation and optimization options.

    2. Don’t use a stock photo of someone who isn’t you (if there is a stock photo of you, congratulations). The more photos of you and your team, the better.

    3. Make it easy to contact you. Don’t give a contact address or number that doesn’t work.

    4. Be human. Write like you talk and put your name on it. Tell a story, a true one, one that resonates.

    5. Use third party comments and testimonials to establish credibility. Use a lot of them. Make sure they’re both interesting and true.

    – Seth Godin.

    Similar Posts:


  • Our Archives Are Now Live

    Posted: September 28, 2010, 7:55 am by Kelvin

    We’ve gotten frequent emails from people asking questions that we have answered very well in past articles – even though those may be from a year or two away. Other people have simply been asking for an easier way to access past articles from Like Chapaa.

    Well, we listened. We have just completed building an elegant Archives section where each past articles is listed by month, all the way back to 2007 when we started!

    Click here to access the Like Chapaa Archives.

    We’d like to think that there’s a lot of information that may help you in our past work, now you have an easier way to access it so go ahead and do just that. Good luck!

    Similar Posts:


  • Free Internet Marketing Textbook

    Posted: September 27, 2010, 3:45 pm by wham

    In this day and age, it is almost suicidal to ignore the Internet’s role in marketing. If you want to do any kind of online business, Internet marketing is, of course, critical. The strange thing is that even for normal, “brick and mortar”, businesses, it is folly to ignore the Internet.

    “We live in an era where companies that are not positioning and marketing their brands online are suffering for it. Alas, the Web is a scary place for traditional marketers, whether they work on the agency or client side. After years of successfully relying on conventional media, there is suddenly a technological monster that demands to be addressed. With eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Online Marketing, marketers everywhere can become skilled at harnessing the power of the Internet and using it for the benefit of their brands. With a little help from the experts, it’s never too late to learn.” – Quirk eMarketing

    Download the Free Internet Marketing Textbook.

    Similar Posts:


  • The Perfect Business

    Posted: September 26, 2010, 7:00 pm by tranx

    I’ve always disliked multi level marketing (sometimes derogatorily called ‘pyramid schemes’) like GNLD. But today, I watched the video below and it changed my perception of these models. Allow me to explain.

    In the business world, there are four types of people:

    1. Employees
    2. Self-employed people (solo acts)
    3. Business owners
    4. Inverstors

    The poor people of this world are employees and self-employed people. Employees work hard to build businesses that they will never own and are always at risk of losing everything. Self-employed people are safer than employees – what they build, they own but the business depends wholly on them and if anything happens to them, the business fails and financial doom ensues.

    Business owners and investors are the rich people of the world. They do not work for money, their money works for them. Clearly, we should all try and learn how to build businesses and invest wisely. It is a subject that should be taught in every school, but sadly is not. Therefore, an overwhelming majority of the population of any country, Kenya included, grows up into adulthood with little idea of how to actually build and grow a business.

    Because we should all learn how to build businesses, a great challenge exists for the majority of people – how do you learn how to do business? In the video below, Robert T Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad says that the simplest, fastest and safest way to learn how to do business is through companies that offer multi-level marketing. Think about it. If you join a company like GNLD to sell their products, they will support you in all sorts of ways to make sure that you make sales and become successful. While you are doing this, you are learning how to do business in a safe and supportive environment. You could then easily stop the GNLD stuff and set up your own venture using your newly acquired skills and experiences. Makes sense? Watch the video:

    Click here to view the embedded video.

    What do you think?

    Similar Posts:


  • How Not To Get Lost In Business (or Anything Else)

    Posted: September 24, 2010, 6:05 pm by wham

    Have you ever sat behind the steering wheel of a car without knowing where you are going? Sounds bizarre, right? What is more bizarre is that we do this every day in our professional lives without finding it disturbing! If you are smart (which I am sure you are and that is why you are reading Like Chapaa!), then you would have figured out that we are talking about GOALS which are important when we leave the house as well as when we want to go ahead in our personal and professional lives.

    In fact, my take on this is that having a goal makes life easier by giving us a direction and sense of purpose. If you want to be successful, then one of the things which you need to do is to set goals in EVERYTHING YOU DO. This may seem like a lot of work, but goal setting a habit forming activity and when you see the results, you will not regret it.

    So how do you SET goals?
    Goals are usually things which we want to achieve in life. Personally, you might have a goal to lose weight (ouch!), professionally it can be to increase turnover, employee productivity, customer satisfaction etc. Once you have a broad goal…you pretty much have a direction which then needs to be broken down into activities that lead towards that direction.

    How do you DOCUMENT a goal?
    You can have long term or short term goals and their categorization is dependent on the time frame it will take to achieve them. For example, you can give yourself two months to lose four pounds or twelve months to increase customer satisfaction. Once you categorize this, you need to backtrack a bit and break it down into activities which will lead you to the goal.

    Remember my analogy about the car? Activities to reach a place, usually involve, starting the car, checking the route, driving, parking, etc. Similarly, you need to document steps which will help you get to this goal.

    After documentation comes EXECUTION
    This is actually the most difficult part of achieving your goal….you can only get it right if you execute the various steps correctly. This is the place where the difference between KNOWING and DOING can be understood well. Good planning makes it easy to reach a goal. Each step should be understood properly as that will influence the overall quality of the results of achieving your goal. For example, a well planned campaign for higher customer satisfaction is likely to get you close to 80% of your goal while a poorly planned one may get you only 10%.

    A goal is only as good as its metrics!
    Metrics are nothing but numbers which can help you measure your goals and are as important as setting a goal in the first place. I have to lose weight is a meaningless goal if you don’t tie it with a number. Similarly, a goal to increase sales numbers is unlikely to be of any point if you don’t attach a number to it…let’s say a 30% increase from current levels. In fact, it is only with metrics that it makes sense to have goals in the first place.

    There…I have put up my strong feelings towards goals and their measurements and hope to cover metrics in a business in another blog very soon!

    Similar Posts:


  • Can You Do It?

    Posted: September 22, 2010, 5:38 pm by Kelvin

    It does not even matter what “it” is, I’m confident that you can do it.

    Van Gogh famously said, “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” What if you never attempt to write that novel? What if you never attempt to start that business? What if you never attempt to steer toward your true north? In the end, you might regret some of the failed leaps, but you’ll surely regret all of the times you failed to even try.

    Goethe encourages us: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

    Similar Posts:


  • Without a Trace?

    Posted: September 22, 2010, 9:09 am by Kelvin

    So imagine you woke up one day and found out that you had been robbed; that some good-for-nothing crook had violated your privacy and took your valuables! What would you do?

    Well, here is the story of one courageous woman who used the Internet to track and catch the person who stole from her!

    It is an amazing story that shows just how much information about us exists on the Internet. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? How much information can I find out about you online?

    Similar Posts:


  • Yay DukaPress!

    Posted: September 21, 2010, 9:57 am by Crystal

    When I moved back to Kenya last December, Kelvin was one of the first people I looked up. We’d chatted a bit online, and we talked for a good three hours about all things business. I now consider him a friend and a mentor, and he’s still the first person I call when I want to slap a client and I need to talk politely instead. He’s very good at Customer Care.

    Kelvin and I laid out a lot of plans during that first meeting at T-spot. Some I implemented immediately, some took a little while longer, and some I completely forgot about for months. For example, it wasn’t until July that I signed up on GAF and Elance, and I didn’t get active until a month later. I’m now fairly settled with that. It’s not without challenges, but I know that I’ll get there eventually.

    Another item on our agenda was starting an online shop. The idea was to gather all my little stories and put them on a platform. I’m very organised, but I’m also a bit of scatterbrain, so I have little bits of note paper, poetry verses, and half-finished novels that I’ve scribbled in my notebooks. Kelvin felt we could aggregate them and possibly make some money. I didn’t give the idea much thought until DukaPress came up. I’d always said I’d get the books PDFed and throw in some Photoshop covers, but I just never got round to doing it.

    When Nickel Pro developed DukaPress, I didn’t know what it was, but I downloaded it anyway. Kelvin said it was a good idea, and after all, it was free. It sat idle on my dashboard for maybe another month while I fiddled around with Photoshop. I logged in occasionally to tweak the settings or something, but for the most part, it was just a pretty orange thing on my sidebar. Then Kelvin released this video and I immediately set it up. I drew up a quick book cover with Photoshop and google images, and posted my first two books on the shop.

    The next few days were frustrating, because I realised that I’d have to buy a new Safaricom line to support Mpesa. *groan* I kept getting blank and partial orders, some of which were from me and Kelvin testing the system. I somehow clicked Paypal Sandbox and ended up opening a whole new account – I have no idea just what it was or why. But Kelvin helped me out and showed me where to click and where to check, and finally the shop was all set up.

    Next came the Paypal issue. If I wanted to use Paypal, I would have to price the books in dollars , which is fine, except I kept thinking of this post and feeling like a dreadlocked Judas. I tweaked the shop like four times a day, mostly changing from Ksh to US$ and back again. If my website had a voice [and a hand] I’m sure it would have slapped me a thousand times over.

    Yesterday I spent the whole day fimalising products, uploading covers, images and whatnot. I was still undecided on the whole US$ vs Ksh debate, so I was pretty excited when I saw Kelvin announce DukaPress 1.3.0 on twitter. It allows multiple currencies. Yay! It also allows manual control of the image sizes. It took me a while to figure it out, and I spent ages tweaking dimensions, literally. I’m sure it was at least three hours. By midnight, I was happy with the look of the site and the products, and everything was good to go. I did manage to somehow warp my media window, but Kelvin released 1.3.1, and I updated it early this morning with fabulous results.

    What I really like about DukaPress, besides the fact that it’s free, is that it’s user-friendly. Even a technobof like me could figure it out, though it took me a while. Kelvin and the other guys at Dukapress are always available to solve problems, and you can even catch them on twitter. The interphase is smooth and pretty, and you can see results immediately, which is pretty awesome. I don’t have to mess with code to see my preferences flow, and it makes me feel like a nerd chick. Uber cool.

    If you haven’t got DukaPress yet, I suggest you go download it. Business is all about selling stuff, and when someone gives you a prime, rent-free business space, you’d better find something good to sell. As for me, I’m content now that Kiosk 3CB is open for business.

    Crystal Ading’ is a professional writer, editor, rock lover, and mother. Her work is available through www.threeceebee.com.Similar Posts:


  • How Youtube is Driving Innovation

    Posted: September 20, 2010, 9:00 am by wham

    Enjoy the video

    Click here to view the embedded video.

    Similar Posts:


  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #5

    Posted: September 19, 2010, 7:47 am by Kelvin

    Cheki – I remember a while back when a friend of mine told me it took two months for him to find and buy a good car in Kenya. This is because he had to spend time going physically to various used cars sales ‘bazaars’. It was clear back then that Kenya needed a large site where people can buy/sell any type of car. Cheki looks to be that site!

    Baba Watoto – “BabaWatoto is the most valuable kenyan site to us out here (outside Kenyan – the so called ‘diaspora’) we can do practically anything in Kenya without leaving my computer!” – Mbugua . True to Mbugua’s word, Baba Watoto seems to be able t enable people outside Kenya to do anything. Try it.

    Flops
    Mchongoano.com – now this is a really nice domain that has not been utilised properly. The site feels outdated and, as a new visitors, I cannot tell what the site is about. It looks like someone had a good idea way back in 2002 (that’s the date on the site’s footer) and then just lost focus. Sigh. The site has potential, a re-design and some re-focusing would do wonders!

    Similar Posts:


  • 6 Reasons Why Your Website Sucks

    Posted: September 17, 2010, 11:07 am by Kelvin

    You’ve been working really hard on your website; You’ve made sure that every pixel is perfect; every image magnificent; and every word amazing. Unfortunately, it’s too easy to make a beautiful website that, well, sucks. Here are some reasons why your shiny new website may suck:

    1. Bad design – unfortunately, this is all too common. We may not say it out loud, but web surfers actually do prefer well designed sites that are easy on the eye. Use a good color scheme and a proper contrast between the background color and the text color. A simple site re-design may increase your site’s usability (and likeability) greatly.
    2. Your website isn’t findable – if people cannot find your site on search engines or elsewhere then they cannot possible view your site and appreciate all the hard work you put into it. Some of the biggest companies in the world have websites that aren’t well optimized and they still get found. Unfortunately for the rest of us, that isn’t an option. This is especially a problem for gorgeous sites that are all flash and only have one page for Google or Bing to index. Please take time to do SEO.
    3. Your website only talks about you and your achievments – it is nice to tell visitors all about you. But, honestly, most people do not care all that much about you. They care about how you can solve their problems. Don’t just talk about who you are and how cool what you do is – take time to also include information on how you can help me, examples of how you have helped people in the past, etc. It is important in winning visitors over.
    4. People do not know what to do – people surfing the Internet have a very short attention span. If you make your website so “cool” and so “unique” that people do not know where or what to click on to get more information, you will not engage your site’s visitors, you will lead them away. No matter how unique you want the site, take a moment to think how to make it easy and intuitive to use.
    5. Your website automatically plays sound or video – Maybe you have an auto-playing video or some funky background music, but it plays instantly. Your prospects probably don’t suddenly want a blasting presentation to come out of their computer speakers while they’re sitting in quiet offices or a library. They’ll quickly close the browser tab rather than becoming engaged, filling out lead forms, and eventually buying your product or service. It also wastes bandwidth for people using services like Safaricom’s bambanet.
    6. Outdated information – If I’ll enter a website and I see in at the bottom that it says “Copyright 2004″, I will be quick to leave. No one wants outdated information. Not only that, it gives users doubts about you: are you careless enough to tell me that the date is 2004 when we’re in 2010? I won’t do business with you!

    Similar Posts:


  • Want Your Own Online Business? [Interview]

    Posted: September 15, 2010, 9:22 am by Kelvin

    For the readers that don’t know, Andrew Mutua is one of the founders of www.pamojashops.com.

    PamojaShops is a community of buyers and sellers of African handmade wares. We hope through this platform which is not limited to time and/or place, we will open up our creativity and art to the world. PamojaShops is the online version of open air markets, commonly known as Maasai markets that showcase our creativity, our culture, our enterprising spirit, our art, and our unique identity with various influences both from within and outside.

    Today, Andrew opens up to Like Chapaa.

    Q. You’re quite an achiever, tell us about you.

    I’m a 29 year old tech enthusiast, who loves Jazz (check out my blog). I have been in the IT industry now for 8 years and I recently co-founded PamojaShops.

    Q. How do you make money online?

    I believe you’re asking about our business model. Initially, we had thought of having a rental model, whereby each vendor pays a fee to open and maintain an online stall. Pretty much what happens in the physical world.

    However, this has since changed to commissioned-based model where each product sold will be charged a small percentage over and above its price. (The most unique part is that the vendors acquire their own micro-site and they can use that to market themselves i.e www.vendor.pamojashops.com)

    Q. How did you start?

    The idea had been brewing for a while now. I think it has been a year since I first thought of having the online version of Maasai Market (African Handicrafts open air market).After some prodding from my sister I decided to plunge in and pursue the dream. She followed that up with a promise to be an investor and partner in the venture. With that major boost it was full speed ahead to making it happen.

    Q. What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

    Initially it was hard getting someone who could translate my idea into a digital platform (site) which could set up and host online shops (E-stalls) and facilitate payment and shipments. But lucky enough I did finally get someone (Nickel Pro) who understand and even further refined my idea – I guess through persistence it finally panned out.

    The other challenge is the target user, (Maasai Market Merchants) is mostly not computer literate. And considering we had hoped to have a system fully automated and within the control of the user we’ve had to step back and evaluate the viability of this approach. What we’re now doing is working hand-in-hand with the merchants taking them through the entire process. So it’s gonna be pretty involving and hands-on at the start…again this is good, it may help in understanding the trade more intimately and to craft a more relevant solution.

    Q. What are the challenges of being an entrepreneur in Kenya?

    Funding is an issue but I believe this slowly changing. I think there’s a lack of support structures to help any start-up out there e.g. have a forum for startups, advisors, incubation centers and low cost administrative support for start-up.

    Again, there’s good news here the development of initiatives such i-Hub and Nailab seek to tackle some of these challenges.

    Q. What was critical to your success?

    We we are not there yet, but Passion in whatever you’re undertaking is very important because when all else fails it’s the only thing that keeps you afloat, energized and fired up to move on.

    The other is a community of people; be they techies or any skilled person ready to rent their expertise; entrepreneurs who offer their advice and inspire you with their experiences. The community helps you where you can’t; gives you guidance and direction and, there are people out there ready and willing to help and I think the i-Hub has doing a great job in fostering this kind of community support and partnership.

    Over and above all, the other attributes of hard work, teamwork and more belief in God has also been key in this venture. When you take the uncharted road and you don’t know what the next step holds, God gives you the strength and bravery to plunge in and keep going.

    Q. What about the competition and marketing, do you need to advertise, print flyers participate to conferences or is it mostly word of mouth?
    Marketing is a critical element to any business as a means of putting the word out, promoting, raising awareness, seeking participation, etc., to eventually result in conversions (sales).

    Word of Mouth ranks up there as best means of Marketing. And in this regard we’re leveraging Social Media Tools – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs etc- to raise awareness; create a community of fans around our product and service.

    In terms of Offline Marketing we’re looking to engage in intense evangelism of our product in every meet-up that we’re part of. And we’re also considering doing some flyer print-outs or some other print marketing materials.

    Q. Do you think that in order to “make it big” online you have to live in a Western country? Or does Kenya offer more or less the same opportunities?
    The Internet has since leveled the playing field quite dramatically. And although Western countries have certain advantages (support structures, availability of VCs, etc) I think now, in this day and age, we all have a chance to play in the same league as them. Look at platforms as Ushahidi that were birthed here and have since gone global. This is a testament that we have what it takes to develop world-class products.

    Q. Where do you see yourself and your business (es) in the next 5 years?
    I hope we’ll grow PamojaShops to be the world’s largest marketplace for all African Handicrafts.

    I also see myself been involved heavily in various community service initiatives that I’m passionate about i.e. education and social entrepreneurship.

    Q. If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?
    No. I think the lessons, missteps, failures that I’ve made in life made me who I am and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. You can’t go back, we only move forward.

    Q. What advice do you have for Internet business entrepreneurs in Kenya?
    Act on that idea. Don’t get hung up on how unique that idea is and holding on to it like your life is depended on it. The best idea is the one that has been executed. Go ahead and make it happen or as Nike would say – Just Do it!

    That’s all for today readers. If you like what you hear, why not go over to www.pamojashops.com and buy something or become a vendor?

    Check out PamojaShops Facebook Page and Follow them on Twitter.

    Or contact Andrew MUTUA- andy[at]pamojashops.comSimilar Posts:


  • Do You Also Make This Mistake In Business?

    Posted: September 14, 2010, 12:55 pm by tranx

    As the person who has the last say in everything that happens in my business, I, like all other business owners, run the risk of trying to micro-manage every last detail. One of the greatest lessons that I am learning is that I must simply let some things go. Having my “signature” on all matters of my business is one thing; having my hand in every single task and function is quite another.

    Because this business is my heart and soul, I want to ensure that everything is done right. I want to oversee all these aspects because I know the way in which I want things done and I want to make sure that tasks are completed in a way that reflects my business and personal philosophy. This only makes sense—like most other business owners, I have saved and scrimped and fretted. The responsibility for success is most assuredly on my shoulders, so I want to make sure that success will come.

    The only problem with this is that overseeing every little aspect of the business can become a full-time job in itself. I find myself staying late at night putting check-marks on my employees’ work and ensuring that it all comes up to snuff, when I could be allocating time to the tasks that I am actually responsible for as the owner of my business. Not only does this kind of task control take over my professional life, it also hurts my personal life as well.

    For example: if I had it my way, I would have a clean list of prospective clients in our database, but the fact is that it really doesn’t matter. I can clean the list or just delete the questionable ones. Yet, this is just one example of how I realize that I need to keep my hands out of each of these aspects of my business. As the owner of my business, it is not my job to keep a fresh list of prospects in our database, nor is it up to me to hire entry level staff and interview interns. The time that I spend cleaning something up is time that I could be spending on larger questions facing my business such as future considerations and the overall functionality of the organization.

    Really, when you think about it, this micro-management style really comes down to a lack of confidence in my staff and a belief that only I am aware of how to do things the way that I think they should be done. It is a controlling style of management, and it is not the most effective personnel management style. How inspired will my employees feel if I don’t show them even a modicum of trust and respect in their decision making . They will likely not feel too eager to take initiative or to make suggestions, if they feel that I will inevitably shoot down their input, or alter it severely in most cases.

    In this respect, it is important to find that necessary balance between having your say and vision obvious in your business, but also allowing your staff to work for you, not against you. You need to firstly hire staff that you believe share your vision and are capable of delivering that to your clients, and will make decisions similar to your own, in your absence. This will leave you time to focus on the bigger questions facing your business and you can feel rest assured that your staff are looking after the “little problems” on your behalf.

    Similar Posts:


  • The Way You Look

    Posted: September 12, 2010, 6:27 pm by wham

    It has been a pretty festive weekend, but then again it’s almost always ‘festive’ in Nairobi right? We always have an excuse to have a good time. And by all means we should.

    Among the ‘best sellers’ when it comes to kujienjoy in Kenya is  nyama choma – roast meat.

    So let’s say that you were going out to get some nyama choma. Would you get it from this guy:

    Or, would you get it from this guy:

    The first guy looks more experienced right? He’s got his chef hat-thing and that no-nonsense look going on. He actually went to school to learn how to roast your meat just right. That’s right, it’s your meat now, so you have to worry about who’s handling it. But who’s to say that the second guy has no experience? He’s could have been working way longer than the first guy. And who can prove that he does not know how to roast meat? Other than the fact that he’s not looking at it at the moment of course. As long as it’s not burning right? He could probably argue that he just doesn’t have the 3000 shilling jiko that the first guy has.

    How would you decide which one to go to? Could it be by how clean they appear to be? The quality of the meat? The price? Location?

    All these are reasonable factors to consider before choosing one of the two. In fact, every client thinks about these factors. What differs is the order of priority that they put them in. Some are more concerned about the price than how clean the guy is, while others are the opposite.

    With an online business, most of the time you do not need to actually meet your clients face to face. There is the occasional meeting when the client needs extra attention, otherwise you are good to go. So most of us don’t really need to worry about what we look like because our clients won’t see us. So they can’t really judge us based on our outward appearance.

    This could be a good thing since more often than not, if you have an online business that is successful, what you look like really does not matter. Other times, this is a disadvantage since you have to make up for the lack of ‘visibility’, if I can call it that, with other things. Like say, make your website ‘appealing to the eye’. This is not so hard though since you can always just hire someone to do it for you. You have to work hard on the other departments though like customer service and product delivery. Everything else has to be twice as good as a ‘physical’ business.

    Anyway, on a normal weekend the two guys above get roughly the same number of clients. Surprised? Different locations, different target groups, different priority orders, but clients all the same. So it’s pretty much your choice. What kind of guy do you want to be? As long as you market yourself well and to the right people, you’ll still do good.

    PS: If I were you, I’d pick guy A. Not giving you ideas or pushing you against a wall or anything like that. Just saying Similar Posts:


  • The Place For Love

    Posted: September 10, 2010, 1:29 pm by wham

    Weird topic to be talking about here, eh?

    Love is a strong positive emotion of regard and affection. It is mostly used in regard to loving someone else. When you love someone greatly, much of your energy goes into making that person feel your love. You put hundreds of hours into these efforts. If you do not invest in your love, chances are that she/he will find someone else, who can do that.

    A friend of mine started a new business the other day. It is an online business and so my friend does not spend the whole day working on it, he does not need to. He came to me for advice when he noticed that one of his sites was failing despite “frequent updates”. After some thought, I diagnosed his situation as being a case of a lack of sufficient love.

    Managing a website is hard work. It goes beyond just regular updates. Managing a website is a popularity contest carried out among millions, yes millions, of websites. Why should I come to your tiny little site when I have akina Facebook to spend my time on? Your website may be the best in the world but I do not have time for it until I see that it would be valuable to me in some way.

    Think of it this way: there may be an amazing and super interesting and motivating book available in a library. But if the library has thousands of other books, and this particular book happens to be in a top corner of some shelf, what are the chances that a great number of people will read it? Websites can be thought of in a similar way.

    For the most part, in order to distinguish your website you have to love it. You have to spend hours thinking and working on it, trying and re-trying, testing and re-testing until you get something that people actually want to use.

    I find that the best way to grow a site is not to try and target anyone – just target a small niche group of people who you think will relate to the sites content. Instead of making a site about farm animals, for example, maybe you could start with a site just about “white little piggies”. Niche-ing down this way has two benefits:

    1. It is probable that the smaller niche is closer to your heart than a more general one. You can therefore be more passionate.
    2. It is very easy for people to relate to your site. If your site was about farm animals in general and I was looking for one about “white little piggies” then I may overlook your generalized site.

    If you aim to make money online through a website, be warned that it needs the kind of passion that can only come from Love.

    PS
    I do not know why I chose to use “white little piggies” as my example.

    Similar Posts:


  • E-commerce By I & M Bank

    Posted: September 9, 2010, 11:55 am by Kelvin

    I just got off the phone with Mr. Reddy from I & M Bank. A real gentleman. He had called in response from yesterday’s article: I & M Bank got it wrong, to inform me of some erroneous information in that post.

    First off, the very fact that I & M Bank responded is impressive. Not many organisations in our country monitor – and respond to – what is said about them online. least of all banks! I & M Bank got that very right, kudos to them.

    Mr Reddy made some valid points in defense of I & M. First, we have to understand that PayPal and similar other services are not banks. They operate under different legal environments from banks. Banks like I & M operate in a more controlled environment, and have to live by the rules set forth by the Central Bank of Kenya (in I & M’s case). Naturally, this will make comparing PayPal to I & M a little like comparing apples to oranges.

    What does I & M Bank Offer?
    Through I & M, you can set up a very tightly integrated e-commerce solution that is tied directly to your bank account at I & M Bank. This means that whenever someone pays you, it goes into your account immediately.

    Setting up the e-commerce platform will cost you, however:

    1. Small organisations – charges are $500 and this includes extensive support, even “hand holding” to ensure that you set up everything just right.
    2. Large organisations – charges start from $500 going upwards depending on the features and how much work needs to be done.

    According to Mr. Reddy, the bank will not charge transaction (commission) fees. Instead they will charge $50 to $100 monthly depending on your agreement with the bank.

    I still think that I & M’s charges are on the higher end of things but I must say that I do believe there are advantages to using their service. If I was heading a small to large company, I would think very seriously about using I & M instead of services like PayPal. Why?

    • No transaction fees. As long as you are making enough to cover the monthly charges, it is beneficial not to have a commission of your sales taken by the payment processor.
    • The money goes directly into your bank account.

    When you use services like PayPal, the money that you make is not held in Kenya until the day that you choose to withdraw to Kenya. I believe that if, instead, we could all use a service that is fully local, the country would benefit in general. I & M is one such local solution. Their service may be a tiny bit pricey to set up, but if your company can afford it, go for it – they sound like they know what they are doing.

    Similar Posts:


  • I & M Bank Got It Wrong

    Posted: September 8, 2010, 9:44 am by Kelvin

    Yesterday I cam to learn that it is possible to receive money online in Kenya through I & M Bank. Their e-commerce processing solution is indeed impressive – you can have your website or shopping cart fully integrated with your bank account at I & M Bank.

    However, I & M Bank’s set up fees start from around Kshs 160,000 (USD 2,000!!) $500 and Kshs 20,000 $50 – $100 a month plus a percentage of your transactions. A Mr. Reddy from I & M Bank confirmed these figures.

    Let’s go back in time to the day that the wildly popular PayPal launched its services. On opening day, PayPal:

    1. Allowed any eBay seller to process payments online
    2. Was free to start using
    3. Had very minimal charges

    That kind of strategy got PayPal to where it is today, an internet money processing behemoth. And they have made hundreds of millions of dollars to date.

    I & M Bank does not get it! You cannot charge such outrageous sums of money and hope to grow your service beyond a handful of customers. I & M Bank’s service was launched early this year. It was launched at a time when their service was one of the only ones that worked. If their pricing was sensible they may have gotten more customers than they could have handled. They would also have entrenched their position and made it harder for any other payment processor to succeed in Kenya. But they did not.

    Now PayPal works in Kenya and is rumored to be working with Equity for full integration early next year. What will happen to I & M bank then? Their short foray into e-commerce may come to a brutal end.

    Update: E-commerce By I & M Bank.
    Similar Posts:


  • Kisstv.co.ke – whoops, Round 2

    Posted: September 7, 2010, 11:12 pm by tranx

    Yikes, the Kiss TV seems to have no luck whatsoever. The site is down, its hosting account with Glow Host has been suspended. Keen readers will remember the….weird launch of www.kisstv.co.ke.

    What’s the lesson here? Be professional in all that you do. There is no reason why your website should be down due to suspension. Much less so if you are an organization as large as KISS. Frequent visitors of that site must be awed at the turn of events.

    One wonders how long KISS TV will take to fix this…..Murphy’s law applies, I guess.

    Similar Posts:


  • 6 Time Management Tips For The Small Business Owner

    Posted: September 7, 2010, 2:47 pm by wham

    These are some Time Management Tips I utilize (most of the time……) to reduce my time commitment in the business, so I can spend time on more valuable activities or just for personal time. I think they can be effective no matter what type of business that you are involved in.

    1. Put a Price Tag on Your Time
    Take the amount of money that you made last year and divide it by 2000 (40 hours x 50 weeks). This is your hourly rate. Whenever you are doing something of questionable value, ask yourself if you would pay yourself to do that activity? If it’s not, either eliminate that activity because it’s not productive, or outsource it to someone at a lower rate. You can now focus on more valuable work.

    2. Meetings are Time Management Killers

    • Don’t schedule meetings if they aren’t really necessary. I used to have a lot of scheduled weekly calls with some suppliers and other partners that we worked with. They would often be valuable at first but after several meetings, everyone felt obligated to join the meetings because they were valuable previously. Unfortunately, we spent the same amount of time in them and got less and less done. Maybe you can block off the time and meet only if someone really needs to that week. Better yet, don’t meet with them unless you have some specific business decision to make.
    • Don’t schedule meetings for an hour if you need 15 minutes. If that is the time needed to cover something, schedule it for that amount of time.
    • Have agendas for your meetings and stick to them. There really should only be 1 or 2 things that you need to talk about
    • Meeting to talk about nothing specific is a waste of your time.
    • Try to limit uncommitted conversations. In the business environment, it is perfectly natural to have small talk amongst people you work with on an every day basis. These are conversations about the weather or television shows you watched the previous night. It is important to have these conversations with others in order to connect with them and show you are a human being. However, too many of these kinds of conversations are wasteful of your valuable time . It takes hard work to know when you are doing it, catch yourself and get focused back on the business item at hand.

    3. Limit Hypothesizing
    A lot of smart people waste a lot of time hypothesizing an answer to something when they should just stop and go get the facts. Too much time can be spent guessing or speaking with feelings versus speaking with data and facts. It is perfectly acceptable to admit “I don’t know the answer” as long as you follow it up with “but I will find out and get back to you”.

    4. Keep Your Workspace Clean and Organized
    Keep your desk and computer clean and organized. I don’t have a permanent workspace or office (and never have in my young business career), so I treat every location I go into as a temporary workspace. At the end of the day, I pack everything up I need, put it in my briefcase and leave.

    5. Use a “To-Do” list
    Yes, one and only one list. I personally like to use Google calendar to keep my To-Do list but I know a lot of people who are proponents of taking it off the computer and away from e-mail so they aren’t tied so closely together. I might do that eventually.

    Here are some other real important points around To-Do lists:

    • Do not use your email inbox as a To Do list. Your email is a business tool used to communicate with others.
    • Always make your To-Do list short enough that you can complete it the next day. Don’t have 20 things that you will never realistically be able to accomplish. I like to have 2 or 3 big things that I need to accomplish.
    • Complete your “To Do” list for the next day before you close up shop for the night.
    • Review your list and work to move things off it and always place new things on it.
    • If you have your list in Outlook or Google Calendar, print it out and work off that paper.
    • I read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People a couple of years ago and he had a great concept of placing your time in quadrants. He noted that highly effective people prioritized their time around important items and urged the notion that not everything is urgent all the time. So, I prioritize actions around these categories and try to spend most of my time in Quadrant 2 (Important Stuff but Not Urgent). There are enough unforeseen problems that pop-up and consume your attention each day. It is always okay to ask others when they want something back from you to gauge the importance and urgency.

    6. Check Voicemail and E-mail Twice a Day
    Check your voicemail and e-mail twice a day. Don’t check them first thing in the morning. I recommend checking it at 11 AM and 4 PM.

    This means that you absolutely have to remove any new e-mail notifications from your computer so you’re not getting a notification whenever you receive your e-mail. I even turn off Outlook’s automatic Send/Receive so that I can get stuff in e-mail without checking out everything that was sent to me.

    Best of Luck with these Time Management Tips
    These time management tips are intended to be helpful. They work for me on most occasions. No one is perfect all the time and it takes great discipline to police yourself if you want to achieve higher levels of productivity and effectiveness.

    Similar Posts:


  • Interesting Kenyan Site #4

    Posted: September 5, 2010, 7:36 pm by Kelvin

    Kibera News Network. You know CNN? This is the CNN of Kibera, KNN. Sounds nice eh? Basically it is a YouTube channel for videos from Nairobi’s Kibera slums, made by residents of Kibera. It gives Kibera exposure much unlike the typical ‘doom and gloom’ CNN reports.

    Majibu. I severely dislike those “Ask Auntie Tabby” type of columns in the newspapers where some wise guy (or girl) answers readers questions. However, more than once Yahoo Answers has provided me with very accurate answers to very specific questions. Therefore, Majibu – which looks like a local version of yahoo Answers – excites me in that it is now, theoretically at least, possible to get ‘local’ answers to any questions you may have. Give it a try!

    Flops
    E Pesa. Perharps this is an unfair review but I just would NOT do any business with this site. The idea is good but, well, the site doesn’t inspire enough confidence in me to take them seriously. It is important to do this when handling money. The fact that the site says “Copyright © E-pesa 2008” doesn’t help one bit! Please be careful when dealing with these guys or just do not do it!

    What could they do? Spruce the site up and make it more appealing. Also, keep it updated.
    Similar Posts:


  • What Successful Companies Do Differently

    Posted: September 2, 2010, 11:29 am by tranx

    This article was submitted to Like Chapaa anonymously.

    To be frank – your best clients and your easiest jobs – I don’t want. We don’t look for typical clients looking to build a website or implement some online marketing. We turn down all requests that come our way.

    Here Is The Goldmine I’ve Discovered…
    Create “products” for niche markets and sell them to the masses of small businesses who are eager to buy them.

    We’ve perfected the formula. It goes like this. Pick a niche. Develop something that works and passes the following test:

    1. It is simple and inexpensive to produce
    2. It can be priced to produce a killer profit
    3. It can be marketed like crazy

    Successful Businesses Create Niches Where They Don’t Exist
    Most businesses are the same company with different owners and a different name and logo. They’re all chasing after the same prospects and leads with the same marketing and sales methods and the same products.

    Successful businesses, on the other hand, sell a different type of product or service. They are not carbon copies of their competitors. They have found a different type of product or service to sell to their clients.

    • Maybe they add something to their product to make it different from what everything else sells
    • They sell their service as a premium version of the commodity that everyone else sells, since it is unique
    • They are able to control the price as their product/service is unique

    Do SOMETHING different than everyone else. Usually that involves the product or service that you sell. When you dig real deep, it might be the same type of thing that your competitor is selling. However, successful businesses have done something different – made it more special somehow. Once you do that, it’s easier to sell, you can make more money, and you don’t have to struggle to reach a hotly contested market. Why stay in the shark-infested waters when you can seek out the deep blue ocean?

    For example, if you run a web design company, or if you do web design on a freelance basis, do you really think you can compete in today’s market? Everybody and their mother is a web designer nowadays! If you run your business just like every other web designer out there you will be dead in a few months. You have to be smart. So be smart. Be different.

    Similar Posts:


← August 2010 (23 items) October 2010 (42 items) →

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes

Kenyan Blogs