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The Need To Document Corporate Entrepreneurial Experiences For Future Studies.

Olufemi Akinyemi
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733
The Need To Document Corporate Entrepreneurial Experiences For Future Studies.

“If you look at the corporate history of Nigeria, there are many companies that did not transcend the first generation and no one has written about the reason why they failed so we could learn from it…” – In this episode of hashtag#BusinessInsightsWithAO, I speak on the need to document corporate entrepreneurial experiences for future studies. hashtag#ALA – Culled from the wall of my mentor – Austin Okere, Founder, CWG Plc and Entrepreneur in Residence, Ausso Leadership Academy

While I studied at Harvard business school, every single time we worked on a case study on an American company, I would constantly ask myself how wonderful it would be to actually have a business case written on Nigerian companies.

How wonderful it would be to know how some big Nigerian companies were founded, what made them thrive, and what made them collapse eventually. I notice with a passion that I could not point to any company that I know that has survived a generation after the demise of its founder.

I recall the days of Kingsway stores, Leventis stores, SCOA motors, etc. It really hurts to know that apart from Mr. Biggs that has somehow stood the test of time, such businesses that gave us the likes of Cortina from Bata are no more.

Standing inside any of the Shoprite stores springing up these days, though beautiful, I doubt if I can compare the feelings I get from going into Shoprite with the feeling Kingsway Stores left in me each time my mum took myself and my siblings shopping back in the days.

Why did they just fizzle away? Is there anything we may learn from them?

Is there anything the new kids on the tech block learn from rideshare companies that failed recently irrespective of their huge fundings?

In his book “Why Companies Fail“, Harlan D. Platt opined that A business fails every hour of every day in the United States. He gives reasons as to why companies might fail, and what to look out for as indicators to a failing company.

As to why companies do not transcend their first-generation, Rei Obaigbo has this to say – ” Data is key in documenting history, most of these corporate corpses were killed and buried by corruption, somewhere even born from corruption. Data exposes corruption, hence the corrupt will constantly fight against the harnessing of data. The want for data will keep coming up, and unless the root problem is resolved, it will keep dying.”

Sad as it is, I am forced to take the stance of Rei, though I’ll add that most of them must at a point or the other changed their culture and became less customer-centric or they simply did not innovate accurately as and when they needed to.

So, the question for me is – How do we get Nigeria owned companies to give accurate data of their affairs? Would a private company be willing to through data out there, and would the big companies in the guise of shying away from taxes be willing to give a true account of their affairs?

And by accurate data of their affairs, I inquire on more than the numbers on the financial statements. I need them to disclose information investors need to put those numbers into context; not just the “how much?” but the “what?” and the “why?” !

Please if you have a compelling answer to this question do respond by clicking here

How To Craft A Vision And Mission Statement

Olufemi Akinyemi
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317
How To Craft A Vision And Mission Statement

Most Nigerian companies do not know how to craft their vision and mission statement. Walk into the offices of most small and medium scale businesses in Nigerian and the vision and mission statements that you would see hanging on the walls are effectively useless.

While the great mission and vision statements inspire loyalty, innovation, and hard work, the statements adopted by most small businesses are mere recitations of what the company does.

It appears to me that most small businesses adopt mission and vision statements just to be fashionable – an item to be ticked off on a checklist as done, without really considering how strategic those two statements can be to the reputation and growth potential of their businesses. In the real sense of things, these statements ought to be the foundation of the very system that drives the business.

Unfortunately, these statements are mostly forgotten even before they are hung up!

When you have strong vision and mission statements in place, they serve as a funnel through which you arrive at decisions and prioritize what needs to be done, what is important and what is not.

I have to acknowledge, though, that the bad treatment that has been given to vision and mission statements can be owing to the fact that most small businesses do not even understand the purpose they serve, what they mean, and even how they differ from each other, nor how to get one into existence and write it out in a way that makes sense.

That said, after reading this article, a business owner who is willing to put deliberate efforts and work hard can craft vision and mission statements capture the core idea of the business while serving as a roadmap to where the path his or her company should go.

If you are ready for the task ahead, a great place to begin is to look at the definitions of the two statements.

How do you define a vision statement?

A vision statement is that big idea that the company is working towards as a goal. In the book, Vision: Your Pathway to Victory, Gordon D’Angelo describes a vision statement as “the definable intention from which preparation is formed.”

Plenty of grammar, I agree. Let’s break it down a bit.

A vision statement expresses in simple terms, what an organization hopes to become and accomplish in the long term.

It is aspirational. By the very definition, ‘vision’, it holds that it ought to be a lofty purpose – something that internal stakeholders must stretch to attain, yet completely believe it’s attainable.

Here are some things to keep in mind when writing a vision statement:

  • It should be future-oriented
  • It should be brief and concise
  • It must be deeply oriented in your core values
  • It must reflect your self-image as a company
  • It must be easy to remember

Some questions to consider when creating a vision statement include:

  • What are our hopes, dreams, and aspirations?
  • What are the problems we are solving and how does that contribute to the greater good?
  • What change are we bringing about?

A purpose-driven company knows their big why – which helps them to envision success as a whole.

What purpose does a vision statement serve?

Countless researches show that employees of companies who have meaningful vision statements have engagement levels of 68% – 18% higher than average. When employees are more engaged, they are both more productive at their jobs, and effective as corporate ambassadors of the company.

Since a vision statement sets the vision for the long-term success of a business, you will agree that it is worth taking time to craft a good one that can turn your people into believers and mobilize them to act.

What is a mission statement?

While I was studying at Harvard business school, I was taught that to establish a very vibrant company with the prospect for growth, we should start the company with the Mission statement.

It should be clear to all employees and they should be able to recite it without necessarily memorizing it – they should understand it and align their everyday activities to focus on achieving the goal of the mission statement.

While the vision statement is future-oriented, a mission is more realistic and present-based and is designed to communicate where the organization is at the present time and what they ought to be doing on an ongoing basis.

Mission statements are as important to a business as a business plan.

A mission statement is a broad declaration of your purpose that clarifies (1) What you do, (2) who you do it for, and (3) how you do what you do.

Apart from capturing the essence and philosophy behind your business in a few sentences, a great mission statement flags what your business is all about to both your internal stakeholders (employees, management, board) and external stakeholders (customers, suppliers and the larger community).

Your mission statement sets the agenda for the company. It defines what you do, what is at the core of the business and highlights the objectives of the company and the pathway towards which those objectives can be realized.

It is the most significant contributor to setting the culture of your company.

Some questions to consider when creating a mission statement include:

  • Why are you in business?
  • Which audience does your business?
  • How do you serve them?
  • What products and services do you bring to the marketplace?
  • What quality and price should your customers expect?
  • What kind of experience do you provide to your customers?
  • What role do you and your team perform?
  • What stands you out from the competition?

A company can use mission statements to establish a framework for acceptable behavior and performance standards for its people. This can help provide guidance for decision making on an ongoing basis.

What is the difference between a vision and mission statement?

To put it in as few words as possible, a mission statement is a summary of what a company is already doing, while a vision statement is the broader goal they would love to accomplish.

The vision statement focuses on the future and what the company would love to become, while the mission statement focuses on today and what the company is doing on a day-to-day basis in the process of becoming what they envision to become.

Keep in mind that the primary difference between a mission and a vision statement is the timeline. While sometimes there can be an overlap between the two, the mission statement captures what people do daily for the company to eventually achieve its vision. So, while the vision is the why, the mission is the how.

Are the two interchangeable?

Obviously not. This is a mistake that a lot of companies do, but it is not just important, but also critical that a business should have both. One does not work without the other. While the vision statement gives your company a sense of purpose, the mission statement provides meaning to what you do.

How to write an effective vision statement

  1. Decide who will play a role in writing it: For a small business, you could gather insights from all employees and use that in crafting a vision statement, however, for bigger corporations, you would need to be more strategic than that in selecting those you work with. You may want to host a series of workshops during which you capture the voices of a representative cross-section of your employees and base your vision statement off that. This is important because if employees do not buy into the vision, they will not work with you to carry it out.
  2. Have a look at the vision statement of competitors: Apart from showing you what is important to them, it can also help you to see how you can differentiate yourself from those in your market.
  3. Project ten years into the future: Imagine a world in which your company is either the market leader in your industry or competing very favorably. How will the world and your company look like if you achieved on those goals? That world you see is what should inform your vision statement.
  4. Determine your purpose and market position as an organization: To write an effective vision statement, you need to consider your company’s objective, advantage, and scope (OAS).

Providing answers to the questions below can help you write an OAS statement that truly reflects your company’s strategy.

  • Objective: “Why do we exist as a company?”
  • Advantage: “How are we different, better or more innovative?”
  • Scope: “What do we need to do and avoid towards achieving our objective?”
  • Describe a measurable goal: Vision statements are achievable. If you need to know when you have achieved it, then it is obvious that the statement better be measurable.

Consider the hypothetical vision statement: To become number one in the sports apparel industry.

Is that measurable? Of course, it is!

27 Examples of vision statements that inspire confidence

  1. Guaranty Trust Bank: “We are a team driven to deliver the utmost in customer services. We are synonymous with innovation, building excellence, and superior financial performance; and creating role models for society.”
  2. Unilever: “To make sustainable living commonplace. We believe that this is the best long-term way for our business to grow.”
  3. Intel: “If it’s smart and connected, it’s best with Intel.”
  4. LinkedIn: “Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.”
  5. Oxfam: “A world without poverty.”
  6. Guinness Nigeria: “To be the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products company in Nigeria.”
  7. Life is Good: To spread the power of optimism.
  8. Sweetgreen: To inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.
  9. Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
  10. Flour Mills Nigeria: “To be the leading food and agro-allied group in Africa.”
  11. Amazon: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
  12. TED: Spread ideas.
  13. Access Bank: “To be the world’s most respected African bank.”
  14. Nordstrom: To give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible.
  15. Google: “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.”
  16. Invisible Children: To end violence and exploitation facing our world’s most isolated and vulnerable communities.
  17. American Express: We work hard every day to make American Express the world’s most respected service brand.
  18. Warby Parker: To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.
  19. InvisionApp: Question Assumptions. Think Deeply. Iterate as a Lifestyle. Details, Details. Design is Everywhere. Integrity.
  20. Honest Tea: To create and promote great-tasting, healthy, organic beverages.
  21. IKEA: To create a better everyday life for the many people.
  22. Cradles to Crayons: Provides children from birth through age 12, living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive – at home, at school and at play.
  23. Universal Health Services, Inc.: To provide superior quality healthcare services that: PATIENTS recommend to family and friends, PHYSICIANS prefer for their patients, PURCHASERS select for their clients, EMPLOYEES are proud of, and INVESTORS seek for long-term returns.
  24. JetBlue: To inspire humanity – both in the air and on the ground.
  25. Workday: To put people at the center of enterprise software.
  26. Prezi: To reinvent how people share knowledge, tell stories, and inspire their audiences to act.
  27. Tesla: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

How to write a great mission statement

The goal that you should have in mind for this exercise is that at the end of the day, the mission statement would be uniquely yours so much so that if a competitor would want to borrow it, they would have to rework it extensively to get it to fit.

  1. Have a market-defining story in mind: Imagine a real person making the decision to buy whatever it is that you sell. What exactly does the person want? How does the person find you and what does her buying from you do for her? The more concrete and detailed you can make this story, the better. By identifying your buyer persona and how what you do does for her, your mission statement will be grounded and useful to both those who work for you and your publics.
  2. Keep it succinct: A mission statement is a statement and not an essay. This is not the idea behind your creating this brand-building asset. You need a statement that is memorable and that will be easy to reflect on – long-drawn-out essays do not fit that bill. However, still ensure that it captures using a few words, the essence of your business goals and how you go about achieving them. It should clearly signal to your customers, employees, suppliers, and community what it is what you do, and how you are different from others who do similar stuff. Your task here is to communicate your business plan in a few words.
  3. Use vibrant emotive words: Your mission statement should be able to galvanize your people to act every day. Hence, it best serves your purpose to use vibrant, exciting words.
  4. Communicate it: Once you are done creating a great mission statement, your work is only half-done. The other half is to communicate it to your people and have them align their actions with the mission of the organization.
  5. Don’t be afraid of changing it: As your business evolves, it may be necessary to reflect again on your mission statement and see what needs to be changed. The mission statement is not cast in concrete – at best, it is a shifting goal post that captures where the company is headed. Always make sure that the mission statement clearly captures that.

10 Examples of mission statements

  1. Andela: “to advance human potential by empowering today’s teams and investing in tomorrow’s leaders.”
  2. Flour Mills Nigeria: “To produce and supply products of superior quality and value to the market, thereby enriching the lives of consumers, customers, communities, employees and all stakeholders.”
  3. Facebook: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”
  4. Jumia: “Creating a connected digital Africa to improve people’s lives on the continent, thanks to the internet.”
  5. Amazon: “We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selections, and the utmost convenience.”
  6. Access Bank: “Setting standards for sustainable business practices that unleash the talents of our employees, deliver superior value to our customers and provide innovative solutions for the markets and communities we serve.”
  7. Samsung: “We will devote our human resources and technology to create superior products and services, thereby contributing to a better global society.”
  8. Guaranty Trust Bank: “We are a high-quality financial services provider with the urge to be the best at all times whilst adding value to all stakeholders.”
  9. Cadbury Nigeria Plc: “To serve Nigerians with products of consistently high quality, made readily available at prices which offer real value for the money spent.”
  10. Flutterwave: To inspire a new wave of prosperity across Africa by building payments infrastructure to connect Africa to the global economy.

Conclusion

You have seen that crafting valuable mission and vision statements take time and effort. However, the investment is well worth it. Most business owners have found that the process of coming up with thoughtful vision and mission statements is as beneficial, if not more beneficial than the mission statement in itself, as it can help bring about clarity into aspects of what you do that you have not previously given concerted thoughts to. Additionally, the process will help you solidify your concept of what it is you do as a business and the motives that drive you to do what you do.

Sales 101 – Sales Tips For Small Businesses

Olufemi Akinyemi
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1,399
Sales 101 – Sales Tips For Small Businesses

1. Selling Is A Two-way Traffic

In sales, you can only tell people 2 things ?

  1. What they already know
  2. What they already know they want to know ?

As soon as you start telling people stuff they haven’t got an interest in you are done, there’s no closing that deal.

2. Clarity Is The Key To Selling Professional Products Or Services

Without paying customers, the natural progression of any business would be to wound up and become another statistical item on company failure. In most cases, however, the problem is not a lack of customers that are willing to pay, but rather a business that has yet to effectively describe what it sells.

3. Selling Is An Art – It Takes Processes

Selling is an art, and unless you master the processes involved in creating that art, you’d either fail to produce any art – never make a sale, take a very long time to figure out to sell, or never be able to pull off a major sale – A masterpiece.

Suggested Reading: How To Improve sales Through Excellent Customer Service

BEST WAYS TO START POULTRY FARMING BUSINESS IN NIGERIA

Olufemi Akinyemi
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1,222
BEST WAYS TO START POULTRY FARMING BUSINESS IN NIGERIA

Are you thinking of starting a farming business in Nigeria?

I will not blame you if the first idea that comes to your mind is starting a poultry farm, farming domesticated birds for meat or eggs production.

You see, poultry farming is by far the most established and lucrative animal farming business idea in Nigeria. I use the word established deliberately, in the sense that poultry products’ interest and consumption continue to increase, making it the most common source of protein/ meat production besides fish, pork, and beef.

This growth has been unhindered by culture and religion as virtually all cultural and religious groups do not forbid poultry (Chicken meat) consumption. This increasing demand resulted in a significant increase in the number of birds reared for meat and eggs.

Table of contents

In 2003, USDA reported poultry production volumes at that commercial poultry production in Nigeria stood at a value of $800 million. Significantly, this represents just 30% of local annual consumption levels, with a deficit of 70% being provided for by illegal imports of frozen chicken into the country.

Step by step guide on how to start your poultry farm in Nigeria

How can anyone interested in starting a poultry farm business in Nigeria go about it with certainty that it would come out profitable? This article will explore that based on my personal experience in the industry.

Total Time Needed :

30

Minutes

Total Cost:

from 65

USD

Required Tools:

– Day-old chicks
– A commercial poultry housing system – depending on the type of poultry
– Poultry Feeds
– A good breed (Broiler, Noila or Layers)

Things Needed?

– A WordPress Website.

Steps to configure the How-to Schema:

Step 1 – Learn as much as you can about the business

You have decided you want to venture into poultry farming. What is the first thing you do? Go to Mama Ijesa’s shop to buy day-old chicks? For many would-be poultry farmers, that was how they started. Little wonder that they get burnt and stay away from the poultry industry ever after.

You are smart and would not make that kind of rookie mistake.
The best place to start is by doing what brought you to this article in the first place, research about how to start and manage a sustainable poultry business in Nigeria. It is essential that you keep in mind that this article is just a starting point and in no way makes you an expert.

Learn as much as you can online by reading blogs and watching YouTube videos published by poultry farmers, keeping an eye out for the systems that they have in place and how they handle issues that come up. But do not let that stop you from reaching out to local farmers to get firsthand information on their experiences.

Step 2 – Decide on the vertical that you will focus on

While the poultry industry is relatively large and you could have several options including chickens, ducks, turkeys, and other fowl, this post assumes that you are interested in chicken production either raised for meat (cockerels and broilers) or eggs (layers).

The scale of your operation depends on your experience level and the amount of capital that you are willing to stake in the business. While some decide to focus on poultry farming for meat and others for eggs, there are several poultry farms, even in your city, where both outcomes combined.
Here is a little background on the different breeds you could produce:

Broilers: Fast-growing chicken grown for its meat. Broilers attain slaughter weight in two months or less, making it the fastest
Cockerels: This is also a meat producing breed of poultry. While much slower growing, they are generally sturdier and can survive even harsh environments.
Layers: Layers’ poultry breeds are used for commercial egg production. If you want to produce eggs, this is the breed to stock.
Incubation: It is also possible that you want to run a hatchery, where you produce day-old chicks for other poultry farmers to uptake.

  1. Housing system and poultry farm equipment

Poultry housing systems are grouped into three categories namely: intensive, semi-intensive and free-range or extensive systems. Deciding on which system you will employ is a very important decision that you have to take as it may have a significant impact on your outcomes.

The free-range or extensive and semi-intensive farming methods are typically employed by hobby farmers growing for their home consumption, and commercial farmers that have access to large tracts of secure farmland. 

In the methods, birds are either completely bred in the open and given a free run (as in extensive or free-range) or partially bred in a confined environment and allowed to range freely and forage as circumstances allow.

The major disadvantage with this method is that of poaching and largescale farmers would shoot themselves in the foot if they were to take this approach. An additional drawback is that this method is very impractical if one is farming layers.

In the intensive method, birds are confined in well-ventilated and illuminated deep-litter houses and likely only get out when they are ready for slaughter.

Depending on the poultry rearing methods employed, availability of funds, you will likely need equipment like feeders, drinkers, heaters, brooders crates, and cages.

  1. Write out a thoughtful business plan

Starting a new business without having a business plan written out is a recipe for disaster.

Can you imagine a pilot taking off from an airport without a flight plan? Why then, would want to start a new business without carefully counting the cost and potential?

A business plan forces you to think critically about a new venture, the market, the cost, the competition and most importantly, your strategy to win. If you do not have the discipline required to think this deep about the business, then you are simply not ready.

What you would be going into would be a gamble, not an investment.

Besides, if you plan to access any bank loans or government grants (there are plenty for agro businesses right now in Nigeria), you would often be required to submit a business plan.

So, why not be prepared ahead of time convince yourself about the viability of your poultry business?

  1. Select a farm location

In selecting a location for your poultry farm, it is important that you weigh important considerations like nearness to markets where you intend to sell your products. Keep in mind that it is not legal to site a poultry in residential areas, largely owing to unsavory smells and the risk for contagious disease outbreak.

Additionally, you would want to situate your farm at a location where water and power are accessible, and you can have relative security for your produce.

If you can find a rural community not far from the cities that can guarantee you these considerations, go for it. For one, your accommodation will be cheaper. Secondly, you will not have too many interferences from government agencies.

  1. When is the right time to hire?

If you are starting at a small scale (between 150 and 400 chicks), you can easily manage your farm on your own. If you are new to poultry farming, I would advice that you start at a small scale and learn the ropes with lower stakes before making a bigger investment.

This applies even if you have more than enough money to start big. A pilot phase never hurt anyone.

For larger operations, you will not be able to avoid employing workers to help in running the farm. Go for workers who are experienced. However, if there are no experienced poultry workers, you can easily hire workers and have an experienced hand provide training for your team.

  1. Stock your day-old chicks

Carefully research to identify a good hatchery where you can buy day old chicks from. The costs usually range between N140 – N200 per chick. A word of caution here, while it is always delightful to buy something at a bargain, be careful not to buy unhealthy chicks in the name of getting a great deal.

If possible, by chicks from trusted hatcheries close to your farm, to reduce the stress on the chicks that may come from long distance transportation.

  1. Feeding and watering 

This is where you will spend more than 80% of your time and resources. Make sure that your birds have access to well rationed, nutritious meals that match their age and production levels. If you do economy here, the birds will get back at you in stunted growth and poor eggs production.

One area where some poultry farmers get it wrong is trying out a new feed formulation on a whole batch of their stock, just to save an extra buck. That is risky behavior and puts you at risk of losing the whole stock.

If you need to try out new products, segment a few birds and feed them on that product exclusively. How do they perform? If the outcome is positive, you can now scale the new feed out for use in the whole farm.

Of course, this means that you must keep good records. We will talk about this in more details shortly.

It is also important that your birds have access to clean drinking water daily. This is especially true for layers. If you repeatedly starve your layers of drinking water, it may affect their egg production, which will have an immediate impact on the profitability of your poultry farm.

  1. Medications, vaccinations and biosafety 

Growing up, I will never forget the devastation we experienced when we woke up to find more than 500 birds in our poultry farm dead, and another 1000 sickly. An investment of five years was very nearly completely wiped off. Within one day we had lost almost 2000 birds to a flu outbreak we did not see coming.

Keep in mind that poultry birds are very susceptible to disease and one bird can quickly infect the whole batch if care is not taken.

Ensure that you house your birds in well ventilated buildings and provide them with regular vet doctor checkups as proper vaccinations is compulsory if they are not to get wiped off by viral, fungal, bacterial, parasitic or even nutritional diseases. 

Brood over your stock like a mother hen, and at the first sign of trouble, make sure the vet knows.

Your vet should be on a retainership. I still see small scale poultry farmers who add penicillin to the water of their birds and conclude that they have taken care of any disease risk. That is so laughable and at the same time, sad.

  1. Keep accurate records

If you want your farm to succeed, you need to keep daily records. ‘Guesstimations’ are of no use in farming. Records to keep include feed and water consumption, vaccinations and medications administered, daily egg-laying and egg production, average weight at different age milestones, egg sizes and mortality. 

These records will prove to be very useful in planning future poultry stocks, disease control and in making feed consumption estimations and production forecasts.

It is important that you keep these records whether your farm is a hobby, a small-scale poultry farm, or a large-scale commercial operation. Records will help you learn on the job and become more confident as you take decisions on the day to day running of your farm.

Interestingly, there are freely available mobile apps to help you keep records in your poultry farm. Just search with the keywords’ poultry farm records’ and select one that best suits your methods.

  1. Sell off your poultry products and smile to the bank

We have finally come to part that makes it all worth it. One mistake some farmers make is that they wait until their births are ready for the market or, in the case of layers, start producing eggs, before they begin to think about where they will sell their products.

They end up feeding their birds sometimes weeks after they ought to have been sold off because they did not plan their endgame appropriately.

Do you see why I said you are smarter for writing your business plan? You know who your customers are, and you have likely negotiated trade deals with them ahead of time.

This is time to make sales and smile all the way to the bank.

Keep in mind that you are not to eat up all the proceeds. Not if you still plan to stock your farm with another batch of birds.

In closing, you can be very successful as a poultry farmer if you give attention to details, keep records, and stay patient. All that you need to start this business is available locally, so all that is left is for you to raise the capital, acquire the skills and, importantly, show up.

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Most Lucrative Farming Ideas And Business Opportunities in Nigeria

Olufemi Akinyemi
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1,594
Most Lucrative Farming Ideas And Business Opportunities in Nigeria

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I bet that you are searching for the most lucrative farming business ideas in Nigeria. Most economic experts are in unanimous agreement that agriculture holds the key to solving the economic quagmire Nigeria has found herself in. As a matter of fact, Agriculture was the foundation of every other economic venture Nigeria engages in today.

According to history and in fact as stated on Wikipedia, Nigeria was famous for the export of groundnut and palm kernel oil. But over the years the rate of export of these products has reduced. Nigeria neglected agriculture when it discovered oil, due to the neglect, only subsistence farmers remained in agriculture, it was no longer business; her youthful population that did not witness the boom days now believe it is strictly for the poor and uneducated.

However, because of the idea that farming is for uneducated folks, most graduates shun the sector and wait for white-collar jobs instead. This article seeks to change that.

It is my hope that you would find reasons to go into Agriculture as you read this article. I myself recently just went into rice farming on a large scale. I got the land from the government.

Acquiring land for the purpose of agriculture has been made very easy. You do not need to know anyone to get land, especially for rice farming. All you need do is take a walk into any ministry of agriculture, state or federal and make your intentions known.

This article can help you understand the potentials in Agribusiness; it gives an expose on the Most Lucrative Farming Business Ideas and Opportunities In Nigeria that you can engage in today.

The huge arable landmass we have in Nigeria coupled with the favorable weather conditions that we enjoy makes agriculture a choice of investment. The government has put in place several options to help fund agriculture. You could get some of those sources here

Both Nigerians and foreigners who have taken the bold step of venturing into agriculture have found the sector to be the real goldmine, and they have paved a path to the bank for themselves.

Happily, more and more Nigerians are beginning to see agriculture as the opportunity that it is and are making inroads to the farms. Currently, the agricultural sector contributes about 20% of our GDP.

Still in doubt?

Here are some quick reasons why you should give farming business serious consideration as a Nigerian.

Teeming Population

Nigeria is blessed with more than 200 million citizens, which makes her the most populous nation in Africa and 7th most populous in the world. Two direct advantages accrue from these huge population figures:

  1. Human Resources: There is no shortage of hands to work the farms, and considering the unemployment situation in the country, you will not have to pay too much to hire both skilled and unskilled workers for your farm.
  2. Large Market: The large population also guarantees a ready market for your farm-produce as agriculture answers to the most basic human need – food.

A large mass of arable farmland

Take a trip across Nigeria any day and you would be amazed at the vast spread of arable farmlands that are lying fallow. At 910, 770 square kilometers, Nigeria has the 32nd largest landmass in the world. Those are production fields waiting to be exploited using agriculture.

Now that we have established how timely investment in farming would be, what are the lucrative farming business ideas that you may want to invest in? Let us consider a few.

Examples of Lucrative Farming Business Ideas

Poultry Farming

You see, poultry farming is by far the most established and lucrative animal farming business idea in Nigeria. I use the word established deliberately, in the sense that the interest and consumption of poultry products continue to increase, making it the most common source of protein besides fish, pork, and beef.

This growth has been unhindered by culture and religion as virtually all cultural and religious groups in the country do not forbid poultry consumption. This increasing demand resulted in a significant increase in the number of birds that are being reared for meat and eggs.

In 2003, USDA reported poultry production volumes at that commercial poultry production in Nigeria stood at a value of $800 million. Significantly, this represents just 30% of local annual consumption levels, with a deficit of 70% being provided for by illegal imports of frozen chicken into the country.

So, how can anyone interested in starting a poultry farm business in Nigeria go about it with certainty that it would come out profitable? This article will explore that based on my personal experience in the industry.

Please click here to have more details on the best step by step method to having a successful poultry farming business in Nigeria.

Catfish Farming

You cannot talk about farming business opportunities in Nigeria without mentioning fish farming. Over 60% of Nigerian families eat meals that contain fish today. Beyond eating of catfish at the home front, there is a whole social ecosystem that revolves around catfish. Hardly a weekend without tons of catfish being killed in Nigeria at social events – Thank God it’s Friday we call it.

However, environmental degradation and uncontrolled fishing activities have resulted in a drastic shortage of fish in the marketplace. This situation has been worsened by our rapid population growth. Today, fish that used to be the cheapest source of protein command prices that compete with beef and poultry.

Despite advances in fish farming operations, statistics released by The Food and Agricultural Organization reveals that Africa as a whole contributes only 2 percent to fish supply emanating from fish farming. Shocking, right? Let me shock you more – we have not been able to meet the demand for fish in our local markets, so why export?

Of all the fish varieties farmed in Nigeria, Catfish and tilapias have proven to be the most successful due to their high adaptability to the peculiar climate of Nigeria. Interestingly, these fish also happen to have the highest demand from Nigerians.

You would have noticed that fresh catfish pepper soup and barbequed tilapias have become a constant across Nigeria, and smoked fish is used in the preparation of many local delicacies. The growing demand for these fishes by households, restaurants, drinking joints, hotels, and even exporters has far outstripped local production volumes.

There is clearly an opportunity here for a savvy investor ready to do a brisk business in the fish farming sector.

Depending on the nature of the site for your fish farm operations, you could choose to use either earth ponds or concrete ponds. However, if your farm is located close to a natural water source, constructing earth ponds would be a cost-effective option as that would save you from the need of having to pump water in and out, besides the fact that your fishes grow faster and taste better as they were grown in a habitat that closely resembles their natural habitat.

One tip to keep in mind is that depending on the scale of your venture, selling directly to consumers would be a sure way to increase your profit potential. This could mean that you could set up a stall and sell your fish in local markets, keeping most of the profits that should have gone to the middleman.

Rice Farming

Did you know that rice is second in popularity and production volumes only to maize in the world?

However, going by the consumption volumes in Nigeria, 7 million Tonnes annually, I would not blame you if you thought that rice was the most popular, in fact, we can’t talk about the most profitable farming business ideas in Nigeria without mentioning Rice. I believe it falls just below poultry.

When you balance that by the fact that the Nigerian government has curtailed rice importation and is actively working to block weak points in the borders through which smugglers bring the produce in, it becomes clear that rice farming presents a big opportunity for the Nigerian agro-preneur.

Besides the huge profit potential in farming rice, the Federal government has made rice such a big priority that farmers can be assured that they will get plenty of government grants, NGO grants, low-interest bank loans and even funding from the world bank.

If you have access to suitable flat land, and you are wondering what you could use it for, I would advise that you consider rice farming. Statistics show that while Nigeria has the capacity for production of up to 5 million hectares of rice annually, current production volumes stand at 2 million hectares.

If one is not directly interested in farming rice, then it is wise to consider the viability of setting up a processing mill that can process long grains and completely de-stone them.

That is a value that would enhance the whole rice value chain if made available to rice farmers in any rice planting hub in the country, as one of the biggest marketers of locally produced rice is the fact that chaff and stones can still be found inside processed bags.

Pig Farming

Which is the most widely consumed meat in the world? Chicken?

Wrong. Pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world, despite the fact that almost 2 billion Muslims do not eat it.

Annual trade in pork runs into billions of dollars, and Africa sadly commands only 5 percent of that figure. Interestingly, China is both the largest producer and net importer of pork products globally.

Does this mean that if you want to start a piggery business you have to target China for export?

The demand for pork is ever on the increase across Africa, and Nigeria is no exception.

Let me shock you with a little profit analysis. If you buy a piglet at N5000, that piglet would be full-grown in 8 months and can command a profit of more than 2000%!

Here are some interesting reasons why it makes so much sense to get into pig farming.

  • Pigs have a very fast reproductive cycle, averaging as much as twelve live-births every 6 months. Have you heard the expression: “breeding like pigs”? Well, now you know.
  • Pigs have the undisputed rating as the livestock with the highest feed to meat ratio. This simply means that it grows fastest and produces more meat per gram of feed consumed than any other livestock in the world.
  • Pigs are high resilience, low mortality animals, which means that your risk is very low.

There are so many success stories in pig farming that you can be confident that your investment will be safe. Don’t sit on this one for too long, timing is everything.

Waterleaf Farming

I can bet that you did not see this one coming!

Depending on the scale at which you get into waterleaf business, you could set your self for weekly incomes ranging between one hundred thousand all the way into millions.

Waterleaf happens to be a multipurpose vegetable that is used in the preparation of a variety of indigenous Nigerian soups, including Afang, EdikangIkong, Bitterleaf soups. Waterleaf grows so easily during the raining season that it is not uncommon to find them growing untended around the house.

It is not surprising, then, that they are one of the easiest vegetables to farm. It requires little or no experience – with little research on best farming practices, you can well on your way to becoming a waterleaf farmer. Planting is simply a matter of sticking the stems into tended beds and you water for two weeks and you are ready to harvest your first crop.

With a small startup fee of N20, 000 (excluding the cost of land) you can start a small-scale water leaf farm.

As I said above, waterleaf farming is highly profitable. With a plot of land and 20large beds, you can make up N200, 000 every two weeks from your waterleaf farm since a large bed typically produces waterleaf of up N10, 000.

Are you wondering why I said every two weeks? Remember, water leaves are harvested every two weeks, so once you have established a market, you are sure of bi-monthly sales for a long time to come.

Snail Farming

The largest snail species in the world – the Giant African land sail (Achatina species) grows up to 30cm in length and can be found in the dense tropical rain forests of West Africa.

For centuries, the only way to have these snails on the dinner tables was to handpick them from the forest (likely in the dead of the night).

However, as our forests have continued to be depleted by growing cities, and as the demand for snail meat has continued to soar as a result of the health benefits it presents over substitutes like beef and poultry, relying on handpicked snails have proven unsustainable.

Additionally, most snails gathered from the bush can mainly be found during the rainy season (between December and March), as they are dormant during dry seasons. This results in seasonality in that makes the price much higher during the dry season.

This has created an opportunity for snail breeders to grow snails in farms for a handsome profit during dry seasons.

As an entrepreneur, your primary objective should be to grow your snails during the rainy season and sell them during the dry season when bush supply has ceased. You could even buy up bush supplies during the rainy season to beef up the growth of your farm stock.

Target large clients like restaurants, supermarkets, and hotels that can make large orders on an ongoing basis.

Keep in mind that for you to be able to command an impressive market price for your snails, you must grow the right ones – that is, the Giant African variety. Additionally, ensure that you apply proper breeding, stocking and feeding practices needed to sustain sizes that high-value clients would be seeking.

Click here for a detailed article on snail farming in Nigeria.

Related: Snail Farming FAQ

Tomato Farming

This vegetable holds a very important place in the hearts of Nigerians. Whether in the preparation of our world-famous jollof rice, or in making stews, or even Gbegiri, we love our tomatoes. The average Nigerian does not go a day without eating a meal that was prepared with tomatoes.

While more than 200,000 farmers are currently farming the crop and producing 1.5 million metric tonnes every year, an uninformed person may conclude that tomato farming is no longer lucrative agribusiness opportunity for Nigerians.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Despite a large number of farmers growing tomatoes and the impressive volumes grown annually, about half of the harvest is lost due to spoilage every year, even before products get to the markets.

But let us for the sake of argument imagine that all 1.5 million tonnes of tomatoes that are grown each year in Nigeria make it to the market in good condition –  we would still be short of about 500, 000 metric tonnes considering that the demand for tomatoes stands at 2 million metric tonnes annually.

Currently, that deficit is being imported to the country at the rate of about $600, 000 per annum.

Even if you do not want to get involved in the farming of tomatoes, could you consider adding value to the product by setting up a processing plant?

With the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of tomatoes that get wasted every year due to supply chain peculiarities in the tomato value-chain, there is obviously a strong need for tomatoes processing factories that are close to farms.

Tomato farmers that operate in the same area can come together to form cooperatives so that they can jointly set up and run a tomato processing plant to serve their farms. This way, only the freshest tomatoes would be sold as fruit, while bruised or ripening tomatoes would be processed into a paste to preserve their value.

Watermelon

Watermelon farming involves four significant steps –

  1. Seeds selection and preparation
  2. Land Preparation
  3. Irrigation
  4. Fertilization
  5. Harvest

Watermelon is a short-term farming product that spans the duration of 65-90 days; it requires a clear land plantation with no trees, shrubs, or any tall plants or weeds that could obstruct its access to sunlight. A solid pH level and temperature of 6 to 6.8 and 70°-90° F respectively are needed for optimum yield.

Conclusion

The agro sector in Nigeria is full of lucrative agriculture business ideas and business opportunities for Nigerians who don’t mind getting their hands dirty. Reflect on these opportunities and decide on where best to venture. If you are new to the business world, please read up on how to start and run a successful business in Nigeria by clicking here. 

Keep in mind that Nigerians who have gone into agro-businesses have had no regrets as they have smiled to bank harvest after harvest. This is besides the joy and satisfaction that comes from knowing that one is producing food for others to eat.

If you have any experience in the areas suggested here, we’re sure our readers will be delighted to read from you. Please leave a comment in the section below or share this post with a friend.

This list would be updated in the near future on the farming ideas listed below, and we do have plans to upgrade it to reflect how best to go into the business alongside corresponding costs.

  • Cassava farming
  • Agricultural sector
  • Agricultural products
  • Fish farm
  • Agricultural business ideas
  • Small scale farmers
  • Pig farming
  • Staple foods
  • Rice farming
  • Plantain farming
  • Cassava Farming
  • Watermelon farming

How To Start A Blog in Nigeria

Olufemi Akinyemi
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2,210
How To Start A Blog in Nigeria

I believe you are here because you want to learn How To How To Start A Profitable Blog in 2020. I should warn you – starting a blog and making lots of money doing it is not for everyone; it takes lots of hard work, resilience, and yes, a load of commitments.

While I would want you to see the Internet as the real estate of the future, I need you to ask yourself why you are not taking the step to buy into this real estate business before it gets saturated in the future?

Click here to learn how to start a small business from home or some home repair tips.

However, if like most Nigerians, you are tired of watching from the sidelines while others are making money through one online activity or the other, but you are scared or do not even know how to get started, then you just might want to consider starting a blog. Having a thriving blog is like having your own estate on the Internet.

Though there are a lot of ventures to make money online these days, they all come down to about 7 major means of monetizing such online ventures. Luckily, blogging is amongst the top online ventures you could go into and make lots of money in the year 2020.

What is a Blog?

According to Wikipedia, A blog (a truncation of “weblog”)[1] is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.

Since we have defined what a blog is, I assume you know a bit about blogging, else you would not have gotten on this page. However, for the sake of those that may be newbies, I will attempt to define what blogging is below.

What is Blogging?

Blogging is the act of writing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., on a website. It often contains images and links to other websites.

As said in my opening line, blogging requires a lot. Like many others, you may have considered blogging in the past without going far with it most likely because you could not figure out the process.

If that is the case, do not worry. What makes blogging so attractive is that the upfront financial investment you need to make is very low; if your passion is centered around writing, then all you would need is the passion, resilience and very low financial capital outlay, and you could well be on your way to becoming a renowned blogger.

This article explains how anyone can start a successful blog in Nigeria.

Get ready to learn from the very basics of how to select a niche all the way to how to make money from your blog. If you are like me, the latter part of this article would be more exciting as it dives down into the methods available to you to make money blogging in Nigeria!

How to Start Your First Money-making Blog – A Step by Step Guide.

Now we have the preamble out of the way, it is time to take you by the hand and show you how you can set up a blog from scratch.

Start With Selecting a Profitable Niche

Starting a blog is a good thing, but you must understand why you want to start one. If you are like most people, then you must know something that you feel that others would be willing to pay for.

In reality, the success or failure of a blog starts with the selection of the right niche. Not all niches are profitable; some are in fact too competitive to go into any longer.

Therefore, the key to starting a successful blog is picking a profitable niche. Do not start blindly, do not start because you feel you have some knowledge on a niche area. Start on a niche because your research findings point to it being lucrative, it is an area you are very comfortable with and you have a lot of content ideas for. Read up more on picking profitable niches here; I learned from them myself.

Select a Suitable Domain Name

In business, branding is key. Your brand represents all that you stand for and would be known for; it represents you in the minds of your clients. You should know that blogging is a business and in business, your brand strategy starts from the name you choose.

So in blogging, your domain name is your brand identity, so you must do all possible to select a domain name that represents what you want your blog to be, and become.

Choose A Reliable Hosting Service Provider

Web hosting is a service that stores files and databases related to your website or blog on internet-connected servers in such a manner that they are accessible to your readers over the internet.

The first advice I will give here is that you should avoid using hosting from your domain registrars. Buy hosting from a separate hosting provider to ensure that it is easy for you to move your business elsewhere in the event that you find their service to be below your expectation. Personally, I use Smartweb as my domain registrar and I use Amazon Web Services for my hosting (Newbies should please go to providers like Bluehost. They are fast and their customer support is top-notch).

That said, it is also important to do your due diligence and select a reliable web hosting company. One way of doing this is by checking out review comments that real users have left describing their experiences with the host. Additionally, ensure that the host provides at the minimum a service level agreement and guaranteed uptime of their servers.

Monthly fees for hosting usually is between $4 – $10.

While hosting companies offer monthly payment option, I would strongly discourage you from taking that route as making monthly payments make it easy for you to throw in the towel only after a few weeks of blogging – Making money from blogging takes a lot of time; at least 6 months before you should expect anything tangible. Blogging is a long-term game and having already incurred some payments would somehow keep you in the game.

Select the topics you would love to start your blog with

Some newbie bloggers fall into the trap of picking a topic just because you have seen a couple of bloggers making money writing on that topic and they are surprised when after one month they feel like they would rather die than write another word on that topic.

Blogging is a numbers game, you must be sure to pick your niche where there are a lot of audiences and also be sure to write on what those audiences are interested in and would most likely visit your blog for answers on.

How Do You Decide on Suitable Topics For Your Blog?

One suggestion is to use some Keywords search tool, there are actually a lot of them out there, including that made by the mighty Google itself.

Another way to get topic ideas around your interest is to leverage on Google’s own search queries. That is how I get my topic ideas by the way. For example, to get topics around dropshipping, all you need do is perform a search for the keyword – dropshipping and harvest the suggestions given to you by Google. Doing that automatically gives you the confidence that people are searching for those topics since they were suggested by Google’s own autosuggest feature. Google can only give you what it has been fed!

How To Start A Blog and Make Lots of Money in Nigeria (2019)

You just spent hours into researching, writing and editing your latest blog post.

What next?

Promote Your Blog

The days of write and they will come (or content is king, without promotion) are long gone. It is important to spend as much time that it takes you to write to distribute your content and help it gather momentum.

At the core, to be a successful blogger, you must put your content distribution game on your best foot and put it forward; you must learn to squeeze out as much mileage as possible from every single piece of content that you produce. From my estimation, a good ranking and well-promoted content should give you traffic of about 1000 views at the minimum, monthly.

Here are some tips to get you started:

  1. For a start, ask your friends especially those interested in your niche to help you share your post, amplify your reach and get those important social proof on your share counters.
  2. Who are the influencers in your niche? Who are the experts? Can you reference them in your post, or even quote them? That way, you can hit them a simple email letting them know that you have featured them in your content and asking that they share the content with their audience.
  3. Another tip worthy of mention is that you should collect emails on your blog from the very beginning. This way you have a ready audience to notify about your posts whenever you have new content. Setup a form from day one to collect email subscribers.
  4. Join groups on Facebook and LinkedIn related to your niche
  5. Form connections with bloggers in the space and make comments on their posts as well as share their content with your audience.
  6. Curate useful content in your industry and continuously share them on your social media profiles.
  7. Write useful blog posts that answer questions that people are asking in groups, then provide a short and useful answer in the group and ask that people go the post if they need a more in-depth response.
  8. Pay to promote your blog posts for a short time to a well-targeted audience to give an initial push towards visibility.
  9. Schedule the social media postings of your posts. Updates on our timelines move so fast these days that one can easily miss content if he is not online around when it was shared. So, it is fair game to schedule sharing your content multiple times. Remember to use different images and captions so you don’t sound monotonous to your audience.

Build Online Authority / Reputation?

Again, put in the work to make useful posts just for the purpose of helping people. When you have helped people solve problems they have repeatedly and the Internet rewards you with authority.

If you are like most newbies and do not have any online authority, then it is hard for Google and other search engines out there to trust you; you need to put in the work to build online authority.

Here are a few steps to help you build online authority.

  • Build a great website
  • Build your personal brand as an expert in your chosen niche
  • Post very useful contents on your website
  • Guest post on other leading blogs within your chosen niche

Monetize your blog

If you are like most people, you probably want to start your blog to enable you to make money from it. Keep in mind, though, that for you to make money from your blog, you have to establish yourself as an authority in your chosen niche – only then will people trust you enough to take your word for it when you make recommendations.

While there are many ways to monetize your blog, the three main ones that I will recommend are:

Affiliate Marketing

If done right, this is the easiest and fastest way to make money from your blog.
As an affiliate, you make product recommendations to your readers based on the context of your content.

For example, in this post, I could make recommendations to my readers on who a good web service hosting provider is, using a unique and trackable link that was given by the affiliate network I am using. When someone clicks on the link and makes a purchase, I get a commission on that purchase, and in some cases, on all future purchases that person makes.

There is no limit to what can be sold as an affiliate. Check out Commission Junction for a sampling of the kind offers that are out there. However, if you prefer to work with Nigerian providers, Jumia is at the top of the affiliate game here.

Online Courses

After you have cut your teeth with affiliate marketing, Online Course is the next best thing to try your hands on.

True, it takes more investment and efforts to create a course that people would find useful. However, once you have created a useful course on a site that you have already built authority on, you can pave the streets with gold all the way to the bank.

One of the easiest platforms to distribute your course on is Thinkific.

Pay Per Click Advertising

From the name, it is easy to guess how you monetize your blog from this method. You are paid for each visitor that clicks on an advert displayed on your website. You signup with a PPC provider and you are given a code to place at different sections of your site where you want ads to appear. The provider then serves contextual ads based on the surrounding content on the page. Google Adsense is the most popular PPC provider.

Is Blogging Still Lucrative in Nigeria?

If you have been under a hole for a long time, you may ask that question.

However, the internet is full of proof of bloggers who are making money from full-time blogging. I am talking about millions of dollars annually – from Nigeria.

Run a Google search using the keyword “richest bloggers in Nigeria” and see what I am talking about.

The simple answer is YES, it is still highly lucrative; people open blogs daily. Some people would in fact open on the niche you are considering a few hours from now. What you must know is this – It takes time to develop the traffic needed to get you sales; it takes a lot of consistency and above all, you may not make a kobo in your first 6 months of putting in all the work.

Is it Too Late to Start a Successful Blog in 2020?

This is a common question. A number of persons I have interacted with have expressed concerns that there are already too many Nigerian blogs out there and that they doubt that the opportunity was still prime.

I will tell you what I tell them, start. You too can Start A Blog and Make Lots of Money blogging in Nigerian.

It is only late if you never start. Read up on How to Start and Run A Successful Business in Nigeria by clicking here

Conclusion

Do you know another practical way to start a blog and make lots of money from it in Nigeria? Please share with us in the comment section.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE ON JUMIA.COM

Olufemi Akinyemi
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698
HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE ON JUMIA.COM

Have you heard about Jumia?

That must be a joke, right – who hasn’t?

Chances are, you have even seen more than a couple of adverts from Jumia as recently as the past two or three days.

For the sake of repetition, Jumia is the largest e-commerce company in Africa, with a dizzying assortment of all kinds of items imaginable.

However, here is something that you may not know – while the public is just concerned about shopping on Jumia, there are those whose interests are closer to the backend – on how they can make money off the millions of thousands of commercial transactions taking place on the platform every minute.

Yes, it is possible to make a fulltime income from Jumia and this post will show you three foolproof strategies that you can deploy to make dependable almost hands-off income from our own e-commerce giant.

Note that when I talk about making money, I don’t mean “light change”. I am talking about six to seven figures each month.

While this kind of revenue is not guaranteed and may not be typical, I just mentioned that range to set your expectations and let you know what is possible. You have the blank cheque and you have the pen – write some pretty figures on the cheque!

Enough of the preamble. Now, let’s go make some money!

1.      JForce is Here (Jumia Sales Assistant):

The JForce Program provides a pathway for anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection to carve a pie of the e-commerce economy without the huge capital outlay that would ordinarily be expected.

While initially introduced in Nigeria, the rapid success the program recorded in the months after inception led to a fast rollout of the program in other countries that Jumia has a presence in, including Kenya and Morocco.

How It Works

To become a Jumia Sales Consultant in the JForce Program, the first step is to join the program for free. Jumia will then schedule you to attend a business opportunity meeting at a location near you within two weeks of your registration where details of the business and the path to success as a sales consultant would be highlighted.

That training would also expose you to dynamic individuals who have already succeeded on the program (known as Captains).

After you are accepted, you can then hit the ground running by introducing products on the Jumia platform to people around you.

Jumia Jforce
Jumia Jforce processes

When you find clients that are ready to make an order, the next step is to place an order for items that they have selected. The order will be processed by Jumia and sent to your location. After receiving this order, it would be your responsibility to deliver the order to the client location – You can call this Dropshipping the Jumia way.

Interestingly, the system is built to encourage hard work as you climb through the ranks. With each rank progression, your percentage earnings from transactions you originate increases. For example, placing a single order puts you in the probation stage, while having orders of 150k+ places you in the Silver category.

jforce earnings

There is an additional earning component in the JForce Program: the referral program.

By introducing members to the JForce, you stand to earn a commission on the transactions that they generate on their accounts.

Do you see how the earnings quickly add up?

To cap it up, by the time you have placed orders worth 150k+ on the platform and signed up five active team members, Jumia recognizes you as a Captain, which is an ambassadorial level that means even more commissions across-board.

You can sign up to the Jumia JForce program by following this link.

     2.  Become an Affiliate Partner

Another pathway to making money on Jumia is by becoming a Jumia Affiliate Partner.

This opportunity has been out there for a long time now (think November 16, 2011). It started as an offer on a third-party affiliate network called Commission Junction but has since grown to become a full-fleshed internal program of Jumia.

Being an affiliate partner means that Jumia pays you for sales generated from you sharing your affiliate offers to your friends or fans using unique links provided for you.

Before I go on, it would be instructive to shed some light on what affiliate marketing is all about. If you are already familiar with what affiliate marketing is all about, feel free to skip to the heading below – how to join Jumia as an affiliate marketer.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

To make sure that we are on the same page, it’s instructive to define affiliate marketing.

Who better to hear from than the master himself, Neil Patel?

“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”

Initially, Jumia opened up their affiliate marketing business opportunity to only about 700 affiliates in the country. However, since 2013, the e-commerce giant has opened up the process and just about anybody can sign up to its affiliate program.

In the words of Tunde Kehinde, co-founder JUMIA Nigeria: “This new program opens up to all people – everyone is welcome to participate to boost their website, blog or social media channel with our brand and additionally profit from it. We created an easy working win-win situation which is a totally performance-based associate program: The more people someone can bring to our website, the more they profit from it. We are happy to give this opportunity to everyone and continue the successful affiliate program to a Partner’s Program where everyone can join in.”

There, you have heard it all!

So, what are you waiting for?

Let’s talk about how you get right in and start to earn from this opportunity.

How to Join Jumia as An Affiliate Marketer

Joining Jumia’s Affiliate Program is simple. All it takes is for you to visit the Jumia affiliate site and fill out an application. You will hear back from the Jumia Affiliate Team in one day – guaranteed.

How Does it Work?

Once you register and get your next day approval, sign in to your affiliate center and get access to your custom links and banners. Start promoting your links on your blog and social media profiles. As people buy product offers through your link, you earn commissions to your account straight up!

I know what you are thinking: How does Jumia know who referred who, right?

It’s actually simple.

The custom links that you are given have some tracking codes that help them attribute the source of all visitors to their website. Once a user clicks a referral link, it is registered on Jumia’s server and credited to the source. Additionally, a cookie that expires after 30 days is dropped on the device of the website visitor.

Note that when a buyer clicks on your affiliate link, he does not need to buy immediately for the sale to be credited to you. Any purchase made within 30 days of their clicking on your affiliate link still gets accredited to you – Take a moment to digest that!

Let me make it easier for you by giving you a scenario.

You make a blog post reviewing a pair of men’s shoes selling at say N4000.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE ON JUMIA.COM

A visitor to your site clicks through your link and gets to the site but does not buy the item.

A week later, however, he lands on the Jumia site again, this time on his own and stumbles on the new 55” Ultra HD Smart Digital LED TV and purchases it taking advantage of a price lower than what he had seen in some local shops.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE ON JUMIA.COM

What the 30-day cookie lifespan of Jumia means is that the order of the SmartTV would be credited to you as the referrer, as the buyer purchased it within 30 days of following your link to the Jumia site.

Do you notice how you now take credit for a purchase of an item you may not even have known is listed on Jumia?

That is the power of Affiliate Marketing!

So, How Do You Get Paid As An Affiliate Marketer On The Jumia Website?

At the end of each month, if earnings you have made equal the minimum payout amount (N2500), your confirmed earnings would be pushed by Jumia directly to your associated bank account. Note that unconfirmed earnings will be rolled over to the following month and will be paid after confirmation.

So, what happens if you earned lower than N2500? Good question.

Your earnings are rolled over to the next month and will continue to accumulate until it hits a payment threshold. Then, you will be paid in the first week of the following month.

Here Are Some Helpful Facts To Keep In Mind:

  • All affiliate applications are manually reviewed. Jumia guarantees to make a decision by the day following your application. In reality, same-day approvals are not uncommon. As soon as your application is approved (or denied), you will receive a notification via your registered email address.
  • Jumia organizes frequent pieces of training for their partners on how to make the most of their affiliate business. You don’t need to know everything before you get started. Most of what we know we learned while getting our hands dirty in the platform.

What Does “Earn Up To 11% Mean?”

Jumia does not earn the same profit margin on all items. Hence, they cannot give the same commission percentage that they give on fashion items for high ticket items like UHD TVs.

That notwithstanding, the commission structure is very fair.

Here is a breakdown of the commission structure of the Jumia Affiliate Program:

CATEGORY COMMISSION EXTRA COMMISSION FOR
OVER 50 ORDERS 		EXTRA COMMISSION FOR
NEW CUSTOMER 		TOTAL
Fashion 8% 2% 1% 11%
Watches &
Sunglasses 		8% 2% 1% 11%
Services & Deals 8% 2% 1% 11%
Weddings 8% 2% 1% 11%
Baby, Toys & Kids 6% 2% 1% 9%
Health & Beauty 6% 2% 1% 9%
Temptations 6% 2% 1% 9%
Top Searched 5% 2% 1% 8%
Sports & Fitness 4% 2% 1% 7%
Dark & Lovely 3% 2% 1% 6%
Default 3% 2% 1% 6%
Phones & Tablets 2% 2% 1% 5%
Home & Office 2% 2% 1% 5%
Computing 2% 2% 1% 5%
Cameras & Electronics 2% 2% 1% 5%
Books, Movies & Music 2% 2% 1% 5%
Automobile 2% 2% 1% 5%
Travel Bags &
Luggage 		2% 2% 1% 5%
Brand Store 2% 2% 1% 5%
Clearance Sales 1% 2% 1% 4%
Games & Consoles 1% 2% 1% 4%
Groceries 1% 2% 1% 4%

So How Can You Make Money With Jumia Affiliate Program?

I will recommend two ways to go about this:

  1. Start A Review Blog:

Create a review blog around Jumia’s products. Instead of making a random blog that has no theme, you would be better served by creating a blog that focuses on niche products. What this means is that the products that you would review would fit into the same broad category.


For example, your review could be around phones, laptops, mobile accessories and so on.

Browse through the Jumia site and find a section that resonates with you and write articles providing tips on related items. Of course, it needs not to be said that you will include affiliate banners and links to related offers on Jumia website.

It won’t be long and you will receive a mail from Jumia notifying you of a sale. Eventually, you might be surprised how much you make from affiliate sales monthly.

  • Start An E-commerce Store

An e-commerce store can give you your own mini Jumia. However, with the approach I am suggesting, you will not need to bother with order fulfillment and support. Simply create an e-commerce store, and populate it with products and descriptions from Jumia store.

Instead of having shoppers checkout on your site, you will link your checkout button to the corresponding product listing on Jumia using your unique affiliate links.

That way, when a visitor clicks on a product, the link will redirect to the Jumia site, allowing the visitor to make a purchase from Jumia while you still earn affiliate commissions. When you are done with all these setup steps, drive traffic to products on your site and watch your commissions stream in.

3.     Sell Your Personal Products on Jumia Marketplace

I have saved the best for the last.

Of all avenues to make money on Jumia, selling on the Jumia Marketplace happens to be the one with the potential to earn the highest revenue potential.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE ON JUMIA.COM

With 200 million daily shoppers coming to Jumia to search for goods and services, Jumia is Africa’s largest e-commerce site by far.

Why not get your products in front of all those pairs of eyes and smile to the bank?

Interestingly, getting accepted as a vendor on Jumia is easy. Jumia guarantees that your application to approval will take a span of just five minutes.

Can you beat that?

Here Are Some Benefits You Get For Selling On Jumia

  • Dedicated seller e-commerce vendor training: With the option of selecting online or offline training, Jumia offers each vendor comprehensive training on the Jumia Seller Centre that takes you through how to list your products all the way to packaging and shipping.
  • 1,000,000 visitors to your shop monthly: With more than four million shoppers hitting the Jumia platform every month, you have an opportunity to place your products in front of a large audience. With rapid expansion across African, this audience is getting larger and larger.
  • Periodic marketing push and a 24/7 store: Jumia advertises products on their platform aggressively. You can be certain that periodically, your products will benefit from such adverts, giving you further exposure from the association with the Jumia brand. Additionally, you get access to a very robust marketing platform complete with seller insights to help you maximize sales of your products – all for free.

Some Things to Keep In Mind

  1. You will be required to submit both your business registration documents and bank account details to qualify for this.
  2. Jumia Market does not allow the sale of used or refurbished items. It is a marketplace for brand new goods only.
  3. Ensure that what you want to sell on Jumia Market is not on its banned or restricted brands.
  4. In case of branded items, make sure that you are authorized as a seller of the branded item. This restriction is there to protect both sellers and brand owners.
  5. Jumia Market distinguishes itself as a marketplace for premium products at affordable rates. So, if you plan to sell very high-end goods, you may not find a good market on Jumia.

Conclusion

There you have it, the three official ways to make money on Jumia. Please continue on our series on how to make money online in Nigeria.

Keep in mind that this is by no means a definitive guide. If you know some other ways to make money on Jumia that is missing in this article, feel free to add them in the comment area.

Branding: Selling Effectively In A Crowded Market

Olufemi Akinyemi
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278
Branding: Selling Effectively In A Crowded Market

Business is war, so you must come ready. Don’t let your guards down – Be smart. Everyone is trying to be better at their craft, so don’t be caught napping; Refuse to lag or copy the next person. Customers like to buy from brands that establish themselves in unique, special ways. Be that brand.

Operating in a crowded and highly competitive market can be very tricky. Many entrepreneurs find it easy to run away when the competition seems stiff. Competing in a crowded market as a new entrant especially when there are established brands and businesses can be very intimidating and most times frustrating.

Many entrepreneurs have mastered the art of everything in entrepreneurship, except one: selling through branding. They have a pass mark in every other thing: determination, discipline, creativity, you name it. But when it comes to branding, most entrepreneurs struggle.

To sell in crowded markets like Nigeria, you must stand out in the minds of your clients as a go-to company, you must consistently pitch your company as a quality over quantity outfit, and more importantly, pay attention to customer experience above your competitions.

To stand out in the mind of your clients as a go-to company, you would need to consistently pitch your company as a quality over quantity outfit, and more importantly, pay attention to customer experience above your competitions. – Olufemi Tobi Akinyemi

It does not matter if your product has the quality that would eventually put an end to global warming or is the best thing since sliced bread (all pun intended) if you cannot sell it in a market where others exist, nobody will buy and you will be kicked out.

When it comes to entrepreneurship if you do not master the art of sales, it does not matter what great idea you have, you will fail.

So, how do you stand out enough to sell your product and services in crowded markets like Nigeria? Here are 5 simple tips to keep in mind:

Total Time: 15 minutes

Find Your Niche

Finding your niche is the first step to successfully selling anything. In fact, becoming an entrepreneur without first discovering and putting a stamp on your niche is a colossal mistake that should be diligently avoided. You need to be very clear about what niche you are playing in as an entrepreneur.Who are you out to serve? Is it children, nursing mums, or is it the single sect? This is simply you defining exactly who your ideal customer is. Finding your niche is important because it helps define how to channel your sales effort. You cannot scatter your sales efforts all over the market, hoping, just like spaghetti, something sticks. That is not how to sell. Learn not to go too widespread with your niche.

Understand the customers in your chosen Niche

Once you have identified your niche, please do well to segment your market accordingly within your chosen niche; not everyone is your customer. Be very specific and intentional about who you are set up for. This is the one quick way to win in sales: It is critical to understand your customers. It is only in understanding your customers would you learn how to best serve them. Once you have identified your niche, please do well to segment your market accordingly within your chosen niche; not everyone is your customer. Be very specific and intentional about who you are set up for. This is the one quick way to win in sales It is critical to understand your customers. It is only in understanding your customers would you learn how to best serve them.

Find out your customers’ pain points

In entrepreneurship, the more pain you solve, the more relevant you become. The level of the pains you solve determines the value your product or service brings to the customer’s table.

Find out what your customers really want. This will help you understand them better thereby making selling easy. A customer’s pain point, when soothed, will move him to buy what it is that you are selling. A salesman is essentially a problem solver to customers hence you must understand the problem you are out to solve, and sell it in such a way that no other company would be able to beat you at your game.

Imagine taking a uber in summer, and on getting into the car, your driver offers you a hot towel and a very cold bottle of water at no extra cost! I bet you would always want to ride with that specific driver if you could choose.

Leverage the power of groups

To sell corporate ties, you must position yourself where people in the corporate can be found: To sell makeup, you may have known that beauty parlors are the best stops to find a large number of ladies in need of your product. You have to find out where your clients go, where they congregate, and where you are bound to find a large number of them at the same time. When you sell there, you might not get all of them to buy at once, but you will have a better chance to make sales conversion than any other place you would have visited. Do not walk into a church premise to sell alcoholic drinks, that would be a wrong sales move. A good sales executive understands that positioning is a major key to selling; you would do good to identify other products that mix with or complement yours. For example, if you hawk beans (Ewa Aganyi) in Nigeria, you would do well to find yourself a bread seller.Be intentional about where you apply your sales effort at. Make sure you are selling at the right places and to the right people. It does not make economic sense spending advertisement budget trying to sell at locations or using channels where your customers cannot be found.

Be distinct; Play a different game

In a crowded market with a lot of people selling and grappling for a share of the customer’s wallet, only those that are able to stand out from the crowd win. This is why you must learn to be different. Don’t be like the rest; change the game. Find a way to stand out from the crowd. This is the only way you can make headway in the entrepreneurship sphere with respect to selling. Selling is war, so you must come ready. Don’t let your guards down. Be smart. Everyone is trying to be better at their craft so don’t be caught napping. Refuse to lag behind or copy the next person. Customers like to buy from people who establish themselves in unique ways. Be that person.

Be consistent

There is no way you can get ahead in business if you are not consistent in your sales effort. Consistency has been said to be a breeding ground for success in every area of life, including selling. To really stand out and master the art of selling, then you must learn to show up every day. Be there seven days a week, making it easier for customers to find you. Truth is, if you don’t show up, customers will switch to those who will. In a crowded market, the last thing you want is to be lost in the hay, or just blend in like others. Be determined to always put your unique voice out there. A customer may not buy the first time, but that doesn’t mean you should turn off the light and quit. Those who succeed in selling don’t give up easily. They know how to dig their heels in and keep pressing further. They are like cats with nine lives: they hardly die.Okay, those are 5 simple tips you can apply immediately to become better in selling. Let me know your thoughts on them and I would love to read more selling secrets that have worked for you. Please share your thoughts in the comment session below.

Nigerian Children Could Make Money If Only Parents Teach Them These Things

Olufemi Akinyemi
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506
Nigerian Children Could Make Money If Only Parents Teach Them These Things

Teaching your Nigerian child to make money is easier than you may have thought. As a matter of fact, if you do not take the lead on teaching them, society would find someone else to do just that. I have listed the best tips to help you train your child to make money, some of these tips can be combined with conventional schooling.

Being a father is one of the greatest joy I have experienced. I learned earlier in life that being a father does not make you a dad/parent. Being a dad, however, comes with a lot of responsibilities, responsibilities which some say differentiates a father from a dad.

Eniola, my daughter, spends most of her time with me, except now that she’s been enrolled in a school to learn other things parents might not be in a position to teach.

When she became 3, her requests went off the roof; she would ask to have toys and other things I considered irrelevant – at least to me.

Someday, she came to me as she usually would most mornings, but this time, something was different, she asked: “Daddy, please teach me how to make money.”

That question threw me off guard, but I needed to give my beloved daughter an answer, so I asked her to have breakfast, and I would teach her once I was done eating.

You may have heard of stories of young children who already had businesses as early as age 6; some of them are internet sensations, making it big on Youtube and some traditional business owners who had a lovely idea and found a way to monetize it.

The millionaire in the embedded video was a young 6 year old who made $11 million USD some years back, and was featured to have made $22 million USD last year.

The majority of such children grow up to become multimillionaires before they turned 18, while others just become ordinary, lost all their wealth, and you wonder how that happened.

Many child-stories that fit the scenario depicted above abound out there, but such stories are not commonplace in Nigeria. When would we have such an account in Nigeria?

The good news is: Nigerian kids of all ages can make money regardless of sex, social and economic status of their parents.

This article is the ultimate guide on how to teach your kids to make money.

I wish I knew some of these things before Eniola asked me. Unlike me, you do not have to do the hard work anymore, follow this guide, and you would have given your kid(s) the opportunity of becoming the next Nigerian kid millionaire.

Steps To Teach Your Kids To Earn Money

  1. Let them know that there is a cost to everything
  2. Teach them the importance and use of money
  3. Teach them to have savings
  4. Identify their natural talents
  5. Teach them the value of work
  6. Teach them charitable giving
  7. Teach them to monetize their natural talents

How To Teach A Nigerian Kid To Make Money

Total Time: 10 minutes

Let Them Know That There Is A Cost To Everything

Kids generally love to ask for favors – toys, and any other indulgences. Do not see that as a problem rather see such moments as an opportunity to teach your future millionaire a thing or two about the cost associated with such requests. Tell your kid gently that you cannot afford to buy such now and let your kid know that it is okay to be turned down.

At other times, however, pick one instead of two and let your kid know that you could only afford one, and you would come to get the other when you make or earn enough money to provide what the kid wants.
Your selective refusal to grant such requests for gifts would eventually send the message that there is a cost associated with things and you need money to offset such costs.

This move builds determination in kids; it helps them want to know what it takes to be financially independent. Your child would want to make his/her own money to satisfy the desire for toys.

Teach Them The Importance and Use of Money

Ever wondered when kids genuinely get to understand what money is and used for? My nineteen months old daughter understands money – I taught her from an earlier age; she sees me taking money and exchanging it for items we buy from the grocery stores around us. My daughters learned to pick what they needed at the store then move to the check out point, wait in queue for their turn, and pay for the items picked.

Take your kids to go shopping; but ensure to prepare them for the experience, you could ask them to get some money from their savings if you must. Whatever you do, ensure to tell them that they are going to the store, and payment is the item you exchange for whatever they would pick at the store.

Teach Them To Have Savings

Financial experts all agree that saving is one of the building blocks of building wealth. A lot of people find it hard to save; some due to their poor finances, and others because they were not taught how to save.
So, teaching your kids how to save is a major legacy you would have bequeathed on the child.

The key to teaching a child to save is to teach them to learn that delayed gratification is excellent. Intentionally hold back on buying things they want, tell them that you do not have money – It is essential to teach children at this age that they may have to wait at times for what they want.

Here is a straightforward but effective method of teaching them how to save:

Make three glass jars available – each labeled “SPEND,” “SAVE,” and “SHARE.” Every time you give your child money or the child receives money, whether from family members or as payout for doing chores around the house like arranging toys, etc.

Divide the money into three equal parts and put them into the jars. Have him or her use the sharing jar for things to be bought and shared with siblings, family, or as an outright gift for someone else. Let the child use the spending jar for items craved for.

Whenever your child requests for something, use the money in the spending jar and let him or her take note of the amount left for spending. The savings jar should only go for items that are set as goals: something costly, especially toys.

Identify Their Natural Talents

This is tricky – We mostly wish our kids have the talents we do not have but wish we did. So we send them for training to acquire those talents we want them to have. The downside to this is that the child grows up insecure, wanting to please people but never achieving anything significant – mostly.

So How Can You Identify Your Child’s Own Talent?

The answer is simple – Be patient and watch for what your child loves doing, what activities take his or her time, and once you find out, do not try to interfere immediately, set them free.

Once your child is persistent on certain activities, give lots of time for the child to self-learn. You could help nurture by sending the kid to a school or a coach that could help in systematically developing your child’s talent.

Teach Your Child The Value of Work

Children often have things done for them. Unfortunately, most kids grow up believing that other people would always get things done for them; they grow up with maids at their beck and call and all they need to do is cry to seek for attention.

As a parent, you must teach your child that there are dignity and a lot of reward in getting work done. Make them tidy up after they mess up the room, and at certain times, reward them once they clean up after themselves.

Teach Them Charitable Giving

It is best practice to teach your kids early in life that if they want to feel loved, they first must give love. Teach them to treat others the same way that they would want to be treated.

In life, there is always that one person other people treat badly, someone bullied, someone looked down on. Getting your child to identify such people and be charitable towards them is a great value to teach your kids. Empathy is an art that must be learned. Teach your kids early in life and that would surely open the right doors when needed.

Get your child to find ways of spending the “Share” Jar appropriately.

Teach Them To Monetize Their Natural Talents

Everyone out there is gifted a talent or the other by the creator. Of what use is the talent if not monetized?

As a parent, your task is not complete if you do not know how to teach your kids to monetize their talents.

Suggested Reading – How To Start A Blog and Make Lots of Money in Nigeria

Teach Them To Fight For Whatever They Want

You don’t always have to be first. Sometimes all you have to do is be the last person still trying. When learning to walk, children often fall, they cry but they still get up and try anyway.

So why should life be different? People tend to bring down a child that does not excel academically as others are. Please do not fall into this trap as a parent; take a look around you, and you would actually see that true success does not always come from academic excellence. Teach your child to stand up fighting always – no matter how hard or how many times life deals a bad blow.

I do hope that we would someday change the narrative on our children not being at per with their foreign counterparts – American, European, British, Chinese, and others.

My next article will be on specific things parents could train their children on and monetize for the Nigerian market worldwide. Kindly share this post to help us get better parenting for our children.

Suggested Reading: Top 500 Small Business Ideas For The African Entrepreneur

How To Start Tailoring In Nigeria As a Business

Olufemi Akinyemi
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952
How To Start Tailoring In Nigeria As a Business

A tailor is defined as a person whose occupation is making or altering garments (such as suits, jackets, and dresses) typically to fit a particular person – Merriam Webster

If you have ever pondered on the idea of starting a tailoring or sewing business but have little to no idea how to get started, then you are on the right article.

This is a long article, but you can go straight to the content that you need by clicking on the table below. If you are here for a Tailoring Business Plan, then click here

A simple check-list of Tailoring Materials needed to get you started on the tailoring in Nigeria as a business is:

  1. Tailoring Business plan: Write a well-defined and structured business plan covering the needed capital, the right location for your shop, and target market suitable for tailoring in Nigeria as a business
  2. Basic Tailoring Training: Get basic training on effectively managing a tailoring business
  3. Decide on the niche you would love to take care of
  4. Decide on the right business name to suit the niche identified.
  5. Get the right funding, luckily you do not need so much capital to get you started
  6. Cash is king – always have reserves of it to remain king
  7. Rent a place, or better still, start from your garage – it is one of the businesses that fit into the home businesses class
  8. Hire the needed staff to help you effectively start and run the business
  9. Buy the basic equipment – Sewing machines, Scissors, Measuring tapes, Fabric chalks, Pins, Pincushion, Thimble, Threader, Sewing Gauge, and Binder Clips
  10. Put the words out there using all marketing channels available to you
  11. Seek the right partnerships preferably with the users within your niche. (To help you choose the right partners, consider reading this post on understanding entrepreneurs.

Suggested: Customer Acquisition and Retention Strategy for A Tailoring/Sewing Outfit

In Africa, especially in Nigeria, the tailoring business is one of the few businesses/skills that are in very high demand. This is because more and more Africans now prefer to wear custom tailor-made clothes. 

Aside from that, a lot of tailors have perfected their tailoring skills and now own their clothing lines. Their success stories have endeared many youths to the tailoring business as a viable income-generating venture.

So I guess you are reading this article because you want to learn how to start a tailoring business. Forget the title, Nigeria was included because this blog targets mostly Nigerians.

Though this article was written for the Nigerian audience, it is however not limited to Nigeria on the quality of the information passed across. Like every entrepreneurial endeavour, tailoring is one vocation that taps into the passion of the entrepreneur, and this article can be universally applied regardless of location.

Tailoring Measurements: Click this link For an in-depth on what Nigerian tailors measure.

Did you know that it would be nice to ask your customers if they have need for repairs, once in a while?

To start and run a successful tailoring or sewing business, you must have the following:

  • Extreme passion for the fashion industry
  • The capability to select the right niche within the entire value chain
  • The right equipment
  • Well thought out business and marketing plans
  • And skills to effectively manage the business.

Fortunately, like every business venture, you do not necessarily need to have the skills the likes of Calvin Klein to start a tailoring business. You could hire tailors with more experience than yourself and start your tailoring business.

Like every business, what matters most is your ability to start and manage the business effectively (Read up on how to start and run businesses here); you do not need to possess to a large extent the tailoring skills.

It is a well-known fact that because you know how to sew does not give you the capability to understand how to run a tailoring outfit effectively.

To effectively run a tailoring business, ensure that you build the right systems and structures from the onset to help you with the growth of your business. You could read up on how to build structures and systems into your business here.

A simple check-list of Tailoring Materials and other things Needed to get you started on the tailoring or sewing business is as listed below:

15 minutes Read

Write A Well Defined And Structured Business Plan Covering The Needed Capital, The Right Location For Your Shop, And Target Market

A business plan is a strategic tool that helps entrepreneurs have a helicopter view of their businesses. It helps entrepreneurs focus on their business objectives by stating the long and short term objectives and what must be done to attain such goals.

For a tailoring business, your plan, inclusive of every other detail, must include the niche you intend to work in and must include your proposed specialization and position on the value chain.

It should be stated here, however, that a business plan is not cast in old; it is a document that can and, in most cases, should be altered regularly to conform with the scenarios as dictated by the realities on the field.

For clarity on what a business plan is, and what it should include, please read up on writing a proper business plan.

Note: Read up on steps to make money fast and smart online or offline in Nigeria here. The article would help you hone your business startup skills.

Get Basic Training On How To Run A Successful Tailoring Business

Get necessary training on how to effectively run a sewing business with specific reference to your chosen niche. It is also crucial that you learn the tips and tricks of the trade. Specific techniques could only be learned from an expert in the business, be it business training or sewing training.

One way to learn is by joining forums of other experts in the tailoring business, join unions, and by all means seek partnerships with other tailors or business owners in the sewing profession.

Even if your business model is to manage the business and have other experienced tailors work for you, it is crucial that you learn the basics of the tailoring trade. An experienced business owner equipped with the technical aspects of sewing cannot go wrong in effectively running the tailoring business.

Decide On The Niche You Would Love To Take Care Of

A niche is a comfortable position that you chose to master and cater to. In tailoring, it could be your resolve to provide to a particular market or group of people. For example, you could choose to cater to baby girls, plus size women, etc. 

Fortunately, Nigerians love to be outfitted with their local fabrics. 

Creating a niche has a lot of advantages, with the major advantage being that you could choose to create a brand and a following from the expertise of your chosen niche.

Some lucrative niches in the tailoring industry are:
1. Baby clothes
2. Wedding dresses
3. Suites
4. Home decorations
5. School uniforms
6. You could also open a fabric shop by the side

Decide On The Right Business Name To Suite The Niche Identified

It is important to choose a name that resonates with your chosen niche, one that your intending customers would easily identify and relate to – it could be a make or mar process, a following or otherwise of your brand. To run a successful tailoring business, especially when you have decided to focus on a particular niche

Get The Right Funding, Luckily You Do Not Need So Much Capital To Get You Started

Funding a tailoring business can be tricky. Sincerely, you do not need much to get you started; it is actually a good practice to start small. Identify your essentials and only cater to funding the essentials – think of tools, and machines at this point of the business rather than a fancy location.

Cash Is King – Always Have Reserves Of It To Remain King

It is extremely important to keep a buffer of cash to ensure stability, needed confidence and the capability to be able to pay for stuff when the need arises. You do not want to start a tailoring business without first having some buffers to pay for staff and buy tools and essential items as and when due.

Though most coaches will tell you that you do not need cash to start a business, that saying is never true – YOU NEED CASH TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS.

Rent A Place, Or Better Still, Start From Your Garage

You do not need a fancy place to start a tailoring business, you could, however, choose to decorate your shop rightly and make it fit for purpose. There are so many decorative tips online on how to decorate a tailoring shop, feel free to browse the Internet for more tips, it sure helps to learn what others are doing. Luckily, you can easily get other tailors in Nigeria willing to share space with you.

Hire The Needed Staff To Help You Effectively Start And Run The Business Hiring is an act, one that must be learned. It is always a good practice to employ the services of an HR (Human Resources) company no matter the cost, eventually, it would pay off. Hiring through a company will ensure that if you do not get the right person, you could easily fire fast and get a better replacement.

The major thing you need to consider when hiring is that you MUST hire to fill your personal skills deficiency, do not hire with sentiments and do not hire who you would end up having to teach regularly, always hire who you can learn from, someone better than you at what you are hiring them for.

A lot of tailors actually run a home sewing business – A good idea at that.

Buy The Basic Equipment

Do not get caught up in the frenzy of impressing anyone, or getting better than your competition by possessing more equipment than what is actually needed. It is good practice to always start small, test the waters before going all in; you may choose to outsource services that would normally require using the equipment that you do not currently have in your arsenal – start with what you can afford; start with the basics only.

Put The Words Out There Using All Marketing Channels Available To You

You would need to have the right marketing strategy in place for your tailoring business. Your understanding of product marketing is an essential part of business success; it involves getting your products, to your market and overseeing its overall success; in this case, customers in your chosen niche.

Suggested Read: Customer Acquisition and Retention Strategy for a Tailoring Outfit

You could learn some DIY (Do It Yourself) marketing techniques or better still hire the services of a product marker.

A good product marketer will make it a duty to understand your customers and would design a strategy to get your product across to them in a way that would resonate with their buying patterns and other considerations. Such a strategy will help drive demand and usage of your end products, a good marketer could actually create a demand that may not already exist just for your product.

If you do engage such a professional, remember to make it a point of duty to explain your planned brand so he or she would easily create the right brand mantra and positioning statements that would linger in the minds of your prospective customers and as such make them come to you ultimately.

Whatever you do, however, know that word of mouth marketing is the best form of marketing for a tailoring shop, it is very important to treat your first customers right as their personal impressions may hurt or promote your business for good. product marketing

Seek the right partnerships preferably with the other tailors within your niche.

Trade unions and professional associations are a good avenue to network with other players in the tailoring industry. Such association at first may seem like a waste of your time and other resources, but they are the very best at getting industry-specific tips, tricks, and information that you may not find easily unless through the school of hard knocks.

Why reinvent the wheel if you can easily learn the ropes from those that have gone through it and learned already?

Get feedback from clients

Always remember that everything you do in business is all about giving value to customers and clients alike. A product’s value should, therefore, be viewed from the perspective of the customer and not from the product owner.

Most entrepreneurs do not get this; as entrepreneurs, we want to do our best to make the product as unique as possible, and in most cases, make it too complex that it loses value from the customer point of view. Yes, the product may be packed with features but could lose value due to its complexities.

It is, therefore, imperative to allow other none family and friends to interact with your product or service as an entrepreneur and make your inference from their point of view.

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to notice your own typing errors? A fresh set of eyes with honest feedback is worth more than a barrage of consultants to help analyze your business; a review from your customers can make or mar your business.

It has now become normal practice these days to check reviews from other customers before they making buying choices.

So listening to customers and taking their feedback is very important to any business especially a young sewing business.

With that being said on customer feedback, it is important to know that some of such advice, may not actually be true to purpose and so, it is important that you have a plan to receive feedback as part of your marketing strategy.

Tailoring Shop Management: Key Activities

Managing a tailoring shop requires specific activities to stand you out from the pack. All your activities should be centred around delivering outstanding customer service and ensuring process efficiency at all levels.

Some of the major activities include the following essentials:

  • Customer profiling and registration: It is essential and perceived as customer-centricity if you profile your customers and keep their records. Some customers would always pay for the best of materials and designs regardless of the cost involved while others may not be able to. It is good practice to know your customers and advice them on how to best serve them, while still maintaining top standards.
  • Management of customers’ Database: It is good practice to always have the measurements of your customers, and ensure that you take the measurements for as many style combinations as possible. Your customers do not like it that you need to take measurements every single time you come around.
  • Customer order processing and fulfillment: Imagine sending your customers information as you move their orders from stage to stage? Sending your customers a simple SMS notifying them of the delivery of their orders would put a smile on their faces. They would see you as efficient
  • Manage an inventory of top quality essentials: Minor aspects of your tailored outputs, as minute as the quality of zippers, buttons, and thread could make or mar your relationship with your customers. Ensure to keep an inventory of the best quality of supplies available, and do not go below a set standard regardless of what the customers’ budget is.
  • Build your brand gradually: Building a brand is no easy task. You need to consciously set your brand in the minds of your customers. From as little as your writing pad, your delivery package, etc. Ensure that you have a label that identifies you, and always utilize your brand identity at every opportunity with your customers. Print a business card, Do not deliver finished products unless it is neatly packed in your custom made packages – It doesn’t cost much!

Quick Win Tips To Help Find Your Footing On The Tailoring Value Chain

As a matter of fact, you could choose to be at any level within the entire tailoring value chain. Fortunately, the tailoring/sewing business has a very active value chain and you could choose to make a difference at any level of the value chain and still make a lot of returns on your investment.

Below is a list of some major levels within the entire tailoring value chain that a skilled entrepreneur could choose to stay focused on and make a successful brand with a very high ROI (Returns on investment).

Start a tailoring school

The tailoring profession has a very limited number of skilled tailors with many tailoring outfits complaining regularly about skilled related issues from inadequate hands, very expensive tailors, to tailors loyalty issues and as such most times disappoint their clients; this has made starting a tailoring business so hard.

Items Needed To Start A Tailoring Shop or Tailoring School

This is a list of items needed to start a tailoring school and as well as a full-fledged tailoring shop.

  • Basic Sewing machine Tools.
  • Sewing machine
  • Weaving machine
  • Beading machine
  • Electric iron
  • Charcoal iron
  • scissors
  • thread
  • machine needle and hand needle
  • Measuring Tapes
HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE ON JUMIA.COM
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The scenario above paints a unique advantage in starting a tailoring school as it could help solve the problems of players in the core tailoring business.

The return on investment on a well-structured tailoring school could be huge if managed properly. Clients for a tailoring school include other tailoring outfits, vocational schools, and intending tailors.

A major advantage of running a teaching school is that it establishes you as an expert in that field and you stand the chance of partnering with other players along the entire value chain

Train and Outsource Skilled Tailors

With the ever-increasing need for skilled tailors for designs and other sewing needs, having a pool of highly trained and ready to hire tailors and seamstress is a very worthy venture that requires very little take-off capital and has a very high return on investment.

Even if all you do to start a tailoring business is interview and train tailors freely and make to commit to a minimum working duration with your tailor leasing outfit, it would be considered a very worthy venture. There are a number of tailoring outfits that would be glad to hire tailors from a well-structured outsourcing company. This could be a very high money spinner if done right.

Some of the best tailors in Nigeria are so-called because they have an excellent workforce of highly trained and experienced tailors working for them. So, training tailors for the purpose of outsourcing them is a profitable venture.

Create a Catalogue of Essential Modern Designs

Pictures are worth a thousand words in the fashion industry. In actual fact, the fashion industry is all about designs. So, if all you do as your tailoring business is to find ways to create designs in-house, or secure the rights to certain designs from other fashion outfits, create a catalogue and sell, you could be known for such a brand and make good money doing just that. You could even make designs for dropship enthusiasts and sell your products outside the country.

For a collection of some of our selected designs, click here for some beautifully tailored designs.

Some Quick FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is tailoring about?

Tailoring is the art of making custom made clothes. It involves a lot of measurements, cutting and sewing clothes to fit a customer need. The popular word tailor-made was coined from the act of tailoring.

What is the difference between sewing and tailoring?

As verbs the difference between sewing and tailor is that sew is to use a needle to pass thread repeatedly through (pieces of fabric) in order to join them together or sew can be (obsolete|transitive) to drain, as a pond, for taking the fish while tailor is to make, repair, or alter clothes.

As a noun tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothes professionally, especially suits and men’s clothing. – Source: WikiDiff

What is the best way to promote your sewing business?

Today, promoting a tailoring/sewing business is not so different from how you’d promote any other product or service. But unlike other products and services, promoting the tailoring business involves working on the visuals of the target.

Imagine taking a video of the processes it takes you to sew a masterpiece for a client, putting emphasis on the attention you pay to details, then publish such a video on social media or your website with the caption, “We don’t just sew, we craft masterpieces”. The use of online platforms would give you a very wide reach.

To promote your business offline in your locality, rely more on word of mouth. Imagine each of your satisfied and loyal customers introducing three new customers each, and those new customers in no time introduce three other customers each? Word of mouth is very powerful, use it wisely.

How can a tailor attract customers?

The first thing that attracts customers to you as a tailor is your sewing skills. Similar to the process used when trying to promote your tailoring business, you must do all possible to put your skills out there.

Then look for a common flaw in other tailors within your market segment, build on it and differentiate yourself. Be known to have mastered a particular style or niche and ensure to put the words out there that you are the master of your chosen niche and customers would find you.

Excellent customer service and advertisement are what you need to differentiate yourself from others. Be outstanding and stand out.

How long does it take to learn to tailor?

“You need to learn the basics of sewing before you can even think about sewing your first wardrobe piece! A good foundation makes for fabulous work” — Tiarra McFadden

Basically, it takes between three to six months to learn the basics. Once you master the basics, your development ultimately is dependent on your practice level. The best tailors in Nigeria did not get there by chance – it must have taken them lots of hours practising and working with modern designs and also getting knocked around by unhappy customers until they became so good.

Click here for some well-known brands in the Nigerian tailoring space – The so-called Best Tailors in Nigeria.

Is tailoring business profitable?

Tailoring business, like the food business, is one business that will always be profitable. This is because tailoring is an essential service – we will always clothe ourselves regardless of the economy.

However, profit on tailoring is highly dependent on so many factors especially brand equity. One way to maximize your chances of making profits is to specialize in a niche and become a master at it.

Take note that profitability in the tailoring business is highly dependent on season, trends, and the economic situation of your target market.

How much does it cost to learn to tailor?

Cost varies across tailoring schools. Factors that generally determine the cost of learning tailoring are:
1. The course registered for
2. The tailoring school
3. Quality of teachers
4. Location of the tailoring school
5. Duration of course

Typically, it ranges from N40,000 NGN to N100,000 NGN for a 3-month course

How much are tailors paid?

Tailors are hardly paid fixed salaries, most tailors prefer to be paid a commission on the charges of their products. In some cases, they get paid a fixed amount per tailored output.

How much does it cost to start a tailoring/sewing business?

This is also not easy to give a direct answer to. It depends on a lot of factors. But if you are starting with one machine from the comfort of your house, then you could start with as little as N70,000 for the cost of a sewing machine and basic inventory.

Remember this always – No matter how good a tailor is, if the quality of consumables is low, the quality of output would always be flawed.

What is the cost of starting a tailoring business in Nigeria

The cost of starting a tailoring business in Nigeria depends on so many factors, from size, location, strategy to even the number of sewing stations that you may require. For an in-depth look into the cost, consider this article on The Cost of Starting A Tailoring Business in Nigeria or click here for a free sewing business plan.

Basically, if you would start small, then you might start with about N70,000 to N300,000 depending on the number of types of machines that you intend to use.

Nigerian Tailor Measurement

I bet you are wondering what tailors measure for when they come to measure you with those tape rules. Well, the answer is simple, they measure different things from your sleeves, neck, hips, and even your mouth… just kidding about the mouth.

There are several measuring techniques used for different types of designs and body types.I am on the plus size, so I always ensure to ask them to add some extras in certain areas.
Click this link For an in-depth on what Nigerian tailors measure.

How to decorate a tailoring shop in Nigeria

I get asked this question a lot about the best way to decorate a tailoring shop in Nigeria. The answer is simple- You are in it for the money and money will only come from paying customers. So, decorate in a way that would increase your customers’ satisfaction.

1. Add the necessary chairs to make them comfortable
2. Add the necessary style guides to help them make the right trending styles from photos on your wall, albums of your past jobs or even from projects done by other better tailors
3. Ensure that your sitting area is not so clumsy that they have to squeeze themselves to reach you
4. If you can, get a fittings area
5. If you can, ensure that you have a reception area and clients do not get to see the section where the actual tailoring activities take place

I believe that you get it now, right?

So tell me, did you know that tailoring is one of the tested ways to earn foreign exchange and also investment opportunities?

Suggested: Learn how to promote your sewing business by clicking here

Please put your answers in the comment section below to help me make this blog better and also help others out there.

By the way, are you a Nigerian, and have you worked with or know some highly skilled experts (Tailors, Auto mechanics, Barbers, Chefs, etc) in Nigeria? Please recommend them here to increase their online visibility and give other people the opportunity of hiring them too.

Must Read: 5 Excellent Tips to Attract New Customers (Without leaving your office)

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