Bukky Asehinde, founder of Bellafricana will be speaking at this year’s edition of The Bridge Leadership Foundation Career Day Conference.
This year’s theme: “Adapting to the New Normal” will “border on the need for a global transformation and mind shift required for nations, businesses and individuals to function sustainably in a Post-COVID-19 world” (The Bridge Leadership Foundation).
The event is scheduled for Saturday, July 25th (by 11am), and will virtual hold virtually due to the covid-19 situation.
Among the line up of speakers and moderators are: Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli – Founder, LEAP Africa and Managing Partner, Sahel Consulting; Fela Durotoye – CEO, GEMSTONE Group; Peter Obi Former Governor, Anambra State; Mitchell Elegbe Founder/Group Managing Director, Interswitch; Tonye Cole – Cofounder, Sahara Group; Thelma Ekiyor – Managing Partner, SME.NG; Atunyota Alleluya (Alibaba) – CEO, Alibaba Hiccupuray 3rd Ltd; Hamzat Lawal – Founder, Connected Development (CODE); Ubong King – CEO, Protection Plus Services LTD; others include Naadiya Moosajee – Co-founder/CEO, WomEng (Women in Engineering); Yomi Williams – Founder, Gartner Callaway Group of Companies; Saudat Salami – CEO, Easyshop Easycook; and Babajide Ipaye – Founder, KEEXS Services;
Those moderating the event are Arit Okpo Creative Director, Menoword Media and J.J. Omojuwa, Founder/Chief Strategist, The Alpha Reach. ( Source: Tblf and Bella Naija)
You can’t afford to miss this event. To register for this event, simply click on this link.
Everything called “business” existing today still has its crux hinged around the exchanging of goods(products) or services for paymnt, and no matter how small or big these products and services to be offered are, there is a process which involves several techniques, rules and procedures that simply cannot be overlooked that goes behind.
For example: Have you noticed how your tailor converts those yards of uncut fabric into beautifully crafted dress designs? And to your specifications too?
The whole transformation process starts from obtaining your body measurements and desired style. She then carefully cuts the fabric into different shaped pieces before she then starts sewing it together to form your dress.
Another designer goes behind to work on the embellishments and finishing touches, putting careful detail into every flow of tasks that’s needed to make a perfect dress.
What do these processes indicate? A system. Workflow, if you will.
What really is a workflow?
A workflow refers to any action or series of actions which are automated by other means e.g. tools, digital methods that can be triggered to occur by human actions. Thus, making all the tasks, information and data (carried out by staff and employees) streamlined to the achievement of the business/company’s goals.
Workflows essentially help reduce the stress of dealing with each step of the process manually and also cuts down precious time being wasted in achieving set targets and ultimately business goals.
Does your business need a workflow? Absolutely! Working hard is great, but working smart helps you get the job done quickly while you still retain your edge in the game.
Why your Business Should Have a workflow
Adopting a well-tailored workflow in your business can bring about a very sporadic change to your business management methods, optimize your business processes and ultimately its overall growth-rate.
Below are some noteworthy reasons why you should consider creating a workflow for your business today.
1. Improved Time Management
Almost all businesses are deadline driven and most of the time, they all usually end up wasting so much precious time getting manually involved with every stage of the process.
They eventually do not have time to bring in more creativity and by so doing jeopardizing quality. With the help of a good process automation software, you can automate several tasks such as project reminders, sending company mails out, setting up meetings, document reviews etc, and cut down on some wasted time.
2. Enhanced means of Communication
Poor communication between employer and employees and also amidst employees too is one of the biggest hinderance to business growth. This causes a general misunderstanding of company goals and objectives which may lead to poor and inaccurate decisions on anyone’s part.
Having a uniform automated communication channel eliminates the possibilities of human error.It will be ultimately pivotal to the overall team morale.
3. Designation of responsibilities
As a business owner, you want to make sure that responsibilities are properly assigned to all of your employees with regards to the skill and capacity they each possess. This is to ensure that hands and brains are maximized to the fullest towards achieving set business objectives.
Each stage of the workflow helps define the specific responsibilities to be carried by each person more efficiently.
4. Enhanced Creativity & Productivity
The use of workflows overtime enhances creativity and ultimately productivity.
This is due to the fact that the bulk of the time-consuming processes are out of the way and there is now enough room for fresh views, ideas, reviews, criticisms, etc. amongst employees. The business’s growth is hinged to the employees’ creativity while the employee’s career growth is hinged to the company’s overall success.
Workflows make it easier for everyone.
Will you be willing to try this? I would love to hear from you.
The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari not too long ago signed the Finance bill into law.
The Finance bill subsequently amended to “The Finance Act” saw to it that Value Added Tax (VAT) formerly 5% was increased to 7.5% for any product and services sold in Nigeria.
The President in a bid to shed light on the decision had explained that:
“This Finance Bill has five strategic objectives in terms of achieving incremental but necessary changes to our fiscal laws”
These objectives are:
Promoting fiscal equity by mitigating instances of regressive taxation
Reforming domestic tax laws to align with global best practice
Introducing tax incentives for investments in infrastructure and capital markets
Supporting Micro, Small and Medium-sized businesses in line with our Ease of Doing Business Reforms; and Raising Revenues for Government.
The new law states that small businesses with a turnover of less than N25 million are to be exempted from Companies Income Tax, while it lowers the tax rate for companies making up to N100 million from 30 percent to 20 percent.
This is expected to come as a relief to the lot of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria, most of which already struggle to stay afloat in a hostile business environment.
What the increase in VAT really means
When the rate was 5%, it means that for a price of ₦1000 the buyer will pay an extra of ₦50 as VAT to government making the bill a total of ₦1050. If the item is to be used or for consumption, then that is where the VAT story ends.
But if the Item is to be sold, or used to produce something else which will be sold at say₦1500, then VAT of ₦75 needs to be charged, so the buyer pays ₦1575.
Since the first buyer payed VAT of ₦50 (input VAT) when the initial item was bought, he/she is entitled to deduct it from the VAT of ₦75 just charged (output VAT) and only pay the difference of ₦25 ( ₦75 – ₦50) to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
The above scenario is the same but the VAT has now been increased from 5 percent to 7.5 percent.
A Positive Effect?
Small and Medium scale enterprises in Nigeria are starved of capital as poor access to finance constitutes a major constraint for businesses.
Similar challenges encountered by the sector include the high cost of doing business and multiplicity of taxes, a problem the new bill looks to eliminate.
In analysis of the bill, some industry players had this to say:
“The initiative is laudable and the modifications to the fiscal rules around taxation are clearly aimed at creating an enabling business environment and alleviating the tax burden for small and medium enterprises”
-KPMG (accounting firm)
“With unrestricted access into the bank accounts of companies, businesses are now open to paying taxes more than ever. And to reduce tax evasion”
-Tayo Oluwole (Tax consultant)
“It is clear the amendments that the Act makes to existing tax laws will have a “significant impact” on businesses operating in the country.”
-Andersen Tax (website)
In consideration of standard of living and ease of doing business, the Finance Bill seeks to cushion the harsh effects of the 7.5% VAT by introducing other palliative measures.
For example, stamp duty on receipts became ₦50 for every transaction worth ₦10,000 and above, instead of the ₦1,000 threshold earlier used by banks.
Also, for Company Income Tax (CIT), businesses with a turnover of less than N25 million will be exempted.
CIT for businesses with sales of between 25 to 100 million falls from 30% to 20%. Also,businesses which pay their taxes on time will get a reprieve of 2%.
What do you think of the new finance bill? Have you started implementing it in your business? I would love to know!
It’s a known fact that Entrepreneurs have to cultivate the habit of reading, here are 5 books every entrepreneur should read. You will agree with me that reading is important to everyone. Well except, those who are content with remaining in the same spot forever.
Joseph Addison says :“Reading does to the mind what exercise does to the body”
If you’re an Entrepreneur or with an entrepreneurial mindset, you must have read a couple of books that have proved invaluable to you and your business.
Haven’t started reading any books and don’t know where to start? Or you need to add more to your stash?
I would be glad to suggest a couple of books that come recommended (and written) by renowned Business strategists and successful Entrepreneurs.
PS: This List is not Exhaustive. Feel Free to add to the list.
Let’s get to it…
1. Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin
This book will help you see why keeping your existing customers satisfied is a very important obligation to fulfill, before you consider expanding. It also shows the “not so rosy” side of starting up, and venture Capitalism. If you’re afraid of the truth, don’t read this book.
Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin
2. Rework by Jason Fried and Heinemeier Hansson
This book emphasizes the importance of Time management, Spending less time on competition, and being flexible with set plans.
Rework by Jason Fried a must read book
3. The 7 habits of Highly Effective People
This book just had to be on the List. It’s a self improvement book that helps you develop qualities that can help you build better relationships, and grow your business exponentially.
The 7 habits of highly effective people read book
4. The Culture Blue Print by Robert Richman
This book is a systematic guide to how a workplace can help people grow, inspire amazing service, and ultimately drive revenue through amazing culture.
The culture blue print book to read
5. Leadership and Self- Deception by the Arbinger Institute.
This book captures you by using an entertaining story about an executive facing challenges at work and at home to expose the precise psychological processes that conceal true motivations, intentions and trap you in a “box” of endless self-justification.
Leadership and self deception book to read
Did you find these books useful? Have you read any of these books? What other impactful book would you recommend for Entrepreneurs or Startups? Please share in the comment section below.
Are you aware that come April 1st, 2020, you’ll be paying a lot more for electricity than you presently do? If you aren’t, there’s been an electricity price increase in Nigeria. This is no “April Fool” Prank. It’s the sad reality.
In the tariff review clarification notice from the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), the Discos said the tariffs would change from April 2020. “The tariffs shall remain an equivalent as they presently are (i.e. 2015 levels) until April 1, 2020 when there will be an increment to cater for tariff shortfall”. This shortfalls or losses shall be gradually passed on to the buyer until this is fully completed by the end of 2021.
According to the PUNCH newspapers, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has approved that an additional N8 to N14 per Kilowatt hour, will be added to the present tariff.
LET’S DO A QUICK MATH…
Let’s say you spend an average of N3 per Kwh, and you use, say 12,000 Kwh monthly. That’s 36,000 right? ( Still a lot but what can you do?). Now imagine that an extra N8 is added to the daily cost. That means you’ll pay N11 * 12,000. That’s N132,000 monthly! Wow!
Electricity Tariff Increase in Nigeria: How It Affects Your Business and what you can do about it
As a business in Nigeria, a constant struggle is trying to keep expenses to a minimum. With the unanticipated shoot in the cost of electricity, how are businesses being affected by the increasing cost of this unavoidable business expense?
HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU
Increment in budget for power: Due to the tariff increase, Business owners will be forced to increase the amount budgeted for power. This might negatively affect the running cost of the business.
High Running Cost of Buying Fuel: The increase of electricity tariff coupled with the low supply of electricity will lead to an increment of the daily consumption of Petroleum products by Business owners.
Risk of Folding up: For businesses heavily reliant on electricity, the risk of closure might rear its ugly head. This might in turn, spike up the rate of unemployment.What then can you do, to ensure that this unanticipated electricity tariff increase doesn’t run your business to the ground?Consider Other Energy Alternatives
One of such alternatives is having renewable forms of energy supplying energy consumption demand at a business premises.
Using the likes of biomass, wind and solar systems to deliver energy can help businesses save on energy bills, as well as help reduce their contribution to climate change.
Solar Inverters and Bio Fuel might be Cheaper alternatives to the cascading power supply, in the long run.So, why not make some research and see if it’s a viable option?
Installing a Prepaid Meter
If you don’t already use one, a pre-paid electricity meter in your work environment may be a way to help you better monitor your electricity spend and usage.
While this won’t cost you less in terms of cost per kilowatt hour, you’ll be more conscious of your electricity usage, as well as how much it is costing you per day.
Limiting your Electricity Consumption
Remember the Warren Buffet Quote: “If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.”
So, you might need to take a step back and do some analysis. Discard or reduce use of equipment you might not be needing. This will help motivate you to lower your electricity usage and better budget your monthly electricity spend.
Know better solutions to dealing with this Electricity Increase Tariff in Nigeria? We’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below!
We live in the modern age where we have more online stores than physical stores. Every business owner is now moving to the online marketplace due to its benefits; one of which includes enabling business owners to make more money on ecommerce, as they are able to reach a wider and global audience.
A lot of people also prefer shopping online; as it is easy and more convenient. All you have to do as an entrepreneur is build your online store via Shopify, WooCommerce, SquareSpace, BigCommerceor whatever works for you, add your products and every other required information, do a few tweaks here and there and you are good to go.
A lot of ecommerce entrepreneurs always ask/wonder how much they can make on their ecommerce store. While there is no guarantee as to how much you can actually make from an ecommercestore or if you can make any money at all, there are certain things you have to do in order to make money on your ecommerce store.
What then are these thing you can do to ensure you make money on your ecommerce store? Keep reading to find out
1. Create a Blog to Drive Traffic:
One of the hardest part of running an online store is driving traffic to your store. Traffic in this case are visitors who may be interested in what you sell thus, leading to sales.
Owning a blog alongside your online store is an organic inbound marketing strategy that will not only drive organic visitors to your store, but can also improve your store’s ranking in search results.
The purpose of the blog on the ecommerce site is to promote the products being sold thereby, persuading people into buying it whilst driving traffic to the website.
As such, every content on the blog should be a marketing plan talking about the products sold on the site and how it can be used. Thus, answering customers questions, understanding what the customers might be looking for and, addressing customer pain points.
An example can be found on the online fashion store Bentigos, which has a blog attached to its online store where they give fashion tips, talk about outfits and accessories, and everything fashion related that aligns with their website and what they sell.
Through this, they will link to items on their site which will promote and increase sales, whilst answering customer questions and at the same time, increase their ranking in search results.
Photo Credit: smartbuynaija.com
2. Focus on Online Marketing/Adverts:
Although requiring a lot of investment, online marketing is one of the best ways to grow your ecommerce business fast and quickly draw potential customers to your ecommerce store thus leading to sales.
Many people use to advertise on Amazon but now that it has become more competitive, thankfully, there are other ways to advertise your products online in order to reach your target audience and generate sales.
One of which involves content marketing (highlighted in number 1). Sponsored ads on Google and social networks (Facebook and Instagram) have proven to be effective as it promotes growth and increases sales and, almost anyone can do it; although it requires investment in terms of money so you have go make sure you do it well in order to reap the reward.
Photo Credit: anthillonline.com
The easiest marketing technique is social media marketing as it does not involve investment, money wise. All you have to do is create an account on either Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or whatever works for you, and then promote your business, news, product reviews and blog articles on these social networks which generates traffic to your website. It also creates an avenue for you to communicate with your customers which builds brand loyalty.
Another is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is important for every ecommerce owner who wants to grow organically and increase traffic to their store without spending money. SEO marketing involves optimizing certain areas of your store/website so it ranks well in search results. Such areas include page speed, content optimization, product keywords, product images, meta title, image optimization, website description, link building, etc, in order ti boost search engine rankings.
Another method which probably did not cross your mind is email marketing which can drive more traffic than people think. It involves creating a good email marketing strategy, which can convert into a sales channel that drives traffic to your store every time. An email newsletter sent out to signed up subscribers should contain, giveaways to attract people, discount, informational content, coupon codes, information on new products, etc.
3. Build a Trusted Brand:
People will not patronize you if your brand seems shady. There are so many businesses, while some are real and others are fake, you want to build a trusted brand and separate your brand from the fake ones so people can patronise you. How then can you do that?
First thing is to choose and register your business name. Once your business name is registered, your business becomes credible and verified (click hereto find out how you can also verify your business).
Then, after getting your domain/business website at this point, get an Employer Identification Number (EIN), even if you have no employees, and lastly, depending on your state/country, if regardless of operating online, you still need sales tax, then you need to obtain a business permits and licenses to ensure your business is authorised by the government.
4. Use Different Channels to Promote your Business:
One of the important aspect of an ecommerce store is to get your business out there, into the eyes of everyone and as such, being in different locations online is important for growth. In order to grow, you need a strategy that is backed up by channels of distribution thus creating business diversity and expansion.
Although it is a challenge for most ecommerce store owners, you need to consider listing your products on different online channels like Amazon, Walmart, eBay, etc.
Always ensure you have a good warranty as well as a distribution agreement with the distributors to ensure you maximize your profit to the fullest potential.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation has opened its application portal for the 5th cycle of its $100million Entrepreneurship Program, open to all African entrepreneurs. This year, one of the goals is to increase participation and representation from women-run businesses in Africa as well.
Statistics have shown that only about 38% of applications to this program are from women, and the foundation is working hard to increase the number of applications from women owned business.
The program is open to any African who has an innovative business idea or a business in existence that is less than 3 years old in any sector.
If selected, business owners will join the Foundation’s current 4,470 TEF alumni and will receive non-refundable $5,000 seed capital,access to mentors, top-rated business training, access to a network of African entrepreneurs and opportunities for them and their business to share a global stage.
For more information on eligibility, funding, judging criteria, and application process, click here or APPLY RIGHT AWAY on TEFConnect here:www.tefconnect.com.
Deadline for applications submission is March 1st 2019
Having the right entrepreneurial skills are very important to enable you start-up or maintain an edge in your field.
Most people are not so fortunate to know these fundamentals before venturing in, and end up learning the hard way.
From experience! Continue reading
Happy New Month Bellafricanians!! Today is a beautiful day, I thought it perfect for some Wednesday motivation, two more days to the weekend. Think of this as an appraisal, like we do at school with tests and continuous assessments, or at work with surveys, or at organizations with feedback forms. Continue reading
The business world constantly experiences dynamic changes in consumer demands. The strategies that worked yesterday may not work today, Continue reading
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Almost all businesses are deadline driven and most of the time, they all usually end up wasting so much precious time getting manually involved with every stage of the process.
