7 Business Tips for Making a Workable Business Plan

There is no successful small business without a plan on ground. Your business plan determines the scope of work you have to deal with; prepares you for what lies ahead and helps you to avoid waste of time, energy and resources. Below are business tips on how to make a workable plan for your business.

• Clearly define your business idea

You need to have a clear picture of what you have in your mind. It should be well understood by you and any other person you may share it with.

• Identify your driving force.

What is the motive behind your idea? Do you have a passion for owning a business, particularly this business idea? Your driving force determines the enthusiasm and speed with which you work your small business and how far you can go with it. Read more...

How To Keep On Going With Your Online Home-Based Business When You Feel Like Giving Up

Do you wake up and feel like not working, feel like giving up or do you wonder whether you should quit this business? May be you are lost on what to write in order to market your business or you have spent a lot of money already with little or no result in return. You are not alone; many successful marketers went through this at some point in their business before breaking even. How to keep on going with your online business when you feel like giving up includes:

Focus on your dream

Focus on that reason why you started a home based business; it may be because of financial freedom or ability to spend more time with your family. Write out your dream and goals, both short term and long term goals and focus on them. Hard copy of your dream that is ever before you will give you the strength to continue.

Weigh the cost of giving up

Many times we throw in the towel before weighing the cost of our actions. Consider where you are going to be 5 years from now if you carry on with your home-based business through the tough times and compare it to where you will be 5 years from now if you give up. It may be difficult now but step by step you will get to your comfort zone. Read more

Driving Force Of Home-Based Business-A Search For The Primary Aim Of Starting A Business

What is your primary aim for starting a home based business? Identifying it exposes your driving force which will determine your success in business. It is that which, more than anything else, gives you a sense of direction and purpose, motivates you to your highest levels of energy, and sustains you over the long haul. This article gives the need to discover your innermost reason for starting a business.


What gets you out of bed and makes you work all day? There are numerous possible answers. It could be financial or personal freedom, status, power, competition, possessions and celebrity, influence, getting ahead, recognition, security and success, happiness, fulfilment or your children’s future. The list can go on and on. Understanding your driving force gives you the ability to actively shape your life rather than passively accept whatever joy and whatever pain happens to come your way.

Many people worked towards success, attained it only to discover they are still unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Yet, there are others who, whether successful in the conventional sense or not, experience deep satisfaction and fulfilment. The difference being that the latter built his business with the primary aim on focus. Your driving force should lead you on how to choose a home based business. Read more...

The Serekunda Market

Hi. Have you been to Serekunda Market? My friend Ndidi, (http://ndidingwuluka.com) has an interesting description of the market and I thought to share it with you.


Here is her story as she wrote it:

As we drove towards Serekunda Market in The Gambia, I was not sure what to expect as it was my first time in the market. There was the challenge of where to park the car; so my friend and I had to get down for the driver to find a place to park.

While we trekked towards the market, I saw some traders by the roadside. One spread his second hand clothes on top of a car parked by the road. The car was very dirty and did not appear to have been moved in months (or years?). Another trader placed some apples in a carton and called out to customers, “Pom, 10, 10 Dalas.”

The market appeared not planned; for the goods were not sold in sections. Clothes were sold in the midst of meat, vegetables and palm oil.

Some of the traders could not do simple summation which gave me the impression that they could be cheated. My friend wanted to buy five litres of palm oil, so we approached a girl selling palm oil, who told us the price of one litre, but could not tell us the price of five litres. The woman beside her could not, the man she called to assist was also as handicapped as the other two and so we had to go elsewhere. Read more...

Social Media Marketing Action Plan

Hi there.
Do you engage in social media marketing? Social media sites are great places to generate leads and to brand you as a leader. It is a place to add value to your audience and market your business. I was listening to Katie Freiling (http://katiefreiling.com) and she was sharing on how she uses social media to market her business and I thought to share it with you. She talked on the biggest mistakes on social media and the social media marketing action plan. These are listed below:

5 biggest social media marketing mistakes

• Selling or pitching without building relationship and adding value.
• Having no blog
• Not being consistent in giving good content
• Not having targeted following
• Not having a strategy and not having an organized social media Read more...

How To Build Personal Brand Online Using Social media Sites

 Name branding is one of the reasons for using social media to grow your business. Networking is so vital and important to business in general that using media sites cannot be considered as a waste of time for personal, corporate or consumer branding. This article shows you how to build personal brand using social networking sites.
How to build personal brand Online

• Connect your web presence

Your brand, messaging and social presence should be connected and consistent. Ensure that you have a consistent, branded presence throughout all your media sites so that when users come to your page to interact, they will understand that they are interacting with the true presence.

• Brand with Facebook fan page and have contests

In order to get more people in your Facebook group, hold contests. In personal branding, your assets are yourself. If you want to build a little readership around your personal blog or you want to get people to engage with you even more, give away a 2-hour strategy session for the contest.
The person who would enter into that kind of contest is somebody who would want to speak with you on the topic that you are an expert in. Use a different service such as Skype and lend your own time and efforts to helping that person if he wants. Read more...

Online Home Based Business Marketing- Is This Personal Freedom Or Personal Bondage?

Are you enjoying or enduring your online home based business marketing? Home business has been made easy with the use of the internet but for some internet marketers, it has become a personal bondage instead of personal freedom. They are not enjoying one of the main reasons they quit their corporate jobs. And the root cause is simply lack of self discipline.


Personal Bondage, though can happen to any online marketer at any level of success, occurs mostly with newbies (new users on the Internet). Everything seems difficult and overwhelming to the person: marketing strategies, generation of leads and traffic, etc. The person has to learn so much and start so many things at the same time. No time any more for you, family or friends. It is work, work and work!

Another thing that can cause personal bondage is unhealthy competition. Competition is very good but when it becomes a do or die affair, then it becomes dangerous. It will engulf all your mind and time; affect your relationships and perspective to life.

Personal freedom, one of the benefits of home-based business is achievable and can be maintained. I have listed below 4 steps to achieve this. Read more...