With over 10 million users, the platform allows the world to go behind the scenes across various events that may be inaccessible to many people.

As a business owner, it’s worth noting the ways that Periscope can be beneficial to your business.

1. Tutorials and Q&A: One of the best ways to keep current and potential customers interested in your brand is to provide an opportunity for them to pose as many questions and interact with the people behind the brand or company. One of these ways is to hold a weekly or fortnightly Q&A session where specific questions about a recently launched product or service are discussed.
2. Bring events to life: Periscope can help to amplify an event that your company is hosting beyond the power of images and post-event videos. You could be launching a product or service and by sharing live-streams of interviews and the event, your customers will feel closer to the event and get to know more about your business offering.
3. Break through a crowded space: Social media platforms are busy, with brand managers competing to get their messages heard by consumers. To break through the day-to-day, brands need to utilize visual content to shine a light on their message. By featuring both written and visual content on Twitter’s diverse platform brands will catch the eye of browsing users stand-out in the conversation.
4. Behind the scenes: Being authentic on social media goes a long way in developing strong ties with your customers. In addition to giving an opportunity to answer questions in real time, Periscope also allows you to give your audience a behind-the-scenes look at how your business is run. For instance, if you run an event management company, you can give your followers a sneak peek of the set up before a wedding, birthday party or any other major event that you have worked on. If you manufacture and sell products, show your followers how the product is made and delivered to a consumer.

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We didn’t have a clear strategy and what we sold was not commensurate with the effort we were putting in. We found that we couldn’t make enough money just selling “Moin-Moin” so we also started catering for small events.

Challenges

Our two main challenges were location and cash flow. Location was a problem because we cooked from my kitchen at home. Initially, this wasn’t much of an issue until we started getting bigger orders. My kitchen became too small, and we had to turn down a few large orders. At other times, we had to contract additional staff that cooked all night in my house! There was no privacy and I knew I was pushing the goodwill and patience of my family beyond acceptable limits. Yet the 10,000 Women program had fired us up for growth!

Results

Through 10,000 Women, I realized that not everyone could be my client-“market segmentation” they called it. So, I began choosing my clients. As a policy, we started receiving payments in advance. A key lesson for me is that being predictable in terms of quality and service delivery increased our brand equity and ability to negotiate better payment terms with our clients.

We have experienced tremendous growth after attending 10,000 Women. We have increased our client base and now focus on high net worth customers who pay in advance for services. From a humble beginning of 20 guests per order, we now regularly serve 750 guests per order, often three times a day! Since graduation, monthly turnover has increased more than tenfold!

When I started, I was the only staff. Now I have ten permanent staff, including an accountant, and we also hire up to 60 temporary workers from time to time depending on the orders we have.

We recently acquired a used delivery truck, which gave us control over delivery. We were also able to lease an apartment with a large kitchen- so we finally separated my residence from the business. A BIG relief for everybody!

In 2011, we relocated and opened our first restaurant and kitchen in Gbagada (Lagos mainland) and we are already planning for our second restaurant in a high brow area of Lagos Island (Ikoyi).

Giving back to the community is important to me and we now offer free meals to prisoners once a month.

Future Goals

My future goal is to continue our expansion and make the ‘No Leftover’ brand a household name.

Learn more on how you can grow your business like Ayodeji through the 10000 Women Program

Here is to your Success in Growing your Business

Photo & Content Courtesy of Goldman Sachs

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In 2013, President Uhuru allocated 30% of Government Tender to Youth, women, persons with disability.

Here is an opportunity to grow your construction business with this tender;

Tender Items: Upgrading of Makutano-Kithimani Road

Client: Government of Machakos County

Who Can Apply: Youth, women, persons with disability and upcoming contractors

Source: Youth Access To Government Procurement Opportunities (YAGPO)

Deadline: Tuesday, 28th January, 2014.

Here is to your Success in winning this tender.

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Scaling your Business Upwards is an innovative new Summit organised by Njeri Rionge and Ignite Consulting offering local SMEs and upcoming entrepreneurs the opportunity to network with their peers and industry leaders, and to learn how to expand and grow their companies. The Ignite Scaling Your Business Upwards Summit will be held on 18-19 September 2012 at The Junction Mall, Nairobi.

Hosting the Summit will be Njeri Rionge, Executive Director, Ignite Consulting and Insite Ltd. She will be joined by a host of industry leading speakers including:

• Joseph Mucheru, Sub-Saharan Africa Ambassador and Country Manager Kenya, Google
• Godwin Wang’ong’u, Founder and Senior Partner , Wangong’u & Company Advocates
• Tabitha Karanja, CEO, Keroche Industries
• John Ngumi, Director Investment Banking Africa, Stanbic Bank
• Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information Communication
• Eric Kimani, Founder Trustee, Chairman Board of Directors, Palmhouse Foundation

The high profile panels will discuss four themes, essential for those looking for expert advice for their business ideas:

1. Start- Up Financial Management and Fundraising
2. Business Development & IT as an Enabler
3. Operating Environment and Governance
4. Organisational Development Strategies

The Host

Commenting, Njeri Rionge, Executive Director, Ignite Consulting and Insite Ltd. and Chair of the event said, “The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector in Kenya and East Africa accounts for approximately 90% of all firms and employs as many as 60% of employees,driving innovation and competition as part of a dynamic and fast growing entrepreneurial marketplace.”

“I hope that this new Summit will address all the questions that entrepreneurs and growing businesses would like answered, and will become a forum that encourages business leaders to share their experiences. The SME sector in Kenya is such a rich source of growth and innovation for this region and I want to support it as much as I can”.

The Ignite Scaling Your Business Upwards Summit will be held on 18-19 September 2012 at The Junction Mall, Nairobi.

Photo & Content Courtesy of Ignite Consulting

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Source: Business Model Generation

Did you find this business model useful & would you implement it in your business?

The post How To Develop A Business Model For Your Company appeared first on Fenesi.com.

Well you may wonder what an EPZ is! According to Wikipedia, export processing zone (EPZ) is an area within which goods may be landed, handled, manufactured or reconfigured, and reexported without the intervention of the customs authorities. Only when the goods are moved to consumers within the country in which the zone is located do they become subject to the prevailing customs duties.

“Well in Kenya, anyone can set up an EPZ anywhere in the country – all that is needed is a little land (even 1 acre) and an application licence of $5000 per year” said Kiprono Felix Kiptum of pesaDroid

Mr. Kiptum continued to mention that Companies inside the EPZ get a 10 year tax holiday and they do not pay for VAT or duty even when they import raw materials (except for vehicles and fuel). They are allowed to sell 20% of their stuff locally.

EPZ are organized around major seaports, international airports, and national frontiers—areas with many geographic advantages for trade. It is a region where a group of countries has agreed to reduce or eliminate trade barriers.

If an EPZ is to be set up in your county, what products do you think you can export?

Photo Courtesy of ONE.org Flickr

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To be honest, it was also difficult for me to find the right value for my products and services for my web design and hosting business.

I struggled to find a balance on how I was going to set my prices for my business. This was because I didn’t have so much confidence in my products/services. It is crucial for any entrepreneur to have confidence in their product/services when starting your business.

After some few months of struggling to find the right balance, I came to learnt that all pricing of any products/services are fully dependent on the value itself. If your product/service doesn’t have value to your customer then you should not sell it to the customer. No customer will buy a product which is valueless.

Remember, if you can’t buy your own product/service, then don’t expect anyone to buy it.

Another thing which helped me was that i took into consideration the time, efforts, costs incurred to come up with my products/services. Don’t be afraid to charge what your product/service is truly worth.

If you have a good product, don’t be afraid to charge for it

Some of the entrepreneurs I have engaged with don’t value their time or rather they don’t factor it to the pricing. This is something that most business suffer from especially business that offer intellectual property oriented services like photographers, web designing, logo designing. You need to put a rate on your time. If you don’t value your time no one will! Remember, if you can’t buy your own product/service, then don’t expect anyone to buy it.

In order to find out the price for your product/service, ask yourself, how much will you buy your own product/service if you were to buy it from yourself!

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Robert Kiyosaki points out that 8 Integrity of Entrepreneurship is required to be implemented in all businesses which wants to grow from being a small business to BIG business (500+ employees). So the BIG question which most of us will be asking ourselves is how do we structure our businesses to have more than 500+ employees. That’s a good question! Well, the answer is finally here;

Mission: It is very important that you get a Spiritual Mission for your business. Your company has to have a meaning to the clients/customers that you are targeting and not just making money. The spiritual mission of a company acts as the foundation of the business. It has to be firm and also it is the reason for existence. Most businesses usually set their mission statements to outline what they do rather than why they do it. As an entrepreneur, you must make sure you don’t confuse the two. Fenesi’s Spiritual Mission: Empowerment Equals Prosperity!

Team: Teams represent power. Let’s be sincere, its hard to run a business as an individual. Team is more important than the individual. Most successful businesses have always attributed its success because of a strong and united teams they have.

Leader: Leaders are role models. Leadership is earned. It is earned through trust, respect, experience, and competence.

Product: A product without a strong B-I triangle behind it will probably not be a successful product. When coming up with your products, make sure that you have your Mission put in place first then come up with great products.

Legal: Every business needs lawyers. Lawyers and laws are important in protecting your product and the rest of your B-I triangle.

Systems: A business is a system of systems. It needs systems that operates efficiently & effectively. It needs professionals to operate it.

Communication: A business needs strong sales, PR, marketing, web & HR communications. Information Technology is essential to businesses today.

Cash flow: A business must have accurate & clear accounting. A business with poor accounting systems is a poor company, hence you need an accountant.

If you set up the above structures for your Business, then you’ll be on your way in building a BIG Business (500+ Employees according to Forbes).

Which of the above 8 Integrity of Entrepreneurship do you think is most important in your business?

Here Is To Your Success!

Image & Content Courtesy of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad

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