• Make Survey Regarding the Distance and Size of Prospective Clients:
  Make a survey that how far are the potential clients living from your office. You should be able to reach them with in an hour or so. This is very important factor particularly from the point of networking services. Also, gather information regarding the size of the prospective customers. Ideally, you should start with the clients those having between 10 and 50 computers. If we talk in terms of the annual turn over, the client should have annual sales between $1 million and $10 million.
• Client should be Serious about IT Requirements:
  Before you start computer consulting for clients make sure how serious they are about the information technology. A prospective customer, who does not have his own dedicated server and accessing the Internet using dial up lines, is not suitable for consultation. However, those who are interested in focusing more on their IT requirements are definitely ideal clients.
• Far Better Than Traditional IT Jobs:
  Being a computer consultant is definitely more rewarding than joining a traditional job in any IT company. Because in traditional IT jobs, there are several hurdles in the progress those are not under your control.

Prevent Overspending

One of the easiest ways to get your cash flow in check is to stop overspending when the need is really not there. It can be tempting to buy the latest and greatest of everything for your business, but if tomorrow’s sales take a dip, you will find your reserves a little slimmer than normal. Spend cautiously on what you need for your business startup to survive each day. This can help you have the cash you need when an issue arises without having to struggle to come up with the funding.

Stay On Top Of Invoicing

Getting paid for the work you have completed is an arduous task for any startup. It is no fun chasing down late payments, but it is your responsibility as a business startup owner to make sure your invoicing goes out on time and gets paid. Getting your invoicing in order can make sure you have a steady flow of income coming in and can make sure money is left over for positive cash flow at the end of each and every month.

Track Daily-To-Day Costs

Keeping a good record of your costs all throughout the year can help you better identify … Read the rest

First clients

You should understand that getting your first client is your first milestone. What you need to do is serve your first few clients very well. They should be happy. Moreover, if you want to develop a strong relationship with the clients, make sure you give them a discount.

Find a Focus

You should be different from other service providers who offer similar services. If you don’t be different, you won’t be able to make a difference. As a result, your product will not entice the potential buyers. Your clients should be able to differentiate your products from those of your competitors. This is what we mean by finding a focus.

Blogging and social media

For marketing, blogging and social media are your best tools. You should create and publish content that can validate your expertise. Today, your marketing is a lot cheaper than it was a few years ago. In the past, people had to get through strict editors and publishers in order to get the word out about their expertise. They had to write books and articles as well. Nowadays, you can post on Twitter, Facebook and your own blog. So, you don’t have to rely so … Read the rest

This is where many businesses run into trouble. Errors occur, data is wrong, and headaches abound when a database isn’t designed following a strict set of rules. How do you know if your database isn’t designed well? Think about your business and answer these questions:

• Are you keeping track of information in Microsoft Excel?

If you’re only keeping track of information in Microsoft Excel, then you’re not using a database. Excel is wonderful for crunching numbers, but not for storing related data. Using Excel as a database, even for basic information, is like using a hammer for brain surgery. Technically it’s possible, but it’s not the right tool, and you’ll likely end up with a massive headache when you’re done.

• When entering information, do you repeatedly type the same word or phrase?

A tell-tale sign of bad databases is the need to purposely duplicate data. For example, entering someone’s name in two different places means the database is designed improperly, creating an environment that’s doing more harm than good. Typos always happen, but in a well-designed database they don’t create nearly as much trouble.

• Do you have to work hard to get simple statistics?

This is the ultimate test of … Read the rest

Size of the Company is Irrelevant

The first exporting basic to learn for the international trade is that you do not need to be a very large corporation. Although, this is true that the major share of international trade is in the hands of large companies yet small business owners are not trailing very far behind in this sector and are grabbing the opportunities available. U.S. Department of Commerce has indicated in its survey that only 40% of the successful companies in the field of international trade have more than 100 employees. This implies that 60% of the export business is in the hands of the companies that are not very large. In fact, it is not size that determines the success in international market but success depends more on the service, price and the quality of the product.

No Need of Big Marketing Department

Second exporting basic to understand is that you do not require a big marketing department for exporting purpose. If you are a small business owner and sells occasionally and in small quantities then only one employee is sufficient to handle the job of marketing and transportation rather than having a separate department and several employees … Read the rest

It is true that the cultural and creative arts industries are potential economic boosting ventures in this contemporary age. It is one of the ever thriving areas of the global economy with an estimated growth rate of 4.3% in North and Central America, 6.9% in Oceania, 9.7% in Asia, 11.9% in South America, 13.9% in Africa and 17.6% in the Middle East. These estimates that show a soaring increase in global economy clearly underscores the great economic capital that can be obtained from the creative cultural industries from our forebears! Thus, today, local communities, especially the women and the youth who are mostly unemployed must tap into these industries to earn a living. It is not very difficult for residents to enter into these industries.

Limited capital investment is often required to start an enterprise in the creative and cultural industry of local communities. This is because the raw materials for the production of the creative cultural artifacts are locally stepped in the regions of the local communities’ territories. Usually, the local governments and the traditional authorities have their own effective managerial ways of ensuring the sustainable supply of these local resources for the artistic production. Individual families mostly have … Read the rest

Market Analysis: Analyzing the current trends and determining what changes are necessary to be implemented in order to capture the market is the first step. Study the market and determine your competitors, make a competitive analysis, determine ways to better your competitors, understand what your customers need and develop your products accordingly. Instead of targeting a general market try targeting specific markets and develop adequate marketing and advertising strategies so that customers are familiar with your brand name. Make sure there are value added benefits to entice customers to try your new range of products, make sure that the new range does not eclipse existing product line and both are given equal prominence.

Growth: In order to tackle new markets, you may target new customers with a new line of products as well as to improve existing products adding new features to grab the attention of existing customers. Changes can be made to the product introducing variety to the existing line of products there by targeting a slightly different market. Change and growth is necessary to prevent the company from stagnating or even worse suffer loses due to monotony. Some companies tackle new markets by developing a new niche. Study … Read the rest

Agriculture, with the large arable land in Africa, and the ever growing population, agricultural start up in Africa is an opportunity to harness. Unfortunately, the bottle neck system of governance and the import dependent nature of the populace have hindered the growth of this important sector. Statistically, Africa has the largest arable land in the world, if all the fertile lands are used, the production is estimated to feed the whole world. There is the market for African grown products both locally and internationally. Businesses that focus on processing the locally grown food stuffs would in the years to come grow astronomically because of the ever present demands for their products.

E commerce, with the advent of the internet and peoples affinity for easy life, electronic shopping is another hub for building a business in Africa. Many of these online shops are cropping up every time, most of them offering world class services, this sector in future will account for a huge chunk of internally generated revenue. From purchasing of home gadgets to buying tickets, eCommerce has reshaped how the present Africa does business.

Human resource management. The continent has 1.111 billion people in it, which is 16.14% of the … Read the rest