Your Car Is not an Office: Lesson learned the hard way

4 Tactics for Making Your New Business Seem More Established

First impressions are crucial. And in an age that’s more technically savvy and visually-minded than ever before, first impressions can make or break a budding new business.

People begin to form opinions about your business within the first few seconds of interaction, whether they’re looking at your business card, visiting your website or passing by your storefront. It’s the reason we can differentiate between a mom-and-pop shop and a restaurant chain -- one has a pieced-together visual identity and the other has a professional, streamlined brand.

The good news? Those first impressions, whether they’re accurate or off-base, are entirely up to you. The even better news? These four tactics will make your new business appear much more legitimate and won’t crush your startup budget in the process.

1. Create a streamlined visual brand.

First impressions are 94 percent design-related, so it should come as no surprise that your visual brand plays a large role in how others perceive the quality of your business. The key to a streamlined visual brand is consistency. You may not have the funds to work with a professional graphic designer when you’re just starting out, but by maintaining consistency with your logo, fonts and colors, you’ll appear a thousand times more professional at first glance.

For your logo, keep it simple, scalable and legible. Develop one logo option for horizontal formats and one square variation (like an icon) to give yourself versatility, and use them over and over again.

For your fonts, take the less-is-more approach. The best way to make your brand appear unprofessional and scattered at first glance is to use a hodge-podge of mismatched fonts. So instead, choose one font for headers and one for body text across all of your business’s print and web-based material. 

The same goes for your brand’s color palette. Choose two to three primary brand colors, and stick to them time and time again. Not only will a streamlined brand increase your business’s professionalism, but it will increase memorability and recognizability among your new audience.

2. Use high-quality images.

Scroll through LinkedIn for all of one minute, and tell me you don’t take the people with professionally-taken headshots a little more seriously than those who cropped their head out of an old casual photo. 

High-quality images go a long way, especially for new businesses. Invest in professional headshots as well as branded photos that can be used on your website. Consider having them taken in your workspace or another appropriate environment, make sure the color scheme is consistent with your visual brand and stock up on them so you can use them consistently in social media posts, newsletters, etc.

It may require a little cost upfront, but the results of not having high-quality photos could be much more costly in the long term.

3. Develop an attractive, user-friendly website.

According to Stanford research, 75 percent of users admit to making judgments about a company’s credibility based on the design of their website. Entrepreneurs can easily create a professional-looking website for their new business in no time. And if you’ve already developed a consistent, streamlined brand and have high-quality images at your disposal, creating an attractive website will be that much easier.

But regardless of whether you work with a designer or take the task of web design upon yourself, keep it simple and user-friendly. Include clear call-to-actions on each page. Simplify the items in your main navigation, and organize them in a logical order. Maintain consistent fonts and colors. Steer clear of large groups of text, and provide some negative space for visitors’ eyes to rest. 

In a world that’s increasingly web-based, it’s more important for new businesses to put their best foot forward through an attractive, user-friendly website.

4. Maintain a consistent, authoritative voice.

If you want your business to be taken seriously in its early stages, exercise authority. Take the phrases “I think...” or, “in my opinion...” out of your vocabulary--  and go for it with gusto. Own it! Act like you’ve been there before, and demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about.

Consider this: Would you choose to undergo surgery with a doctor who spoke timidly and seemed uneasy with the procedure or one who spoke confidently and seemed familiar with the procedure? It’s a no-brainer.

So take note of your business’s tone of voice, whether on social media, webinars, emails or your website -- and maintain confidence and consistency. If your business is just getting off the ground, it doesn't have to appear that way. Implement these tactics to put your best foot forward, and make a positive, professional first impression.

Courtesy: Lauren Hooker for entrepreneur

5 Key Elements Every Small Business Website Should Have

Incorporated these five important website elements into your site to build an online presence that brings customers directly to your business, no matter where they are located.

Your business may be small, but a business website is no longer optional -- even if you serve a local customer base, and have no intentions of selling your products or services online.

Here are five essentials every small business website should include:

1. A powerful home page

Your website’s home page is the first impression you give the online world about your business: It should clearly communicate your business’s brand image through appealing visuals and copy, along with:

• What your business does
• Who it serves
• Why it exists
• Why a customer should care

There are many creative ways to approach your home page, but it should include (at minimum): your logo, a brief description of your business and a navigation menu that directs users to other important pages on your site.

Now that at least 68 percent of Americans own smart phones, according to Pew Research Center, and over 56 percent of Nigerians have smart phones and 64 percent of Nigerians can surf the Internet, your website should also include responsive design features that ensure it’s as easy to view and navigate on smaller screens as traditional desktop computer orientations.

2. User-friendly navigation

Whether your navigation menu expands across the top of your site or in a sidebar, it must be easy for site visitors to locate, and should include logical categories that make it simple for site users to find the information they seek. According to an infographic, poor navigation is the No. 1 reason people abandon a website they have visited.

Consider how you can best structure your navigation menu and the categories (and possibly, subcategories) it will contain based on common questions a new customer to your business might ask. For example:

• What broad categories of items or services do you sell?
• What do those products or services cost?
• Where is your business located; what are its hours of operation?
• How do customers purchase items or services, and what forms of payment do you accept?

Ideally, a clean navigation should use logical sequencing and titles that help customers easily identify the section of your website they need to visit.

3. Search features

Include a search box feature in addition to your site navigation menu so customers can type keywords or phrases to find the information they need when the navigation menu doesn’t meet their needs. When customers type content into the search box, they’ll be presented with relevant pages to visit, so they don’t have to handle their search manually. (The more content you have on your site that addresses all possible keywords, the more beneficial the search box feature becomes.)

4. Access to help

Despite the marketing benefits that a website offers small businesses and online customers, there are times when customers want to connect with a human. Your website should include the option to connect via phone, email and at your physical location, if you have one. Amazingly, Social Media Today reports that 93 percent of small businesses do not publish an email address that customers can use to contact them.

5. FAQ page

The more you engage with customers online and off, the more you’ll sense patterns in the types of information customers seek, and the questions that arise in regards to your products or services. Offer a page of frequently asked questions and their answers on your site to make it easier for customers to find the detailed information they need.

A small business website is an affordable and effective way to expand your online reach and potential to market to prospects and customers. Yet it needs a few critical elements to make a positive impression. Incorporate these five important website elements into your site to build an online presence that brings customers directly to your business, no matter where they’re located.

Courtesy: entrepreneur.com

Virtual Offices and Trending Ways of Running a Business at Low Cost

Why break the bank to rent office space when you can have one for just NGN100,000 per annum?

The significance of a virtual office in the life of every startup cannot be over emphasized in fact; it is boldly advertised in this short story of a young entrepreneur. As a fresher, he had his whole business life ahead of him with a great idea he pitches to anyone who cares to listen.

As a smart man, he used his friends’ workplace as his business address as so many young entrepreneurs would do without envisaging the damning consequence.  While he goes around submitting business proposals to government agencies and searching for clients from every corner, he had no clue when the biggest opportunity of a lifetime will come knocking. The young entrepreneur used his friends’ office for correspondence, and occasionally meets with prospects when the friend’s boss is out of town.

A precarious arrangement it was, because when he finally got the attention of one of the top government agencies in Nigeria for a contract worth millions in Naira he never imagined due diligence will be carried out. When they came for sighting, the Managing Director of the firm was on seat. The dilemma was; how to tell the owner of the company where his friend works to leave while he acts as the Chief Executive Officer and that is how the cookies crumbled.

Simple lesson, there are alternatives to working from a café, restaurants, or any fixed location. There are more effective and efficient modern ways businesses can operate without tying down huge capital in rent. Virtual Office is the modern way of working as a business. It does not only save the business money, it also affords the startup operator time flexibility to concentrate in getting clients. Your business gets to benefit with; prestigious business address, mail handling system, lobby listing, use of boardroom for meetings and administrative support.

There are many of such businesses in Nigeria; you can check savvyinstantoffices.com for more information on how to get your business signed up virtual office.

7 Best Practices to Promote Your Business on Social Media

Almost three-quarters of small-business owners are confident in their social media strategies. Still need help with yours? Try following these 7 tips.

Promotion and engagement are really two sides of the same coin. Engagement is rooted in consistently sharing insight and providing value every time you connect with a customer. This establishes credibility while building trust and inspiring customers to tell their friends about you. Promotion extends your engagement efforts by presenting a valuable offer that’s based on your customers’ interests and needs. Social media amplifies your efforts so you can be found and engage a wider audience to grow your business.

To put it all together, here are seven best practices for successfully engaging customers and promoting your small business through social media.

1. Follow the one-in-seven rule.

This rule is where only one of every seven posts overtly promotes your business. The remaining six should be focused on sharing valuable content, including posts from the community. This doesn’t mean you can’t promote your business in those other posts; just be sure you pair it with great content.

2. Ask conversation-starter questions.

Most people enjoy sharing their opinions, so ask Facebook fans to weigh in on topics that are relevant to your business and interesting to them. For example, a fitness center may ask fans to vote on their favorite summer sports in order to be entered into a drawing to win private lessons for them and a friend who joins the club. The questions should engage fans and inspire them to refer business while giving the business owner great insight.

3. Share your expertise.

Post little-known, fun facts in the form of questions with a special offer presented to the first person to answer correctly.

4. Provide value.

While including fun posts that reflect your personality is a must, it’s important to create content that benefits your followers. That can mean posting tips on best practices, providing access to white papers, or offering special deals on products or services.

5. Enhance the rewards for virtual check-ins.

For a specific period of time, double the points each time a customer checks in on Foursquare and triple the points each time he or she brings a friend. Their friends on social networks will see when they’ve checked in while you expand your reach exponentially.

6. Create a Pinterest board.

Make sure the board has eye-catching visuals and run a contest through it that will inspire and reward customers for their participation. Be sure to encourage them to re-pin and create their own boards that reflect the initial contest for additional social amplification of your campaign.

7. Avoid syndicated messages.

While you can use tools that allow you to write one message and have it appear on a variety of social media outlets, you risk losing the sincerity behind the message. You can use similar language as you promote your offer on different sites; just be sure to change up the words while reflecting the tone of each network.

If you find that your customers are scattered across a variety of networks, focus your efforts where they’re most active. Not sure? Ask. Otherwise, you may waste a lot of time skimming the surface of multiple networks with little results.

When small-business owners apply these best practices to social media engagement and promotion, we’ll likely see that already impressive 72 percent success statistic continue to rise.

Credit: Open Forum

3 Ways to Access Fund for Small Businesses in Nigeria.

Starting a business or running an existing business is not a daunting task, especially when you have limited capital or cash-flow. Nigeria have suffered economic crunch since 2015 when the oil price plummeted; this has impeded business growth and stopped a lot of startups from springing up. It has also made it near impossible to access funds in Nigeria, but here are solutions.

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)

The Nigerian government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had created NGN220 billion fund initiative for startups. However, according to the Governor of the apex bank, only 30% of the N220 billion Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund had so far released because of the tough conditions startups must meet before accessing the fund.

To ensure that more startups access the fund, CBN has directed financial institutions across the country to accept applicants’ educational certificates as collateral.

According to the new guideline, loans granted to startup businesses by deposit money banks and development finance institutions will have as collateral “educational certificates such as Senior School Certificate (SSCE), National Diploma (ND), National Certificate of Education (NCE), National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB), Higher National Diploma (HND), University degree (NYSC Certificate where applicable) and a guarantor.”

Entrepreneurs are also required to present their Bank Verification Number (BVN) while Venture Capital Firms (VCFs) that wish to finance startups in form of equity participation shall be eligible to access the MSMEDF at 2% for investment in startup projects. The collateral for such facility to the VCF shall be bank guarantee.

Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP)

TEEP, the flagship programme of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, is a Naira 17bn (US$100m equivalent) initiative to support emerging entrepreneurs across Africa over 10 years, aiming to generate a projected $10bn in revenues for the Continent and one new million jobs for its citizens. The 2015 round drew over 20,000 applicants from 51 countries and has created partnerships with entrepreneurs, the private sector and governments across Africa and internationally.

Bank of Industry/Dangote Foundation Fund

The Dangote Foundation/BOI Fund is a N5bn matching fund, which could be accessed by Enterprises and Limited Liability Companies engaged in the Manufacturing, Agro-Processing and Merchandising sectors for made in Nigeria goods, with single obligor limit of N50.0 Million with an interest rate of 5%.

3 Basic steps to promoting your business on Social Media

You have a small business and you haven’t bought into the social media frenzy? Guess what? Inaction is no longer an option. People are online talking about your business as you read this, whether you like or not. If you don’t engage in the conversation, you risk losing your customers or worst still, your business being misrepresented.

Here are some basic guidelines for announcing your presence on Social Media. We hope it helps you with your online Social Media strategy.

1. Define your offerings: The first step you should take before engaging in online marketing or social media marketing and engagement is to look at what are you are trying to promote. What are your offerings? Who are your target customers? It may seem obvious to you but you need to make them clear to the target audience.

2. Sign-up for Social Media: That is if you don’t already have one. It is now unusual to find someone without a presence on one of the many social platforms. To name a few, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn are the most popular but there are many others. For instance, Facebook allows you to create a business page from your personal account Make sure you read the rules for businesses first. Others follow a similar pattern and they all offer free sign up.

3. Find a Social Media Manager: Managing multiple social networks is daunting. So, before you start posting content, requesting friends and adding followers, it is advisable to engage a Social Media Manager who will be responsible for deploying your strategy and ensuring that your business is projected in the right manner to the world.

Please share your Social Media experiences with us.

visit us: www.savvyinstantoffices.com