Entrepreneurship – Page 6

The Most Interesting Thing About Investing in Africa: Mobile Banking in Nigeria

The following post is from the e-book, The Most Interesting Thing About Investing in Africa, which features a series of conversations with entrepreneurs, community leaders, students, executives, and doers both home and abroad driving economic empowerment in several parts of my beloved continent of Africa.

Amara Udokporo, MHA and Kenny Udokporo, MCE, MCO
***
Amara and Kenny are investors in Net Gold Business Consulting.

Amara-Kenny

Investment: Banking of the People, By the People, and For the People in Nigeria
SITUATION
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) spends approximately 34 billion Naira (N34bn) a year to print new paper money due to currency mutilation. To address this critical issue of “cash waste” in Nigeria, CBN introduced the “cashless” initiative as part of an overall policy framework in 2011. The framework identified a number of cashless methods (including checks, ATM cards, online banking, and POS terminal); but the most promising solution, both from the standpoint of dealing with cash waste and pulling the unbanked out of the shadows, has been mobile money. Mobile money consists of a number of money transfer processes but it’s basically an electronic payment system that enables one individual or entity to transfer a specified financial value through a mobile phone to another individual or entity without using a bank account.

Unbanked

ACTION
NETGOLD MOBILE worked with the CBN to register as an aggregator and set up partnerships with CBN-licensed mobile money operators such as eTranzact International, First Bank, and Pagatech. Here’s how the work flows:

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN): Provides general oversight and issues licenses to the Operators.
Mobile Money Operators: Manage the technology platform needed for the financial transaction (eTranzact, First Bank etc.).
Aggregators: Act as the middle man between the Operators and the Agents. An aggregator is a company that is registered with a specific Operator. An aggregator recruits, trains, and manages agents within the platform. NETGOLD MOBILE is an aggregator.
Agents: Sign up users and make a commission on the active users that they sign up. Agents are individuals recruited by an aggregator, and they can also conduct transactions on behalf of their users.
Users: Use the mobile money service to send and receive payments. Registration is usually free.

The daily mission for NETGOLD MOBILE is to break down the banking barriers for the unbanked (many of whom are located in rural areas) while providing job opportunities for agents (many of whom were previously unemployed).

Unemployment Word Cloud

RESULT
NETGOLD MOBILE is making progress in breaking down the following mobile money barriers:

Too Few Agents – By partnering with investors like Amara and Kenny, who have sophisticated professional and family networks that they can tap into, a concerted effort has been put in place to continue to attract more local agents.

Lack of User Awareness – The steady increase in local agents will lead to a steady increase in user awareness. In a survey last year, it was estimated that only 57% of available users knew about the service; but that number is now on the rise.

Agent Income and Business Model – As user awareness goes up, the earning potential for each agent goes up as well. Looking ahead…the good news is that the service continues to improve on key performance metrics and tools to help all the stakeholders involved manage the workflow.

Investment: Mobile Money Banking and “Banking On” the Unbanked in Nigeria
L = 10
I = 20
C = 10
Business Idea Metric: 40

To learn more about this service and get more information on how you can participate, please contact: Amara Udokporo | Kenny Udokporo

F.I.V.E Questions with David McMenomey, Owner of Redemit 1

I’m excited to launch the “Find Insights Via Engaging™ (F.I.V.E) Questions with an Entrepreneur” series. The series will feature answers to 5 unique questions posed to an entrepreneur. Their answers will enable every reader to learn how they got started in their venture, discover how they mastered their unique set of skills, and gain from any piece of advice that has continued to deliver dividends. It will be fun, insightful, and inspiring. The goal is that you are able to take at least one actionable tip from each conversation.

My first conversation is with David McMenomey, Digital Strategist at Redemit One.

1. Briefly describe how you got started and what is the most exciting or rewarding aspect of what you do?

It was early 2012 and my very pregnant wife was at the store getting groceries for the week. I received a phone call that no one wants to get, the kind of call that stops your heart. “David, I am in the line to check out and none of our credit cards are working. Do you know what is going on?” You see at this point, I had been nursing along a startup that had zero revenue for 8 months, in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Every credit card was maxed and we had a baby on the way in a few short months. To say I was desperate would be an understatement…

The one thing I did right while starting my first company was I focused on the digital side of the business. I knew that growing a business online would be better than going door to door as I had done to start my career. So I started devouring Internet marketing training for hours on end, reprogramming the way I thought about marketing and scalability. The 2 trainers I had been listening to were Jeff Usner and Hans Johnson and you will never guess who called me just about a week after we hit rock bottom financially…Jeff Usner. I had met him a few times at some business training / personal development events but didn’t even know he remembered me. He offered me a job in Texas and I took it.

This was the start of my career in the Internet, but I started at the bottom making almost no money. To me it didn’t matter, anything was better than what I was making with what I was currently doing, and I would get to learn the skill I passionately wanted to learn, Internet Marketing.

I worked with Jeff for 3½ years and created multiple online products, marketing funnels, and web properties that made millions of dollars. I received hands on experience, and built valuable confidence and belief in my abilities to take an idea and bring it to life online.

In October of 2015 I was laid off from my work with Jeff’s company as they moved out of Texas and back east to Pennsylvania. After a few months of consulting for companies, I decided to launch my own agency, Redemit One. It was one consulting client who pushed me over the edge to go from floundering consultant, to full-fledged marketing agency. This client, Manny, was a non-profit who had a vision to help kids coping with cancer feel like rockstars for a day. Manny had some great material on coping with cancer, and wanted me to create a marketing funnel to promote it. So I sat down with him and created a lead generation funnel that could not only help more cancer patients, but also bring in new and reliable donors to fund his charity.

This is the type of work that keeps me going. I love taking an existing business and creating a way for them to have predictable, scalable revenue. There is so much misinformation out there about getting rich on the Internet, and I like going in implementing simple, proven strategies that drive revenue. That is what excites me. Creating something like this for a client, then handing them the keys to the system and letting them run with it. I don’t want to be the company that creates a system that is dependent on Redemit One. I want my clients to be able to walk away from me at any point and continue to grow their vision and company. As short-sighted as that may sound, my client’s businesses were never mine to start with, so why should I hold them ransom just because I help them grow revenue in a new area?

2. Flash back and then fast forward to the present, what has surprised you the most about mastering your unique set of skills and what advice do you have for others looking to learn a similar skill?

I think the most surprising part of looking back at my journey in this business is how simple what I do really is. With all of the complex training and courses out there, it is easy to get bogged down and never actually do anything online. The key to learning this skill set is something Jeff taught me, find what works and copy that. You always want to emulate success. There are other smarter, more patient people out there who have tested and perfected a business model Online, so find out what they are doing and do your best to copy that.

3. What is your unfair advantage?

My clients will tell you that my unfair advantage is that I have already been there. I have done it. I know how it looks to start with an idea and turn it into scalable revenue, so every project I take on, I have the end in mind for the client. I also never sell them on their own idea. Most new prospective client meetings are me telling them why their idea won’t work and how a few minor tweaks in their perspective will make all the difference. To me, if the idea doesn’t produce recurring revenue for the client, I will not take the project. It is not worth it for anyone…

<br />

4. Describe the results a potential client could expect when they do business with you and how do you plan to WOW them?

The result a client will see when they work with Redemit One is a revenue machine will be created. They will get a completed mechanism that brings them new leads and converts those leads into money. Pretty simple really. I specialize in lead generation, and that really is the heartbeat of what makes clients happy. They are flooded with new leads who convert to cash. That will motivate any business owner to refer Redemit One. I think what wows clients is that I am not afraid to walk away from taking their business. If I can see at the start that the project is not going to produce results of the client, I am happy to walk away from the money upfront and point them in a different direction, or to a different company for the work. The only thing worse than no clients, is unsuccessful ones…

5. What is the best advice (or quote or insight) you received that gave you the confidence to launch your business?

The best insight I was given to launch my company came from 2 different clients on the same day. I was waffling between the idea of going back to work for a big company and continuing to hone my skills and the idea of staying on my own. Both clients challenged me and asked, “With the skill set that you have and all that you know how to do, how could you go back to work for anyone knowing they could never pay you what you are worth?” The advice I would give any entrepreneur looking to going out on their own is this, never let your ego get in the way of your journey. You have to be able to take an honest step back and evaluate whether you need to continue developing your skill by working for someone, or if you really have all the right pieces to be your own boss.

“Never let your ego get in the way of your journey.” – David McMenomey

Connect with David on LinkedIn.

39 Sir Alex Ferguson Quotes to Ignite the Champion in You

Growing up in Nigeria, you were either a Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool fan. Manchester United was my team back then, and still is. We consumed football for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When we were not glued to the TV screen cheering on our favorite teams, we were in the streets, often barefoot, practicing the skills we had witnessed.

Sir Alex Ferguson was the mastermind behind Manchester United’s successive years of dominance. In his 39 years at the helm, he led Manchester United to 2 Champions League titles, 17 Domestic League titles, 14 Domestic Cups, and 2 Other European titles. I had the pleasure of reading his book, Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United, and below are 39 inspiring quotes in honor of his 39 glory years as manager of Manchester United.

Listening

“If you are leading people, it helps to have a sense of who they are- the circumstances in which they were raised, the actions that will draw out the best in them, and the remarks that will cause them to be spooked. The only way to figure this out is by underrated activities: listening and watching.”

Watching

“It sounds simple to say you should believe what your eyes tell you, but it is very hard to do. It is astonishing how many biases and preconceived notions we carry around, and these influence what we see, or, more precisely, what we think we see.”

Discipline

“I always felt that our triumphs were an expression of the consistent application of discipline.”

Work Rate

“When winning becomes a way of life, true winners are relentless.”
“In a perfect world I would have filled every team-sheet with 11 men who had as much determination as talent. But life is not like that, and if I had to choose between someone who had great talent but was short on grit and desire, and another player who was good but had great determination and drive, I would always prefer the latter.”

Drive

“For me drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat.”

Conviction

“I cannot imagine how anyone, without firm conviction and deep inner beliefs, can be an effective leader.”

Preparation

“…Preparation had a lot more to do with our success than a few fortunate breaks.”
“The way to win battles, wars and games is by attacking and overrunning the opposing side.”
“On our own team, the best players tended to be sticklers for preparation. That’s part of the reason why they were good or great.”

Mentorship

“There is a lot to be said for either picking, or being lucky enough to land, the right mentor. The best ones can change your life.”

Teamwork

“Each player has to understand the qualities and strengths of their team-mates.”

Excellence

“Part of the way you develop excellence in an organization is to be careful about the way you define success.”
“Winning anything requires a series of steps.”

Inspiring

“You don’t get the best out of people by hitting them with an iron rod. You do so by gaining their respect, getting them accustomed to triumphs and convincing them that they are capable of improving their performance.”
“Much of leadership is about extracting that extra 5 percent of performance that individuals did not know they possessed.”
“Unless you understand people, it is very hard to motivate them.”
“Another crucial ingredient of motivation is consistency. As a leader you can’t run from one side of the ship to the other. People need to feel that you have unshakeable confidence in a particular approach. If you can’t show this, you’ll lose the team very quickly.”
“Anyone who is in charge of a group of people has got to have a strong personality….a strong personality is an expression of inner strength and fortitude.”
“People perform best when they know they have earned the trust of their leader.”

Complacency

“Complacency is a disease, especially for individuals and organizations that have enjoyed success.”

Networking

“A network takes time to develop. Part comes through the passage of time, part from the way you treat others and part from reciprocity.”
“It’s easy to forget about the troubles of others but, if you take the time to remember, it goes a very long way.”

Time

“Don’t lie, don’t steal, and always be early.”

Distractions

“I have yet to encounter anyone who has achieved massive success without closing themselves off from the demands of others or forgoing pastimes.”
“If you have two people of equal talent it will be the way in which they marshal their ability that will determine their eventual success.”
“There’s only one way to enjoy a final and that’s to win it. Nobody ever remembers the losers.”

Failing

“At some point in my life the desire and need to win outstripped my fear of failure.”
“There’s some merit in getting defeated – even though I’d never want it to be a habit. Team members who are hungry for victory and take great pride in their performance will be eager to avenge defeat.”

Speaking

“Whether the audience is one person or 75,000, you need to assemble your thoughts, know what you want to emphasize and just say it.”

Boss

“The greatest bosses also take pride in making sure that if employees who have served them well choose to leave, they go on to greater and better things.”

Control

“I just don’t believe that you can get the most out of people if they are perpetually afraid of you.”

Delegation

“My job was to make everyone understand that the impossible was possible. That’s the difference between leadership and management”

Decision Making

“When you are in the football world, and I suspect in almost every other setting, you have to make decisions with the information at your disposal, rather than what you wish you might have.”

Salesmanship

“Any leader is a salesman – and he has to sell to the inside of his organization and to the outside. Anyone who aspires to be a great leader needs to excel at selling his ideas and aspirations to others.”

Compensation

“Bonuses get spent. Medals are forever.”

Negotiation

“If you need one person to change your destiny, then you have not built a very solid organization.”

Arriving

“If you want to build a winning organization, you have to be prepared to carry on building every day. You never stop building – if you do, you stagnate.”

Confidence

“It’s one thing to have confidence in your own abilities. It’s a completely different challenge to instill confidence in others.”

<br />

Andela Alumni “Tech-Effect” on Africa’s Youth

Andela is on a mission to revolutionize Africa through technology spearheaded by Africans. This is a big challenge due to the inadequate supply of highly skilled tech talent in Africa. History informs us that successful revolutions require critical thinking, preparation, cultivation, and execution. So for Andela’s Africa tech revolution to materialize, there needs to be supply of local talent and the infrastructure to develop these talent to execute flawlessly.

Even Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is struggling with an adult literacy rate of just over 50% according to UNICEF. Although Nigeria allocates N392B ($1.9B) of the Federal budget to Education, assuming most of the money isn’t siphoned off to enrich corrupt officials, this is still disproportionately low for a country with a population size of over 170M. Moreover, (teacher) strikes at government-owned universities and colleges have become routine that many schools are forced to close for months while the students idle away. The students end up suffering the most from these strikes. And yet, these same students are supposed to be prepared to lead us into and in the future. Do you see the conundrum here?

A typical office at the Andela campus. — Some of Andela’s offices are set up like your personalized living rooms

According to a report by the UN, Africa boasts the youngest population in the world, a figure estimated at 200M aged between 15 and 24. In the same UN report titled: ‘Africa’s youth: a “ticking time bomb” or an opportunity?’ the authors point to the staggering youth unemployment rate as one of the major concerns of Economists. I don’t think you have to be an Economist to be concerned about the potential economic impact of this issue. In Nigeria alone, youth unemployment is well over 50% according to a report by McKinsey. This figure is alarming and does warrant asking if it is in fact a “ticking time bomb”. Remember Egypt?

Lunch time at the Andela campus...jollof rice, fried plantain, fried fish, and chicken was served. — Lunch time at the Andela campus (jollof rice, fried plantain, fried fish, and chicken was served that day)

Andela sees this degree of unemployment as an opportunity which is why the founders are placing big bets on Africa’s youth with their bold approach. The company’s business model, perks, and culture have been detailed in prominent publications such as Inc., Forbes, and Wired. They make for a good read. Read all of them.

Recent Andela Fellows — These fellows are taking advantage of one of the many open-work spaces

During my last trip to Lagos earlier this month, I spent some time exploring the Andela Lagos campus with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji Co-founder of Andela, Ebun Omoni – Director at Andela, and a group of recent fellows (Andrew, Oscar, Blessing, and Adebayo) to experience this revolution unfold firsthand.

I left the campus feeling excited about the potential impact that current fellows could have once they leave Andela to start or join a new tech venture.

Andela recruits some of the brightest minds in Africa with their very selective process and puts them through an intense boot-camp that teaches a combination of computer programming and interpersonal skills before staffing these fellows on projects with clients abroad. The fellows get paid from day one of acceptance, no gimmicks. At Andela, it is much more than being just an amazing programmer, you also have to believe fully in their audacious future of Africa and take a lead role in shaping that future. Five to twenty years from now, many of these fellows will credit their time at Andela as the springboard to their successful venture. As Andela fellow’s technical expertise, business acumen, and confidence continue to accelerate, it will only be a matter of time before these fellows become tech job creators, not only for talent in Africa but talent across the world. I call this the Andela Alumni “Tech-Effect” on Africa’s youth (and the world).

Update as of June 16, 2016: Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, and Priscilla Chan, his wife, through their joint venture (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative LLC) invested $25M into Andela. This is just another validation that Andela is heading in the right direction.

Rooftop ping pong is one of the many perks at the campus

Andela is hiring. Apply at www.andela.co

Andela currently has locations in Lagos, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya; with plans to expand across Africa in the near future.

Follow and join their discussions on Twitter: @andela

3 Valuable Lessons I Learned Cold Calling Door To Door

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

In my days at Cbeyond, cold calling small businesses door to door was an integral part of the daily grind. Below are three lessons I picked up along the way that continue to deliver results in my sales career today:

Understand your numbers then commit to go above and beyond them
Just because you have a steady stream of referrals doesn’t mean you should stop cold calling
Those who ask more for it (the close), get more of it (the sale)

1. Understand your numbers then commit to go above and beyond them. At Cbeyond, we were all assigned metrics – the number of doors to hit, phone calls to make, qualified leads to get, and appointments to set – that if met, gave us the best opportunity to succeed. Since selling in its simplest form is a numbers game, what separated the top sales associates from the average sales associates was their ability to crush their metrics. For instance, if the requirement is to knock on 50 doors a day to get five qualified leads and set two appointments, those who knock on five additional doors per day at the end of the week would have 2-3 more qualified leads and one extra appointment set. When I spoke to Brent Maropis, former VP at Cbeyond and current CEO of Rev.io, he mentioned that top salespeople have a bias towards taking massive action. The good news is that it doesn’t matter if you’re in sales to benefit from this concept. Whatever your profession, define your metrics then commit to go above and beyond them. If you do this consistently, success will be inevitable. #NumbersDontLie

2. Just because you have a steady stream of referrals doesn’t mean you should stop cold calling. Referrals were an excellent source of leads. Whether you are a sales hunter or farmer, there is immense value in incorporating customer referrals into your customer acquisition strategy. At Cbeyond, our customers and IT vendors made great referral partners. However, betting your quota for the month based strictly on referral leads was risky, and many sales associates fell into this trap (myself included). When the deals pushed, it put me under unnecessary pressure which led to desperation (not a good look!). The top sales associates excelled at getting qualified leads through various forms of cold calling (in person, phone, email) and working closely with partners and referrals. Someone that excelled at this was Sean Haq, who broke several sales records at Cbeyond and has continued to deliver amazing results in his sales career. #DiversifyYourHustle

3. Those who ask more for it (the close), get more of it (the sale). Asking for the sale was one of my biggest challenges when I started my sales career, and I’ve come to realize that this is one of the most important skills needed to be successful in sales. One of my most memorable moments at Cbeyond came when my bold ask resulted in my first Cold Call Close. A Cold Call Close is when you walk into an office unannounced, conduct your presentation with the final decision maker, and get a deal signed after your presentation. Here’s my story. It was 5:37 pm one hot summer day in San Jose and I really wanted to get back in my car and blast the A/C. I decided to knock on one more door. I approached the door, secretly hoping it would be locked so I could satisfy my conscience. To my surprise (and fear), the door was unlocked, so I walked in. I noticed the receptionist had left for the day so I continued walking down the hallway. A man who appeared to be the owner was seated at his desk in the corner office. At that moment, my nervousness made me clear my throat, and he looked up; this meant I had less than 20 seconds to pique his interest. There was a football (soccer, for Americans) game on – Real Madrid vs. Sevilla FC. I introduced myself and started to articulate my value proposition. But before I could finish, I interrupted myself and mentioned I was a huge football fan and asked if he didn’t mind me finishing the game with him since there was just 15 minutes left. He agreed (the first close). During those 15 minutes, we talked about the beauty of football and of course screamed at the TV when someone didn’t make a play we expected him to make. This rapport building session allowed me to be my authentic self and loosen up, so it built my confidence. When the game was over, he discussed some of the business challenges he was experiencing and explored how we could assist. An hour later, after overcoming his objections, I asked boldly for his signature, and he signed on to become a client. It’s uncomfortable at times asking for the sale, but that’s one skill you need to get comfortable nurturing to be successful in sales and business! #AlwaysBeClosing

Happy Selling!