One thing you need to understand is that, the manner in which business was done and carried out in 2008 is very different from today. Now when I talk about the “manner” what I mean is not necessarily the day – to – day running of the organization. In congruence, what I am actually saying is that, if you are going to build any business from TODAY and I mean right now, then you need to have a SPECIFIC SKILL which I think is fundamental.

The Leadership Expert and multiple times New York Best Selling Author, John C. Maxwell has just published a new book titled LEADERSHIFT: The 11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace, he shared that “…. change is so rapid today that leaders must do much more than stay the course to be successful. If they aren’t nimble and ready to adapt, they won’t survive. The key is to learn how to leadershift.

I want you to read that quote again. This is a Leadership Expert internationally recognized saying that you must learn to adapt to change otherwise you will not become successful or build that billion-dollar business. What does this mean to you as a rising Entrepreneur? How do you understand this?

Let me share my thought with you. It simply means that everything you know about how things used to be done and should be done is subject to change, a drastic change to be specific. What it takes to run a successful business in 2008, is totally different from how you establish and manage successfully a multibillion-dollar business TODAY.

Now, you may be wondering and asking yourself this, “…Nhyira, why are you saying all these?”

I must tell you these because, many a times people (especially rising Entrepreneurs) ask the wrong questions when starting their business adventure. I suffered from this “SYNDROME” for five years. What do I mean? I mean, I literary sat down five years without starting my business because I asked the wrong questions at the initial stage.

You see, when you are starting a business, the first question you ask yourself is WHAT SKILL SET DO I HAVE THAT QUALIFIES ME TO SUCCESSFULLY BUILD THIS BUSINESS? Now, I didn’t say what qualifications, certificates or money you should have. I categorically said SKILL SET.

Let me tell you something that will shock you; the skill set you need to start your business is not thought and I repeat is not thought in any Masters in Business Administration (MBA) class in the world today. I’m I saying certificates like that is not important, yes it may but that has it place later when you start scaling up your business.

As always, starting a business in this part of the world (especially Ghana) is challenging because of the environment, systems and lack of support available for startups. The challenge even worsens, when you don’t have money (or funding) for your business. It then means that you have to navigate yourself wisely through this “jungle” and start making some money from your business first for yourself, then later for others. But the “HOW TO” go through this and make your first one hundred dollars ($100) revenue from your business requires a SKILL SET. It requires a certain mindset and way of doing things that brings you to the public quickly and cause everyone to start talking about your business.

I am not where I am today because I had a rich dad (I never had one), or I had rich friends (no I didn’t until now), or the government supported me (I bet I don’t have any “link”) or whatsoever you think makes people to start making impacts and having followers and website visits on daily basis.

If there is one thing that I can allude my progression to, I will say it is the SKILL SET I have which I continuously improve upon after meeting and started listening to Millionaire Entrepreneurs such as Dan Lok, Grant Cardone, Tai Lopez, Dean Graziosi and lately Gary Venerchurk. Yes, it’s not because I am rich, connected to people or people knew me. Rather, it’s the SKILL SET that I possess that keeps me. There is a verse in the scriptures that reads “……the gift/skill of a man will bring him to the presence of Kings….”

So, instead of thinking about having a business plan (which is something other people think they need to start a business), looking for investors to fund your business (another factor that paralyses people from starting their business) and the location of the business, ask yourself right now this question; “WHAT SKILL SET DO I HAVE TO SUCCESSFULLY BUILD MY BUSINESS EMPIRE?” When you understand that building a multibillion-dollar company is about the SKILL SET and not funding, then you can start your business RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Now that I have informed you the about the necessity of having a SKILL SET, I want to share with you the number one SKILL SET that I think you need right now irrespective of where you are geographically, financially or academically. This SKILL SET will dramatically change your life and enable you start that business you have been holding on to all these years.

So, what is this SKILL SET? And why do I think it’s the most significant thing every rising Entrepreneur must know about?

The key SKILL SET you need to start building your business empire is INTERNET MARKETING. Yes, INTERNET MARKETING. This is not thought in any MBA school across the globe. No “Business Lecturer” in any business school in the world right now understand INTERNET MARKETING. That’s why I am saying that if you are reading this with the egotistic mentality thinking that you need an MBA or whatsoever to start your business, that’s a lie and you will lose if you ever think like that. 

But, why is INTERNET MARKETING so significant? Why is it insanely the KEY skill set to make you successful in today’s world? It is significant because, all and I repeat all your potential clients or customers are ONLINE right now. They are either searching for a business like yours on Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, SoundCloud, LinkedIn, among other platforms on the internet.

This is why you need to understand how you can take your business irrespective of the industry you may be in ONLINE, digitalize your operations and start reaching potentially billions of individuals online whose problem your business could solve.

This is what I want to explain and share with you in this article. Let me ask you this question? If you are looking for a company to assist you in a challenge you are having, and you don’t know anyone who had heard of any company engaged in what you are looking for, but you decide to GOOGLE it and you see this company with videos on YouTube, blogs on their website and a lot of following on Facebook and Instagram, I can guarantee you ninety – five percent (95%) corrected that you will pay that company without even thinking about any other thing. Why that? Because, in your mind, this company has built a REPUTATION and AUTHORITY from their presence on the INTERNET.

This is the same thing that will happen to you when you take your business online. But before this, you need to educate yourself with the SKILL SET of INTERNET MARKETING. Why I’m I saying you need to have this SKILL SET? Because, when starting your business, you don’t have much money to pay people or companies to take your business online. They will charge you tens of thousands of dollars for something that you could actually learn to do when you GOOGLE it and watch videos on YouTube. That’s why you have to learn this on your own and this cannot be learned by enrolling in an MBA course.

My objective in this article is to give you an introduction to INTERNET MARKETING. I cannot teach you everything here but if you will be committed and sacrifice to pay the price, you will see your business doing well in less than twenty – four (24) months. Sometimes, people ask me how I am able to do all that I do because they think I have a rich dad or some investors or people who make things happen for me. But when I pause and tell them I do everything myself, they become outrageously surprised.

As I am writing this, I possess the skills of Web designing, Social media marketing and page management, Google AdWords, Email marketing, Persuasion, Influencing, among others. These together build my SKILL SET and position me strategically continuously, to gain Competitive Advantage for my business and make more money both for myself and my clients. Why I’m I telling you this? Because, everything I share is actually what I believe in, practice and implement in my businesses and for my clients. 

So, what is INTERNET MARKETING?

“Internet marketing is the most inexpensive way to reach your target market, regardless of the size of your business.

But what is internet marketing, really?

Also called online marketing, internet marketing is the process of promoting a business or brand and its products or services over the internet using tools that help drive traffic, leads, and sales.” – Search Engine Journal

Now, don’t be cocky after reading that definition. Because, one of the things that have enslaved many people and caused them to die poor especially in this part of the world (Africa, Ghana) is their ATTITUDE and mindset towards the INTERNET and TECHNOLOGY. Many people have actually “DEMONIZED” technology and have refuse to LEVERAGE of the world most powerful tool but available to all, forgetting that almost everything around them is actually technologically powered. However, I will cover this topic in detail in another article.

So, for now understand that INTERNET MARKETING means getting your business known to potential customers ONLINE.  The key word in the above definition which I want you to carefully take note of is PROMOTING. If there is anything, I want you to take away after reading this article, it will be that, you MUST learn how to PROMOTE yourself and by extension your business. Promoting something means making it known to people, simply put!!!! 

Now, when it comes to INTERNET MARKETING, there are three types and/stages. What I mean is that, there are three things that encompasses INTERNET MARKETING but must be done in three different stages. Which means, you begin with the first one and progressively continue to the third.

Whatever I’m going to share with you here is not something that I originated. In other words, these are things I have learned from people like Tai Lopez, Neil Patel, Alex Merh, among other INTERNET MARKETING experts across the globe.

According to Tai Lopez and agreed by Alex Mehr, INTERNET MARKETING entails three things and has three stages. These are:

1. Social Media Marketing.
2. Website (s) Optimisation & Leads.
3. Email Marketing.

YES, so these are the SKILLS you will require FIRST to start your business and the interesting part of it is that you can actually study all of them on GOOGLE and YouTube for free.

But before we delve deeper into the meaning and how you can use the above to promote your business, we need to get the fundamentals right. Before I proceed any further in this writing, you need to know that before you can really start using this for yourself is to first have a business page on the various Social Media platforms. To begin with, I will recommend you create a Facebook page for your business.

Now, I don’t want you to start being lazy again and say “I don’t know how to create a Facebook page.” If you are reading this article, chances are you already have a Facebook account, meaning you are already on Facebook. This means you can create a business page for your business and start engaging with your potential customers from there. As I mentioned earlier, I will not be able to teach you everything here. So, you can read on how to create a Facebook page on the official website of Facebook here. Please, you can do this; simply follow the instructions and create a page for your business. Facebook will not ask you to pay anything.

But if you are like me who prefers videos, then you can watch how to create a page for your business on YouTube here (It’s just 1:10 long).

So, now that you have your Facebook page set up, you need to get people to like and start following you. Now, let me WARN you here about an error I have seen many people doing especially on Facebook. When you are building your brand and followers on any social media platform, you want to connect with only people who are interested in your product and will benefit directly or indirectly from your goods or services.

Why I’m I saying this? I don’t want you to invite your mother, father, siblings and friends to like your Facebook page. Why? Because chances are, they will never buy your product or engage with your page. This is a very important lesson I learned when I started my journey. I invited family members, friends and Facebook friends to like my page but no response.

So, how then can you build your followers? I will make some recommendations to you from the lessons I have learned from Tai Lopez and Dan Fleyshman.

To grow your following, you need to use a technique which Tai Lopez calls “VRIN”. VRIN is an acronym for the strategy it takes to grow your following organically. According to him (of which I have personally been doing), when you start on Social Media, you must give people reasons why they should follow and interact with your page. In other words, you must gain their trust and validate your page to be a “place” where they can get something to solve a problem in their life. So, how do you do that?

First, your page must provide VALUE. This is the “V” in the VRIN strategy. In other words, what value will your page and posts add to the life of the people following you. Tai went ahead to mention that “Never post anything that you wouldn’t read/buy.” This means you should always, and I repeat, always post ONLY VALUABLE contents on your page. This leads me to another subject in INTERNET MARKETING called CONTENT CREATION. You cannot just post anything. Every single post of yours should add value to people and make them yearn for more of you. This desire and continuous yearning of your posts will cause you to have an interactive page (people liking, commenting and sharing your post) which will increase your organic reach and make others like your page.

So, this is what I want you to do right now; identify the benefits of your business, talents, gifts, product, service or whatever you want to promote online. Then create contents that are authentic and valuable to people. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are specialized in selling health supplements, you have to always educate people on the various thing they must do and not to do in order to stay healthy. You have to educate them on the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and how everyone can achieve that. This is VALUE upfront and you aren’t selling your products. You are educating. Then you will see people asking about your products (because you will display them on your profile and store, and also talk about them). 

VALUABLE CONTENT CREATION leads us to the second strategy called “RARE.” This is the “R” in the VRIN strategy. Your page shouldn’t be like any other. You have to be unique and authentic. This is why you cannot be posting things from other pages (even though you can do this once awhile) on your page. Your posts shouldn’t be seen or referred from anywhere.  This is what will make people like your page and interact with you. So, ask yourself right now this question; “WHAT CAN I DO DIFFERENT TO STANDOUT?”

My friend, there are a lot of things online that take the attention of people especially on Social Media. There are a lot of “NOISE” and for you to become the preferred “BRAND”, you have to earn the right and become “UBIQUITOUS” so people can keep following and sharing your contents. This means you have to really be educated. It means you should have enough information, learn from successful people to enable you get resources always that will be cause your followers to continuously read from you.

Personally, I have had emails, calls, and direct messages from people who mentioned that, after reading my posts or articles they are literally amazed how I walk my readers through the contents. As you can inferred from this article, I have been making references to people who are really successful and famous and chances are you haven’t heard them share some of the things I’m sharing with you here. The reason is that, I go the extra mile, enroll in some of their courses and mentorship programs where they reveal some of the techniques and skills that has made them who they are today.

So, your contents must be VALUABLE and RARE. So that people cannot commonly find anywhere. If you do this, I believe you can become successful. 

The RARITY of your contents leads me to the third strategy which is INIMITABLE. You need to be very conscious about this and ask yourself this question “Can someone copy my content?” In other words, can someone else do what you are doing?

So, when we say something/someone is INIMITABLE, what does this really mean? It means the thing is “so good or unusual as to be impossible to copy; unique”. Did you get that definition? It means being so good that it is impossible to copy or replicate who you are and what you do. If your content and what you write about can easily be copied by someone, then you will be losing your followers to another person very soon. It means you must be UNIQUE, one of a kind, special and stand out.

Remember what I told you earlier about NOISE? There are a lot of “CONTENTS” online that takes the attention of people and you must validate, give reasons and explain by implication in all your post that you are the ONLY person who can really do what you are doing in your industry.

Now, this is the BIG QUESTION; HOW CAN YOU BE INIMITABLE IN THIS HIGHLY COMPETITIVE WORLD?

This goes back to what I mentioned earlier. To be INIMITABLE, you must be consistently educating yourself. You must be reading, listening to podcasts, watching educative videos and stay current. It means you must be innovative and do things differently which in turn draws people to your business and subsequently become paying customers/clients.

My friend, if you can provide VALUABLE contents which RARE and really INIMITABLE, then you can leverage on the final strategy in the VRIN concept called NON – SUBSTITUTABLE. This is very important. The information or contents you are posting should be non – substitutable. This means, people would not have an alternative source of obtaining what you regularly post. To really utilize this strategy, I belief you need to ask yourself a couple of questions such as:

1. Can people read what I am posting in the newspaper?
2. Can they easily read what I am posting on google search?
3. Can they hear someone talking about the subject the way I talk about it on radio or any podcast?
4. Is it possible for people to read a similar thing on a different Social Media account?

I believe you are seeing the extent to which I am stretching you? You see, becoming successful in this world today means doing something significantly different and unique which will only be achieved by individuals who are willing to go the extra mile in whatever they are doing. You cannot run your Social Media page like anyone else and expect to become the best. You certainly cannot be the preferred Brand in your industry doing thing the same way other companies do. There must be something that distinguishes you from others and bring you to the spotlight.

Listen my friend, you must aim at being in the TOP FIVE (5) of the companies in your industry or niche. Your business must be significant and the only way you achieve that is to follow the VRIN Social Media Strategy I have discussed with you.

I believe you can become successful and build and trans-generational business empire. But if you can reach that high, then you must be prepared to go the extra mile and be ready to do whatever legitimately it takes to achieve that dream. Another thing you must understand is that, the world is watching you, people are looking at everything you are doing and when you dedicate yourself and become conscious about your online presence especially in the beginning on Social Media, posterity will judge you and you shall eat the fruit of your effort.

Now that you have your Social Media page running, we need to take it a step further. This is where INTERNET MARKETING comes in. But before we get into the nitty – gritty of that, there’s one SKILL that is necessary for you to become a successful marketer. Again, I am not talking about taking an MBA or PhD in marketing. This is a SKILL you can acquire from Sales Experts which are tried and tested practical psychological technique that every Sales Person must have.

Let me tell you this, it is not enough to have a “great” or “the best” product. In addition to having that, you need to know HOW TO SELL. You must understand human psychology and what makes people make the “buying” decision. In other words, you must learn to PURSUED & INFLUENCE people to buy your product. Again, this is not taught in any MBA school in the world because almost none of the “professors” have engaged in the ART OF SALES and actually understand how to lead a potential customer through the doors of your Social Media post and adverts into actually deciding to buy your product. 

This means you must learn to convince people to choose your business rather than your competitors.

This is another topic which I am currently working on and will be releasing an article for you to read and understand how you can actually sell anything and make money very soon.

However, let me share with you some thoughts on this from Professor Robert Cialdini, the Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and was a visiting professor of marketing, business and psychology at Stanford University, as well as at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is considered as the World Expert of Influence and Science of Persuasion, the Author of many books of which include The Psychology Influence of Persuasion (published in 1988) and Pre – suasion (published in 2016), among others.

I will recommend you to get these two books and keep them with you for the rest of your life. Because, you will need the principles in these books in various aspects of life. But as I mentioned a moment ago, I want to share some thoughts from these two books with you.

According to Professor Robert, every entrepreneur must understand PRE – SUASION. That is, getting people ready for the message even before the message. Now, I want you to be very conscious here. How do you get people ready for something they don’t know anything about? This technique is critical to the success or failure of your business. In other words, the words, environment, packaging, colours, emotion & atmosphere of your message should hold people and make them curious and yearn for more. It is like a movie trailer.

At the time of writing this article, Fast & Furious is getting ready to release its new movie called “Hobbs & Shaw” with the following as the cast; Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Vanessa Kirby, Idris Elba, Roman Reigns, among others. Now, I don’t know whether you have watched the trailer of this movie but it’s just spectacular. As I write, I cannot wait to watch the movie at the cinema when finally released. This is Pre – Suasion. The objective of the movie trailer is to get people like myself intrigue and curious about the movie so much so that when finally released, it become an award winning and best-selling production.    

Now, how can you apply this technique right now in your life and/or business? How can you make this practical and cause your clients to buy your products even before you release them? Think about that and start implementing this strategy TODAY!!!

Let me give you another illustration of Pre – Suasion. Let’s say you have been invited for an interview (this could be a job or business interview); now, we have been taught to greet and be courteous (which is always good). But what if before they start asking you any question you say something like “Please, permit me to ask you a question. Why did you invite me here? What is it that made you invite me for this interview? Is it my qualification, skills or experience?”

Robert Cialdini explained that, a question like that get the panel intrigue and they now pay more attention to your resume and definitely will get you the job most of the time. Why is this so powerful? Because, the question you asked aroused their attention to reconsider your uniqueness and allows them to properly go through your Curriculum Vitae.

So, the next time you are invited for an interview, deploy this technique and see what happens. It really works like magic.

Now let’s come to your business. You must understand that, every word and I mean every single word or picture in your post or adverts communicates something. The heading & introduction to whatever you put out is critical. If you will realise, throughout this article I have been using images and some words specifically to draw your attention and keep you reading.

So, in his book  The Psychology Influence of Persuasion (published in 1988), Professor Cialdini shared Six (6) principles of influence which you must use in building your business.

Let’s briefly discuss these principles.

1. Reciprocation:

Social obligations – Humans inherently dislike being indebted to someone, so much so that often a small gift or favour will lead to a larger reciprocal response. This means, providing value upfront to your potential client which is so irresistible that, the customer becomes indebted.  This fact is exploited worldwide, e.g. Hare Krishna who offer a ‘gift’ of a flower when soliciting for donations (which they refuse to take back). As the receiver cannot unburden themselves from the subconscious debt, the social pressure to donate leads to a higher donation rate than merely soliciting alone. An Indian supermarket sold £1000 of cheese in a few hours by inviting customers to slice their own free samples.

Do you see how valuable and practical this technique is? How can you implement this in your business right now? How can you continuously get clients by giving them opportunity which they usually won’t get anywhere?

I have been using this technique and it has increased the revenue of my companies and customer base. How do I do this? Many people read my articles like this and they end up emailing me to coach/mentor or consult on a business issue for them because they learned significant lessons which they couldn’t easily find anywhere. So, I provide value upfront by sharing with you these SKILL SET and chances are, you will become one of my mentees or clients in the near future.

Can you do this same thing for your business? Can you provide valuable experience and/or opportunity for the people you want to sell your product to?

2. Social Proof:

You have to understand that, people look around them to guide their decisions and actions. Example: If you are considering attending a Meetup, you first want to see how many people are going. You are more likely to register if you see the event is already well booked out.

This is very important. Because people want to know whether others have benefited from your product or services. This is why you must take Customer Reviews serious in your business. But you don’t have to “FAKE” this. Because that will affect you later. So, making a statement like “…. we have mentored over one hundred entrepreneurs…” with proof, can be a great technique to grow your business.

3. Commitment and Consistency:

One of the things you want to really take seriously as you start your business is being committed & consistent. People don’t like to go back on their word. They will often keep their word, even if they feel they would prefer to reconsider. When you are committed and you deliver as promised, you will definitely get more recommendations.

4. Liking:

As a rule, we prefer to say yes to the request of those we like over those we don’t. There are several key properties that determine our view of people: Attractiveness, similarity, compliments, contact & co-operation, conditioning and association. Studies found we automatically attribute traits such as talent, kindness, honesty and intelligence to attractive people.

You will have greater influence with customers who like you or are attracted to you.

Examples:

• Building your own personal brand will give you greater influence in your sales environment.
• Always be fair and do the right thing by your customers. Over the long term your proven reputation as a trusted supplier will provide greater success.

5. Authority:

The greater the perceived authority of a person, the more likely people are to comply (cf the Stanley Milgram experiments). People want to follow the lead of experts. In other words, you must have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of your product & the industry. It is better to be really great at one thing than to have knowledge of many things of which you are a MASTER of none.

Example: Become a subject matter expert – no matter how narrow the field. Don’t be vague. You must identify where exactly you want to fit in and what specific thing you want to be known for.

6. Scarcity:

You must learn to create urgent necessity for your product, the less there is of something, the more people value it! Consider the following:

• Time based deadline: Publishing/press deadline, second offer, End of Quarter, selling to budget cycles
• Limited release of products
• Start-ups can offer a limited non-monetary value to their first 10 or 20 customers. This gives an incentive for customers to make a decision sooner.

SOURCE: these six principles were gathered from BIGJUMP & PAUL ARNOLD CONSULTING

Now that you some fundamental understanding of SELLING, getting paying clients or customers for your product, let’s spend time on INTERNET MARKETING.

Do you remember our definition of INTERNET MARKETING? I guess you do. But let me repeat it here:

“Internet marketing is the most inexpensive way to reach your target market, regardless of the size of your business.

But what is internet marketing, really?

Also called online marketing, internet marketing is the process of promoting a business or brand and its products or services over the internet using tools that help drive traffic, leads, and sales.” – Search Engine Journal.

I also mentioned that, according to Tai Lopez and agreed by Alex Mehr, INTERNET MARKETING entails three things and has three stages. These are:

1. Social Media Marketing.
2. Website (s) Optimisation & Leads.
3. Email Marketing.

So, let’s talk about these briefly.

1. Social Media Marketing:

Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. 

I will be hosting an online Masterclass with a selected number of rising Entrepreneurs to actually teach them and give them a BLUEPRINT to Social Media Marketing. However, I will recommend you to read on this on WORDSTREAM, this website did a great job at explaining the subject which I know will definitely help you.

Remember, you already have your Social Media page running and we have also learnt about content creation. So, now read on how you can use that to attract paying customers for your business from WORDSTREAM, and in case you happen to join my Online Masterclass, then I will personally teach you how I have been doing this from my Certification Program with Tai Lopez.

2. Website (s) Optimisation & Leads

The second element which happens to also be the second stage of INTERNET MARKETING is about having a website for your business and a sale funnel to generate more revenue.

Now, irrespective of the nature of your business, having an official website and leading your followers and potential customers to, will not only increase your online presence but will dramatically increase your revenue. Why is this so significant? It is significant because, you can develop variety of products around your main product which will enable you generate recurring revenue from existing customers as well as reach other class of customers (this is something I will be teaching you during my Online Masterclass). 

Again, you don’t need to spend much money on getting a website for your business. With WORDPRESS, you can actually create your own website in less than two (2) hours with a budget less than one hundred dollars ($100).

But you must learn how to do this, if you cannot pay someone to get it done for you. You see, I paid a company to design a website for me, which they did but I couldn’t make anything from it. Instead, the website I designed myself after going through the lessons enabled me to generate much revenue for my businesses.

I am not by this saying you shouldn’t pay someone to do it for you. In any case, that will save you time to focus on some other aspects of your business. But what if you cannot pay someone to do this for you because you don’t have much money starting your business? Yes, that’s why you must learn this skill yourself. Even if you employ someone to do this for you, you still have to know how this actually works.

If you are going to learn to design your website, then I can recommend just one person to you. He is Adams Pieser, you will be taken to his YouTube channel to get the video that will walk you through step – by – step how to get your website running.

But as I mentioned, I will be teaching you how you can get clients through your Social Media to your website during the Masterclass.

3. Email Marketing

Once you have your Social Media and website running, the third and final stage of INTERNET MARKETING is Email Marketing.

According to Wikipedia, “Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Marketing emails can be sent to a purchased lead list or a current customer database. The term usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant’s relationship with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing third-party ads.” 

How can you use this in your business?

According to Tai Lopez and Alex Mehr, there are four stages of Email Marketing. These are:

1. Collecting the email (using opt – in – pages on your website)
2. Sending emails and it been received (deliverability)
3. Getting the recipient to open the email (this require you writing an attention-grabbing subject line and introduction.
4. Getting them to click the links (this is what you want them to actually do).

These stages are critical to the success of your business and when not done right, you will not easily grow your business.

I will be teaching you how to properly do this and get your clients to read your emails and actually take action during the Masterclass. 

So, I hope you have really learned a lot of things you can immediately implement to start your business and start making some money. One of the things that destroy a lot of people’s life is procrastination. Yes, it is an act of delaying an action that MUST be taken NOW.

Please, I don’t want you to procrastinate. I want you to start implementing these and prove to yourself that you deserve to be successful.

I deeply belief in your idea and desire. I know every idea can be turned into a multibillion-dollar business empire when properly executed with skills and knowhow like what I have shared with you in this article.

When Bill Gates started at twelve (12) years old learning programming, nobody thought he will have something called Microsoft that will virtually be on every computer in the world today. I am certain you can build something that will change the world and above all solve a problem and make people’s life better and blissful.

I am on this journey with you because, I am also now beginning. I know together, we can make ourselves, families, society, country and above all God, our Creator proud as the individuals who pursued their PURPOSE and made IMPACT in the life of people.

You can send your questions directly to me using the form below, I will really love to assist you on this journey.

In case you haven’t read the other article on Strategies for startups, then read that HERE

Till you read again from me, it’s your friend Nhyira Premium

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However, if you say you look at all the challenges surrounding your business ideas, goals and your mission in life, then you will lose your mind and not to be able to really pursue your dream and achieve your dream and you can work your head off all the rest of your life and still you will not be able to achieve anything because of these reasons; there is nobody ready to help or finance  your idea because nobody believes in your idea.

This is something I faced in the beginning of my career and business adventure.  I had a business idea, spoke with people about how great the idea was, but nobody was ready to put in money. They were scared of investing the money or financing my idea because they don’t want to lose their money. So, the first thing you must know is this; nobody is going to trust your idea couple with the fact that for almost everything you want to do, there is a big company or somebody somewhere already doing what you want to do.

So, they will ask you how different is yours going to be from the people already in existence and what shows that you can outshine the market and make it better? But many a times, we as Entrepreneurs starting out don’t have all the answers. All we know is that, this business will become successful.

So, it is something that you are going to be facing; that people are not going to trust you, your family is not going to trust you, then the society will not trust you to invest in your idea. Don’t take it personal. It is not that they are wicked, but that is how the world is. Sometimes people will literally tell you right in your face “…you are crazy, this idea will not work. Why not look for some job somewhere and forget about this?” Maybe you haven’t been told that yet, but that was exactly what someone told me. To stop pursuing my dreams and look for a job.

The second thing that you go to be facing is the banking system because when you’re going to for a loan or equity finance, the bank is going to ask you a lot of “requirements”; business plan business registration and all other stuff but the question is you are just starting out you don’t know how to even draft the business plan and for your information to become successful in business on starting you don’t need a business plan.

Yes, I guess that is a shock to you. Because every person you have spoken to tells you to first prepare a business plan. Let me ask you this; Do you think Mark Zuckerberg had a business plan when he started Facebook? Do you think he had a plan for his company to be like this and had the blueprint right from day one? My friend, the answer is NO!!! Yes! No. He had no ABSOLUTE idea of what exactly his company will turn into in five or ten years.

You see, what I tell all rising Entrepreneurs is this, “…You don’t have to see the entire staircase, sometimes you just need to see the first step and then as you step on and climb further, everything begins to unfold one after the other. You cannot wait for everything to be perfect before you start your business. And for your information, there’s nothing like the right time in business.”

My Millionaire Mentor Grant Cardone said something and I quote “it is not about having a business plan it is about three things; (1) knowing what you want to do: decide that this is what you want to do, (2)ask yourself who has your money: in other words which people are your ideal client and (3) go after them and take that money; give them the service or sell them your product and take the money”

So, if you realized, there are three things that we are talking about; (1) what actually do you want to do; you have to be certain you have to decide now that yes, I want to be that or I want to do this. I want to render delivery services, I want to have a consulting business, I want to provide educational services.

So, if this is what you want to do, you then have to ask yourself (2) “…who are your ideal clients…?” In other words, which people can pay you for the service that you want to render or the product you want to sell.

The third thing is that, you walk to those people day and night, spent time with them convince them and sell them the product. So, you see, it’s not necessarily about having a business plan as a starter; because I personally was crippled down and I started my started my business late.  I wanted to have a “perfect business plan” that I can show to people who can invest in the business.

Over the years, I’ve met people with brilliant ideas but they don’t have money and they are waiting for somebody to give them money to start their business. But you see, starting a business is not about waiting for somebody to give you money. Instead, there are strategies that you can use in order to start selling your products or start selling your services.

Yes, there are strategies I can share with you right now, today that if you implement them today, I can guarantee you that in the next two weeks you can start making money from your business, because these are the strategies that have helped me over the years and enabled me to be able to reach people and leverage on others to become successful.

But before I go into these strategies, let me frank with you here. You need to drop the entitlement mentality; yeah “I’m the Managing Director” drop that entitlement mentality, because it is going to be very difficult to implement the strategies that I’m about to share with you. Why is this important? Because, you cannot be “bossy” and broke. You have to realise that you want to change your life, start making some money, take care of yourself and family then also lend a helping hand to someone else.

My first Millionaire Mentor Dan Lok once mentioned that you have to start your business adventure with this mindset “I am struggling and I want to save myself; business is not charity; you are there to first save yourself, you are there to make some money and make your life better then after that you can start helping people because you have to save yourself and the first thing the best thing you can do for the world is not to become poor”.

“I am the CEO, I am the managing director, I am the board chairman.” It is your business, nobody even knows you, what have you even achieved or done how much money do you have in your account for your business that you put on these “titles”.

I see people who claim they are running a business and they have it on their profile and their social media but you realise that they are not doing anything.

Your business doesn’t even have a website or Facebook business page or have any customers but here you are calling yourself “CEO” of the business entity. Listen, roll your sleeves and get your hands busy with something.

What I’m about to teach you will skyrocket your idea. There are a lot of strategies that I can share with you but I believe these two are the key strategies that will help you to begin to start making some money as early as possible.

What I have tried so far is to prepare your mind and make it much fertile to understand the strategies I am about to share with you. Are you READY? LET’S GO FOR IT TOGETHER

1. LEVERAGE

What is Leverage? To leverage simply means to utilize some else’s sources in the pursuit of your goal. Leveraging on others resources has to do with sitting down and thinking about yourself and finding out which people currently have businesses or skills you can use to start your business. Let me give you an illustration of this; for instance, you can leverage on premises. Research and identify an already existing business doing something that your business is symbiotic to. But I say symbiotic; it means that your business should feed that already business and vice versa.

So, let me illustrate this for you.

Let’s say you want to start an Online Marketing Agency firm; you have to find out what kind of businesses are symbiotic to that? Marketing, consultancy, deliveries, among others. So, you have to find out within your region or locality someone doing something which can be interdependent on Online Marketing and then write a Business Proposal to them about what you intend to do and include a profit-sharing clause negotiable in your proposal. Remember, your business is not replacing theirs. In your proposal, you need to ensure that they wouldn’t be incurring an additional fixed cost but only variable costs especially, electricity bills when you are allowed to add your business to theirs.

Now, why is this important? It is much important because if they have to incur an additional fixed cost when your proposal is accepted, they are likely to ignore or not accept your idea. So, when you are able to convince them about the fact that, they aren’t going to incur and extra high fixed cost, then you are going to be LEVERAGING on their PREMISES and all of a sudden, you now have business office and you didn’t pay any rental charges for five or ten years. That’s what I mean when I tell you to leverage.

Another area of Leveraging is EXPERTISE. You see, when you start your business adventure, there’s no way you can do everything. You need the services on individuals in various field such as marketing, sales, product development, technology, social media, among others. But the reality of the issue is that, you cannot have the money to pay all these people. Which means your idea will not be implemented?

However, you can leverage on their skills by bringing them on board as partners. Like you did with the premises, you could propose to theses individuals whose skills are necessary to the implementation of your idea to partner with you so you share profit. But it is not everyone who will be willing to work on your idea and share profit because they also want to have some inflows on regular basis to take care of themselves and their family.

Meanwhile, there is another way you can solve the lack of required skills for your startup by learning the skills yourself as fast as possible so you can quickly implement them into your business. There are a lot of useful material on the website and particularly on YouTube that can teach you whatever skills you want to learn. This is what I have used over the years to build all my businesses.

To get you started, let me recommend the following individuals and their channels to you on YouTube so that you can start learning practical skills for your business:

1. Dan Lok

DAN’S BIOGRAPHY

“Dan Lok a.k.a. The King Of High-Ticket Sales is a Chinese-Canadian business magnate, world-renowned marketer, and entrepreneur extraordinaire.

In the 2000s, Mr. Lok led the expansion of the internet-marketing industry and continues to be seen as the world’s foremost expert in marketing and business today.

During his time developing the internet-marketing industry, Mr. Lok accrued substantial profits from his internet & technology businesses. By age 27, Mr. Lok became a self-made millionaire. Shortly after, an 8-figure entrepreneur.” – Source (Dan Lok’s website)

Dan Lok’s YouTube channel has enormous videos from various spectrum of business including Sales, Marketing, Leadership, High Income Skills, among others.

Visit Dan’s YouTube Channel Today!!!!

2. Grant Cardone

Grant Cardone’s Story

“I grew up middle class. My dad was the first educated in his family and it was his dream to create a middle-class lifestyle for his five kids and wife. The middle class was a dream my dad made a reality. My dad started as a paymaster (accountant) for the US Army, sold automobiles for a short stint, owned a neighborhood grocery store, life insurance sales and was a stock broker. My dad started having heart problems at the age of 42 the same year my twin brother and I were born. At the age of 50, my dad bought his dream house and less than two years later he was dead.

My mother was left with a house she couldn’t take care of, no way to create new income and a little bit of life insurance money. Every day she was reminded we were at financial risk. Money going out and no money coming in. I could see and hear the fear my mother was experiencing and at the age of 10 I couldn’t do much about it. My mom would always tell us how well my dad had done to take care of us and how grateful we should be to have a middle-class life. At the age of 16 I had enough and told my mom, “this middle-class thing is a joke–when I grow up I am going to be rich and if I get there I am going to help a lot of people.” My mom thought I was an unappreciative, disrespectful teenager– which was probably true–but looking back now, one of the primary missions and purposes of my life was being formed.

By the time I was 31, I had saved my first million dollars. Over the last 25 years I have built four companies that have allowed me to create an unbelievable lifestyle for myself, my family and employees. Today, the four companies which range from service business to technology to real estate will do almost $100 million in combined sales and employ almost 200 people in eight states.”- Source (Grant Cardone’s website).

Grant Cardone’s YouTube channel has enormous videos from various spectrum of business including Sales, Marketing, Leadership, real estate, among others.

Visit Grant’s YouTube Channel Today

3. Adam Pieser

Adam is an Information Technology Expert who has over seven thousand students on his website studying on various subjects. His YouTube channel has a lot of videos on website creation, and how to use various tools for your website.

Visit Adam’s YouTube Channel Today

Alright! So, these are my top three personalities who I have learnt from in various capacities to build my businesses. Most of all, they are also individuals whose courses or books have impacted my career because I have invested so much in them by buying their products and being part of their programs. If you can dedicate some time and study from these people, then your business is on the path on becoming successful and you will experience abundance.

Finally, the area you extremely leverage on is TECHNOLOGY.

“What Is Technology? Technology is a body of knowledge devoted to creating tools, processing actions and the extracting of materials. The term ‘Technology” is wide, and everyone has their way of understanding its meaning. We use technology to accomplish various tasks in our daily lives, in brief; we can describe technology as products and processes used to simplify our daily lives. We use technology to extend our abilities, making people the most crucial part of any technological system.” – source

It is very important to understand that technology plays a key role in the business world today. Almost everyone is using technology. When I say technology, what I actually mean is how you can use the Internet and Social media to promote your business and reach numerous customers across the globe without much effort. Do you know that most people buy more online today than some years ago? Do you know that people are convince about the authenticity of a business when they can find the business on the internet or on Social Media?

If you are going to establish your business, one of the things you must do even before you think about registering the business is to have a Facebook Business Page. Yes, before you walk to the Registrar General’s office to register your business, you have to be known by some people on Facebook.  But maybe you are asking, Nhyira why Facebook?

Facebook because, it is the biggest social media platform in the world today. According to statista.com, “As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.27billion monthly active users. In the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users had surpassed one billion, making it the first social network ever to do so. Active users are those which have logged in to Facebook during the last 30 days.”

So, you see, when your business is on Facebook, you are going to have the opportunity to show your business (products or services) potentially to over two (2) billion active users. This simply means you can literally sell to more people than you think. This is why you cannot start a business today without having an active official Facebook Business Page.

Do you want to learn how to set up your Facebook page? Then visit this address NOW!!!!

Apart from having a Facebook Business Page, as your business expand and grow, you need to have a website where you can direct traffic from Facebook to the website and start selling your products to the individuals following your page or interested in your product. You need to take your business online irrespective of what you are selling because all your potential clients are almost always online.

Let me tell you this, you don’t need to have any complex website. Your website must have only two key features. It has to be simple and most importantly converting. This means, anyone who visits your website should easily navigate and pay you for your product. If you need some assistants on this, then send an email to my team here.

So, you see, starting your business can be much easier if you can LEVERAGE on other people’s premises, expertise (or learn the skills) and technology.

2.    SALES

When you implement the first strategy, now you are on your way to getting your product out. But one of the most important is to find out “WHO HAS YOUR MONEY?”. Asking this question means finding out which people need or may be interested in your product. The fact that you will have access to over 2 billion people on Facebook does not mean all of them need your product. Maybe only some hand full of them actually need your product. This in business is called market segmentation and targeting.

You have to map out and sit-down which people have a problem that your product will solve for them. Selling your products to customer as early as possible is the only way to upscale your business.  Remember, you don’t have money and so you have to start making money from your business as early as humanly possible. Sometimes it will mean you have to call people, travel around talking to people, sending proposal to companies among others. You see, one of the most important things in business is to get your first client. Once you are able to get your first client, you are now going to be much motivated to push forward and get more customers.

Another thing you need to understand is that, your customers are the only investors you can rely on when starting your business. Why? Because they are the people who have a problem which you are trying to solve. So, as they buy your product, they are actually investing in your business.

Remember, don’t be vague at this stage. Don’t be wide or have a range of perspectives. You have to be specific who your ideal clients are and design a strategy to get your product to them and most importantly cause them to buy your product.

If you think you will need some help, mentorship and guidelines in this area, then write to me directly TODAY!!

But before you do that, make a list of the people who are your ideal clients and find out how you can close them. Closing them is the most important aspect of your sales strategy. The fact that people visit or click on your adverts and call you up doesn’t necessarily mean you can turn them into clients. This is where one of the most important skills in business taught in the world best only by my mentor Dan Lok comes to the scene. This skill is called “COPY WRITING”. When you visit his YouTube channel, you can watch some videos on this and use it to start making some money.

I believe this masterpiece has taught you something spectacular that you can now implement to start seeing your dream business in motion. I can guarantee you that when you implement these strategies, you will experience the following:

1. It will be hard to do at the beginning
2. It will become easy to implement as you go ahead
3. You will stop leaving in fear and start making some money from that idea
4. You may be discouraged in the beginning
5. You will become unstoppable as you begin to make money from your idea
6. Above all, you will achieve substantial success for yourself, family and most importantly, your society and the world at large.

You Friend, NHYIRA PREMIUM

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