A Professor Explained Marketing To MBA Students

You see gorgeous girl in party, you go to her and say I am rich, marry me. "That's Direct Marketing"

You attend a party and your friend goes to a girl and points at you telling her. He is very rich, marry him. - "That's Advertising"

Girl walks to you and say you are rich, can you marry me? "That's Brand Recognition"

You say I'm very rich marry me and she slaps you. "That's Customer Feedback"

You say I'm very rich marry me and she introduces you to her husband. "That's Demand and Supply Gap"

Before you say I am rich, marry me, your wife arrives. "That's Restriction from Entering New Market"

See You At The Top!
Team Town.NG

Get Connected

Twitter: https://twitter.com/townnigeria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownNigeria
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105718093320913005908
Blog: http://townng.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.town.ng

Online Town Management - the next BIG thing!

I am who I am, a product of not only of my education, family or social life but importantly of my community. I can’t be Mark Zuckerberg the owner of Facebook or the mighty Bill Gates of Microsoft; neither will I claim to be Alhaji Aliko Dangote the richest man in Africa or the popular Dr. Mike Adenuga of Glo.

I am just me, a product of my community experience and internet crusader with passion for simple technology solution to real life challenges. On various occasions in the past, I have walked into different financial institutions to seek for support in respect of a project you are witnessing today.

Nigeria has been a consuming nation yet we have witnessed tremendous policies over the years to make us a producing nation for the better. The purpose of this write up is to alert you beforehand about this project before the video and its purpose go viral on the internet.

Successful nations are built with simple technologies based on thriving communities through thriving families. We may not be interested in the colossal figures of cost of running a democratic government in Nigeria at every level as a nation but individually will and must be interested in how much we spent on our families.

Families makes homes, homes makes communities, communities transforms to states and to nation of nations. No matter how good you are with figures, you are categorically not to be able to tell me the number of the following:

Number of barbing salon in your town
Number of churches, mosques and other religious organization in your town or state.
Number of LGAs and CDAs in your town
Financial allocation to your LGA in the state budget
Number of canteens, restaurants, eateries, night clubs, hospitals, clinics and viewing centers in your town, and so on

The question is How Can I convert These Figures to Monetary Use Either Offline or Online that will benefit me and my community?

Bringing the result to use is an under-statement but the BIG REAL QUESTION is: How Can These Facts Bring Economic Growth, Infrastructural Development to My Town/Community that will put money into my pocket and that of others?

We intend to bring only Nigerian organizations, indigenous firms and individual entrepreneur into the project but we realize that foreign firms have one thing or the other inside indigenous firms.

The answer we are providing here is not the total solution to various challenges facing Nigeria as a country but will be able to address the following at a capacity:

Loss of Job, Unemployable Graduates and Mass Unemployment
Information Misrepresentation
Mass Urban Migration
Educational Certificate and Credential Syndrome
Deplorable Infrastructure begging for Maintenance
Degrading and disregarding the Physically Challenged in our society
Insecurity and Late Responses to Emergency
Over bloated Budgets and Allocations
Irrelevant Financial Policies Killing SMES
Myth of Insurance Policies
Financial Scams and Fake Product Distribution Network
Discouragement of Local Production
Smuggling Points and Entries
Non Implementation and compliance of Contracts, Budgets and Laws and many more

At town.ng we convert these information and data into money, converting wealth to waste, creating opportunity out of what you don't consider to be valuable, it is not MAGIC it is the method of using simple things for important things.

See You At The Top!
Team Town.NG


Get Connected
Twitter: https://twitter.com/townnigeria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownNigeria
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105718093320913005908
Blog: http://townng.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.town.ng

Exporting from Nigeria: 10 Tips to Avoid Being Scammed

If you are already in the Nigerian exportation industry or conversant with the happenings therein, then it’s no news that people get scammed and ripped off of their hard earned money sometimes. You advertise your export products on the internet, a supposed manufacturer or agent contacts you showing interest in your goods, you enter into a contract with them and fulfill your own end of the bargain but when it’s time for them to fulfill theirs, they disappear into thin air.

It’s a very terrible situation to find one’s self in. Some of the scammers are even so organized that they provide you with a letter of credit only for you to find out at the end of the day that it was all a fluke. As a new or regular exporter, it is important to find out ways of protecting yourself and your business from fraudulent overseas buyers. This article would teach you 10 tips to avoid being scammed when exporting from Nigeria and even other countries.

1. Do a Background Check-: Don’t get too excited when you get a sales offer. You must first take time to do a background check on the company and find out whether it’s a legit company or not. You can ask for help from the embassy where the buyers company is based in. For instance, if it’s a Chinese company, the Chinese embassy in Nigeria should be able to confirm whether or not the company is legitimate. If it’s an individual buyer and not a company, the embassy can also help you investigate the person through the country’s citizen’s database. You can also conduct a background check through internet search engines.

2. Check the Company’s Website-: Almost every company has a website these days especially if it’s a large company hence, you can ask for the company’s website to confirm some of the details about the company that you have already been given. Some small companies may not have a website but they would at least have a registered office, phone number and a business license. You should ask for this information from them and investigate to know whether it’s a company that is licensed to do business in the said country.

3. Watch Out for the E-mail Address-: When you see e-mails from personal addresses, you should be very careful with dealing with such people. A serious company would have a business website e-mail address that would be used in contacting suppliers; when you get supposed company e-mails from personal e-mail addresses like @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com; your scam alert should be very high at this point. To find out if an e-mail address is from a company webmail or a personal address, copy the letters after the ‘@’ sign and use your search engine to find out.

4. Use an agent-: There are a lot of companies that provide agency services to exporters. They would help you arrange a meeting with the buyer and investigate the business to determine if it is a legitimate business or otherwise. Although this might raise the cost of your business a little bit, you would wish you had taken that step if you fall into a scam trap. You may also use family members or friends that stay in the country the buyer is from or if you can afford it, arrange a trip to the said country to see things for yourself. This is something you should really consider especially if it’s a large order.

5. Investigate Scam Reports-: If it’s a potential scam, it’s possible that you are not the first person the buyer has tried to rip off. It’s most likely that they would have done it to a couple of people before contacting you. This is why it would help to investigate scam reports against a company or person you are planning to do business with. Again, the internet would be of help; copy the company or buyers name and the word ‘scam’ and then paste it in your search engine; it would pull up any previous scam reports filed against the company in the past. For instance, if the name of the company is ‘cupcake limited’; you would post the words ‘cupcake limited scam’ in your search engine to see if it would bring up any scam reports about the company. You can also do the same for an e-mail address or a business website.

6. Use E-mail Backtracker-: You can find out the buyer’s real identity as well as his IP address using e-mail backtracker. You see, when it comes to protecting your business from scam, no step is too much to take because scammers also spare no costs or energy to pull a perfect job. Therefore, you must always bring in your ‘A’ game whenever you are considering doing business with an overseas buyer; take as many steps as is necessary to ensure that your investments are safe. A popular website that offers this kind of backtracking service is abika.com.

7. Ask for all the information you need-: You should try to ask as many questions as you feel would be necessary to help you form an opinion. Don’t be scared to ask the buyer questions. If he has nothing to hide and represents a legitimate company, he wouldn’t have any problem giving you all the information you need.

8. Use Government Trade Sites-: Trading on government established trade sites is also a good way to protect yourself because illegitimate companies and buyers know better than to bring their tricks on a government website.

9. Don’t ignore your guts-: If you have a feeling that something doesn’t seem right, don’t ignore those red flags. Sometimes, we are so eager to make money that we ignore warning signs and end up blaming ourselves for doing so. If you don’t want to be in that position, you must never ignore your guts.

10. Never let down your guard-: Some scammers are so organized and tricky that they would deal with you for some time and then close to end of the deal, they would try to pull some stunts; never back down or accept terms and conditions that you are unsure of because at the end of the day, it’s not worth it.

You should also ensure that you use escrow payment system so that you can always be guaranteed of getting your money or your goods back. You should also ensure that it is a good and reputable escrow payment services provider.

See You At The Top!
Team Town.NG

Get Connected
Twitter: https://twitter.com/townnigeria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownNigeria
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105718093320913005908
Blog: http://townng.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.town.ng

Be Physically & Mentally Prepared

With physical preparedness comes mental strength. Exercise elevates the mood by increasing energy and simultaneously secreting adrenalin like substances in the body that act as stimulants and antidepressants, according to the medical community. This increased feeling of well-being transmits itself to the body and mind.

Knowing that you are in shape to deal with today and tomorrow is an important component of being successful. Being in shape is a mental and physical process. Remember, the mind is like a muscle in one respect: It deteriorates if unused. Confidence and enthusiasm persuade us to engage our mind and bodies. That kind of mood is bound up, in turn, in how we feel about ourselves physically. "Get into an exercise program". Join a gym or do it on your own at home. If you cannot seem to wedge a 30 to 60 minutes exercise period three or five times a week into your busy schedule - no problem.

Medical studies have found that catching 10 minutes of aerobic exercise here and there can improve cardiovascular fitness.

Newspapers, television, radio, and magazines continually have information on the positive aspects of exercise. They also discuss diet. What we choose to eat, drink, and smoke directly influences our physical and mental processes. Learn about the dietary and physical aspects of your body. 

You need everything at your disposal to succeed in today's competitive marketplace. The status of one's body and soul directly influences your performance.

See You At The Top!
Team Town.NG

Get Connected

Twitter: https://twitter.com/townnigeria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownNigeria
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105718093320913005908
Blog: http://townng.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.town.ng

10 Things You Are Doing Wromg With Social Media

You’re on social media—maybe Facebook, Twitter or your organization’s blog—and you’re having some success, but you know there’s room for improvement. Before you start strategizing big plans for what you might do with the tools, take a little time to consider what you’re already doing with it, and whether you’re making common mistakes that are needlessly hindering your progress. Here are 10 such mistakes you can turn around with a little effort for quick, improved results.

1. Not telling people you’re on social media.
If you build it, they will come—possibly true of a baseball field in an Iowa corn field, but definitely not true of a social media presence. Take every opportunity to let people know. Include your Twitter handle and links to your Facebook page on your website and in the signature on your email, link to them in your newsletters and other communications, and publicize them at events. Use Twitter and Facebook as opportunities to comment on other peoples’ posts, as well, which is a good way to establish a presence in the community.

2. Not integrating social media with your communications mix.
Your organization’s communications efforts may include broadcast emails, direct mail, maybe newsletters or some other outreach—these should not occur in a vacuum independently of your social media efforts. Consider them all part of the same overall strategy and make sure they tie together well.

3. Not integrating social media with your website to get people to take action.
You’ve got a website with contact info and other useful resources for constituents, maybe photos, staff bios, program descriptions, or donate buttons for fundraising. Why not link to it from your social media posts? Once you’ve engaged people, send them to your website to mobilize them to give, volunteer, or otherwise represent you and your cause.

4. You’re not thinking about the channel you’re using.
Each social media channel is a little different, with different rules, etiquette and protocol. It’s important to recognize and abide by these rules. Twitter posts should be succinct, but you can post a half-dozen times a day or more. It’s a two-way conversation, and that means interacting with others, sharing links and resources, and giving credit where credit is due. Facebook, on the other hand, gives you a chance to stretch your legs with longer posts, better photo galleries and other ways to engage followers, but followers expect far fewer status updates—no more than two a day—and may find too many overwhelming. Don’t confuse the two channels, and don’t spam people by sending the same message on every tool without changing it to fit the medium.

5. Posting inconsistently.
Posting too much or too little is not the only mistake you can make. You can also post unpredictably or inconsistently. Instead of waking up and posting six items first thing in the morning and nothing else the rest of the day, spread them out. It’s better to post twice a week over three weeks than six times the first week and then disappearing. People need to be reminded that you’re there.

6. It’s all about you—and you’re not very interesting.
Sure, you’re an organization, but organizations are groups of people, right? And let’s face it, people find other people more interesting than organizations. For starters, don’t be afraid to show a little personality. Don’t send out blanket news feeds or public relations material. Put up photos and multimedia that can add depth and texture to your presence. Don’t just promote your organization without providing other value. And don’t ask too much, or too often. If you want to reach humans with your posts, you need to post as a human.

7. Making it “antisocial” media.
Remember that it’s a two-way conversation. Holding up your end of that conversation is critical if you want to attract, engage and maintain a following. Take advantage of what each channel has to offer. Link to other people’s resources, and make sure you give credit to the people or organizations that provided them. Comment on other people’s posts, and reply when they comment on yours. Answer any questions people ask. Fail to do any of this and you’re overlooking 50 percent of what the tool has to offer.

8. Posts are disconnected from your mission.
Social media is about outreach, but it’s an extension of your organization—at least, it should be. What you’re posting should be connected with your “brand,” or mission. Stay on topic. Your mission is what attracted people to your organization on social media in the first place, and it’s what they’re interested in.

9. Not respecting people’s privacy.
This should be common sense, but the truth is, the Internet makes it easy to cross lines when it comes to people’s privacy. Don’t post photos of people or tag people in photos without their permission. This is especially true of children—get permission from their parents. Remember, too, that privacy doesn’t apply just to photos. Before you post anything that mentions other people, think about what you’re saying from their perspective.

10. Continuing to do things that aren’t working.
You should have some way to know whether what you’re doing is working or not—in other words, you should be measuring your social media efforts. You need to have specific goals for your social media and a way of measuring to know whether you’re meeting them or not. If you don’t adapt your efforts based on what you’re learning, you’re doomed to repeat your mistakes.

Rules are meant to be broken. Social media has rules, both formal and informal, and following them can help you make the most of these sites and all they have to offer your organization. Remember, though, that it’s OK to break rules from time to time—as long as you have a compelling reason to do so. Use common sense. Think about the practices that annoy you when other people or organizations do them, and think about those that you like. Find a way to make the ones that resonate work for you. You’re bound to make a few missteps—everyone does—but with a little consideration and thought, you can learn from them and improve your organization’s message.

See You At The Top!
Team Town.NG

Get Connected

Twitter: https://twitter.com/townnigeria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownNigeria
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105718093320913005908
Blog: http://townng.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.town.ng

7 (Seven) Tips For Bouncing Back From Failure

Annie Mouton is the founder of the PSG Group, one of South Africa’s most successful investment companies with stakes in Capitec Bank, Pioneer Foods, and Distell, to name a few. A renowned businessman, he has over 35 years of experience in financial management and investment banking.

However, Mouton’s business and entrepreneurial career has not always been smooth sailing. In fact, in 1995 he was fired as CEO by his partners at stockbroking firm Senekal, Mouton & Kitshoff (SMK) – a company he co-founded and helped build for 20 years.

“It was a shock. I lost my company that I started, and I lost my friends,” he told an audience at the 2015 SAVCA Private Equity Industry Conference.

But most of all, Mouton lost his self-confidence, and admits to having kept his firing a secret from his wife, family and friends. “I was confused and depressed. And then I realized the future is in my hands and in my hands only.

”This was a turning point for Mouton, and forced him to take a long, hard look at himself.

During a one-on-one interview with How we made it in Africa, he acknowledged that in business and entrepreneurship, the risk of failure is high. He advises entrepreneurs and young business people to use failure as a time to reflect and be truly honest with themselves.

“You actually learn a lot if you analyse the situation, and ask: ‘Why was I fired?’ Or if you are a youngster, ask: ‘Why am I not making progress at the company?’ Sit back and think about it. You will have to learn a bit about yourself,” he continued.

“The most common mistake everyone makes is that, in their own eyes, they are great. But maybe not so in other people’s eyes.”

Here are Mouton’s tips for bouncing back from failure, and creating a sustainable, successful business.

1. Do A SWOT Analysis
“It’s an old, simple thing they teach in business schools. You analyze your strong points, your weak points, and then look at the outside world to identify what opportunities and threats are there.

”And this is exactly what Mouton did when trying to figure out what to do after being fired. Through analysing his own strengths and weaknesses, while identifying the opportunities and threats that existed, he was able to get an idea of what he should be doing with his life, and how to go about achieving success.

“I realised I wanted to be an entrepreneur; working for myself. I wanted to focus on the financial sector because it was something I understood from my stockbroking days.

”He also realized he needed to adopt a decentralized management style as managing everyone directly had the potential of “frustrating people”. So he delegated and employed others to take on management roles.

2. Write Down your Dream And Talk About It
Once you have identified your goal and vision, you should write it down, explained Mouton. “And it must be short and simple.

”Talking about it also helps with cementing the idea and building a strategy to achieve it. “You must know where you are going otherwise you go off the road.”

3. Hire Competent people, Build A Strong Team
“Choose competent people, place them in key positions, and trust their judgment,” he emphasized.

Building a strong team of smart, interesting people who you can work with is vital for business growth and success. “Surround yourself with interesting people who can make a contribution in life.”

4. Implement Good CCorporate Governance
Today, good corporate governance is crucial, he said. Business leaders need to focus on integrity, transparency, trust, and good, timely information.

5. Be Decisive
Mouton also advises business owners to be assertive and make decisions. “Be decisive. Rather make the wrong decisions, but you have to make decisions in life.”

He added that entrepreneurs must also be able to communicate their decisions and goals to staff as well as other stakeholders in the company.

6. Be Positive
It is important for entrepreneurs and business people to try stay positive, no matter how difficult things get. “Even though things are tough, you must be positive,” Mouton said.

7. Read and Think
Finally, reading inspirational and business books has had the biggest impact on Mouton’s career. He especially highlighted the writings of Warren Buffet, which he discovered after being fired from SMK. “And I’ve read everything he wrote.”

See You At The Top!
Team Town.NG

Get Connected

Twitter: https://twitter.com/townnigeria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownNigeria
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105718093320913005908
Blog: http://townng.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.town.ng

10 Qualities of an Effective Community Manager

As more companies and more industries buy into the benefits of social media and community development, the number of job opportunities available for professionals with community-building skills also continue to grow.

Companies are looking for professionals who can blend their skills to effectively deliver updates to a community, but also have the ability to tap into that community to collect feedback for a company to use for improving its product or delivering its message.

While the job opportunities grow, so to do the number of professionals who include community skills on their resumes and profiles. On LinkedIn alone, the number of people who have added "Community Management" to their skills list is up 46% year-over-year.

But being a quality community manager goes beyond having the knowledge and background to use social media networks. Here are 10 qualities a community manager should possess to improve the chances of success in the position, according to professionals who work within social media and community today.

1. Strong Communication Skills
It's no surprise that the person who is acting as a representative of the brand should have strong people skills. Google DC Community Manager Corrie Davidson said that the community manager, in many ways, is the face of a brand, and this person must be able to effectively communicate the message to the audience. "Whether it be short form or long form, you have to be able to write," she noted. "Blog posts, guest articles, emails, proposals, social content — you have to be able to craft your ideas and messages to fit any medium."

But the community manager position goes beyond the online relationship, Davidson said. "They need to be outgoing, friendly and relatable. They should be comfortable interacting with people offline as well as online; a natural networker."

2. Good judgement
In many industries, one role of a community manager is of a curator. This person must be able to parse through all the content coming out of an organization and determine what to share, how to share and when to share.

For news organizations, deciding how to engage with an audience is especially important in times of difficult news, noted NBC News Senior Community Manager Anthony Quintano. "On days where we have really upsetting news to report on, we're very careful about the kind of stories we share, and what information we put out there."

Community managers must also determine the best ways to handle feedback from the audience, and decide how to respond in an appropriate fashion, said Dave Kerpen, chairman of Likeable Media, a social media agency that employs community managers. "When people ask questions, how do you answer? I believe not answering those questions is answering those questions."

3. Empathy
To engage a community in a discussion about a brand, a community manager must know the type of people who make up the audience, said Tim McDonald, the community manager for HuffPost Live. "You're dealing with a bunch of different personalities. If you're not empathetic, you're never going to be able to to put yourself in those people's shoes, which means you won't be able to communicate a message to them."

Being able to demonstrate empathy is important, noted Kerpen, because a community manager must be able to effectively converse with the audience. This person should see the brand from the perspective of a fan or consumer, and use this point of view to guide his or her engagements with the community, he added.

4. Dedication
Unlike with other positions, there is no end of the work day for community managers. When news breaks, whether the organization you represent is on the giving or receiving end, a community manager has to be available to the audience. "When you're a community manager, you're on 24/7," said Adobe Community Manager Rachael King. "Good or bad, something huge can happen at any time, and when it does, social is the first place it hits. You are technically the face of the brand, so you have to deal with it."

Community managers have to look at their positions as a lifestyle rather than a job, Google's Davidson added. "If you want to check in at 9 a.m. and out at 5 p.m., you're in the wrong field. When you've dealt with nothing but mean-spirited comments, hundreds of emails, demanding partners and a grueling schedule of tasks — all in a 14-hour work day — you need something other than a paycheck to keep you going."

5. Organizational Skills
For many community managers, the job consists of managing multiple platforms, tracking feedback and then sharing this information with their employers. This work can be overbearing, but remaining organized can help professionals stay on top of their responsibilities. "I believe that community managers have to be able to multitask, and that means staying organized," Likeable Media's Kerpen noted. "It's a very fast-paced job and there are a lot of things thrown at you at once — and you need to stay on top of it."

Davidson said that she uses multiple spreadsheets that she updates daily with data across a range of metrics for a variety of people and terms. "One wrong entry can throw off goals and spreadsheets across our whole team, affecting other teams and projects. Whether I am planning an event, managing vendors, reviewing a contract or creating content, success or failure is in the details."

6. Adaptability
Flexibility in the workplace is key for a successful community manager. The work this professional does will often extend beyond creating conversations with a brand's audience on social media networks. For many, this means carrying the responsibilities of multiple jobs.

"Adaptability is important because the community manager wears a lot of hats," Kerpen said. "On any given day, they have to be a marketer, a PR person and then a communications guy who has to react to a story."

7. Level-Headed Attitude
It's the Internet. There are going to be situations, often on a daily basis, when a member of the community attacks the brand. As the community manager, it is vital that your response alleviates the situation; not intensifies it.

"The problem is you've got the keys to the brand's voice," Adobe's King said. " Anything you say on behalf of the brand can and will be held against you, and can be inferred as the brand's perspective. You have to have a cool head and remember that the audience is attacking the brand, usually, not you."

8. Background in Analytics
In each industry, the way a community manager handles social and site analytics may differ, but it's vital that this professional is educated about how communities are responding to engagement, and can determine what efforts are working and not working. "I hate when people say they can't measure the metrics of engagement," Google's Davidson said. "If you can't measure it, you aren't doing it right. Build tracking links, look at your website traffic, measure your reach and impressions. Have a goal and reach it."

HuffPost Live's McDonald said that he uses analytics to figure out what the community is not telling him anecdotally. "The community isn't always going to tell you what they want. They'll tell you one thing but then want another. You need to look at things to see if they're working because people aren't always going to tell you."

9. Ability to Enable the Community
One of the most important responsibilities of a community manager's job is not to continue to push the brand's message, but to empower the audience and give it a voice, said NBC News' Quintano. "If we're just talking about ourselves, eventually people will turn away," he noted. "The only reason we are successful is because of our audience. We want to try to reward them as much as possible."

At HuffPost Live, McDonald said the organization realized that roughly 70% of all comments on site were in response to other comments. "We wanted to turn those comments into the conversation [on HuffPost Live]," McDonald added. "We wanted to give the audience a voice on equal footing with our on-air guests."

10. Passion for the Brand
In many ways, the community manager is the eyes and ears of a business or organization. But this professional also is responsible for being the voice of the company, and the audience wants to interact with someone who loves the brand as much as they do. For a community manager who just goes through the motions, he or she is not going to be successful and the company will ultimately suffer, Kerpen noted.

"Passion is really important," he said. "At the end of the day, you are the representative of that brand. You have to eat, sleep and breathe the brand."

See You At The Top!
Team Town.NG

Get Connected

Twitter: https://twitter.com/townnigeria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TownNigeria
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105718093320913005908
Blog: http://townng.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.town.ng