This is How To Get Walk-In Clients for Your Business
This is How To Get Walk-In Clients for Your Business
The Daily: What You’re Missing Out On in Your Lead Generation As a Small Business or Professional
Hi, it’s Jackie Tsuma here, business and investment coach. Now we often find ourselves operating on assumptions from time to time that really proved to be wrong from square one. I recorded a video for you here:
Or keep reading if you prefer that over video:
Like the new salesperson who was carrying a very important looking pile of documents and walked over to an office employee who was standing by a paper shredder. And he asked, ‘Can you show me how to operate the machine?’ And the other man said, ‘Sure, just flip the switch to turn it on, then put your paper in that slot. That’s all there is to it’. So the salesman said, thanks, he followed the instructions, then turned and asked, ‘Now how do you set it to make three copies?’
Ahem, I don’t want to be that salesman. How many times do we find ourselves doing exactly that in our businesses? Playing it by ear, going by guesswork, not really having a clear plan or the knowhow needed to implement our lead generation of business growth strategies?
We do it all the time. I remember as a brand new business person, I was trying to look up all these tutorials on YouTube, and I was trying to read all these guides and special reports and watch all these master classes.
But guess what? None of it worked, not for over three years! Until I actually bit the bullet and decided to get help from experts. And so I’m starting this Daily Show, where I’m going to help you with quick actionable tips. We’re going to take about five to ten minutes every day and just sit and chat about where you are at and what it is that you’re trying to achieve for your business.
This is for you, by the way, if you’re in private practice, you’re a professional such as a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, a real estate developer, an architect, an accountant, you name it. Anyone that is a professional in business and runs a private practice.
Or maybe you’re a small to medium business owner. Or you are an entrepreneur. You’re the leader of your company. You probably have got no more than, let’s say, five to twenty employees. I think that would qualify as small to medium. So this is exactly where you need to be over the next few days where I’ll just be coming on and sharing with you really actionable tips.
Now, let me tell you the number one problem I’m seeing a lot of our clients have from day one.
You see they have a really great idea, right? They know that. Or maybe they have a really great skill and a really great service. And they know that what they do is exactly what their clients need. They are able to solve the problem for the people they serve. The people get amazing results and they always send people back to them through referrals. Talk about… ‘Hey, I told my sister, I told my brother’. Or maybe they have a business and people have kept asking them, ‘Hey, you know what? I really need your help.
And so they get a lot of referral traffic. The only problem is it’s just not scalable. There’s absolutely no way for them to be able to get beyond just that immediate circle of their siblings or their relatives or their friends that they went to school or college with.
And this is going to mean the death knell for their business, isn’t it? Even for your private practice, if you cannot get beyond referrals and really have a way to get you steady leads into your business, you are going to miss out. Your business is going to be doomed from the start. And I say this with the utmost of care, because you know what? I know what it means to have a business not work out because you were so excited. And then what happened? You just didn’t manage to get enough sales. Sales is the lifeblood of your business. Let’s be honest. Having clients come in and selling is the lifeblood of your business. And if you’re not doing it and if you’re not managing to do it, then it doesn’t look good.
But one way that our clients are finding that is helping them go beyond this and really extend the lives of their businesses and enable them to actually grow it, grow their effectiveness, grow their reach is through being able to automate their lead generation. Being able to reach people beyond those in the immediate circles. Being able to get clients from the far reaches if they’re able to service their clients remotely. But also for those who have local clients and are able to actually reach everyone. Every single person within reach of their business knows that they exist. And not just knowing that they exist, but doing it in a very powerful way. That leaves them top of mind at all times.
So the long and short of it is you cannot build a business without a clear lead generation strategy. Oftentimes this does involve paid advertising. But what’s the problem that they face when they realize that? It’s that they think it’s just, ‘Hey, you know what? I’m just going to click boost on this ad and this post that I made, on this promotional post. Let me just boost it because I’m being told I can put five dollars on this a day or five dollars on it over the next week. And I’m going to get people coming and signing up or registering’.
So they do that and then it’s crickets after that. It’s like, ‘OK, I boosted this post, but nobody is biting’. It’s literally tumbleweed . So what do they do, they think that the ads are not working and they turn them off, right? Well, a couple of things are wrong with this, because:
Number one, first of all, they kind of just went with a suggestion of, ‘hey, this looks really popular, why don’t you boost this’ and they did that. However, they didn’t really think specifically about who it is that they actually want to target, to reach, to put that post in front of, whether on LinkedIn, whether on any other platform. Who do they want to target? They didn’t think about that.
And then the second thing they think about is, ‘How will they know the effectiveness of that ad?’
I’m going to give you one tip that will enable you to get people to see your ad and be really interested and actually engage with it. Once you do decide to start putting ads out, this is a tip. You’re going to kick yourself by the way, when you hear it, because you wonder, why didn’tI ever think of that? It’s so simple. But this is the truth of it, guys, when we’re doing something and when we don’t have an expert.
Experts come to simplify things for us, that’s what they do.
They’re taking something that can feel so complex, feel so abstract and make it practical and make it simple, make it doable. This is a tip.
Whenever you want to reach out to specific people and reach out to potential clientele, just look at who your existing clientele tends to be. Who do you serve best? Do you have parents with children who are in the age range from, I don’t know, zero to 13 years?
Or do you serve only elderly people? You’d really want to have a clear picture about who it is. Do you serve young women? Do you serve couples in their mid 40’s? Who do you serve? Because often you will have an idea of the type of people that come, your best type of clients. Those are the demographics to use in order to now target your client specifically.
And you do this by putting it in your post like,
‘Hey, parents do you know how your teens are doing with regards to their teeth? When was the last time you took your children for a dental checkup?’
It could be a lawyer. ‘Parents, when did you last check your will?’
You’re really calling them out in the first sentence of the post that you’re putting out there? Maybe you work with the specific clientele, this is what you do. You put the specific information that will call them out in your post that you’re going to put out on social media or that you’re going to boost. And so that’s a very powerful way to do it. Just call them out literally. Oftentimes in that post, you can also use an image that will actually grab them. You understand? If it’s a parent with a teen, have a parent with a teen on a photo there. Or if it’s an elderly person, take a stock photo of elderly people walking. Look for something fun, something colorful. But this is actually a really powerful way to call out your client and make sure that you are reaching the right person, the person who needs to hear what you have to say.
That’s it for Tip # 1.
Tip #2 comes tomorrow, come and tune in here https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackienjagah/. We are going to be talking about, once you’ve called out this client, how are you going to reach them? One of the things that you can do to reach this client.
That said guys, I’m just going to be honest right now, a lot of people hear these things and think that it’s super easy to implement that. Just to be honest, it’s not super easy to implement them.
I’ve been doing digital marketing and my background is actually Computer Science. I’ve been doing this for years with all sorts of organizations from the international ones to the small and medium enterprises. One thing I can assure you is that it’s not easy. It may be simple, but it’s not easy. You would find that the thing that you would presume would work today suddenly stops working in a week’s time. And that time you’re down at a couple of thousand dollars because guess what, you’ve been pumping money into this advertising strategy.
So what I would advise you is seek expert help? Just like you wouldn’t go and try and perform a surgery on yourself. I don’t advise you to go and try and do this on your own.
If you’d like to reach out and find out how we can work together to get you going, then come and take a look at just I’m going to put a link here on how you can reach out and just learn more about what we’re doing, because we do help small and medium businesses just like you to get going from working with whichever budget that you want to work with and with whatever kind of scale that you’re comfortable to start with. Click here to get started https://www.jtconsultingdigital.com/letstalk
OK, so reach out to us and I’m gonna be back here tomorrow. And we’re going to be talking about the next tip that will really help you pump up your digital marketing.
Have a great rest of your day,
Jackie Tsuma
7 Life-Changing Realizations That Could Help You Grow Your Career or Business
Life is a safari.
It can feel like dangerous, exciting, exhausting.
But sometimes along the way you get an ‘Aha’ moment! And those moments change your life. I’ve had a number in my life that changed my outlook drastically. 7 to be exact. Well, there were more than 7. But these are the most significant realizations I had and I’d like to share them with you.
Realization 1: Cut to the Chase And Engage
When I realized that I learnt best by really engaging with what I was reading or hearing. It was either that or fall asleep in my physics class, which I did do for a year or two in high school. What, you mean you didn’t? I ended up getting the top marks in that class when I graduated, so all was not lost, refer to the my point above. I mean lets face it, Physics can be boring. But I also discovered when I engaged actively to understand the principles it took on a whole different meaning. It become interesting to me. Maybe as I understood it, I began to click, to ‘flow’. As I read it more, I liked it more. I got the principles.
Takeaway: You may have reads tons on life and career. About entrepreneurship. About business. It all feels too overwhelming and you’re not sure where to start. Don’t worry, there’s a whole community here to help you engage. On LinkedIn, Facebook, Quora. Read and watch stories, videos and interviews from the community. Learn the principles, the rock solid facts that can guide you. Let’s work together to break through the information haze that stops us from ‘Just Doing It’.
Realization 2: Know Thyself
When I realized I loved People Science more than I loved Computer Science. I was in 3rd year at University doing Computer Science and the assignment for my management class was on leadership styles. That’s where I stumbled upon the MBTI personality test. I proceeded to type and categorize everyone who would let me. My study group and family bore the brunt of that one (sorry guys).
What I discovered freed me beyond measure. For example, I realized that I am an ENTP, which means I love a challenge, and love to challenge the norm. I love to know the facts behind something. If you have brothers, big or small, you’ll relate with how growing up they could take apart anything electronic just to put it together again. Mine did. They had a whole drawer of taken-apart electronics. I like to do that with life. The most important way this realization helped me was with the guilt. We all have different forms of guilt in our lives. And women have a unique form ala ‘not being able to have it all’. I’m sure men do to.But I don’t beat myself up about who I am anymore. Sure, I get bored with long-windedness (am I boring you yet?), and I really love fast-paced projects. I hate to be restricted in my creativity and live in a ‘world of endless possibilities‘, sounds reeeaaaallllly endless. Apparently I’d make a great entrepreneur. But by knowing where my challenges and strengths lie, I can focus instead in becoming the best of who I am, on honing my strengths, overcoming my weaknesses. It you haven’t taken the test yet, there’s a free one here. I’d love to hear what your result is in the comments.
Takeaway: Before you start a journey, its important to count the cost, as the Bible says. That’s the same with your journey to fulfillment in what you do. Identify how you learn, what your style of taking action is, what motivates you. Do you tend to want to leave your options open? That’s also popularly known as procrastinating, by the way. Personally I like the first description more, as one who prefers to leave my options open too ;). So lets ditch the later one shall we? Where was I… do you tend to want to leave your options open? Or are you someone who prefers to get it done now, no matter what IT is? Let’s kill the guilt, recognize our strengths and motivations, and work with them. If you want to gain recognition and respect, or just help people because that what drives you, do that! If you want to be a millionaire by forty, or just earn enough to pay the bills, then do that! You’re not a failure, you’re you. And YOU can decide just how much you, you will be. No guilt, no coulda-shoulda-woulda, no regrets.
Realization 3: Connect With Like Minds
When my first date with my to-be husband was an avid discussion on the MBTI and making our mark in this world then he become my husband two years later. Yes, it was love at first sight *happy sigh*. And I learnt we connect with people based on what we love. And that we love the people that we connect with. Figures. Everyone says, you are the sum total of the 5 people you spend the most time with. I’m grateful to have been a part of some great groups and communities that continue to inspire me. Two that have truly inspired my entrepreneurial drive is the Zero to Launch Community of Ramit Sethi, NY times best-selling author of ‘I Will Teach You To Be Rich’ and more recently the up-coming Vendeve community of Lady-prenuers.When you are new to the game, it important to not go it alone, and to get support in your area of endeavor.
Takeaway: Be a part of a community. Want to interact, share and learn more about entrepreneurship in Africa, come be a part of my Facebook group. If health is your thing, come be a part of my Health community. Or find a community that you love, on what you are passionate about and get involved. Join the mailing list. Ask questions, interact. I’d love to hear from you what’s worked. Studies show that we are more inspired or motivated to act in a community.
Realization 4: Know Your Purpose
When I realized that life was finite and was not all about me. My birth mother died when I was 13 years old. And my oldest sister died 7 years later, and my father not too long after that. I have continually encountered my Creator throughout my life, but these times stand out to me as the time when I started to think about life and death and whether it was all worth it. I mean, if all I did was live my 70 years or so on this earth and then disappeared, that hardly seems worth it. Sure its lifetime, which is all we get. But we also get to leave a legacy which can last for eternity. I have been working daily since to make my life on this earth count, and to touch as many people as possible while I can. It helps that I have a somewhat idealistic streak which means I’m pushing for Utopia, defined as ‘an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect‘. Do you want to join me?
Takeaway: What is your purpose? Does it motivate you to want to live long enough to achieve it? The goal to be wealthy may be what many will start out with, but even greater is the goal to fulfill your life’s purpose. Why do you think the top millionaires turn their attention to philanthropy at one point or another?
Realization 5: Don’t Be a Victim, You Have Control
When I realized my little 3 -month old baby, my 2nd born, could either spend her formative years taking anti-histamines, or I could take matters in my hands and solve her health issues. I have PCOS, my husband wants to lose some weight, my 1st born daughter is borderline asthmatic, we are all far from perfect. And that’s really the average family these days. It’s the result of years of ingesting things humans were never meant to ingest, or just not in the right quantities. I’m pretty sure our great grandfathers never faced the same health issues.
The thing that gets me though is that the medical fraternity will drug you up before they point you to natural and holistic ways to cure your condition. It’s just yesterday, as I looked for a thermometer to measure my daughters temperature from a lung infection, that I realized just how long it had been since we had to go the doctor for any ailment. Case in point, I haven’t found the thermometer yet because I haven’t used it in that long. Contrast that with 2 years back and her getting bronchitis at least once a month like clockwork. Which meant doctors visits and antibiotics. Never mind if it was a viral infection… lets just add drug resistance to the list of ailments above shall we? I actually stopped taking her to the doctor for every cold, cough or flu and opted instead to dose her on minced garlic with honey, vitamin C, warming teas of ginger, lemon, honey, apple cider vinegar and menthol. It had an unbelievable effect. I haven’t taken them to the doc for a cough in over 1 year.
Takeaway: This can apply to any area where the experts have us at their mercy really. When it comes to your career, are HR execs telling you that you have too little experience and can’t get a good starting package, let along get hired without more on your CV? Haseeb Qureshi will disprove that theory, he doubled the starting salary he was offered in a few weeks. It took a lot of the right kind of networking. And you can too.
In the area of health, yours may be perfect now, but do you know where it will be in 2 years? 10 years? Cancer risk has increased at alarming rates. Or perhaps you are wondering why you can’t shed those kilos and keep them off and you know that obesity increases your risk of disease. I’m here to tell you that you have control. Just like Ty Bolinger of ‘The Truth About Cancer‘ shares, we can take back our health from the medical profession. And seek holistic ways to heal and cure.
Realization 6: Love The Journey And Ignore the Nay-sayers
My job contract ended in 2010 due to a desire not to renew it by my boss. And I had another job within 3 weeks. In the same building! I loved meeting my former boss in the corridors so he could see just how fast I was snapped up. I mean, don’t get renewed and that’s a slight on your ability. Unless of course there are budget issues, which in this case there weren’t. Get hired immediately (and still have raving reviews 1 year later) that’s a slight on his ability, he that fired me. Remind me to share that story sometime.
That experience taught me that I was the ultimate decision-maker in my life. It taught me not to panic when I was out of a job, which I have been many times since then. It taught me to embrace my passions, because my passion fed my personal projects that fed my skills and THAT was what got me my next job, NOT the work that I did in my 9-to-5. I realized though that other people may want to get you down, but only you can let that happen. And as disastrous as an event may seem, it’s never final till you are the other side of the grave. I could have let that get me down but the minute I heard my boss was doing all he could to let me go, I immediately started looking for alternatives. I was even willing to take on an unpaid internship as a fully qualified professional. When the world gives you lemons, you better have a great lemonade recipe!
‘ No one can make you feel inferior without your consent‘ – Eleanor Roosevelt.
Takeaway: No matter where you journey has led you, or what you have encountered along the way, you are a result of it all. So embrace it. As you go on your journey, It’ll help you focus on what YOU need to be focusing on, and ignore those voices, in your head or outside, that you’ve listened to that have stopped you from becoming the you that you want to be.
Realization 7: Just Do It!
I’ve wanted to make this Linked post for the longest time. And start my health blog. And start an online business. And I’m grateful for those around me that have encouraged me to just do it! I’m grateful for you too! Because you’re here, reading this and affirming my step as the right one (I’m a sucker for that). No really, I’m grateful for you that make it possible.
Mushiness aside, getting this post out and starting my health blog has been a seminal point in my life. I realized knowledge remains in your head until you implement it. So just do it!
Takeaway: You wanna get that next job? Get your business up and running? Start eating healthy to lose weight? Just do it! Set a target, look at that target every day and internalize it. Set up actions that lead you to your goal. Just do it! Get your CV into shape. Come up with your one-page business plan. Say no to that doughnut and whip out your hummus and carrot sticks. Just do it! Start with ONE thing at a time that you’d like to change. For example, if your goal is weight loss, one of the quickest ways to start loosing weight, based on the slow carb method by Tim Ferris, outlined in the 4-hour body, is to just stop eating all white carbohydrates, tubers included.
Do You Consistently Go Beyond Your Job Description? You Deserve More…
Let me tell you a story.
I hit the 40 clients mark in my coaching business last month. Now at 43 and counting, that accounts for sales of multiple 6 figures (in $) in slightly over a year. And that’s a HUGE achievement for having spent the first 3 years of my online business just mark timing, making a couple of hundred here and a couple of hundred there.
And it struck me just how many people are just like me. They are from Africa. Maybe live in Africa or abroad. They’ve always been entrepreneurial – selling whatever they found to sell in primary school, in high school, in university. Maybe they joined an organisation but quickly outgrew it. Or perhaps they’ve always had a burning sense of purpose. That they are meant for something more and they couldn’t quite put their finger on what.
I don’t know what’s been more transformational. Finally realising that I CAN do it, or that I can HELP other people do it, and get them amazing results.
First I struggled with what I should actually sell. Business coaching? Real Estate Investment coaching? Health and wellness coaching? I had NO clue.
With the help of MY coaches, they are awesome – hit me up and I’ll intro you – I figured out my first offer, that got me my first $40,000 in sales in only 2 months.
Second, I struggled with contextualizing my offer to my market. See my market is different from the traditional Western market. Yes, they have the pain, but they also have an aversion to using credit and prefer to spend only what they have in pocket (no putting 4 or 5-figure charges on their credit card). What they do share is that they also mostly have a desire to eventually transition from what they are doing 8 to 5 pm to really making an impact in the area of their passion. That makes what I offer them a path to their freedom. When I hit on the perfect offer and pricing plan that got those that were committed in the door, I’ve had up to 4 out every 5 people I speak to say yes to what I offer them.
Third, I struggled with how to scale. Because I also spend what I earn, so running $30,000 facebook ads a month was never really an option. So I’ve had to learn organic ways to market my business and to use Facebook ads as the icing on the cake. And who doesn’t love a good cake with icing!
Fourth, I struggled with putting together a team that could take us where I see my organisation going. I had some great luck with some early hires, and I’m grateful to God for that. But some of the good ones left for greener pastures. After kicking myself for not being able to retain them, I purposed that no one would ever leave again unless I asked them to leave because they were not a team fit. That we would be such a great organisation to work for that we would be turning away offers. And one mentor I started to follow recently says it well, ‘Hire people before you need them’. It could be months before, it could be years before even. He speaks of recruiting COO’s and CFO’s of large multi-million dollar companies through having conversations with them over years, even before their company could actually pay these people what they deserved, because he knew these were the type of people that his company needed to get to where he saw it going. He calls them “your $500,000 hire”. That would mean that these are the type of people that should be earning $41,666 a month. Yup! That’s what the big’ uns pay.
Then I got to thinking, I either pay my team generously, or I pay the taxman generously, either way, someone gets paid generously. Of course, since both need to be paid anyway, I’ll choose to pay my team generously thank you!
So that’s where I am at. And it makes a lot of sense to me. Even Google, Apple, Microsoft were once startups. I believe every leader of an organisation has to make a journey through each of these stages to profitability.
The crux of the matter is in the vision we have as a company and where we see ourselves going. I see us becoming a multi-million dollar enterprise that brings freedom to people in Africa. Along the whole spectrum of life, from investments and property for financial freedom, to career and personal development, to entrepreneurship and business growth through using digital tools, to organisation development and management, to health and wellness, fashion and image, to family – bringing up kids and growing marriage relationships, to mentoring a generation of young people that will impact their world and not spend their whole holiday on the couch in front of the TV.
Why? Because I (and my loved ones) are passionate about EVERY single one of these areas.
You see I discovered a long time ago that passion is the secret sauce to success.
Pair that with expert skills (no theoretical knowledge, only run a business in an area you have dominated) and marketing, and you have a winning formula. Whether you sell t-shirts, or bake cakes, or take photographs, or make clothes, or train corporations, or run a restaurant.
The only problem is, I have found very FEW people that bring the same passion that I have to what they do. And if I found you, that elusive unicorn, I’ve probably already reached out to you and asked you if you’d like to join our team. I’ve found even FEWER people that can match what I bring in ideas to what they can do in execution. Because ideas without execution are dead.
Not to mention that my heart breaks when I see people overlook the power of the digital era that we are in. Maybe it’s more emotional for me because the country that I live in, and that has been home for the past 7 years, seems to be in a spiral of economic doom that I humbly think only external markets can resolve. Our global digital village literally empowers us all to have a market that is geographically removed from where we are. You no longer need to target clients in your country anymore, you can now target clients worldwide. I heard it said by a local entrepreneur that I follow that his mentor, a multi-millionaire based here, attributes his business success to this one key thing: targeting eternal markets.
So here’s what my heart yearns for now and where I need your help.
Do you have a vision as big as ours for yourself? Do you have skills at what you do along this spectrum and have done what you do for at least 3 to 10 years? Do you do what you do because you enjoy it, and look at the money as a side benefit? I mean, you go to bed dreaming of what you will create or solve tomorrow and you jump out of bed ready to conquer the day? Are your family always telling you that you need to slow down and not work so hard? Or tone down and not dream so big? Do you leave your ego at the door and are willing to let the team take credit for your work when needed? Do other people commend you HIGHLY for what you do on a regular basis (your mum doesn’t count)? Are you honest to a fault and highly value truth and integrity? Do you want to partner to get your skills out there through sharing these skills with others? Maybe you are a practitioner who builds websites, does tax returns, sells houses or manages organisations. Maybe you already teach or coach in your area and you want to simply share your skills with more people than you’ve reached before and for more than you’ve made before. Or maybe you’ve got technical skills in multimedia or digital marketing and had great results. Do you want to be a part of this wave? It’s important that you are not only looking at the bottom line, but at the impact you want to have in society, and know that as that impact goes up, so does the bottom line. It’s also important that you are ready to commit an initial 5 to 10 hours a week for your first month to see if we are fit. And don’t worry, we are totally okay with you doing this on the side as you continue in your current role, because we know that the good people are usually already taken, that’s why we know that you’re good. Plus we all work remotely from anywhere in the world and so can you. Personally, I’d love to retire my spouse, home school my kids and travel the world’s islands as a missionary, if we’re being specific. And I also commit to personally teach you everything that I know, that has cost me multiple 5-figures in $s to learn from the best in the world. AND I’m also about building you to be free to leave when the time comes that you outgrow us, and help you work on your passion while you are with us, that’s what will help us spread this vision to the continent and the world. See, I may not be able to pay you what you are worth right now, but I for certain will break my back to get there, and treat you as the valued partner that you will be as we walk this journey together. I may not have all the answers, but I look forward to taking the journey to finding them with you by my side. Because if you said yes to any of the above, you are already who we need and want.
If that’s you, or if you know someone like that, please message me and let’s get to talking. I’m super excited to take this journey with you. Let’s be the Uber of the African market, or the Airbnb of skills and talent, but in some of the most rapidly expanding business areas of our times. And sure, there’s a business idea you are free to go and implement, no dibbs here. Or come and let’s make our version of it happen together. Disclaimer: We have ridiculously high standards, and are constantly learning, in fact, I personally spend half of my day learning and the other half of it teaching and implementing. So only reach out if you intend to be stretched and pulled way out of your comfort zone and don’t ever intend to be mediocre at anything you do.
Jacqueline Tsuma is Founder and Director of Upani Homes and JT Consulting, lifestyle companies that provide coaching, consulting and done-for-you services in the area of real estate and home ownership for both diaspora and local home buyers, as well work with brick and mortar businesses based in Africa for their digital marketing. She is also a motivational speaker and is Co-Host of the AfricaX Show.
She works with professionals and businesses in Africa and in the Diaspora to help them maximize their retail and service-based business returns or real estate investments, by providing the best strategies for getting financing, managing and monetizing them.
Watch her free masterclass to learn the the 5 Steps Our Clients Use to Earn Six-Figure Rents From Their Homes in Africa (while living abroad and doing it 100% virtually.) More here -> http://jacquelinetsuma.com/5steps .
The Biggest Mistake We See People Making In Real Estate
When it comes to real estate, we are doing so many things wrong! Then we begin to wonder, why aren’t we getting results? Why aren’t we making the progress that we thought we should be making by now? The reason we discovered, is there are a number of things that are preventing most people. And I’m here to tackle them today because I’m all about keeping it real.
This is from the experience we’ve had with our own investments and with those of the people that we’re working with every single day. It’s the top three mistakes that we have discovered over the past three, four months. The idea is that you can use these discoveries to evaluate where you are with regards to your own real estate investments. Are you actually on track? Are you using the right bank or are you still kind of wandering about? You never know, you might be doing the completely wrong thing and have no idea! Because often, when we get started with our real estate investments we tend to jump right in without the expertise or skills.
Think about it. For your career, you spend ages preparing for it.
You prepared for your career or anything that you do or did post high school, isn’t it? Doing that diploma or graduate degree or postgraduate degree, there’s so much we do in preparation for a career. We spent almost four to six years preparing for the career that we set out to engage in.
But when it comes to real estate, we’re not putting as much time or effort into it. You’re not investing your time, or investing your money. I’m going to ask you right now, think about how much you have spent in your education. Think about it right now. How much have you spent preparing you for your career? I would hazard a guess that is nothing less than $100,000. Or maybe you joined a public school like I did for my undergraduate, the best in the country, and didn’t have that much school fees to pay beyond room and board. So, for some countries, this may be closer to $10,000, if you count your room and board, your school fees and so on. You spent a lot of time. And you know what, most people are going to earn a lot more from their real estate investments than they ever will earn from their career.
This is the truth of the matter – we will earn much more from our real estate investments than we ever will earn from our careers. Just because of the nature of real estate investments.
So why aren’t we spending enough time in it?
I am already touching on one of the things that we normally encounter. So, let’s just start with #1.
Mistake #1 Adopting The Wait-And-See Approach
This is by far the worst mistake that people are making, adopting the wait-and-see approach. You’re like, “Okay I see that there are things people are purchasing right now, I might maybe get into a few low-cost investments. Maybe I’ll wait-and-see”.
Now, you’re either ‘waiting-to-see’ to see when you’re inside the investment, or you’re ‘waiting-to-see’ when you’re outside the investment. Both of these are not the way to do it.
So, you can do this in one of two ways. You are looking around at potential real estate investments and you are think “Okay, this seems a little bit out of reach for me right now, I’m going to wait-and-see.”
Or maybe you’re like “Okay, that one seems too …. (insert whatever adjective you want to us) … I’m going to wait-and-see.”
So, you just sit aside and you wait-and-see.
Wait-and-see approach is not going to help you one little bit because guess what’s going to happen with real estate. It will always accrue in value. If you want to get into it, you want to get into it now.
So, that’s one end of the wait-and-see approach.
The other end of the wait-and-see approach is saying, “I am going to get into this real estate investment, and then I am going to wait-and-see.”
So “I’m going to buy land, I’m going to buy or a stand, I’m going to a plot”, whatever you call it in whichever country. “And then, I’m going to wait-and-see if that land accrues in value, or I’m going to wait-and-see if something comes up around this property that’s going to make it easier to get something out of”, you think. But either way both of these are a wait-and-see approach that are not helping you at all.
Because #1, you just let a perfectly good investment pass you by.
Or #2, you’ve got into an investment and it’s eating up your money and not giving you back anything in return.
So why would we ever do that? Do you buy a car and then go and pack it in your garage and say, this is cool? I got that car, men, I got it’. And then you are sitting there, enjoying having the car.
This is the same with our real estate investments. We don’t just buy them, and then we are waiting to see. We move into monetizing. What we have found, the people that are getting the best results for their real estate investments, they are adopting a pro-active approach. they are moving forward and saying “I see this investment, I am going to get into it, I ‘m going to take it all the way, until it starts to bring me money.”
And the way it brings you back money, would be depend. Is it going to bring you back money through rental income? Is it going to bring you back money through agricultural income? Like through using greenhouses and the like. Is it going to bring you money through leasing it to people who want to use it for various purposes? Whichever way it is, you are moving forward. Wait and see is pretty much the worst approach that can ever use.
So, that’s the #1 approach that is one of the worst you could ever use. Don’t do. And what’s a better approach? Keep reading. And if this resonates with you that “yes, I’ve fallen into this trap”, never fear, we do it so often, it’s so natural because we don’t want to move, we don’t want to take action. We want to kind of sit and wait for things to come to us. And that approach just doesn’t work.
#2 Playing It By Ear
I’m going to go into the next mistake that people make when it comes to the real estate investment and I’m just going to call this one, you know, playing it by ear or guesswork, so to speak.
Playing it by ear is when you’re getting into something, but you have no idea if it will give you returns, because you’ve not run the numbers. Because you’ve not sought to find out, “if I put this money into my real estate investment, I’ll get this amount back”.
Playing by the ear is not what the top real estate investors do. I’m going to lay it out for you. Guesswork will never get you where you want to go. Do you start a business without a business plan? Even if you don’t have a business plan, don’t you start the business with an idea of what it is you want to get out of that business? Don’t you have an idea of this is the product that I am going to sell, this is where I am going to sell it, this is who needs this product.
You don’t start a business without having all these tenets in place.
So why do the same for real estate? Why get in when you have no idea how you’re going to monetize it, when you have no idea if it’s even going to bring your returns. One thing I have found is,
before you get into a real estate investment it’s very important that you figure out what that investment is going to give you back. It’s basically doing analysis. Doing an analysis to know what is the market rate, what are you going to pay it for, what will be your daily rental rate? What occupancy that you can expect? How often it will be rented out, therefore, you know how often you can put as an average income per month. And, of course, you know conversely, what will be your average expense per month? What are the different things that you’re going to offer?
So, you can’t just jump right into this without analyzing it, simply because it’s not a wise move. Sure, you can play by ear, but you’re simply not going to get the best results.
You know why? Because the time that you determine whether you’re going to be making any real estate returns is before you invest in the property, not after.
Watch the rest of this article below..
Want to know more about how short term rentals can super-speed your real estate investment process? Here’s a great place to start -> http://jacquelinetsuma.com/5steps
Jacqueline Tsuma is Founder and Director of Upani Homes and JT Consulting, lifestyle companies that provide coaching, consulting and done-for-you services in the area of real estate and home ownership for both diaspora and local home buyers, as well work with brick and mortar businesses based in Africa for their digital marketing. She is also a motivationa speaker and is Co-Host of the AfricaX Show.
She works with African professionals in the Diaspora to help them maximize their real estate investments, by providing the best strategies for getting financing, managing and monetizing their properties back home. Watch her free masterclass to learn the the 5 Steps Our Clients Use to Earn Six-Figure Rents From Their Homes in Africa (while living abroad and doing it 100% virtually.) More here -> http://jacquelinetsuma.com/5steps .
Connect with Jacqueline here on LinkedIn or visit her at jacquelinetsuma.com
The life of an expat and travelling light
OPT 1: 3 THINGS I DID RIGHT AS AN EXPAT
One of the things I enjoy about being an expat is that I have learned to travel light.
Give me 30 minutes to pack my bag for a week vacation and I will do it with precision, perfection, and efficiency.
But sometimes I revert to my old “I-must-carry-everything-I-own ways”. You know the ones, when you have packed two full suitcases for your beachside vacation and end up never even opening one of the suitcases. Or you have carried everything and the kitchen sink in your airplane carry-on then can’t get it to fit in those little overhead luggage compartment, to your chagrin and that of everyone trying to get past you as they board. 😳😳
One recent relapse of mine comes to mind. For my birthday, my husband treated me to a surprise day at the Skin spa for a full body treatments and a number of beauty treatments. That was simply divine. (Hint to husbands: Anything that can get your wife some along pampering time, DO IT).
He told me to carry 5 items.
I ended packing 10. At which point he reminded me about the list he had sent me. So I reduced what I had packed and ended up forgetting one of them.
In my mind I was imagining he was whisking me to an overnight solo getaway retreat. He is my biggest advocate and is ALWAYS telling me to plan one for some “me-time” to just get away from it all and just relax, plan, dream and refresh. So I thought he had decided to take matters into his own hands and drop me off at an unnamed location for a compulsory retreat.
The Spa day was much MORE fun! Sigh.
But back to my packing story. Here I was packing a full bag, and he was just smiling secretly to himself at how overboard I had gone.
So he had to intervene. And that got me thinking.
Are we simply just carrying too much baggage with us in life? Are there truly really only a few things we need?
A GREAT attitude and mindset. An OPEN mind. A CARING soul. A good WORK ethic. A SUPPORTIVE community.
We travel with too much, don’t know when to let go of things and then we end of letting go of too much.
Need to get back on track with your real estate investments? Carrying too much baggage and feeling like it’s bogging you down? There’s only a very FEW things you really need to get success and we know WHAT they are and HOW you can get them.
Lets Talk
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why I do not need everyone to like me (confessions of a recovering people please)
I’ll admit, I’ve outgrown a lot of my friends (and if you are reading this, no it’s not you. Or maybe it is).
I listened to a video the other day that talked about when you are hanging out with a group of 5 millionaires, you will be the 6th.
And I want to hang out with a group of millionaires because I have every intention of being one. You know, it’s one of those New Year’s resolutions I made right up next to “Rule the world”. So I am doing everything that I can to get those people into my circles, or get myself into their circles.
And I am willing to make the investment. I may not have shared this before but I have my eye on a mastermind called the Millionaire Alliance that is run by Russ Ruffino’s Clients on Demand that get its members up to 1 million dollars in annual revenue. Mark my words I will be there for their next mastermind retreat in August 2018.
And it’s not cheap. It will cost me multiple five figures, in dollars. And that’s the price I am willing to pay. It was actually my birthday wish this year and my wonderful husband is 100% behind me for it.
And it got me to thinking. I have done a lot of courses these past 2 years since I started my online entrepreneurship journey.
Some of them were free, some of them were paid. A lot of them took time and effort. Very few of them actually got me results. And to be honest, it was not entirely the programs faults’. Sure, they were using outdated strategies that don’t really scale and that I couldn’t really use as a complete nobody coming onto the scene. But the other reason I failed miserably at most of them was, I put in the work pretty half-heartedly.
But the programs that REALLY redeemed themselves had one common denominator, accountability! And that made the difference between whether I put in the work, or just did it “meh”.
And when I found one that ACTUALLY got people results, provided accountability and gave a nobody like me a stepping stone to the big leagues, I was like, where do I sign up!
But it has meant letting go of the things, the activities, the people that are not helping me or getting me closer to my goal.
For the first time in AGES, I am finally exercising consistently, working on purpose, avoiding distractions, (I am writing thing during a 45-minutes uninterrupted DEEP WORK session, did I even know what that meant this time last year?). I am building a team I LOVE, that inspires me every day. I am motivating people around me and knowing that it’s because of ME, and not bashfully redirecting the attention. You need to understand my back story as one where I’ve never felt like I really DESERVE the limelight. And now I am at a place where it doesn’t matter anymore whether I feel like I deserve it or not. And now I do feel it, because I finally GET that it’s not about me. It’s ALL about the ones that I am here on earth to serve and to inspire.
It’s because of the work that I have put into myself that I am finally able and willing to accept that, yes, I CAN, I DO and I WILL motivate those who are seeking them same goal in their lives.
But that has not come cheap. And I am guarding it fearlessly.
The other day I told my husband, ‘I think I may not have been invited to a birthday party by some unnamed friend’. Because everyone I knew seemed to be going to this “thing” that they wouldn’t say was by who.
And before, that would have broken my heart, put me in a slump for days (okay maybe hours, tops, I’m not that touchy feely) and really had me going around like “Woe is me”.
And then, in the moment that I said it, I realised, ‘Hold up. WHY am I unhappy about this?” Because this “friend” may just have done me a favour by being one less person that I needed to drop off on the way to my dreams.
I’m done needing everyone to like me. I’m done needing everyone to approve of what I do. I’m done needing to be the most popular gal in school (coz you know if you weren’t you always fantasized about being that person, be honest).
I’m instead aiming for the feeling of “sweet, delicious, wild” success that is coming my way. And when it hits, that’s when I will know the TRUE friends.
I hope that will inspire you to stop making excuses for your success, your drive, your grit, your determination.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson
Let’s Talk ———>>http://jacquelinetsuma.com/callme
What will happen when you hit rock bottom?
That’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot this past week.
2 things happened that triggered this: I learnt of the passing of an acquaintance. And a dear friend hit rock bottom.
One is pretty final as far as rock bottom goes. There’s no returning from the great beyond. The other is not.
What I wondered, could either have been prevented? I kept asking myself one question. If this time last year someone had told the person that had passed that in 1 year’s time they would have a stroke and die, would they have lived differently?
Would they have enjoyed life more, yet reined in the elements of that enjoyment that shortened their life?
Would they have jumped out of bed at 6 in the morning to go for that run knowing each mile ran would extend their life by an extra day?
Would they have put down that doughnut because, will, life.
Would they have gone for more check-ups and listened to their doctor more? Would they have lived with the intention to grow old and be able to kiss the cheeks of their grandkids on this earth?
I’d like to think so. Because it sure motivated me to jump out of bed at 6 am this morning to exercise. AND to daydream of kissing my grandkids on their cheeks. And to enjoy life and time with my family more.
We are all on a clock, but we have the grace to be alive RIGHT NOW. And right now is what we need to make the most of.
Because, if we don’t, we either hit a rock bottom with finality, or we hit an interim one, that may feel just like death in it’s bite.
I’m talking about the rock bottom where you lose your will to do it anymore. Where everything you’ve ever worked for comes crumbling down, and you are left with the ashes of your life surrounding you. Left wondering how it came to this, wondering where you went wrong.
The truth is, you can probably pin-point EXACTLY where it went wrong. That time when you chose to turn over on your bed, rather than get up and go hustle.
Or that time when you had a deadline, and you decided to ignore it, because you were at a party last night. (Or because what you were working on was not as perfect as you needed it to be). And so you got passed up for that job, that promotion, or that opportunity.
Or that time when you ignored the most important thing, and focused on the mundane, because it was easy, it was mindless, it was fun for a fleeting moment.
And now, you are reaping what you have sown. It’s time to account for your sins of omission or of commission. With time as your jury and your actions as your judge.
And try as you might, you can’t pass the buck on this one. You KNOW that this didn’t sneak up on you. This was years in the making. Like that time I got a second class honours lower division in my university degree, when I really should have got a first class honours. I knew I had sold myself out, I had fallen short of my capability. I knew that if I had worked harder, I would have waltzed into Yale, or Harvard for my post grad, with a fully paid up scholarship. I knew that I had no one to blame but myself.
Thankfully, it was not rock bottom, and I rebounded from it easy enough. I just broke my back for the next 10+ years to prove that I was worth my mettle, to me as much as to everyone else around me.
See the power of rock-bottom is that once you hit it, there is nowhere else to go but up. That is if you hit the one of the non-permanent variety, also know as six-feet-under.
Since you are reading this, you still have time. Time to prepare yourself to NOT hit rock bottom. Time to work till you drop, to move ahead so fast you leave others around you out of breath.
Time to fill your mind with only thoughts of the hope of where you are going, while being grateful for where you are. And leaving behind the regret of where you could have been.
So what WILL be your rock bottom? What will be your final straw?
As for me, right now, I’m thanking God for life every morning, and praying for peace every night, doing life hard so that I will be spent when my days are done. And before then, making sure the world knows that I am on this earth!
And if you are yearning to never have to hit rock bottom, or you did and you want a way out in regards to your investments.
If you finally want to change the way you have always reacted to the way things have always been done, if you want to do things differently, if this resonates with you in your real estate journey then you owe it yourself to reach out to us and get access to tried and true strategies, expert help and trusted networks at long last. More on how to do that below.
I work with African professionals in the Diaspora to help them maximize their real estate investments, by providing the best strategies for getting financing, managing and monetizing their properties back home. My team and I do this by providing them access trusted networks of the right people and the right strategies so they can finally get moving on owning their first, second or third home or be on their way to getting 6-figure returns from the home they already own. Watch our free masterclass to learn the the 5 Steps Our Clients Use to Earn Six-Figure Rents From Their Homes in Africa (while living abroad and doing it 100% virtually.)
Let’s Talk ———>> http://jacquelinetsuma.com/callme
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