3 Things that could guarantee your success in business in Africa

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks.

First, we just want to say, thanks for all your support as we launched our new program these past 2 weeks. It’s been one of the most super encouraging and gratifying experiences in business to see the gaps and be able to respond to the needs in this sector. What has been a labour of love in the past has quickly evolved into something we see making a great impact in the stories of those involved. Look forward to sharing it with you!

Enrollment is now closed (thanks for letting us bombard your inbox and social feed 😘😊). We start with our very 1st cohort this week. Look forward to learning together with this amazing group of people. And, we’ll be opening up opportunity very soon for a few more that wanted to jump on but didn’t manage to in time, watch your inbox for that because you also get to squeeze in in case you also missed it. If you want to be sure not to miss out on the information when it comes or you’d like in on the next session, get on our VIP list here so you’ll be the first to know-> http://upanihomes.com/ownyourhome .

We went from 0 to 51 subscribers in only 3 days of actively posting to social media on our new campaign ” Own Your Home“. It was amazing to see the response. I have never seen this kind of response before.

Well, maybe once over at Lovemylifestyle.co when we went from 20 to just under 400 subscribers in about 2 days.

Yes, the numbers can be crazy when you are on to something. It almost feels like you’ve gone viral. It’s a pretty good feeling. And it also it tells you that people are dying for the information that you are giving out. Which is a perfect segue for me to move on to share the 3 things that I learned that will help you know if you have a viable product – and therefore business – or not. Or whether it’s just a flight of fancy that is here today and most likely gone tomorrow.

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So 3 things that stood out to us from this launch:

  1. Find the gaps, respond to the needs – if you want to dominate in business
  2. Just start!Andthe others ways to test out any idea
  3. Envision your success

Find the gaps, respond to the needs – if you want to dominate in business in Africa or globally

[bctt tweet=”Find the gaps, respond to the needs – if you want to dominate in business in Africa or globally” username=”jacqueetsuma”]

That process has shown us just how quickly you can find a business idea when you look at your own needs, or the needs of those around you. That’s how this began for us. When my husband and I bought a home 2 years ago, we saw how little information there was in the public arena about the process. From how to find a property, get the ideal mix of beauty, utility and profitability. To how to get funding, buy it and rent it to bring you the maximum return.

The reason we knew there was not enough information out there was because we looked. I even looked on the Amazon kindle library, and there was only one book written by a lawyer! Perhaps Kenya is still trailing when it comes to digital publishing – and that’s another business idea. By the time we are done with this sector there will definitely be more than one book, one of my plans is to write and publish an easily accessible information handbook for people just like me who are looking to buy a house.

But before we get there, we were saying… the need had been identified. We just needed to find out how badly people wanted it. So we put up a sign-up page for webinar.

Of the 135 that showed up, 74 registered, which is an amazing conversion rate of over 50%. Industry experts tell you that you can expert a conversion rate of 1-2% and maximum 10%. And more than that, webinars are expected to convert much lower than other offerings like cheat sheets and blue prints.

Before i start rumbling on all technical and stuff, I’ll stop there and if you’d like to know about the steps that led to the webinar and the outcome with the statistics, let me know in the comments and I’ll do a separate post about it.

Just start! And other ways to test out any idea

Secondly, don’t wait too long to start. Sorry if you’d expected more than this, you ‘A’ personality you! You’re just going to have to hang up your over-zealous-self-ness-ness for now…. Less is more, and minimalism is definitely the way to go.

[bctt tweet=”Just start! And other ways to test out any idea” username=”jacqueetsuma”]

The most basic and best way to know if you have a viable product is to get people to spend money on it, even one dollar. That will let you know that you are on the right track.

I first heard this on a podcast by Tony Robbins where Noah Kagan shared how his first business was beef jerky – also known as biltong in these parts of the word. He sold the first few that he produced for 1 dollar and knew he had a product. He goes very in-depth in this article, he shares how he made $3,500+ in less than a week, it’s great reading. And an even better article that goes into incredible depth is this one of him on Tim Ferris’s site. The first link I shared above is much better for you if you are just starting out, it’s simple, easy to execute and just plain practical.

I’ve had way more success when I just started with the bare bones. Though with my IT background, barebones when it comes to the web can be much much more than your’s may be. This still also applies whether you have an online product or an offline one. Forget the endless surveys and the market research we like to tell ourselves we need to do to make sure we are positioning ourselves “just right”. Market research will come soon enough, hopefully once the first couple of people have bought your product and now you can fine-tune.

Envision your success

Thirdly, this one thing will help you look failure in the eye, lose the battle, but go on to win the war of business success.

This one thing will help you look failure in the eye, lose the battle, but go on to win the war of… Click To Tweet

Cameroon’s win at the recent AFCON finals was amazing! and a case in point. (And if you don’t know what AFCON is, you’re either not from Africa or you’re a woman 🙂 . I’m a woman who doesn’t normally watch football, so if I know it, no excuse 😀 ).

So.. Cameroon’s win.

They got on to the field the underdogs of the game, but that didn’t faze them. They’d already printed out their championship jerseys and they had the attitude of winners.

I just really love everything about that!

It’s like going for a job interview and you already have your business cards for the company and position all printed out. I’m like seriously swooning over this idea. I might just try that someday. And I know it can come across as being foolhardy too. That’s okay.

It made me think of my daughter Upendo who hates to lose. And sometimes – read all the time in business – you’ve got to hate to lose. You’ve got to be able to tell yourself, I will do what it takes to make sure the odds are in my favor.

Sure, you may get that tinge of fear of failure, of falling flat on your face, but one wise man once said, “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”

[bctt tweet=”Forget the endless surveys & the market research we like to tell ourselves we need to make sure we are positioning ourselves “just right”” via=”no”]

Saying Yes to being independent of the 8-5 and starting my online business was one of the best decision I ever made.

And you can do it too. Whether it’s by becoming a full-time real estate developer, or by taking what you know and putting it online like I did, it will make a significant difference in your sense of “I can do it!”. And most importantly it will get you moving on YOUR goals and not those of your boss or your employer.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, or get in touch with me here.

And check out our webinar, it’s still up for a limited time, you can watch the replay immediately and get all the goodness we share before we bring it down soon.