I started selling human hair and the business was doing fine until my girlfriends who partied every weekend wouldn’t pay up their debts. I was literally chasing them everywhere until the business crashed

I started another business selling designers bags and shoes. This business lasted for 6 months and it crashed again, for reasons I can’t pinpoint.  Then I started selling makeup and beauty products. I really struggled in this business because I bought counterfeit products by mistake. This really affected my customers’ trust and some of them never bought anything from me after that horrible experience.

I decided to seek professional help, seeking answers to my predicament. Why were all my my businesses failing?

I will be sharing some tips for running a successful business, which I learned from a business coach. This may be of help when you decide to start a new business venture or if you are going through some challenges.

1. Be Passionate About Your Business: Never delve into a business venture just because it is trending. Instead, go into a business because you have passion for that business – if it excites you and makes you want to put your best foot forward.
2. Patience and Persistence is the Key: Forget all the beautiful pictures and comments you see on the social media pages of successful business women.  The truth is that you have no idea how they started. You only see the pretty pictures but not the blood, sweat, and tears it took for them to get there. There is no such thing as an overnight success. Be patient and be persistent. Trust the process. Soon, you too will have a thriving business.
3. Use Social Media to Grow Your Customers: Over 1 billion people are on social media, that means that your potential customers are out there on social media. Why not run some sponsored advertisements to advertise your products? You never know who is searching for what you are selling.
4. Sell Quality: Quality is non-negotiable. You don’t want your business to have bad reviews, do you? This can cause a lot of damage and scare away potential customers. Be sure you are selling quality products/rendering quality services, not just posting pretty photos on Instagram.
5. Sell Your Business at Every Opportunity: Don’t ever be shy about your business. Talk about it as much as you can to whoever will listen. Out socializing? Make some new acquaintances and let them know about your business. At church for Sunday service? Introduce yourself to the person next to you, and tell them about you business. Etc etc. You never know, they just might be your potential customer.
6. Learn How to Put a Structure in Place for Your Business: You can do this by seeking the advice of people in your field who have succesfully run their businesses. Also, you could sign up for any entrepreneurship classes in your area.

Got some additional tips? Feel free to share with us in the comments section below.

I sure did learn a lot from her and I hope you will too!

If you have ever visited Ayo Van Elmar fashion cafe, you will admit that it’s quite an eclectic and unique experience you’ve had.

As a trained nutritionist who is also a fashion designer, Ayo wanted to offer fashion, art and a healthy option for snacking. And this birthed the cafe. With her knock-out smoothies, carrot cakes, and other yummy treats, the cafe offers a unique space where patrons can eat and relax while shopping: Something we ladies would surely appreciate.

The tri-lingual, versatile woman (she speaks German, English and Yoruba fluently) is such a bundle of joy and character which she expresses in her designs and art works.

Her cafe is located in one of Nigeria’s premium 5 star hotels, Oriental Hotel. It houses clothing lines worn by the city’s popular celebrities, as well as fashion-forward individuals.

She was based in Vienna, Austria – one of the most beautiful cities in the world – before she moved to Lagos, which let’s face it, isn’t as developed as Vienna. With basic necessities such as electricity and WiFi still a luxury in this part of the world, many would wonder why she made that move. She mentions her decision was made, so she could  have creative freedom.

“The average Nigerian’s love for colour and creativity is freeing and liberating. It’s not the same in other parts of the world. I love having creative freedom!”

Here are Ayo’s tips to having a thriving business:

If you are not passionate about it, don’t do it
‘Money will come’, Ayo says. She believes in doing it first for the passion before the money. Passion she describes, has to be deeply rooted.

‘If you do it for money, you’re going to close shop’.

Rejuvenate
Ayo goes back to Vienna at least three times a year. It is there she gets inspiration and has an opportunity to visit family. Within Nigeria, she goes to the beach to hibernate and gather fresh sources of inspiration. Rejuvenation, she mentions, is necessary if you are to keep your batteries in good shape.

Hard work means little or no sleep
“I’ve learnt that sometimes, many times, I’ll come last”. That’s simply how entrepreneurship works.

Consistency
Ayo who has been a working fashion designer for 6 years, spoke on how much of a growth journey the process had been all along for her. As a name that has only become familiar to many this year, she says it has been a roller coaster ride but she stayed consistent through it all and learnt to enjoy the journey.

Certainty
You have to be absolutely sure that this is what you want to do or it won’t work out, she says. It gets incredibly daunting and as a result, there are several times when any sane person would want to give up. It is in those critical times that the extraordinary entrepreneur is defined.

Have the right values
Ayo could easily have elected to produce in countries like Bangladesh and China where the labour would be cheaper, and where workers are often exploited. However, this goes against her personal code of ethics.

She also mentions having an understanding of who her employees are, where they live, how much their rent is… taking a real interest in the people that make up the core of her business. This, she mentioned has also been a winning factor.

Below are some of the hard truths:

It’s not always going to rain on sunday
This simply means that there will be days where the income just isn’t coming in as it should. This doesn’t make you a bad entrepreneur. In fact, the true test of entrepreneurship is being able to withstand days or months like these. To combat this, make sure you get your savings right and you have enough for the dry seasons.

Not everyone is built for entrepreneurship
So entrepreneurship isn’t just something you enter into because the sight of your boss disgusts you and you would like to wake up whenever you deem fit. It isn’t equally something everyone is destined to retire to. See point number 1, if you have that level of stamina to persevere where the going gets tough because that is inevitable, then by all means venture into it because many things are uncertain and risky about entrepreneurship. However, one thing that is certain is the fact that it will get tough.

A major part of your income will be spent on electricity
Lots of times, people don’t factor in the costs that fuel for the generator incure. In a day, you could end up spending as much as N10,000; calculate that for a week, now do the costing for a month. Not pretty is it? Unfortunately, you are no longer an employee and costs such as these which were previously not a concern of yours have now become part and parcel of your priority list. It is essential to factor in these costs, as it will be a key factor in how many hands you hire, the budget you present to your clients etc.

A lot of meetings are a waste of time

This is especially true in Lagos. Many prospective clients feel the need to have countless meetings regarding issues that can be sorted out via a single phone call. Guys, we are in the digital age, and there are things called Skype, Whatsapp video calls, etc, through which you can have virtual meetings. As an entrepreneur, time is money. Half the time there’s traffic on the roads. Then if you don’t own a car yet, you have to use Uber/Taxify to get to said meetings. You should get into the habit of determining whether or not a meeting is needed, and if not, politely expain to your client that a virtual meeting would suffice.

People like to OWE money

Yes, OWE is in caps for emphasis! When you first start out as an entrepreneur, it can be quite an exciting feeling knowing that people are patronising your business. I tell you, your customers can smell your rookie excitement from a mile away. And if you are not careful, there are some people who will try to take advantage of you when they sense that you are a new, hungry entrepreneur on the come up. You need to come up with a payment system that favors and protects you. For instance, some service providers insist on upfront payment before service is carried out. Explore your options and find out what would work best for you depending on your field.

You will work harder than you’ve ever worked
The success or failure of your business is all on you. No pressure.

Nothing could ever prepare you for the life of an entrepreneur. You sink or swim. There are no short cuts. Some make it and others don’t. It is however important that you think carefully about all the pros and cons before you dive in. It is also of high importance that you read and try to equip yourself with as much information in the field in which you are trying to get into. Be a sponge and soak it all in, as much as you can.

Are you looking to take the leap to become a full on entrepreneur? Please consider some of these points. Are you an existing entrepreneur with a few more hard truths of your own? Please share in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

It’s not a rarity to find a person who has a slew of multiple businesses despite their keeping a full-time job. Some accrue it to wanting multiple streams of income, however what could also be contributing to this occurrence is the lack of job security and the need to hold down the forte in an economy that doesn’t really have credit facilities or unemployment insurance funds.

Whatever the reason might be, it is important to figure out ways to make them both work. As a full time paid staff,  a contributing writer for QM as well as, running my own PR company and the residential wing of my mom’s business in my unofficial work hours, I frequently have to make sacrifices.

I have had to learn that to be efficient, that might mean foregoing the series some of my peers get the luxury of catching up on work day nights to unwind or Friday ‘turn-up’ which would leave me absolutely useless over the weekend. Basically, I’ve come to understand that my non-work hours are almost as valuable as the air that I breathe if I am to successfully balance both.

However, some days are just YOLO days and you really do crave being absolutely useless. I recently took my first official leave ever and over the holidays, my sister commented on how much I’m starting to let myself go. Gasp.

According to entrepreneur, these are some of the 5 proposed ways to get you some balance with your side hustle.

Practice energy management instead of time management

To be productive, match your tasks with your energy, says Jessica Lawlor, a former side hustler and the current CEO of Gutsy Community, a communications firm.

Lawlor knew she did her best creative work early, so she prioritized her day based on when her body and mind worked best. She woke up 5 a.m. to finish blogging and writing for her side hustle before leaving for her full-time job. Once there, she still aimed to get complete any creativity-intensive work done in the morning hours, knowing that her energy would wane in the afternoon. Rote tasks that required less brainpower were saved for the afternoon, such as email and expense reports.

This habit serves her even today as she runs the business she founded full-time. “So many entrepreneurs and side hustlers are obsessed with the idea of time management, but I’ve personally found that practicing energy management has proven much more effective.”

Seek out new tools for focus

Find out how you spend your time, says Nick Loper, the founder of Side Hustle Nation, a coaching service for entrepreneurs. The answers can be eye-opening and help side-hustlers better understand what tasks to delegate or even eliminate altogether. He suggests downloading apps such as Toggl or Everhour, or even just creating a simple Excel spreadsheet. Tracking your time can help gamify tasks and keep you alert. “Knowing you’re ‘on the clock tends to speed up your efforts and keep you focused.”

Loper’s other tip for focus? Brainwave music. Startups such as Focus@will and Brain.fm design original compositions with brain function in mind. While Loper doesn’t use these everyday, he says when he does he definitely feels more focused and productive.

Make time for growth.

Of course, if you’re consumed with running your business, you’re not growing it, something Chris Guillebeau, the founder of The Art of Non-Conformity, a platform for unconventional people doing remarkable things, realized first-hand while living on a hospital ship in West Africa and working as a hospital aide.

Since Guillebeau squeezed his side-hustle into mornings and evenings, he set aside 25 minutes every morning to complete one task that would grow his business. This ensured that emails and other tedious chores wouldn’t overwhelm his limited schedule. Key to this practice was not starting the session until he knew what he wanted to accomplish. “I made a rule to not open my laptop before beginning, otherwise, I’d inevitably end up distracted and fail to accomplish anything significant.”

The habit often set the tone for the entire day. “No matter what else happened, as the chaos of the day unfolded, I felt a special sense of satisfaction.”

Rethink the week

For some side-hustlers, productivity means getting real about what you can work on when. Luisa Zhou tried to set aside an hour a day after work but found herself too exhausted to do more than watch TV or scroll through her Facebook newsfeed. “Reality sank in,” says Zhou, who is now self-employed and helping women transition from employee to entrepreneur.

After some trial and error, Zhou realized she’d need to break up her to-dos. She saved mentally intensive activities for the weekend, where she had the energy and focus for planning and creating content for the week ahead. The weekdays were reserved for manual tasks she could complete while in “autopilot” mode, such as sharing content and responding to questions.

“This method is the path of least resistance. It doesn’t require me to change my schedule or increase my willpower,” says Zhou. “By making all my weekday tasks manual, I made them as easy as possible to do even in a tired, don’t-want-to-work, or think, state.”

Schedule ‘side hustle-only’ time

Spending every spare minute on a side-hustle is tempting for a side-hustler. And if you’re building an app to help with focus — like ShaoKan Pi did — it might even be irresistible. But while Pi and team spent every evening, lunch and 10-minute break on Forest, an app that helps cure cell phone addiction, they found their energy fading. “This is the moment most people give up,” says Pi. “And this was the moment when we decided to find another way to keep working on Forest.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock