How to start a small business in Nigeria without shop

MARKET YOUR BUSINESS

Get a website: If you’re selling online, get your e-commerce in gear and either build a website, or have one built for you. It’s your storefront, so anything and everything you can do to make people want to visit, and want to stay, do it.

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Hire professional designers: They may cost more initially, but a well presented and trustworthy site is essential. It needs to look professional and work with ease. If you are including money transactions, invest in security encryption and check that your money transfer companies are sound and reliable.

Discover your inner publicist: You might truly believe in your product or service but it won’t fly unless everyone else believes in it too. If you’re new to advertising and marketing or you dislike doing the sales pitch, now is the time to overcome such feelings and put on the publicist persona. You need to develop an excellent short pitch to convince people they need your product or service, one that reflects the value, purpose and potential of what your business is offering. Write down this pitch in many ways until you find one that you feel satisfied says it all and is something you can say readily. Then practice it like crazy! Get interesting, eye-catching business cards.

Spend time developing excellent social media presence: This can be done well before the business is ready, increasing anticipation. Use Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, and any other social media you participate in to build excitement and spread the word. You want to build a buzz so that people will begin following your progress.

Implement your marketing and distribution plans: With your product being built or services developed, and a reasonable expectation on when either is ready for selling, begin marketing. If you will be advertising in periodicals, they will need copy or images at least two months in advance of publication. If you will be selling in stores, get pre-orders sold, and shelf space allocated. If you will be selling online, get that e-commerce site ready to sell. If you’re offering a service, advertise in appropriate trade and professional journals, newspapers and online.

LAUNCH YOUR BUSINESS

Secure space: Whether it’s an office, or a warehouse, if you need more space than your garage or your spare bedroom, now’s the time to get that. If you don’t generally need an office beyond your home, but may occasionally need meeting space, there are often places downtown that can address those needs. A quick Google search on “business meeting rentals will deliver plenty of rental options in your area.

Build your product or develop your service: Once you have the business all planned, financed, and have your basic level of staffing, get going.

Whether that’s sitting down with the engineers and getting the software coded and tested, or getting materials sourced and shipped to your fabrication room, or purchasing in bulk and marking up the price, the building process is the time during which you prepare for market.

During this time, you may discover things such as: Needing to tweak the ideas – Perhaps the product needs to be a different color, texture or size. Maybe your services need to be broader, narrower or more detailed.

This is the time to attend to anything that crops up during your testing and development phases. You’ll know innately when something needs tweaking to make it better or to make it less like a competitor’s stale offerings. Getting feedback – Friends and family make great resources for asking questions and getting feedback – don’t hesitate to use them as your sounding board.

Needing to increase the size of your premises – This happens more often than expected. Once the stock starts piling up, you may find it ends up in your living room, bedroom and the garden shed. Think rental of storage premises if needed.

Launch your product or your service: When the product is all built, packaged, coded, online, and ready to sell, or when your services are fully worked out and ready to go, hold a special event to launch your business. Send out a press release, announce it to the world. Tweet it, Facebook it, let the word resound to all corners of your market – you have a new business!

TIPS:

Always provide value and service to those who may be your customers, even if they are not currently. When they do need your product, you want them to think of you first.

With the advent of the internet, online businesses are probably the easiest way to start and very much less expensive in terms of start-up cost than an offline counterpart. Don’t be afraid to experiment with prices. Try to add more and more great ideas as you go!

Keep learning, and be adaptable to change. Find buddies, mentors, local business-related organisations, Internet forums, and wikis to discuss the daily details of running a small business. It’s much easier for everyone to perform their core businesses well and prosper when they don’t waste time and energy “reinventing the wheel” on housekeeping.

You can also consider trading on eBay or Overstock. Most direct selling companies have low start up capital compared to a traditional brick and mortar business. You can also break even rather quickly compared to the traditional business. A franchise is a great idea although the start-up capital is way too high for most people.