Cold Room Business

This is a very lucrative venture and easy to set up once the funds are available. It entails selling livestock feed that require preservation such as meat, chicken, turkey, fish, shrimps, pomo, gizzard among others.

Depending on your location, some items (such as types of fish) will sell faster as compared to others. Carry out a a market survey and determine which livestock sells more. 

BASIC REQUIREMENT

The major requirement for a cold room business is constant power supply. As we know, power supply in Nigeria is not constant and as such one will have to invest in generators.

Others include:

Deep Freezer 

Cutting Knife and Cutlass

Cutting Planks and Table

Scales

Apron

You can start comfortably with just one employee. He must be able to cut livestock.

START UP

As with so many businesses, you can start small or big. 

The cold room business can actually even be done from the comfort of your home. What you really need if you choose this process is to get the word out there starting of course from your closest neighbours.

If you have the finance, you can also go into livestock farming or animal husbandry (where you rear animals for profit). You can also focus on just one aspect such as poultry farming, cattle rearing etc.

Also, in this age and time, people like comfort. Therefore, you can also choose to do home delivery if you are sure you can manage that.

You can even have your website and choose to sell online via an ecommerce portal. See here. 

In addition to livestock, most cold rooms store also sell basic cooking ingredients such as palm oil, groundnut oil, curry, thyme, crayfish etc.

Open a Bridal Store

People get married every weekend and some weekdays too. Bridal stores are always in business most especially towards the end of the year.

These stores sell or make wedding dresses, bride's maid dresses and if you choose dinner gowns. You can either sew the clothes or you can import and resell them. 

To open a store like this you should have good eye for details and be able to meet up with deadlines because a Bride's wedding is considered one of the most important day in her life and the dress should be perfect or almost.

You should have catalogs where your clients can choose from a variety of styles. It's also important to have in you showroom a fabric colour chat. This is colour shades are very important in wedding and the bride should be able to choose the right colour to be used for her bride's maid or reception gown.

Satin Fabric Colour Chat

In addition to the bride and bridesmaids' clothing, you can also sell bridal accessories to go with them.

Also note that you can have an online bridal store, see here on e-commerce. Most times, this is applicable when you are shipping to far distances such as out of the country or else brides-to-be would rather come size their gown themselves.

Become a Fashion Designer and Learn To Sew

A Fashion Designer is different from a Tailor because he/she designs clothing or Fashion Accessories. In this case, we shall focus on clothing.

                                       

African Designers are now being recognized worldwide unlike before. Our Ankara is also now worn all around the world even by international celebrities.

As a Fashion Designer, you should learn to sew. If you have little funds you can start small and grow big. As you grow, you can employ tailors to do the sewing for you, but being able to sew will enable you take note of minute details on the clothing.

Fashion Designing would require basic materials to start such as the sewing machine, sewing threads, measuring tape etc.

                                                

When going into Fashion Designing you can decide to focus on simply women fashion or men fashion or even kids. However, if you have the capability you can still combine them all.
After learning the skill, the question of how to kick start may arise.

You can design and sell or pieces or you can also sew based on specification by your client.

You can sew at home and sell your pieces online via an e-commerce platform. See here.

You can make your clothing at home and display them at someone else's store. They will most likely add some extra money to your selling price and would only pay you after your clothes have been sold.

or You can open up a store or showroom where your clients can come and patronize you. Of them all, this would require the most startup funds. 

Home Delivery Food Business

Make cool cash cooking food and delivering to homes and offices on request. Food is a basic necessity which we cannot do without and everyone loves their comfort.

You have to be able to cook really well so that your customers can keep coming back and also refer you to others. If you cannot cook, please go for the required training.

This kind of business sells very fast so you also have to be ready so as to meet up with the increasing demand when you start and ensure you keep promises and meetup with deadlines.

You can spread the word out there by word of mouth, fliers, social media and networking. Introduce yourself at social gatherings, religious gatherings, and to surrounding neighbours.

Your clients should be able to make order on the phone or online via an e-commerce platform. For more info on the e-commerce platform see here.

If you can, open up a website and work on branding your company. In this kind of business, good customer service is key.

Also consider the mode of payment that would be most suitable and accountable for you.

Hire Purchase

Some of you might have some savings and wonder what to do with it to get some more turn over.

You might want to consider Hire Purchase. 

So, the question is what is hire purchase?

According to www.investopedia.com, hire purchase is a method of buying goods through making installment payments over time. The term hire purchase originated in the U.K., and is similar to what are called "rent-to-own" arrangements in the United States. 

Under a hire purchase contract, the buyer is leasing the goods and does not obtain ownership until the full amount of the contract is paid.

Simply put, you buy a vehicle, sell the vehicle to someone reliable/trustworthy at a much higher rate (selling price + interest), who in most cases to uses it as a means of livelihood. This person then spreads the payment for the vehicle and pays a fixed amount on a monthly basis over a period of agreed time.

An agreement is to be signed between the two parties, a witness and a guarantor to legalize this process. 

Also, the vehicle particulars should remain in the name of the seller until the buyer completes payment.

Sell Cars With No Start Up Funds

If you have sufficient funds to go into selling of cars in a big way, by all means, go ahead. However, if you do not have funds and your dream is to go into selling of vehicles. Do not fret because this dream can be made possible without any single dime or Naira.

With little or no funds though you will be starting small and acting more like an "Agent".

What does this mean? It simply means that you will need to get the word out there that you sell cars. You should get in touch with people willing to sell their cars and then start looking for buyers.
Therefore, whatever little funds you have should be used in Branding yourself and then Marketing the cars.

In branding, I mean getting a complimentary card which you can give to a prospective buyer or seller when you introduce yourself and investing in properly fitted clothing, because you will be addressed by the way you are dressed.

In marketing, I mean posting pictures of the cars online, putting up on your bbm, whatsapp or any chat platform you use, and basically using the various forms of social media available for use.

In acting as an ''Agent'', I mean that you will basically be connecting the buyer to the seller or better still connecting the buyer to the car.

How do you stand to gain from this transaction financially? you may ask.

By simply getting commission on each vehicle sold from the sellers or better still by adding your charge to the selling price fixed by the seller.

With this method, you need to market market market yourself so you get more clients (sellers).

Note that word of mouth and referrals are very important in this kind of business so first impression counts!

As you gain customers and recognition, when you have saved enough to begin to purchase tokunbo cars, you will have the market already available for you.

Open an Online Ecommerce Store From Home

  

Online boutique is easier to start up and manage if you are IT compliant. However, even if you are not so IT compliant, you can learn quickly and kick start immediately.

You can sell online in different ways:

1. You can have a blog on your expertise, gain followers and sell your product.
2. You can sell on a general website online platform, however some of these sites have an arrangement in which you sell and give the owners of the site a commission on each product. Some of these site are also industry specific. Example of some of these websites are Ebay.com, Amazon.com, Jumia.com, Konga.com, Kaymu.com and Etsy.com.
3. You can also open up an e-commerce website and sell your products yourself.

The advantages of an online e-commerce store are numerous:

1. It exposes your products to a large number of customers/clients.
2. You don't have to pay for rent for your store.
3. The start up fund is less as you can start from home.

Things that can be sold online include:

Clothes
Food
Agricultural Products
Beads and Jewelry
Accessories
Art Pieces
Cars and Car Accessories
Houses
Drugs (Pharmacy)
Computers
Phones and Phones Accessories
Electronics
Household Items
Home and Office Furniture
Curtain and Bed Sheets
Makeup Products
Skincare Products
Books
Cds
Perfumes
Weavons and Hair Products
Gym and Fitness Items
Groceries

Open a Boutique

               

This is one of the most lucrative businesses which women and men can go into. You can decide to sell clothes for women, men, girls, boys or babies. You can also sell accessories such as bags, shoes, belts, hats, sunglasses etc.

If you decide to open up a boutique consider

The cost of rent,
The area and vicinity
The caliber of people living or working around, low class, middle class or high class?
The age group of the people around the store
The population and influx of people around the store and
The kind of products you will sell and the profit margin

All of this will help determine how to break even in your business.

Industries

You need to find that area/industry which you are best suitable for so that you can focus, grow and enjoy what you do. In choosing a business, you should note that location is key. For instance in Nigeria, some businesses and services are more suitable for urban states such as Lagos, Abuja and the rest while some are more suitable for other rural areas. 

There's actually a long list in which a lot of them a interconnected that's why some businesses branch out and have subsidiaries that are also linked to their primary focus. 

Below are the list of niches we will focus on:
Clothing and Apparel                                        Beauty and Skin CareJewelry and Accessories                                                                      Agriculture               Automobile                              Food                                                     Real Estate/ConstructionHospitality      Creative Art Entertainment and Recreation Rental and Leasing                           Information Technology                                     MarketingFinance                         Music                               Production/ManufacturingConsumer Services Retail WholesaleSupply/DistributionTransport/Logistics Health Care WholesaleEducationMedia and AdvertisingProfessional Services

Introduction

                                                       

Welcome to the home of entrepreneurial business ideas, skills mastery and self empowerment.

Here, we give you fresh ideas, the secrets and the know how to go about starting and successfully managing your business.

Are you a career person? Guess what? You can tap one or two skills from here.

Are you a student looking to do something on the side to support your self?

Are you unemployed?

Do you have little or no funds?

Do you have sufficient funds but lack ideas?

Or do you fall into the category of a working class person looking for additional means of income?

You have come to the right place and have taken the first step in achieving your dreams.

The journey of a thousand miles they say, begins with one step and you have just taken that step.

Welcome on board!