Why You Should Not Do What You Love When Starting Your Own Business

One of the most common pieces of advice to those who are thinking of starting a small business is to do what they love.


Particularly when you are at the stage of starting your own business where you're casting about for ideas and deciding what kind of business you want to start, choosing to start a business based on what you love can lead you on a path headed entirely in the wrong direction - or even over a cliff.

You should not do what you love because:


1.  Love tempts you to take shortcuts.

One of the reason love and starting your own business don't mix is that we tend to assume that other people will love who or what we love. Who hasn't experienced the bewilderment of realizing that a person who’s important to us dislikes a loved one? It's an uncomfortable situation that can lead to hurt feelings and even the loss of a friendship.

When you start your own business based on what you love, the assumption that other people love it too can be downright dangerous. When you forge ahead, starting your own business without doing the research that would discover whether or not other people love what you love, you're literally gambling with your livelihood. What if they don’t and you've invested all your savings, for instance, or remortgaged your family home?

Every business idea needs to be diligently researched and examined to see if it actually presents a profitable business opportunity. Think you'd love to do whatever it is you're thinking of doing as a business? Write a Business Plan and see if the idea actually has any merit.


2.  Love makes you irrational.

When we're in love, we tend to see everything from an emotional point of view, rather than a rational one. That's why we describe it as being "head over heels". It's certainly not a good state to be in when you're starting your own business and trying to choose the business idea or existing business that will be best for you.

For example, the other week I heard that a small local boutique shop was for sale. I had to go see it as I've always loved the idea of running such a place. And physically, the boutique shop was no disappointment; it had all the atmosphere and accoutrements I had hoped for, right down to the funky carvings decorating the walls. My heart was pumping!

Now if I had let my heart lead me, I would have bought that  shop. Fortunately, I didn't. Instead, I sat down and did some research so I could do a business valuation.  I soon discovered that the business was considerably overpriced. Rationally, buying it would make no business sense.


3.  Love makes you overly optimistic.

Starting your own business is no small commitment. Doing what needs to be done to get your new business started and develop it into a thriving small business takes years in many cases. Very few small businesses are a financial success in their first year. Some, as you know, never are.

The danger of being in love with a particular idea or type of business is that it makes us overly optimistic as to a business's potential. We tend to romanticize our prospects. You can start any kind of business anywhere. But will it succeed? And (a question that is just as important) how long will it take for the business to actually turn a profit?

You can't know for sure before your new small business starts, but you can develop a pretty good guesstimate by working through your start up and operating expenses and doing cash flow projections.

I'm always surprised by how many people are reluctant to "run the numbers". You have to do it, though, if you're going to get any realistic idea of a business’s potential success.

You Will Need Passion When You're Starting Your Own Business

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with passion. Passionately believing in your product or vision makes it a whole lot easier to put in all the hours you need to put in to start your own business and grow it into an enterprise to be proud of. But you need to rein in your passion when you're trying to decide what to do where and how. When it comes to starting your own business, passion is for the building stage, not the choosing a business stage.

So don't choose to start a small business based on what you love. Instead, choose something related to your interests that other people are going to love - or at least like enough to pay for.
Check the right side bar for more tips.


Lastly, Don't Do What You Love, Do What Works and What Your Prospective Customers Will Love.
That is Business!!!



contributors: Susan Ward and Tochukwu M.

GET UPDATED NIGERIA PHONE NUMBERS DATABASE AND FREE NIGERIA EMAIL ADDRESS DATABASE

Updated: 10th July, 2021.



Are you  into information marketing, mobile sms marketing, shortcode sms, bulk sms business, product marketing, political campaign, etc. or you want to make money through sms marketing? This is the opportunity you have been waiting for.
Advertising and marketing your service involves a cost to guarantee success, but discovering and using the right channel is a very smart decision and always stand out to guarantee greater results.

Using Sms shortcode/Bulk SMS to run your campaigns and marketing is mostly recommended in the sense that when you send such campaign messages, the messages goes directly to the palms of GSM users.
Yes, there are many means of marketing, campaign and/or advertising your services and offers, many from time past till date prefer the use of the conventional media, maybe they never sat to weigh their outcomes or may be they never expected shocking and outstanding responses.

IMPORTANT HINTS: Hundreds of people spend between N50,000 to N500,000 advertising in the local news media thinking that their products will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people, but only 2% of those persons get their result slightly as they intended.
If you are one of them, then there is this simple truth you must understand; except in situations where there is breaking news of national interest, hardly will you see 10,000 people giving interest on national media a day out of the 160 million Nigerians, isn’t that shocking?

Now let’s view this statistics briefly:
Less than 2% of Nigerians use the internet daily.
4% of Nigerians read newspapers daily.
9% of Nigerians watch TV daily.
19% of Nigerians listen to radio daily.
While over 60% of Nigerians use GSM phones daily for their communication
The remaining 6% neither use any of the above media.

We all can believe, that among all the communication devices we have today, the GSM phone is the most device the is carried around, of course that is the reason for it existence, every person that owns a GSM device carries it along right there at their arms, pauses, pockets and cases. I can never object the fact that most devices today has internet services for people who know how to use the internet, but that can never change the fact that this internet feature on your mobile device involves a cost and for you as the entreprenuer to have your service advertise on the internet also involve a cost, but sad enough that doesn't guarantee that people will access the page regularly. Even if you listed it on search engine, it will still take a while for people who search for certain keyword and items on the web to stumble at your page, what if they never get the right search keyword you used.
However, it is important to note that most people fail because they refuse to sit back and weigh the disadvantages of each given alternative and innovation.

There are many challenges in SMS marketing business and the greatest of them all is getting the updated GSM number database of all active phone users in Nigeria. Registering for bulk SMS is free and getting Short code(shared) doesn't cost much. But getting active Gsm database arranged according to state and local government areas is very costly.
This article is about giving all the opportunity to get the database at affordable rate.

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Nationwide(not demographically arranged): N20,000.

Bonus on GSM database include:
How to send free bulk SMS and free 150,000 active Nigerian email addresses(can give you from any location of your choice).

NB: You can also buy and resell. The database contain the names of the people also.

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USING FOODS TO FIGHT STRESS

Stress in humans can be defined as the result of a strained interaction between two or more people and a hostile environment which threatens their well-being. The relationship between the stimulus (stressor) and a the way humans respond to it has been broadly investigated, especially when it comes to how stress can affect one’s relationship with food. Though the correlation has been convincingly demonstrated, the tendency seems to be to consider the consumption of comfort food as a cure for stress, rather than an effect of it.

Stress has been implicated as one of the factors responsible for reduced efficiency in human especially during working hours and also at home.
Stress can drive up our blood pressure and raise serum cholesterol levels, wreaking havoc on our arteries and increasing our risk of heart attack.

In stressful situations, it’s easy to turn toward food to deal with emotions. Unfortunately, the foods we’re drawn to when we’re stressed are usually very high in fat and carbs.
To that effect,  there is need to make the much needed correction.


1. Spinach

It may be the complete opposite of what you’re craving, but spinach and other leafy greens are rich in magnesium—a mineral that’s essential in more than 300 chemical reactions in the body. Magnesium is used to help prevent anxiety and also treat ADHD. All you need is one cup of spinach to start reaping the benefits of this mineral’s natural stress-fighting power.


2. Whole grains

All carbohydrates trigger the brain to produce serotonin—one of those feel-good hormones that helps balance out your mood, sexual desires, appetite, sleep, memory and more. To naturally boost your serotonin levels, choose healthy whole grain breads, brown rice and oatmeal for a little more stress relief.


3. Avocados

Potassium naturally helps to lower blood pressure and just half of an avocado contains more of it than one medium banana. You’ll also be nourishing your body with healthy B-vitamins, monosaturated fat and fiber when you incorporate avocados into your diet.


4. Oranges

Oranges are full of vitamin C, which lowers cortisol and blood pressure while also gives the immune system a bit of a boost. A German study in Psychopharmacology found that vitamin C helps reduce stress and return blood pressure and cortisol to normal levels after a stressful situation. Also according to the University of Maryland, large doses of vitamin C has been proven to reduce both physical and mental responses to stress.


5. Salmon

Wild salmon is such an important food source for its powerful omega-3 fatty acids. It helps prevent stress hormones from rising and fights inflammation, keeping both your brain and body healthy so your anxiety level can stay on the lower end.


6. Nuts

Nuts like pistachios, coconuts and walnuts are rich in healthy fats and lots of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin B21 and vitamin E, which help give the immune system a boost. These nutrients may help strengthen you and lift you up when you’re more likely to feel stressed, anxious or even depressed.


7. Yogurt

According to WebMD, a diet that incorporates probiotic foods (like certain types yogurt- those that underwent complete bacterial fermentation) has been show to change the body’s response to stress and anxiety. Gastrointestinal problems often come hand in hand with anxiety and probiotics can help reduce inflammation in the gut to bring some relief.


8. Chia seeds or Sunflower seeds

Chia seeds and sunflower seeds contain tryptophan—an animo acid that triggers the release of serotonin in the brain and promotes feelings of calmness and sometimes even sleepiness. Some research has shown that it can help reduce anxiety.

9. Asparagus

Low levels of folate(folic acid) may be partly to blame for feeling more anxious and even a little depressed. Asparagus is very rich in folate and all you need is one cup of it to give you two-thirds of your recommended daily value.


10. Dark chocolate

Is it really any secret that chocolate is known to release those feel-good chemicals in our brains? Besides the fact that it pretty much falls into the traditional comfort food category and tastes really good, research has shown that it can actually help calm you down too.



FOODS TO AVOID


High-fat foods:

Fatty foods such as meat or cheese dishes and many baked goods thicken our blood which in turn makes us feel tired, even lethargic. This is clearly not a good way to reduce stress! Even just one high-fat meal can increase our risk of a heart attack.


Caffeine:

Many of us deal with a stress-induced lack of sleep by turning to coffee, tea, and colas. Unfortunately, caffeine stays in our systems longer than many realize. Cutting back on caffeine can help with both sleeping problems and jitters.


Sugar:

As a carbohydrate, sugar tends to calm us. The problem with sugar is that it's a simple carbohydrate so it enters and leaves the bloodstream rapidly, causing us to, in effect, "crash." On the other hand, complex carbohydrates?such as pasta, beans, and lentils, the starchy parts of foods?soothe without bringing us down.

Things To Do When You Cannot Pay Your Debts

As a first step, you’ll want to list all of the debts you owe from smallest to largest. Throw all of your excess funds at the smallest balance, while making the minimum payments on all your larger loans. Once the smallest balance is paid off, start putting that extra money toward the next smallest debt until you pay that one off, and so on.

Over time, your small balances should disappear one by one, freeing up more money to throw at your larger debts and loans. This allows you to pay down smaller balances first — logging a few “wins” for the psychological effect — while letting you save the largest loans for last. Ultimately, the goal is snowballing all of your extra money toward your debts until they’re demolished — and you’re finally debt-free.



Dump All Non-Essentials

Go over your list of expenses and cancel anything that isn't key to your survival. Cable/satellite, streaming services, newspaper subscriptions, extra phone/computer features, paid memberships  – they all need to go until you have your finances back on track.


Learn To Multitask And Earn Extra Income

Late payments and skipped payments are bad news for your finance, and could cause you to lose your home or car, so make a hard push to earn the money that you need to cover your budget gap. Sell some stuff, pick up a side job, roll coins – do everything in your power to pay your bills on time.

Check the side bar for bunch of ways to raise cash quickly; see if there are any ideas that you might have overlooked before you decide to go the non-payment route.


Renegotiate Loans and Medical Bills

If you're currently paying on loans or medical bills, free up some money by negotiating new repayment terms, which will allow you to reduce your payments or to temporarily stop making payments all together.
Medical bills are even easier to renegotiate. Just call the accounting office, explain what you can afford to pay, and they'll usually work with you.


Prioritize You Bills

If you still don't have enough money to cover your bills, it's time to decide which bills you're going to pay now and which are going to have to wait. Go through your list of monthly expenses, and mark all items that are vital to your existence as a top priority. This includes things like your rent/mortgage, utilities and insurance. Mark all secured debts as your next priority. This includes things like car loans, home equity loans and any other debts that have collateral attached to them. Mark all unsecured debts as your last priority. This includes things like credit card debt, personal loans and most services-related bills. Once you've prioritized all of your bills, make a list of the bills that you aren't going to be able to pay right away.


Talk to Your Creditors

Now, that you've done everything that you can to minimize the damage, it's time to let your creditors know what's going on. Call each one up before your bill is due (not after) and explain your situation. It won't be a fun call, but it could help to keep you out of trouble. Many creditors are willing to offer deferred payments, reduced payments, a late fee waiver or an extended due date, if you haven't had a problem in the past  – and that can go a long way towards saving your credit score and getting your finances back on track.




Contribtors: Tochukwu Mgbeahurike, H. Johnson and H. Erin