Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

This article is based on excerpts from another in my Performance Improvement pod cast series which covers a variety of subjects I have a business interest in.

Examples include my farm business software, built using custom Excel VB, and my other customizable software used by clients in other industries. Not only do I build and sell basic to highly sophisticated custom Excel Visual Basic software, I also coach individuals and groups in the business of optimizing and automating MS Excel.

You could be also providing Excel solutions as an employee in an organization or as an entrepreneur or independent consultant.

My Excel-VB club was launched to help interested persons.

Just today, an Associate Professor in a leading Nigerian university who teaches advanced MS Excel for business users, became a member of the club, by ordering my Home Study Video Tutorials on DVD.

Apart from the foregoing, I also serve clients by providing Web Marketing Systems, in the use of the Internet to find profitable paying buyers for their products and services.

So web marketing is not just about using email and having website.

It’s more about making the Internet work for you by bringing customers you’ve never met before, who have never heard about you, and who will come to you based on the intelligent marketing content you put on the web over time. So that they make enquiries about what it is that you offer, and ultimately (some) make purchases from you without even meeting you in the flesh.

This is the model I operate on. This is what I do for a living. I’ve done this for years. I get better and better at it, and I’m getting a lot of international recognition for my work as I continue. I sincerely believe others can achieve similar, or better results.

That’s why a key vision I have is to show more Africans especially and any other interested persons, how to make intelligent use of the zero cost Internet access s/he has.

Because I tell you what we pay for Internet – we still pay heavily in our part of the world (Africa) – is nothing compared to the value that the Internet can add to us if we know how to use it.

So I have a vision to help people in my part of the world understand that they can run around much less, and focus their energies on adding value to other people in a way that will make the latter send them money without having to meet them.

And so for today’s pod cast, my focus is on the subject of job creation by organizations and governments.

It is also on the fact that in Africa, the Internet is a grossly underutilized platform that offers the massive benefit of basically helping to eliminate what you might call unemployment – IF it is used in the proper way in Africa.

Unfortunately those in charge of government and those in organizations that could even do some form of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects, don’t even have this insight and understanding, because a lot of people are so used to the traditional ways of earning income.

The result is that they just cannot conceive that it is possible to provide jobs or to empower people to be employed, without their having some physical interaction with job providers.

I am saying that we need begin to look beyond the conventional models of employment, and understand that the Internet offers us an opportunity to create from what never existed before. Create what never existed before, and transform it into something that enables individuals and groups to generate income for themselves, without a need to resort to the conventional models that we have.

The reason is that the conventional models we have are tired. They’ve been overused. They are overloaded. They are too much in demand. And the truth of the matter is they don’t even reward financially and otherwise as well as the Internet models do.

So if people can work and earn money while doing a lot less running around, then it means they get to keep more money in their pockets.

They spend less energy. And yet at the same time they can do a lot more work that gives them a lot more money. And let’s remember this, the Internet allows you to have access to what we continue to call a global audience.

And therefore if you create something that adds value to people that are beyond the shores of your geographical location, it automatically means that you will be able to earn income internationally.

Consider what that means for a person in Africa, in Nigeria for example, with the crazy exchange rates we’re currently having to endure, in which the Naira is converting officially about N200 to $1 USD, and a point it was about 1 GBP at about N300 (The rates in the parallel market are much worse).

I mean, if you were able to train your own people, whoever needs to be employed, to have skills, knowledge, competencies, that would enable them to earn income using the web in foreign currency. The result would be that if a guy were to earn 160 GBP for instance, that translates to between N40k to N50k.

Now if this guy is just a young person, a graduate, living alone and yet to get married, you can imagine what that can do for him or her.

Now this is not some kind of fairy tale scenario I’m trying to paint here. This is something that is happening LIVE, real. And it’s not the Yahoo Yahoo nonsense. This is something that is based on real life proven income earning models. And I’m not talking about starting some pyramid scheme and start telling people to pay some money to join your bottom line.

I’m talking creating value like I do, selling applications to people, writing books in various forms…

Both print and digital that people from all over the world can place orders for and receive in their homes or download on to their pcs. Building web marketing systems writing articles on behalf of clients on websites that I build, and blogs that I setup for them.

Things like that and a lot more too – such as ghostwriting books for experts in various fields. You can even sell your own handicrafts to people locally and internationally. This is done in many many African countries today, but not at high enough a rate to address the problem of unemployment, because there is no strategic intent on the part of the people who are in authority, to make intelligent use of the Internet in the way I describe.

What individuals are doing for themselves in pockets all over the continent, and earning a living by it, using the Internet, is what a government that has critical thinking stakeholders in it, can use to create a special system that will enable people to empower themselves to have jobs.

We could probably call them job creation centers, but they would based on a self=employment model, and there are so many variants that could be explored.

The thing is the thinking has to be done to see what is most suitable to your unique socioeconomic environment. To the nature, the culture, the habits of your own people. What do they need to be taught. What habits do they need to unlearn, what habits do they need to learn, to live this new life?

We’re in a new world. The 21st century is a different world from what it is we used to know before. The industrial age is gone and what we have today is an information driven age. We keep talking about that. People say it, but they don’t act like they understand it.

Even the need to get a university degree is dying. It’s no longer the ONLY or most relevant model – at least not for everyone. Indeed, for the majority, that need has diminished.

Look around you as you listen to me. Think of all the thought leaders that we have today. Even the ones that are being chosen by the United Nations as “ambassadors”. Most of these guys are entertainers and other people who have used technology and the Internet to make themselves well known and the media has supported them. And at the end of the day they become “celebrities”.

Because of that, organizations want to use them to sell their products. So they make them ambassadors of their brands and all of that. And therefore they become role models. They are the ones you see hogging the attention of the media. You see them getting interviewed al the time.

And then you with a degree, Mr. Professor, what attention do you get? Let’s look at it this way: Look, we’re saying we don’t have jobs for our young people who are leaving school. The question is:

“What does the person leaving school have to offer the world?”

Nobody is going to just dish out money to anybody. People want you to solve their problems!

If you are a problem solver in the real sense of it, people will want to engage with you. If they need to pay you they will, because they know you can solve their problem.

What are products of our schooling systems capable of?

Most of the time all they have is book knowledge and even the book knowledge they have is often very watery these days, because of the poor or degenerated quality of the education provided.

The alternative is to empower people to build on their own talents, gifts and natural skills sets. And then find ways to leverage to provide value to other people using those abilities they have, and then earn income in the process. So yeah, you can go to the university and get whatever degree you want, but the thing is when you come out, or graduate, you’ve got to be able to take what you’ve learnt from there, and monetize it.

You’ve got to be able to find a way to use what you learnt in school, to earn income without necessarily having to go knock on the door of a company to employ you.

You’ve got to be able to think creatively with the exposure that you’ve had to the institution that you’ve learnt from, and come up with ideas of how to earn income using the knowledge and expertise that you’ve gained.

If you’re somebody in mass communication for instance, you want to begin to think unconventionally.

How can you help, for instance, an up and coming artiste, market his new tracks and get attention from a potential buying public as against having to go and shell out a lot of money to some big name producer that probably may just exploit him or her.

How can you use your skills as a mass communication professional. All your training. Put that into the use of the web, and leverage some huge marketing platform to promote this guy, and then get a producer crawling to him or her, on his/her knees, asking “Look let me take your brand and build it to the next level as well. You’re good. I’ve checked you out on the web. You’re this, you’re “.

These are things that are possible, and in a variety of ways. I’m talking about entertainment now, but same idea can be applied in other fields. Look, I’ve already mentioned what I do.The field I’m in is a totally different field from what many people go into. So again the Internet allows you the opportunity to choose where you want to go, what you want to focus on. And because of the low operational overheads of using the web to promote yourself and to do what you do, you find out that you can actually keep going for a much longer period, even when you say you don’t have capital.

So all these issues about “I can’t get a job”, and “there’s no capital to start a business”, the Internet model invalidates that excuse for any person who may contemplate it!

That would be a cop out, and a sign that s/he is not serious.

Except you’re lazy and you do not want to use the creative abilities given to you by your God.

And that’s what I’m talking about in this pod cast. I’m saying that the thinking about how to create employment, how to create jobs has to be changed.

Those of you who have a role to play in finding jobs or creating employment for people, have to begin to think beyond what you’ve always known.

The model of running around on the streets applying for jobs, and then saying you’re giving people jobs.

What do you mean “giving people jobs”?

You can show people how to create jobs for themselves. How to create income earning models that probably don’t require them to work more than a few hours per week.

This is happening. The thing is some people keep saying it’s happening in only Oyinbo (White man’s) land. That is not true. It’s not only in developed societies.

Right here in Nigeria, there are so many local business models that can be taken online and operated profitably, even from the comfort of the home.

I am doing it already, and I am working with my children to make sure they learn how to do it. Because I have told my kids that none of them is going to be employed by anybody.

They will choose to get in and out of paid employment only to get experience and to get exposure.
But as far as taking care of themselves is concerned, and earning income, they will be able to do that as real life digital multipreneurs.

So, I hope I have been able to stir a bit of curiosity in your mind about this. It’s something that I have a passion for. I hope to see Africans drop all this muscle exertion and begin to look at more intelligent use of the intellect to create opportunities for themselves.

It’s the only way that Africa is going to catch up with the rest of the world.

We need to stop thinking that we need to use muscle power, run around physically and sweating around all over the place.

The people that use their intellect are the ones running the world. Take a look around you. That’s why Toshiba, Microsoft etc – they literally control us.

So if we want to really catch up with other countries, we must see that the thinkers in those societies are the ones leading. And the thinkers need to wake up in Africa, and begin to lead as well.

If you have any interesting in connecting with me on this subject, I’m open to taking any questions. Just fill/submit the web form linked below, to send me your message.

Note that I have no desire to meet any government person, and do not wish to be employment or hired by any government. If you want ideas or suggestions about how to go about this, feel free to get in touch – click here to send me a message.