Acceler8now.com

Smart ideas for your business success.

In This Issue...

• Business Case Study: Millabymail
• Business Tool-Kit: Business Registration - Why You Need It, HowTo Do It
• Powering Your Business to Success: 9 Critical Steps - an Expert View
• Business Online: 7 Don'ts of a business website
• SME Headlines
• Corporate Biz Briefs
• Mastering Biz Q&A: What are my Low-Budget Biz Promotion Options?
• Plus Biz Extras: Get Organised. Featured Product: The HP All-in-One Copier range

Disclaimer

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Highly Recommended top-rated biz books.

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Strategies for a planned and doggedly exec-uted retirement plan to achieve financial independence.

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From The Wall Street Journal Online

The Problem: A young entrepreneur struggles for a foothold in a brutal business.

When Jamila Payne was 10 years old and growing up in Philadelphia, her father gave her a subscription to Black Enterprise magazine. Inspired, she and a friend would sweep up hair at salons for cash and sell throw pillows she created with her mother's sewing machine. In high school, she designed beaded jewelry that she sold on the school bus.

Her parents encouraged her to take math and engineering courses, in which she excelled. But she longed for a career in fashion. "I had friends who were finishing school and taking jobs and they didn't like what they were doing," she says. She was determined not to make that mistake.

The Solution: Ms. Payne continued studying engineering at Drexel University, but she never stopped pursuing opportunities in fashion. As part of a co-op program, she worked for six months at a big corporate procurement department, and it required a stay in London while the city's "fashion week" was under way. "What an awesome opportunity," she says. To gain entry to the shows, she designed a business card identifying herself as a buyer for the fictional Nina Foire boutique. Dazzled by the experience, she changed her major to design and merchandising when she returned.

By the time she graduated in 2000, she was working for a maternity retailer, but on the side attended entrepreneur workshops and joined Drexel's business incubator. Her plan for a hip online retailer won a business-plan competition, and the $15,000 award gave her enough start-up capital to launch a Web site and amass a small inventory. Officially launching in spring of 2003, she called her business "Miillabymail.com", offering a mix of well-known lines and up-and-coming designers for time-pressed women.

But drawing customers to her Web site, as many an e-tailer has learned, proved challenging. "I had to figure out how to get people excited about what I was doing," she says. She began sending out press kits, and networking like crazy. She teamed up with charities to host fashion shows. She organized trunk shows at art galleries where she and other retailers would offer their merchandise at a discount. The Philadelphia press took note of her.

Months later, In Style magazine included her site in a roundup of online shopping. "Milla by Mail is like raiding your best friend's closet," the blurb read in part, and she was off and running. Now Ms. Payne, who recently won another business-plan competition, is in an accelerated M.B.A. program. "I'm going from working in the business to working on the business," she says.

The Lesson: In buzz-dependent industries, nothing substitutes for relentless energy and focus.

Business Tool-Kit

Business Registration: Why You Need it and How to Get it Done

Business registration is the process of getting a business, in its unique name and ownership, registered with the company registry and listed in the register of companies - a master record of all registered companies.

The Need To Register
As a business owner, your business will benefit considerably from having the business formally registered. This confers a measure of credibility and will boost your standing before parties you do business with. Your bankers will ask for your business registration certificate and related papers before opening an account for the business. Also, many other serious transactions involving the business will similarly call for the registration information. Registration makes the business an entity of its own, which is beneficial, especially in the case of a limited liability company. So, you will not only help the image of the business, but also empower it to engage in various transactions that will require a registered status and also enable the business to operate as a unigue entity.

Get the full story here »

Powering Your Business to Success

Business Success: 9 Critical Steps to Help You Hit The Bull's Eye - an Expert View

Starting a business is such a huge challenge that it simply scares off a lot of people - even those who really no longer enjoy their paid jobs and would rather really run their own business. In our environment where the odds are even more heavily stacked against a newbie, getting a business to take off and really blossom into success would obviously require some magic. Or genius?

Well, we didn't accept the idea that it isn't possible to succeed here anymore, in spite of the monumental odds. So we sought expert view on what you must do, if you really want to get off the block and run creditably. And we weren't disappointed. This guide will give you a sure-footed trajectory for nurturing and growing your business.

Get the full story here »

Business Online

7 Don'ts of a Business Web Site

Doing business online may not yet be a powerful idea around us here in Nigeria, but globally, e-commerce has become a huge phenomenon. The statistics also continue to grow, possibly leaving us with no choice but to find how to bite into this pie.

Perhaps in response, more businesses are beginning to give e-commerce a look-in. More importantly, the indications are that more entrepreneurs would want to engage this tool, one way or the other, going forward. Many factors count when you seek business success on the world wide web. Getting your web site right is, by any count, a major one.

Get the full story here »

SME Headlines

Click Headings to Read Stories

BOI Boosts SME Sector, Shells Out N22 Billion.

Launch of New Nigerian Communications Satelite
to Stimulate New ICT Business.

Corporate Briefs

Click Headings to Read Stories

Successful Airlines Face Post-recapitalisation Challenges.

Orange Goes Mobile to Reach the Cranies.

A shot in the Arm for Diamond Bank Opens New Business Vistas.

Obajana Cement Factory Goes Live, Raises Prospects for Improved Cement Supply and Market Price.

Mastering Biz Q&A

Q: What Are the Options for Affordable Promotion of my Business?

A: It's important to work hard to create awareness about your business and products. Without knowing about the business and what it offers, potential customers won't find you. Not having customers simply spells failure for your business.

Business promotion is, however, not cheap and only big players can muster the financial power for upscale promotions. Yet, you have a lot of options to get the word out on your business. The choices will depend on the nature of your business, but the possibilities include: branding all out-going documents and stationery (letter headings, envelopes, call cards, etc) and including contact information in them, newsletter (or enewsletter online), guest-speaking and TV appearances, article-writing (on relevant subject), referrals and word-of-mouth from customers, networking (clubs, churches, etc), press releases, flyers, posters, co-branding with another company to cut cost, branding of vehicles (if you have any), giving out some freebies (you can't beat the big players with jumbo promos, but you can try at your level), etc. Whatever you do, work hard and consistently. It takes time and effort but if you try enough, you'll get somewhere!

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Biz Extras

Get Organised for More Effectiveness! (1)

Being organised about your work can double your output, experts say. Yet, many business people and workers have much difficulty getting their activities and work processes properly organised to reap this quantum boost in productivity. How do you get yourself out of that confusion of mind and environment that robs you of so much of the results you badly need? Resolve today to implement these five strategies, for a start:

• Begin to use the Golden Hour. The golden hour is that first hour after you've woken up in the morning. That is when your brain and entire system are best wired to churn out ideas and also structure your day for an effective outing. If you can't afford an hour (must be up to beat the traffic), use less, but get the best out of yourself by engaging in serious brain-storming. Determine the priority issues for the day, which should not be sacrificed to distractions. Visualise the timing of your activities and have a clear flow for your day. That is also when to plant a seal of confirmation from above, if you know how to. Having a sharp focus for your day is so empowering that you'd find yourself zooming forward and demolishing the things that really need to get done.
  

Get the full story here »

Yahoo! Mail: Create New Folders to Sort Your Important eMails

If you use Yahoo! Mail, take your control one step further by creating new folders to sort your important emails - those mails of value that you'll like to retain and also easily retrieve when you need them. With 1GB of free space for the basic Yahoo! account, there's plenty you can retain, for your records.

As you would have files in your cabinet to hold physical mails, it's easy to generate multiple folders to hold emails for various issues of interest, for instance: Suppliers, Personal, ManbilaProject (notice there's no space), etc. There are two ways I'll show you to create folders and sort the mails and both are pretty easy:

Allow mails first get into your inbox and then move them to named folders. Creating new folders can be done before hand by clicking 'Add' at the top of the folders section and giving a name you choose in the input box that appears. Repeat to create all folders you want. If you haven't done this, you can still create the folder when you want to 'file' the mail. Select the mail (by checking or opening), click on the 'Move' tab at the top of the mail-window and select 'New Folder' which gives you the same input box to name the folder. In this case, when you okay the name, the mail automatically goes into that folder. If you had created the folder before has, it would be displayed in the drop-down list when you click the 'Move' tab. In that case, simply select the named folder you want to move your mail into.

A second way to sort is to use 'mail filter' facility which sorts in-coming mails into folders you've created, using parameters you defined. If you've defined that mails with acceler8now.com in their 'from header' should go into a folder 'partner', that's where you'll get them. This way, you possibly decide what folder(s) to open when you don't have much time. To activate this, click on 'Options' near the top-right corner, select 'Filters', select 'Add' and name a filter and set its filtering parameters.

Featured Product: The HP All-in-One Copier Series
- Copy Functionality, integrated versatility.

Getting to make copies of documents is an important activity that no serious office will igore. If you can't afford a copier, you necessarily have to get that service from somewhere, because you just have to make copies. Little wonder that copiers have become an important item on the office equipment budget of companies.

Today, however, technology is taking that tool beyond simple production of copies. Multi-functional copiers that handle other important functions are out there to meet your needs. Take the HP All-in-one series copiers which offer you photo-quality printing, copying, faxing, scanning & digital sending (email). For a small business, this all-in-one equipment, a great space-saver, would just be it. Just one unit on that table and all these functions are in your grip. If you're looking for good tools, we think this is one.