by Haroun Kola in March 8th 2012In any business, the profit margin is severely impacted by the costs to do transactions with your customers or clients. Swipe fees are the modern version of a tax that the wealthy bankers inact on the rest of humanity.
I’d love to have Dwollar available here in South Africa, and that other payment gateway that MarketPress is supporting. Its something I need to look into, but its a pity that these advances in modern online business is still limited to USA.
by Haroun Kola in November 3rd 2011I’m tired of being the geek that get’s around, and now I need to spend time on developing the eco-warrior of love who’s going to save the planet, so to make my life easier in the eco-village, I’m looking to outsource of of that work to other’s who deliver as professional a service.
Please leave a comment and introduce yourself, and what you do, and a link to your customer’s testimonials.
Thanks 
by Haroun Kola in October 10th 2011Firepole Marketing, the definitive online resource and marketing training program for entrepreneurs and Small Business, BIG Vision, the new book by award winning authors and serial entrepreneurs Matthew Toren & Adam Toren announced today the launch of a survey aimed to answer the burning question on every entrepreneur’s mind – “Is it worth taking my business online?”
In the first-ever survey of businesses who have or are aspiring to become geographically independent, otherwise known as “semi-local”, Firepole Marketing and Small Business, BIG Vision attempt to collect real data relating to the outcomes and success rates of such initiatives for the average business. The survey titled “Semi-Local Business Survey” will collect data from entrepreneurs who have either gone through the process or who are considering doing so. The survey will run from October 10th, 2011 to October 16th, 2011 and can be found at http://www.firepolemarketing.com/blog/survey/
“Semi-Local” businesses are defined as local businesses that pursue customers outside their geographic region in the goal of becoming location independent, expand their reach or diversify their income. These businesses typically leverage the Internet and other new marketing technologies to achieve this goal. Many consultants, freelancers, bloggers and service providers belong in this category.
The desire to become semi-local is a growing trend fueled by advent of online tools and services that make this possible, as well as the desire by many to create a “work from anywhere” lifestyle.
“Unfortunately, information on the success rates and results of such initiatives are largely anecdotal and dominated by the stories of the extraordinarily successful initiatives on one end of the spectrum, and the dismal failures on the other.” says Danny Iny, co-founder of Firepole Marketing. “Our survey is meant to uncover the truth about what real businesses who try to do this are experiencing, which is currently unknown to the average business owner.”
“You don’t hear much about the businesses that have seen modest to great success in becoming semi-local,” says Peter Vogopoulos, university lecturer and co-founder of Firepole Marketing, “Even murkier are the specifics surrounding the initiative. How long did it take to get going? How much did it cost in terms of money and effort? What were the common problems encountered? What were the results? Was it worth it? We want to get at the real information and make it available. It’s an important business trend and there is not a whole lot of reliable data out there.”
The survey aims to be a baseline for entrepreneurs who are considering adopting the strategy. Says Iny: “Knowing the answers to these questions would save a lot of headaches for entrepreneurs who want to become semi-local, because it will provide them with a comparative baseline upon which to base more realistic expectations.”
The survey will collect and analyze data from entrepreneurs who have attempted or aspire to become “semi-local”. All entrepreneurs are invited and encouraged to participate. The survey will run from Oct 10th, 2011 to Oct 16th, 2001 and can be found at http://www.firepolemarketing.com/blog/survey/
Results will be published on the Firepole Marketing blog and the Small Business, BIG Vision blog, followed by the survey’s partners: Kikolani, E-Junkie, ROIdetector, Advanced Riskology, Big Dogs Internet Marketing, Resort Entrepreneurs, The Big Red Tomato Company, Commission Maniac Blog, The OneofAKindpreneur, Bliss Habits, Engage to Convert, Metamorphoself, Fast Effective Copy, The Literary Smorgasboard, me (Haroun Kola), Dave Wellman, and Gabor Szabo.
About Firepole Marketing
Firepole Marketing is the definitive online resource and marketing training program, designed to turn non-marketers into expert marketers. Designed specifically for busy small business owners, it guarantees to add $1,000 to your monthly income within the timeframe of its six-month comprehensive program. For more information, visit http://www.FirepoleMarketing.com
About Small Business, BIG Vision
In the world of entrepreneurship, your vision solidifies your resolve when things get tough, and it reminds you why you went into business in the first place. Authors, brothers, and serial entrepreneurs, Matthew and Adam Toren have compiled a wealth of valuable information on the passionate and pragmatic realities of starting your own business. They’ve also gathered insights from some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. This book delivers the information that both established and budding entrepreneurs need, explains how to implement that information, and validates each lesson with real-world examples. Small Business, BIG Vision provides inspiration and practical advice on everything from creating a one-page business plan to setting up an advisory board, and also delivers a call to social entrepreneurship and sustainable business practices.
by Haroun Kola in October 7th 2011As I’m using your product, iPhone 3Gs, to write this post, I honour your contribution to our world and am inspired by your creativity.
by Haroun Kola in October 7th 2011I found a new toy for web design geeks. An HTML 5 editor that handles animation. Now work is a fantastic opportunity to create fun, dynamic sites.
The program is called Hype – Tumult, and you can download from the App store.
This is my first test, a little animation of my signature, and business card:
Or see it here
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16744182/Haroun-Signature/Haroun-Signature.html
by Haroun Kola in September 25th 2011WordPress has a new IOS app, at version 2.9, it finally has some cooler features for writing blog posts and updating your pages.
Now I can bold, italic or even add a link to my Facebook Page much easier than the older method.
So even though I’m working on my iPhone 3Gs and it’s tiny screen. I can still put out a worthwhile blog post, and do it quickly while I’m on the run.
There are similar versions for Android devices and Blackberry. Go and find it in your appropriate App store or market and don’t forget the WP Touch plugin, that will allow your site to be easily viewed on these devices and you’ve got an all in one website capable of being viewed on almost any device.
I haven’t checked this out on a feature phone yet, so I’m not sure how it will work there. And there are other new features that I haven’t covered in this post, these relate more to WordPress.com sites and a new photo feature which I am yet to check out.
If you’ve used them in your site, please leave your impressions in the comments section.
by Haroun Kola in September 21st 2011http://www.algoriddim.com/djay-mac/accessories/remote
I’m using the new “status” plugin from wpmu to post this. And I’m writing about my other software tool, and the write up about it is:
“djay Remote allows you to wirelessly control the addictive features of djay 3 from your iPhone or iPod touch, and puts them, literally, into the palm of your hand.”
Both are very cool
by Haroun Kola in September 14th 2011Later on today (at Rubinella Cupcakes), I’m giving my first WordPress workshop. To beginners, I hope (there are a few advanced users, who make me a bit nervous hehe)
Themes
This post is just a list at the moment to help spur my memory about what to cover.
by Haroun Kola in September 1st 2011There’s a certain psychology that some of the internet marketing “gurus” use to entice you to buy their $2000-$2500 products, and it goes something like this
Keep an eye on http://saltydroid.info/ who’s mission it is to expose these things, beware that the language is very South Park.
Make up your own mind but be aware of the methods of persuasion that people use to take money out of unaware people’s pockets and find a real business to promote. Did you buy any of these products and what do you think about all of this?
by Haroun Kola in August 30th 2011Alex, of The Hub Jozi, and I were talking about how best I can help the Hub with their social media presence and we decided to do a Facebook Marketing workshop for the members.
Today I started researching, and found that there’s a dearth of information online for the topic, so I thought I’d do a quick rundown of some of the basics. I started with Facebook Pages Resources tab, where you can download their detailed Pages Manual for get step-by-step instructions to create a Page. For brands and business, the Pages Guide for Businesses will help you engage your customers on Facebook and this is the one we’ll be working on today.
There’s 3 simple steps to a successful Facebook marketing campaign
The first step is to have a strategy in place for effectively communication with our customers. The most important point to remember here is to have a unique voice and bring your brand’s story to life in a compelling, authentic and personal way.
Know your customer, who they are and how they want to connect with your brand. Know your goals and the kind of relationship you want to have with your customers. A critical question to answer is do you want to use Facebook to drive immediate sales or in-store traffic to your site or offline business. Answering all these questions, will help you create your Facebook posting strategy.
Finding the right posting rhythm
Nobody knows your customers like you do, so decide how often they’ll want to hear from you and what content will best engage them and schedule time for Facebook. Set aside 5-10 minutes each day to monitor your Page and post updates.
The most important point I think is to keep it human. Be conversational, personal and authentic. Use multimedia and share video and photos of your business, and your allow your customers to share their stories of doing business with you.
Encourage participation
As with all content creation, and marketing promotions. Get into a routine of creating fun, engaging conversations with clear calls-to-action. Ask questions and reward responses. If someone posts something you love, repost it and respond personally to them. Allow your fans to post directly to your wall with questions, feedback and compliments.
Reward your fans
A great way to get real business from Facebook is to post special offers just for your fans, like discount codes and exclusives on new products. Offer a special code and create a Facebook Check-in Deals that can only be redeemed in your store.
Encourage visitors to “like” your Page by working with a program like ShortStack to create a special landing page tab.
Partner with other brands or local organization
After you learn how to use Facebook as a Page, you can Like other Pages and then comment on those Pages as your Page and encourage their Fans to become your Fan. Best practices obviously apply, so make insightful, witty comments on those Pages, offer helpful advice and be personal, talking to the person and not just making up the numbers.
How to Expand The Reach of Your Posts
When you mention a person or organization you are connected to in a post on Facebook, type the @ symbol, begin typing the name, and then choose them from the dropdown menu. Your post will automatically post to their Wall.
Use social plug-Ins on your website
Like the “Like” button on this post, the Like Box on my sidebar, and the Facebook comments down below, use all of the appropriate Social Plugins on your site.
Encourage physical check-ins at your business
I haven’t used these check-ins facilites all that much, so I’m not going to pretend to be the expert, but I know that Facebook Places and startups like Foursquare and the like are really popular (I may be suffering from overload If this feature of promotion appeals, and you want to know more about it, or you are an expert in using them then please leave a comment below.
Promote with ads and Sponsored Stories
This is the real reason that Facebook wants you to create Pages. If these free tips aren’t enough, you have a proper plan to convert your fans into customers, and have money to fund it then Ads are the best way to build awareness of your Page and drive new fans. Sponsored Stories harness the power of recommendations, and they’re a great way to spread your content further. Stories are served to friends of those who have liked your Page or your content.
If you want to know if your business is ready for Facebook Ads then take this quiz or if you know you’re ready to take this to the next level and want to do a proper course then check out these interviews on a marketers Facebook Ads training program
Facebook offers tools to help you analyze what’s happening on your Facebook Page so you can monitor key metrics, get insights about who visits your Page and what they do on it, and develop a plan to get more fans and increase interactions. That’s the topic for another day, I’m still doing more research and investigating the insights on my own pages for now, so like before, if you’re interested or know more about this, please add your voice to the comments below.
And to end off this post, I’d like to include this. As I sat down to start writing this post, I received this video from Entrepreneur Mag, on how to get people to your Facebook Page, so take a minute and watch this video and tell me what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn46PTpF1PI
Here’s some other cool links that I did find that were useful to me:
http://alexwhalley.com/social-media/facebook-marketing-unmasked-3-top-bloggers-reveal-all/
This next link is not so much about getting traffic to your site from Facebook, but more about optimising your site to convert visitors into customers.
by Haroun Kola in August 14th 2011Google+ is gaining traction if you want to be a part of the hottest social network around, please go to: https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3Fgpinv%3DAAaVqm-lFAU%3A_8fE6mhwG5Y
For those of you early adopting it up and already at Google+ you will have noticed your link to your Google+ profile is a cumbersome 21 character link.
If you have a unique name you can get away with asking people to search for you, but help them help you by making it easy to connect!
Check out Gplus.to, a free short link generator for Google+ profiles that turns your impossible to remember Google+ URL into something you can share in a conversation, put on a business card or simply remember.
To get your personalized Google+ URL, open your Google+ profile and copy the long string of numbers right after “Google.com/”.
You should see something like the following:
https://plus.google.com/111086519870167912850
Copy the 21 digit string of numbers that you never have a hope of remembering and head over to Gplus.to.
Here you can choose a Google+ nickname between 3 and 25 characters long, which will direct users to your Google+ Profile.
Instead of the incoherent URL above, I now have Gplus.to/HarounKola as my Google+ url. It’s easy to remember and manageable enough to put on a business card if Google+ takes off.
(This is also more convenient than giving my personal email address to anyone who wants to try to look me up on Google+.)
I also highly recommend you add the G+ share to your posts, add a button next to your twitter, Facebook and RSS buttons, and even add the G+ widget you can see on my blog in the side bar.
by Haroun Kola in August 6th 2011
We’ve struggled in South Africa to get a proper, cheap and effective payment gateway to accept money online. paypal was introduced last year in South Africa in partnership with FNB, but they charge exorbitant fees to transfer the money into your local account, and you can’t leave the money in your PayPal account, and make payments to other paypal users.
So its a bit of a useless thing, but the worst is that you can only accept $ as a currency, and that makes the whole system for a local business worthless. Now I know that we do have other payment gateways like VCS and Netcash and PayFast, but they’re either geared towards bigger businesses, some of them charge a monthly fee and a set-up fee, or a very high transaction fee.
And so this is where MonsterPay comes in. With a very reasonable fee structure, 2.9%, and no setup fees, they’re amazing and so easy to sign up with and begin accepting payments on your site. You can also use a virtual terminal to accept payments from customers credit cards, or sms (now that’s a service not many other people are doing).
Go now to http://monsterpay.co.za, and create your account.
And now I’m going to use it right away, and supporting local street side entrepreneurs who make cool stuff, and support a local charity who are doing great work in Somalia, Gift of The Givers.
Buy this wireframe Africa at just R500, and I’ll donate 50% of the proceeds to 
by Haroun Kola in July 26th 2011My partners and I were brainstorming
over a beer the other day and we had
a thought:
What if anyone who wanted to try out
any of our ADSL products could…
For only R1,00?
Well now you can get it for R1…
Surely that would be an offer no-one
wanting to connect to the Internet
could refuse?
A true ‘steal’ of a deal?
Now I know you are already our client.
But I bet you you know someone who
is not our client and would love to try
us out for just one buck.
No catches.
Please do THEM (and us) a favour
and let them know about this.
(And if you want to pick up a “R1
Steal” special for yourself then you
are also most welcome to!)
So how does this work?
You can try our ADSL packages, both
Capped and Uncapped, and only pay
R1.00 for the package you choose.
At the moment we have capped ADSL
up to 20GB and uncapped ADSL up to
1024 kbps available.
You will get the full service and package
until the end of August.
If you enjoy your Afrihost experience
and decide to keep the account you will
then start paying the normal monthly
price from the beginning of September.
If you are not happy for any reason at
all you can easily cancel online before
the 24th of August and never pay us
another cent more than that first R1.00.
You can try us out completely risk
free – There are no contracts and no
obligation to stay with us for any length
of time.
So how are we doing this?
We have allocated a certain amount of
our marketing budget to subsidise the
R1 Steal signups, so we do have a limited
number available.
If you go to our site and the offer is
not available anymore then that means
that we are unfortunately sold out of
the R1.00 packages.
Please also note that each client is
limited to one R1 Steal package.
So would you please help me out?
1. Go to http://www.afrihost.com and
grab one now if you need another
account (just remember to cancel
before the 24th of August if you
don’t want to keep it)
2. Tell your friends and family to go
to http://www.afrihost.com and get
the R1 Steal account now – I’d love
them to give our ADSL a full go till
the end of August for just R1.
As always my sincere thanks for
your business and your time!
Warm regards
Gian
CEO, Afrihost
P.S. This is the only time you’ll hear
the owner of a business saying
‘Please steal from us’! I’d
suggest you make use of it! Go
to http://www.afrihost.com and
grab a R1,00 Steal while they’re
still available.
