SEC-S20W5 | My Business Ideas | Advanced Marketing Strategies

Greetings dear friends, it's week 5 of the Steemit engagement challenge for season 20 and it's a pleasure to participate in this week's entry which talks about Advanced Marketing Strategies. Let's go into this exciting discussion together without any further ado.

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Section-1 Are you innovative? Innovative entrepreneurs regularly add new products according to the needs of their customers and find new markets.

Oh yes, everyone who wishes to have a successful business running must be innovative. Since innovation has to do with new ideas which will make the business flourish then I can confidently say I'm very innovative.

My business plan as I said previously in some of my posts is a Loan business we constantly look for ways to improve it to meet the needs of our customers, so in doing so most times we listen to the complaints of the customer and then weigh it with our principal and goal and then see how we can implement the new product.

A good example is the products currently being implemented in the business that I'm also part of at the moment. Before now we only offered a single product called CIMA which has to do with daily repayment of loan amount, but we taught of other means of loan payment, and with the suggestion of the various customers we were able to come up with another package called the MICRO package which is a weekly repayment.

Now, there are other products available that we were able to come up with over time but the ones most of our customers go into are daily or weekly which is called CIMA & MICRO respectively. Due to the fact that many people find it difficult to pay daily, we brought the weekly package and that has also recorded a significant amount of customers without default over the little period.

So with the help of this package, we now have weekly and daily repayment, and loans are also given based on the package. The weekly repayment comes in a larger amount than the daily and for that reason, the loan given weekly is much higher than the loan given for daily repayment.

In all, we can serve customers who like weekly repayment and those who like daily repayment, and that helps the business to receive a wide range of audience compared to the way it was before. So this is the innovative part of my business that made it stand out among others.

Section-2 Are you adopting or imitating other business ideas? Businesses in this category try to add their strategies to the existing market trends and implement them successfully.

The idea I'm adopting in my business is an Idea I got from other Microfinance institutions that also deal with loan-giving though there is a little change to my strategy because I adopted a separate method of registration as compared to others.

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Before starting this loan business, there was a group called LAPO that also specialized in the same loan giving but their products are just for daily repayment so introducing the weekly repayment made mine different.

Also, due to the risk involved, I have increased the process or procedure of the registration to at least 2 guarantors for those who want to go for the weekly loan. As I said earlier, I'm servicing the customers but I have to still come up with a strategy that will help protect the investment.

Since the daily repayment has one guarantor, the weekly has two guarantors, and these persons always understand their roles in this activity. So this which is added to my own business is what makes it safe and protected while meeting the needs of my customers.

Also, since the amount given weekly is higher, the customers pay some amount of money called equity usually, 10% of the loan amount before the loan is disbursed to them. The essence of all of these is that the company won't be at much risk and savings of about 2% of the loan amount must be paid before the disbursement.

This idea came from LAPO and when implemented we saw a greater result helping us to minimise risk and maximise profit. So getting ideas from other businesses is not bad but you must polish it to suit your own business as a person.

Section-3 Do you have in-depth knowledge of your target customers and offer them something of value? More importantly, do you offer your services at the right time, in the right places, and in the right way to grow your business?

Yes, I believe I have an in-depth knowledge of your target customers, and the reason I have said this is not far-fetched. The business is targeted at small-scale businessmen and women who are looking for small finance to boost their businesses.

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Getting a loan from conventional commercial banks is somewhat difficult and you may need collateral before you can access such a loan but with the packages we offer, you only need a guarantor to access the loan and it doesn't take much time to process as well.

Seeing that many petty traders in my street need a push in their businesses, I believe they are the right target for my kind of business. Some. of them do daily says and that helps me to get my daily repayment and for others, they prefer paying once for the week and that covers the weekly repayment.

Also, I believe that the services I offer are done at the right time and the right places because when these people come for the loan registration, they come along with their guarantors, and if they are properly verified they will then get the money in the coming week.

So as they are coming we always tell them that they have one week to access whatever loan they are coming for because a proper verification which will take at least 2 working days must be done before the person'ss details will be forwarded for disbursement if he or she meets the requirements.

Checking these requirements is an important aspect of the organization since we need to protect ourselves as well from those who come to collect money without paying back since we don't use collateral from the beginning to access the loans.

Section 4 Do you analyze your potential customers and act accordingly? A successful businessman should keep a close eye on the demand and act accordingly with a changed strategy.

Yes, I always analyze my potential customers and then I ensure to act accordingly. Customers are always right and that is why if you want to be successful you must always give a listening ear to your customers. Most times, even before disbursement, when they come for registration they always say they were once collecting from a certain institution before and this is how it is done.

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In most cases, I also ask them during their registration if they have ever engaged themselves in something of this nature before. If they say yes then I will further ask why they didn't continue there. I'm doing all of these to know the lapses with the other institutions to tackle them in mine.

So when these customers tell me their worries with regard to their previous place, all I do is to go ahead and then ensure that the issue that they were running away from in their previous place they don't come and meet here.

Also if they gave me an idea about how I can further reach out to others or a strategy, I take it up and then weigh the advantages and the disadvantages and then discuss it with my team to hear their inputs and contribution about it. If the idea will benefit the business and the customers and the merits outweighs the demerit I go ahead to implement it immediately.

So the demand of the customer which is not detrimental to the growth of the organization is always treated as a matter of urgency so that others won't feel as though the services are not functioning properly. If any customer calls for anything we try to attend to it before

I want to finally invite @josepha, @solaymann, and @suboohi to join the contest and share their entry if they haven't done so yet.

Cc:
@dove11
@aviral123