Introduction

About 8 days ago, we announced Steem Business Directory, a project designed to reach out to local businesses and convince them to invest in Steem long-term. This was our very first week making this effort. Like every other new project, we did not expect to have it so easy, but we did record some success with the businesses we met. In this first update, we will show what we were able to achieve while talking to local businesses about Steem.

3 businesses Signed up. Total steem purchased: 719 Steem

After our meeting discussing our marketing strategies, we decided to start from our immediate environment and business owners we know. As a result of our efforts, 3 businesses signed up. These 3 businesses were marketed and recruited by @focusnow and @ijelady. They invested a total of 719 Steem as follows:

@ennoma - 282 Steem

Below is a review of this business done by @ijelady.

Steem Busines Directory: Reviewing Enoma Food Supplement Shop and Successfully helped Her to Invest On Steem-#42Apka Ube Steet Uyo

@prubsons - 160 Steem

Below is a review of this business done by @focusnow.

Steem Business Directory - Reviewing and successfully onboarding Prubsons - 208 Azikiwe Road Aba.

@gabcash - 277 Steem

Because of some issues that lingered over the weekend, this business is yet to be reviewed by @focusnow

Total Steem = 282+160+277 = 719 Steem invested and powered up

Challenges that we would need assistance

We hope the Steemit team @steemcurator01 will help us solve the challenges below. We need your input so as to get it right from the start.

1. Introduction post for local businesses: We encourage the business owners to at least make an introduction post in the investment account. The first two businesses have already done that. However, it is obvious that most of the businesses will never have time to create and publish posts. They are simply investors. In order for this project not to be misunderstood in the nearest future, should we go ahead to encourage them to publish introduction posts as that will likely be the only post on their page for a long time?

2. Invested Steem power: These local businesses agreed to invest because the ROI we promised them is providing marketing services and getting them new customers. Find details in our Introduction post. The invested steem are quickly powered up and they promised to let it be as long as we provide the services.

For this project, we created an account @sellmore and planed to instruct these businesses to delegate the invested steem power, so as to curate with the @sellmore account. All earnings in this account through curation will always remain as steem power and be used to support the marketers specifically, and the community at large. We believe this is a productive way to use the invested Steem power and not allow it to lie idle. These businesses would definitely not have time for curation. What do you think?

For this project to be successful and not have issues in the future, we share these ideas with the Steemit team and would proceed with the plans if approval is obtained.

Plans for the Second Week

• Increase the number of marketers that make Physical visits to local businesses
• Start building our social market groups.
• Prepare letters to be dispatched to big organizations.
• Reach out to big markets
• Print branded T-shirts and more fliers.

Conclusion

Big things start small. We have started rather inconspicuously, but we hope to hit it big gradually. We know the value this project will bring both to our community and to the Steemit at large.

We thank our community members for always supporting our projects. We also thank the Steemit team for their advice and support.