Bloomsford Academy

Entrepreneurs are constantly seeking an edge or an advantage. In fact, most entrepreneurs are wired to look at the world from an opportunist’s perspective and are regularly working an angle, an approach, or a way of attacking a business opportunity that others have missed or have left exposed. Business consultants get paid big bucks to help organizations identify, create and maintain a ‘competitive advantage’. A competitive advantage is the million-dollar term business textbooks use to describe an entrepreneurial edge. A competitive advantage is defined as the ability of an organization to provide its products or services with either: 1) a higher value to their customers than a competitor but at a similar cost; or, 2) the same value but at a lower cost. A competitive advantage that is sustained should provide a business with the ability to realize consistently higher profits than its competitors. Higher profits, the goal of many organizations and entrepreneurs (and the successful compe

SELF CAREER DEVELOPMENT     Don’t count on your company to develop your career. Smart professionals know they need to take a DIY approach to managing their own success.    We are now in the era of do-it-yourself career development. Companies less frequently offer formal training — a trend that has been around for some time now. This may be because employees change jobs so frequently (job tenure now averages about four years)  that why firms don’t see the value in investing in people who are likely to leave too soon.   This is a sharp contrast with the investment that senior leaders used to make on employees.     "During a robbery in America, the bank robber shouted to everyone in the bank: "Don't move. The money belongs to the State. Your life belongs to you."    Everyone in the bank laid down quietly. This is called "Mind Changing Concept” Changing the conventional way of thinking. In this year 2020 Change your thinking or your thinking change you its a choice,

Take action. 1. It happened some time ago but I was in an audience listening to a motivational speaker. The speaker got out his wallet & pulled out a 500 Naira note. Holding it up, he asked, "Who wants this 500 naira note?" Lots of hands went up. Including mine. A slow chorus began to build as people began to shout "Me!" "Me!" I began to wonder who the lucky one would be, who the speaker would choose. And I also secretly wondered (and I am sure others did too ) why he would simply give away 500 naira. Even as the shouts of "I want it" grew louder, I noticed a young woman running down the aisle. She ran up onto the stage, went up to the speaker, and grabbed the five 500 naira note from his hand. "Well done, young lady," said the speaker into the microphone. The speaker simply say "Most of us just sit and wait for good things to happen. That's of no use. You've got to make things happen. Make a move" 'Simply thin

Raising startup capital for a new business is usually a big problem for entrepreneurs. Little to no investors believe in your ideas, and the few who do, wait on the sidelines to see what would come of it before committing a single dollar.    The difficulties people face in trying to raise funds can be demoralising, and in some cases, kill the idea before the business even takes off. If you fall into these shoes, here are ten things you can do if you don’t have enough cash and need to raise funds to run your business:    1). Dream big, but start small:    At the start of any new venture, most entrepreneurs like yourself have an incomplete team and little to no funds to run their startups. But you’d always have yourself, your idea, and a plan to take off.    Use what you have, but most importantly, start where you are. As you progress, you’d learn some perks of running your business and what works and what doesn’t. Armed with this information and a little experience so far, you’d sound a

MOTIVATION/ COACHING  Knowing who you are is the basis for success!  Knowing and identifying your talents and skills is vital for your success. Also knowing yourself, the things you enjoy or don’t will be a decisive factor. We created a process using a variety of personal and business assessment tools to help you discover your own identity and understand what works for you and what doesn’t. This knowledge forms the base of your success, allowing you to develop in the right direction and to have a starting point to build on. You create a personalised strategy of what to do, and when to do it, that’s natural for you. It allows you to get in sync with yourself, the cycle of your team, business and industry. It allows you to follow the right role models and create the right personal and business connections. Once you understand yourself and your abilities better, many things you find difficult today become so much easier, because you understand the why. You learn to express your

If you want to be self-employed, don’t make the mistakes I made starting out in business S everal years ago when I started a business with my business partner, we faced a number of cash flow challenges as we did not pay close attention to these 5 key drivers of poor cash flow. “ Never take your eyes off the cash flow because it’s the lifeblood of business.” — Sir Richard Branson If you run a business you will agree that cash is critical to keeping your doors open. As they often say, cash is king! Here are the 5 key insights I learned from my experience dealing with cash flow issues and under capitalization of the business very early on. 1. Low gross margin Following a close analysis of our margins, we realized that the low margins on our sales was a critical contributor to lack of sufficient cash flow in the business. This was primarily due to the low fees we charged early on in the business. In our attempt to quickly acquire clients, we went low on f

Social Entrepreneurship  is  that  process  involving the use of initiatives  and  combination  of resources to pursue opportunities as to create social change and address social needs e.g medical , orphangages , water, gender equity ,injustice , Sexual issues , Domestic violence , Hunger , Illiteracy etc A social entrepreneur is a person who pursues novel applications that have the potential to solve community-based problems.  Patience, passion and perseverance are essential traits in a successful social entrepreneur. But you also see unselfishness, an ability to take measured and sometimes reckless risks, and a deep belief in humans Benefits of Social Entrepreneurial skill to organisations.  a.It helps organisations to increase their activity scales and grow their resources. b.It increases and makes efficient the service deliver and operations of organisations. c.The  innovation  and  creativity  associated  with  social  entrepreneurial  skill  increases  the revenue of

Better And Different (BAD)  I have noticed that many people sit around trying to figure out how they can be better at than everyone else in their chosen profession. Some even strive to become the best in their class.  In order to make your career work in the short term, you need to stand out and be better than your competitors. In the short term, you will definitely have success by being better. But history shows that being better is not enough especially in this digital age where innovation and change happen faster than the average person can keep up with. Being Better only allows you to play the game, but not only for too long because someone will eventually come along and be better than you in whatever it is you were better at. Doing things differently is the key to long term success, be it in your career or business. This is not about being different for the sake of being different. This is where you create your value- system. This is about your willingness to challenge th

LETTER TO YOUTH By Prof Benard Odoh Keep your Degree in a safe custody for future opportunity, and engage in entrepreneur skills, otherwise you will die poor. Most of the educated people in Nigeria are poor. Majority of the educated earn less than N55,000 for a salary before tax and other deductions. When the deductions are put into consideration, the net salary comes to around N50,000. The net salary then suffers from loan deductions of up to N15,000 leaving the salary at around N35,000. The landlord then demands for his N15,000 and monthly shopping takes away N10,000 leaving one with a N10,000. The bus will demand for N300 going to and from work and relatives get another N2,500. The whole salary is gone and borrowed money starts operating. The borrowed money includes short loans and salary advances. The difference between poverty and prosperity is property. A prosperous person has property to his name while a poverty stricken person has no property to show. Using this unde