HOTTEST 10 BUSINESS YOU CAN DO ON THE NYSC ORIENTATION CAMP

HOTTEST 10 BUSINESS YOU CAN DO ON THE NYSC ORIENTATION CAMP

As the new batch is preparing for camp, what are your plans? Are you among them, or are you already a Corper in service? Have you ever reflected on the vast opportunities that the thrice-yearly orientation camp could hold?

With my experience as a Corper, in addition to research, I have decided to share this information with you. This report is not meant to make you a billionaire overnight. But, with the little returns you make, you can start some bigger business after camp. Below are the 10 best business areas you can engage in as a Corper. Some of these businesses would require registration and licensing by the camp authorities, depending on how you want to go about it. So, read through the list carefully and chose a niche that best suits you.

1. BARBING/ NAIL FIXING SALON: You can operate a haircut biz in camp. During the 3weeks orientation, guys would love to shave their beards and trim their hair. Usually, electric items like hair clipper, electric iron, among other items, are never allowed into the camp; such belongings are often collected at the gate before entry. So, you would never be disappointed as there shall always be a long queue of Corpers waiting to have a hair cut.

You can also operate a nail fixing business for the ladies who would always want to pimp their looks. In fact, the number of your clients would be growing daily.

Special tips:

Ø  A clipper would be enough, unless you have a partner.

Ø  You’ll need a small generator

Ø  Have another person around who is good at fixing nails

Ø  And of course, you have to be good with the clipper.

2. SELLING FOOD AND SOFT DRINKS: NYSC provides food 3 times a day to Corpers. But, upon that, there are some who would find it difficult not eating more, especially after the rigors of parade and other camp activities. Besides, there are some guys who do not find it welcoming to follow others on the queue for Camp food; they prefer patronizing the MAMI market for their meals. You can capitalize on this. Moreover, the MAMI market is always a beehive of social activities in the evenings. Guys and ladies get hooked up a lot on camp; mami market serves as a dating centre. To have an advantage over others in the market, take note of these special tips:

Special tips

Ø  Ensure that your stand is clean.

Ø  Make sure your meals are quite tasty

Ø  Have a generator and a refrigerator around to ensure that your drinks are cold. However, you can still operate without owning a refrigerator. Just arrange with a cool room or refrigerator owner close to camp. For a fee, you can have your drinks cooled for you. Also, you can keep your drinks quite cold by putting them in a cooler with ice blocks.

Ø  You can specialize on continental dishes, or local dishes. For a treat, you can let them have a taste of the award winning Ibibio/Efik delicacies – afang soup, edikang ikong soup, and ekpangnkukwo.

With these in place, you would be quite amazed at the number of people flocking your booth. Just have some waiters around.

3. PHOTOGRAPHY: With the thousands of Corpers on camp, engaging in different activities, for a whole 3 weeks, you can just imagine how much you can make from this business. There would be other photographers on camp, but, you would never lose; Corpers need for photographs could be insatiable. They would be taking shots till even a minute to leaving camp. As a Corper, you can prepare for this biz by going to camp with your digital camera, and photo papers. You can even buy a digital photo printer; you can still use it after camp to print pictures at your place of primary assignment. During camp activities, you would not be allowed in the mami market, but you can liaise with the registered photographers on camp to print the pictures for you with some compensation.

4. VIDEO COVERAGE: As a prospective Corper, you may find this area a bit difficult, unless you are a smart one who can find his way through. However, you can always go back for it, when a new batch arrives. Corp members would love to have their activities on record. With a good video camcorder, you are expected to cover all camp activities, there after, edit the whole stuff and burn it to DVD for Corpers to buy and take home after the Orientation exercise. All you do is to cover the major events and spectacular scenes. Be on ground with your camera when they are on queue for registration, food, and mountaineering and during the endurance trek. Those are the instances you can capture almost all Corpers on camp. To make it easier for you, you can have as many Corps members register with you, possibly with an initial deposit of some amount; give them identifying tags for them to wear so you would be able to recognize them during filming. It would even make sense to go to camp with a TV and DVD player. Corp members who see themselves on the screen would become very interested for a DVD from you.

5. LAUNDRY SERVICES: For a variety of reasons, there are some who find it hard to wash their clothes, and would be too glad to find someone who can wash for them even at an exorbitant fee. You can tap into this and make quite a fortune by opening a laundry stand. You can help to wash corpers’ khaki, T-shirts, socks, and boots for a certain fee.

Very few Corpers do go to camp with electric iron. Even at that, depending on the Camp, such items, as earlier mentioned, are normally confiscated at the gate by the security personnel during entry. As a result, Corpers would resort to patronizing the few laundry stands on Camp. You can combine washing and ironing, or more so, set up an exclusive ironing biz with the use of charcoal iron. I remember when I was on camp, I used to pay N50.00 for every item to be ironed; for my trouser, jacket and T-shirt, I paid N100.00. It sounds too small a fee, right? But, with the thousands of Corpers on camp who would want their kits to be ironed on daily basis, you can calculate the amount of money you can make. For ease of operation, follow these tips.

Special tips:

Ø  Label every shirt, khaki or jungle boot received with the Corper's unique State code, so that when the owner comes back to claim his/her khaki, you will find it very easy to locate it without any mix-up with other khakis that are with you.

Ø  Have 1 or more partners for this business: Never attempt it alone because you can have over 300 kits on ground to be washed and ironed in a day. Corpers will be mad at you if you tell them that their kits are not ready when they are suppose to wear it to the parade ground the next morning.

Ø  Have a division of labour among yourselves (partners). While one of of you is washing, one shoud be ironing, another could be on the field, marketing and going from one hostel to another, packing dirty kits to the stand.

6. TAILORING SERVICES: You can also make money on camp helping Corpers to fix their wears. Most times, Corpers are given kits that are too large for them. As such, they would love to have the kits adjusted to their size. Other than doing adjustments, you can be sewing new caps for them, to replace the ill-shaped caps that are usually issued on camp. During exercises, shorts do tear. You just patch up the tear for a fee. Never underestimate this venture. You do not need to be a professional tailor. Just knowing how to maneuver the sewing machine is enough.

Special tips:

Ø  Have a sewing machine ready

Ø  Have some pieces of Khaki material handy for patch works and sewing of new caps.

Ø  You can even go with some pre-sewed caps. With these, all you have to do would be to just attach the NYSC logo within a few minute, without your customer (Corper) having to wait long.

Ø  Always tag your customers’ kits with their State Code respectively for easy identification and collection.

7. BOOK SELLING: You can also make money by selling books, magazines, novels, newspapers and musical CDs. All you have to do is to just have some good books ready. Have some good romantic novels as well; this would sure attract the ladies. You can make quite a hit if you have current sports magazines and papers available. You can embark on this business even as a camping Corper. Just endeavor to sell your books at an affordable rate, and you would see them rushing for your books.

8. PROVISION SHOP: You can open a booth, stock it with toilet soaps, medicated soaps, antiseptics(Dettol, TCP, etc), body lotions, creams, powders, hair relaxer, hair pomades, exotic body sprays, etc. these products are always on the demand, they are not perishable and you can always go back to camp when a new batch comes in. As a Corper, you can do this without a need to open a booth. Simply go round the hostels and introduce your products, you would never fail to have customers. When I was in camp, a roommate of mine used to go round selling body sprays. The guy sold off the stock before leaving camp. You can do same.

9. CALL CENTRE, PHONE CHARGING AND REPAIRS: I tell you, never underestimate this venture: it is a veritable oil well on its entirety. With the limited electricity supply in some of our orientation camps, you can make quite a fortune by simply charging phones and batteries for Corps members. In addition, people have an insatiable need to communicate daily, recharge cards are always on the demand. Why not tap into this oil well? You would never lose from selling recharge cards on camp because it is always on the demand. In addition, you can operate a call centre. There would be serious competition but there is no way you will not get your own share of the market and be smiling back home with your pockets bulging.

Tips:

Ø  You will need to have a small generator around.

Ø  Have enough desktop chargers available.

Ø  Like in laundry, you have to tag each phone and battery with each the Corper’s State Code to avoid mix up.

10. BOUTIQUE: Are you wondering how you can manage a boutique on camp? Hey, you do not need to open “Frankfik International” or more so a “Baguta”. Just a booth that has a good stock of men’s superior quality T-shirts, singlets, and boxer shorts. Most importantly, you can consider having ladies things – panties, tights, knickers, bum shorts, designer bras, sanitary pads and towels. After all, they make up the greater customer community.

Special tips:

Ø  Just make sure your goods are of superior quality. Selling substandard products would make them scurrying away to other marketers around.

Ø  Avoid the temptation of raising your prices, even if you are the only one selling.

These are the hot 10 business ideas that you can engage in during the 3 weeks Orientation Camp exercise. Other areas include operating a match viewing centre; configuring free browsers for Corpers; games centre; and photocopying/ lamination services.

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Comments and questions are welcome. Keep a date with us for another interesting topic.

DEBUNKING THE MYTHS SURROUNDING RECHARGE VOUCHER PRINTING

BECOME YOUR OWN BOSS 

1. DEBUNKING THE MYTHS SURROUNDING RECHARGE VOUCHER PRINTING

Sorry for my long absence. Did you miss me? Welcome to this new series of  information brought to you free of charge. in this series, you shall learn a lot about some business lines worth venturing into. Also, you shall learn from some common mistakes made by some folks when attempting to establish a business line. In this first series, your eyes shall be opened to the truth behind RECHARGE VOUCHER PRINTING, the myths, mistakes and ways of overcoming the hurdles for profit maximization.

INTRODUCTION

In this IT era, vast opportunities abound for those that really want to make it in life. The present IT revolution – invention of mobile phones and IT gadgets, has opened up a vista to the world of entrepreneurship that had hitherto been limited. Today, with minimal capital, you can virtually become your own boss, working from the comfort of your bedroom. One of these areas is RECHARGE VOUCHER PRINTING.

You have probably come across this subject on the internet. Some would promise you a “Shangri lar” world of business with neither sweat nor risk; a situation of all profit and no loss. Misinformation can be very frustrating and has been the doom of many a business. In this material, the whole truth would be opened up to you. You shall see the risks associated with this kind of business, and the common mistakes people make based ludicrous assumption, and then prepare yourself for them.

Before now, printing and selling of GSM recharge vouchers had been a business reserved exclusively for the big distributors. But now all that have changed, it’s all about who is interested. You may consider this: a recent survey showed that recharge cards are the fastest selling product in the country - only second to “pure water” consumption. With the insatiable demand for more cards each day, imagine how lucrative investing in the business could be. As such, you have no need to fear loss – the demand is never dropping, and you can always control your market.

Like every other business, it has its risks, but you can always overcome he risks by following these guidelines.

TOOLS FOR GETTING STARTED

Before you start, you’ll need a computer, printer, and software that generate the pin numbers. Or, if you do not have any of these, you can print yours with the use of an ORANGE BOX.

Your computer need not be connected to the internet. You can always go to a cyber café and copy the PINS that will be sent to your inbox from your dealer.

As for the printing, you can use colored or black and white printer. To even add variety, you can designate a particular colour of paper for each network.

When you register with a dealer, you will be given the software among other tools for this business. Some dealers do give out the software free, whereas others sell it. So, in choosing a dealer, you have to take this into consideration also. Sometimes, the softwares can be gotten free at business seminars and presentations. These softwares are always secured with a LOGIN and PASSWORD feature. However, you have to be careful if you are using a shared computer, to avoid password hacking.

On the other hand, you can print recharge vouchers without a computer or the software mentioned above. There are dealers out there that can issue you an orange box with which you can print your vouchers. This machine looks similar to those used in fast-food

centres like FOODAFFAIRS, MR. BIGGS, etc, to print receipt. This machine can operate with battery; hence you can print the recharge vouchers without electricity!

GETTING STARTED

After you had got you computer and printer ready, you can choose a Dealer around you. However, before you choose a leader, you have to look for one whose terms and conditions would be more favourable to you. Some Dealers only sell a minimum of 1000 units of pins for any particular denomination of card, whereas some may sell as low as 500 units. So you have to take cognizance of these because this would determine your startup capital.

For instance, if a Dealer’s minimum sale is 1000 units, and you would want to start with N100 MTN, then you’ll need at least N100, 000.00 as startup. Remember, in order to make maximum profit out of this, make sure you have enough startup capital hat would allow you to make a considerable profit margin. Most seminar facilitators would promise you bliss and super ordinary success with capital as low as N10, 000.00. Here, I can not promise you that. Do not be misled; misrepresentation of information can be very frustrating and is the cause of fall of many a business. You have to invest big for maximum returns. Budget a minimum of N200, 000.00 if you really want to make something out of this business.

After you have chosen your Dealer, you can then proceed to go online and register on the Dealer’s website. They will provide you with the necessary setup tools and technical advice.

You can then pay for the pins. After payment, the PINS shall be sent to your email address. Copy them and save in a Microsoft word or notepad in your flash drive or desktop. Thereafter, you can print the PINS using the software you have been provided with. The software usually has a USER GUIDE to take you through the process of printing. It is very easy to use. You may inscribe your business name on the voucher.

MARKETING

Now that you have printed the vouchers, you have to strategize means of selling off your cards. Now, you are becoming a sub dealer and a wholesaler and even a retailer (if you want to). Though recharge voucher demand is ever on the increasing, there is still some competition. You know the skepticism that follow when a new salesman tries to introduce some services or products to you. Do not fear, the market is wide open for you, and you can have an edge over other sub dealers and wholesalers that have there before you. Just follow the following tips.

Ø  First, you have to make a thorough market survey in your area.

Ø  Know the rates at which sub dealers in your area are offering their vouchers

Ø  Then try to reasonably cut your own price. For instance, if the sub dealers in your area are offering a pack of AIRTEL N100.00 in your area for N960.00, you can offer yours for N950.50. You do not lose by this. If make N3.00 per voucher, then in a month, you can make minimum of N30, 000.00 by selling 1000 vouchers (i.e. 100 packs) a month.

Ø  You can even use special paper colours for your vouchers. For MTN, you can use yellow paper, Airtel can go for pink, etc. You never tell such huge effect this strategy can have on customers.

With these, among other strategies you can come up with, retailers you would see retailers from far coming to patronize you. It is as easy as it sounds. But, you have to work really smart. You can sell as a wholesaler, or even as a retailer.

Customers will never be lacking. Millions of people buy recharge cards every day. People need to communicate, and so far, the easiest way of doing this is via phone calls. Recharge voucher unlike a perishable product that you would fear spoilage. You can sell it from the comfort of your home, office and school. As a student, you can invest in this and be making huge profits to carter for your fees, books and general maintenance. Take this move today and see your financial story change for good. Remember, “a little sleep, a little folding of the arms…, and poverty creep up on you like a highway robber.”

 

I hope you found this information useful. If you till need more information on this, like the names and address of dealers, their rates and conditions, just send comment below with your contact info. We shall reach you as soonest as possible. Thank you.