What could be the greatest tragedy in life? Is it the actual death or there is more to this life This thought has kept me wondering for many years and I recall how people mourn their departed relatives and friends on funerals and I have been always question what is the greatest loss that death has robbed us our dearest friends and relatives. During the speeches delivered on the funeral many recall the good that person has done for them, even those that experienced the evil hand of the departed will always try to spice their words so that they don’t speak the bad side of the deceased because it is considered a taboo to speak of any bad about the deceased. Some are mourning their breadwinners and they can’t imagine life without that person and all they see is doom.

We are supposed to celebrate the good that those departed did to us, appreciate their works, compliment their efforts, and mourn them with grief but could the greatest tragedy be the things that we will miss from them or there is more to it. If only we could know what this person could have done for you before he died, I believe you would cry more. Many people we have buried died with our answers to the problems we facing in our lives, they died with discoveries that were never shared, ideas that where never turned into a reality. The greatest tragedy is when the husband died with that love that they never showed their love, the parenting responsibility that was never showed to the children, the love in the church that we never showed to our church mates, the peace that we never preached. It will only strike us long before we die and this is actually the greatest tragedy in life. The good deeds in life that died in us whilst we are still alive is actually the greatest tragedy in life, the love we never showed to others, the commitment to God we never did, the advice we never gave those in need, the prayers we never made. From the above I think you can see that the greatest tragedy is not death but it has already occurred long before you breathe your last. I then remember someone asking me if we can rule that we have moving graves and I replied that it is not that they have died but these people have experienced the worst tragedy already in their life. Death is now just putting an end to their tragedy.

 Then the question is how then can we avoid this tragedy in life and I am convinced that each one of us has something that they feel they should do before death strikes. We all know the good that Christ mandated us to do and why are we not doing it and if we let it die in us before we have done it we would have experienced the worst tragedy in life because what we do or fail to do shapes our destiny. Many people are experiencing the worst nightmares, hypertension, wars, fights, sadness, grief, quarrels e.t.c, because of the good that we let to die in us, the principles we never applied to solutions, the love we never showed to others. Tragedy only strike when we fail to do what we supposed to do and whilst many people fear death I think that you should beg to differ where you fear to die withholding that which you supposed to have done. Death comes when you not expecting so it is a wake-up call that we should never cease to work, do good, show love, exercise responsibility, explore, speak your mind, and do everything you supposed to do before the end of life.       

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Jim Rohn once said"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment" and I have consistently grown to believe so that in order to achieve something discipline is of paramount importance and I still find a lot of people with dreams so high, they dream so big and many a time they just continue dreaming big and to their surprise nothing really materializes and we got back to the famous saying, "Zviroto ngazvigumire muzviroto" and many still looking for the powerful formula for goal getting and I'm here to give you first the properties of powerful goals. This is what makes every goal and a goal is not even a goal if it does not have these five properties of goals. Take you time to read these and every time you sit down to write your goals make sure they meet these properties.

Specific 

What is it that you want to achieve? Be specific, nail it right. Don't meander but just be straight to the point, this will also make it easy for you to recall and recite your goals. I have seen some other people's goals which are not specific, like they just say, 'I want to pass' without specifying with what magnitude. A 50% is still a pass, same as 99% is still a pass, so be specific as to what you really want. Still on that I have always said, what makes you achieve your goals is that inherent potential in you. It is that potential in you that you need to tap into. It is that fuel you already possess that needs to be ignited and that makes you achieve your goals. Lets say your goal is to be the head of communications in your company then your goal should be like, "I am going to do everything necessary to equip me to gain the necessary skills and ability to lead the head of communications in the next 5 years"This type of goal will help you concentrate on the specific attributes of self that needs to be improved or killed in order to be better placed for what is coming soon. It is something that is deep in you that needs to improved.

Measurable

Why is it important to measure your goals? It is because you need to note progress and track your success and failures towards your goal attainment and this will always include some important questions like:
How much?
How far?
How many?
How hard?

The measure includes both quantitative and qualitative aspects but these are very necessary and this brings ton what I already highlighted before that a 505 is still a pass, so you need the real value of what you want.

Attainable

Have you heard of something called unrealistic goals...Ask me. I have heard of them and I have also set them, but these are just goals that you cant achieve to be honest. It is more like you are saying, "I want to own private jets in a year's time" when you don't even have a penny in your pocket, or not even a profitable business.

How are you going to achieve your goal?
What other constraints are you going to face in achieving your goal?
What resources do you have

These will help you to see if your goal is attainable given the resources you have and challenges you likely to face.

Relevant

Does the goal matter to you I have seen some other people sweat to buy a car or some Nikes just because they have seen some other people doing so... and I ask them if this is necessary. Don't be pushed to achieve other people's goals. So this is also very important to check if these goals represent what you really need and believe in then if they do, go ahead and work for them.

Do the goes reflect my personal values?
Is it the right time?
Do I really need it?

Time

Time is money, and remember time flies so you need to check your goals against ascertain time frame otherwise if it does not have a time frame them it is not a goal, as some would like to put it that the difference between a goal and a dream is on time frame.


When?
What can I do 3 months from now?
What can I achieve in a year from now?


Thanks for going through this article... If you have any Questions, Suggestions and Testimonies feel free to drop them in the comment box below
 

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Zimbabwe unemployment rate is estimated to be between 80-90% and the youths are mostly affected and many people  have sent a countless CVs to many job prospects but still to no avail, and some still have fallen prey to bogus job agents or have lost their hard earned fortunes to job scams that spread on social media or that have flooded the internet. I know you have all heard about something that can bring you thousands of dollars from the comfort of your home and all you need is just your computer, cellphone, internet access and your passion then you got dollars dripping into your pocket. I have compiled a list of ways that you can use to make money online in Zimbabwe.

What are you waiting for? The sky is the limit when it comes to making money online

1)Virtual Agency
 I'm sure you have all had about the Econet Elevate Program that can make you earn about $600 per month from the comfort of your home and all you need to do is to be first an Elevate member. To become an Elevate member, you have to be between 16 – 34 years of age. Dial *771# to join the Elevate program. You will first need to have 5000 points which are earned through  recharging your phone by any means, be it  through scratch cards or even Ecocash. For every $1 recharge you earn yourself 100 points translating to $50 to start the training. Assuming they have accepted and reviewed your application, you will need to go for a training of 6 modules with a test at the end of each and you have to pass with a minimum of 90%. To read more about the program click here

2)Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an advertising model where a company pays compensation to third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads to the company’s products and services. The third-party publishers are referred to as affiliates and the commission fee incentivizes them to find ways to promote the company. With just your internet connection you can sign up to a lot of affiliate programmes you can share your links on social media and  embed the codes on your website or even blog. This will earn you some money even whilst sleeping and depending on how best you dedicated and have mastered its art, you can get some good amounts of money for  yourself. Click here to see the best Affiliate programmes you can join in Zimbabwe visitor who clicks on one of these links or ads on the affiliate’s site will be redirected to the e-commerce site. If s/he ends up purchasing the product or service, then the e-commerce merchant credits the affiliate’s account with the agreed commission, which could be 5% to 10% of the sale price of the product.

3)Social Media Marketing
We all have one or more social media accounts, and some with a thousands of followers and countless engagements and all you still think about is the use of social media for communicating when business is now social. Its high time you turn that Instagram account of yours into some business, where you promote and recommend other people's businesses, services, events, products etc. and start earning yourself some bucks to buy yourself some Nike..When you doing your social media business you have to take extra caution especially when its your person account, that you do not spam your audience as most of them are your followers and friends. You also have to make sure you share products you believe in, that you have tried and tested as you still want to gain that credibility from your audience. For example you should try avoid promoting an event like a beer festival on your social media platform when you yourself do not drink or your audience know that you are a church person, also when you into church things and leadership then you maybe promote a flier of a Motivational Seminar, the conversions will be higher and the one you advertising for is usually impressed. Its not only about Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and even WhatsApp can make you  fortunes, but like I said before make sure you don't spam your audience, especially on Whatsapp groups and make sure you abide by the set group rules eg some group have specific days where they allow posting of Adverts, then you ought to stick by that With social media marketing you can even charge from as little as $300 per month per client or even $100 per week on Instagram.


4) Online Trading 
 .Online trading is basically the act of buying and selling financial products through an online trading platform. These platforms are normally provided by internet based brokers and are available to every single person who wishes to try to make money from the market, this will include forex trading, bitcoin trading and many more.There are many different types of online trading from Day Trading, Swing Trading, Scalping etc and all are clearly stated with their advantages and disadvantages here The word of advise is that you really understand the online trading programs before you jump in to join or you part with your hard earned dollars because there are many scammers out there who can run away with you money and also do note that sometimes the rewards are not as expected as we are dealing with markets and markets always fluctuate but I can tell you that many people are making unbelievable profits so you might want to  give it a try.

5)Blogging
Do you have a passion to write or do you have something worthy to share with the global internet community, then you might have to give it a try as this can give you some money still from the comfort of your home but you need a good strategy and the right passion to start earning big from this venture.A blog (shortening of “weblog”) is an online journal or informational website displaying information in the reverse chronological order, with latest posts appearing first. It is a platform where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual subject. There are many ways you can start earning from your blog from displaying ads, sponsored posts, recommendations etc but first you need to grow your brand first and then you can reap your super rewards. It is very easy to have a blog but the challenge comes in having a best brand product and a blogging course might be the right way to go before you embark on this journey and one such course will be coming  soon in Zimbabwe, you just need to stay tuned to this blog by subscribing below and will alert you as soon as it commences.

6) Network Marketing
If there is something that has been changing lives of the ordinary Zimbabweans, is network marketing and this has seen some move from poor or mediocre lifestyle to posh lifestyles, but as always some have lost what they had after giving a hand in one of these programs but as always this is business, its either you win or lose. When we talk of these, something quickly comes to your mind, that is the health and beauty products, Stem Cells, Green World etc, so lets see what this is all about in brief. 

Direct selling method in which independent-agents serve as distributors of goods and services, and are encouraged to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting and training other independent agents. In this method, commission is earned on the agent's own sales revenue, as well as on the sales revenue of the sales-force recruited by the agent and his or her recruits (called downline). Also called multilevel marketing (MLM), cellular marketing, or by other such names, it is a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry that distributes practically any portable item, although restricted or banned in several countries due to its history as a vehicle for consumer Source If you really dedicated and you a good marketer, then you have to give it a try and now most of these programs you can even do the business online, like Super Life

7)Online Services
Are you good at something, like graphics designing or you a freelance writer then there are interesting communities you can join to sell your services from the comfort of your home and the good thing is that with most of them, its free  to join then they might ask for a commission  at the end of the day for the sells you make. Another good thing is that there are online group chats, and communities you can interact with others around the word and see how best  you can sell your products and you can also do a lot of collaborations making work easier for you. Also you have seen that most Zimbabweans are now in need of graphic designers to do their logos, fliers, reports, Cvs etc and you can just establish yourself in that by offering your  services online and spreading via social media and referals.

SOME SITES YOU CAN VISIT AND START MAKING MONEY ONLINE:


http://www.smartearningmethods.com/make-money-20-twentyville/

http://gigbucks.com/


https://www.fiverr.com/

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Here I am standing on the cliff, someone took me here just to show me the green valley and the cool environment. They had a dream for a better Africa, a prosperous continent but it seems its still a dream yet to be fulfilled, our founding fathers told us of a green valley after we had fought and navigated the jungle of colonialism of self-hate and promoted unity for purpose but the tragedy that has struck us for close to a century is they left us a bad leader. They left us someone who does not have the jungle skills, doesn't know the jungle routes to take us to the green valley, someone who believes that in order to survive in the jungle they have to kill and eliminate the weaker species not realising that the rule of the jungle requires unity of purpose to hunt more for all.

 The saddest of them all or rather the most selfish of them is that they have opted for a root via the cliff, when they know that they the only ones with  the access to  the rope down to the promised land, and this is the African Politician who is hero worshiped everyday yet when we reach the cliff they demand to be the first to get down the rope and funny enough when they get down,they look up with a mocking face dictating who is supposed to get down the rope. The promised land remains hope for all, but it will never be a reality. Why? I am amazed at our generation that has been so caught up in football and politics that they all games and like in every game the players and coaches do everything they can to keep you entertained, so at the end of the day there are no obvious winners and losers but all is crafted to keep the game going but the saddest thing is that some for the the love of the game have been absorbed  these groups.

I see a group of men curiously sitting in a betting shop, analysing the game, the same manner I see the same old so called professionals reading our daily news and watching the long television news program. Again I see a group of men sitting on the drain debating politics and even suggesting solutions the same manner I see our school kids debating who is better Messi and Ronaldo or what Real Madrid needs to do to win the cup, but as I closely look at them all, they have something in common. How can they determine the management of a player in the oversees whilst you are here? Maybe you can, but to what extent?


As I look around, I see an Africa who has ceased to tell their own story but instead they have offered the script to the foreigners. I see a generation who have been recently stormed to social media, where they have exposed their uncouth behaviors, promoted ethnicity, hatred, persecution and hate speech but still there I see some group of social media influencers  who are determined to change the face of Africa but they are almost fighting a losing battle as those who are still excited by spreading bad news, rumors and negativity are many and they always  support each other with retweets, likes, shares and bad comments.


 Remember bad news fetches better prices than good ones but for how long shall we continue reading from the wrong script. I see a nation where we have groomed photographers who have become so obsessed in capturing the bad and worst life moments, can't even imagine how everyone records and captures a quarreling couple in town, a fight, violence, accident and to hurriedly spread them on our social media, flooding our minds with negativity. Who shall then believe in marriage when our newspapers are flooded with marriage breakups, problems.

Who shall believe in safety if our headlines are always like 10 Killed in a Horror Crash? Who shall believe in safety when we always reporting on rape, murder and robbery cases and you wonder why the white friend has been always knocking on your door with assistance and programs for poverty alleviation, gender based violence etc but I always wonder how many people are being raped, good without food, abused in their same land.Many obviously!!! But who has been blowing our whistle, Us obviously... We are not the dark continent but if we continue sharing the darkest side of ourselves, how shall we dispute that?

Who controls the media, controls the people but its still for my baby Africa who waits for Marvel to first release the Black Panther before they rush to Twitter to brag about Wakanda. A continent whose story is told by Aljazeera, BBC Africa etc yet their  own broadcasting are still caught up with petty issues. I see  a whole lot of young and energetic citizen journalist who are busy hunting for negativity to share with my fragile generation who doesn't know where they stand. They adding pressure and confusing my generation.Who shall believe in the best when you always telling us the  worst.

As we remember Africa Day let's remember that someone had a dream, and it ought have to come into reality. Its for us all, Africa is home and let's bear in minding the founding principles, our great leaders Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, etc who fought for the struggle and let's remember that, "Its not over until, its over "Let's embrace our differences and synergy them for development because at the end of the day We pray for Peace and to us Africa is Home.

Let's agree to disagree

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Have you ever heard something about Content Marketing? Well to some people I have been communicating with, they seems puzzled about the subject and to a few who seem to grasp it, see it rather as a complicated subject or strategy. I believe you being on social media especially for your business or brand you have been creating content from day one. It ranges from the pictures, voice notes, videos, podcasts, articles, text messages etc. you create and share online. So it basically refers to any piece of content you own and owning it means its part of your brand right? So think about it!

Content Marketing according to Content Marketing Institute( CMI) is referred to as the "Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."

Instead of just spamming, putting your adverts and fliers you are instead creating relevant content that benefit your consumers, customers and audience and with that in mind it means you have to produce something relevant, quality and informative that they may like it. There are many reasons why you may consider Content Marketing for your brand and I will try to look at some of them below.

1)Establish Yourself As an Expert 

How many adverts have you seen being shared in WhatsApp and Facebook Groups, Twitter, Instagram etc? Have you also checked the engagement? Social media is a game of numbers and engagement and there is one quick and easy way to establish yourself as an expert i your area. I attended one seminar where Divine Ndhlukula, the Founder and Managing Director of Securico Security Services shared how she grew her company to be one of the best security services provider in the country. She talked about how they would always write articles related to their industry in the local newspapers. It was indeed a cheap but rather effective strategy and I always urge our small startups to always take a leaf from these examples. A blog post, short video clip or even audio explaining to people how they can use your product or services or just anything in general will set yourself or brand apart from the rest of others. Think about it today and see how you can create content that is helpful and resonates with your audience.

2) Know your Market

If there is one thing that puzzles most of the companies is consumer infographics. Everyday they trying by all means to get to know their customers, target market and even prospects and they even go to do questionnaires, surveys etc to get as much information as they can get. This is all in the hope to provide tailor-made solutions and products that answer and satisfy their consumers needs and wants. The other challenge that has been witnessed with the traditional marketing, is that people are spending more time online and it does not mean they spending it on everything they find online...No. Thanks to content marketing as it allows you to analyse your audience and market, see what resonates well with them, what type of content they like and engage with and also even which products or services they are using which might be your competitors. You also get to listen and understand what they are saying about your brand measured through various analytics and softwares. With the insights you are able to:

-Create more buyer personas

-Develop more and efficient buyer segments

-Improve Personalization

3)Brand Awareness

Remember I talked something about people spending most of their time online.It means if your business is not online, then you are losing. Again its not just about being online but dominating the online landscape from social media to websites. When someone wants to buy something they might just go on Google to search and just imaging if your products are listed on the internet, then you pose a better chance of having them buy from you. I also have noticed some companies and brands who took up the advice, to be there online but still they are not relevant as their website is not relevant. There are no contact details, detailed information about their services or even an FAQ page and just think about your competitor having his site up to date and resourceful. The quickest way to build your brand is to be where your market is. If they are on Instagram, then be there. Remember again we talking about your brand and in the first paragraph I talked about how content marketing refers basically to anything that you create and own, so be mindful of your branding strategy when you create your content.

4)Searching Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Think about when you trying to type something into google and automatically suggests some phrases for you...that's the power of SEO.  
 Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results—often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers.

 This will help your content appear and dominate the search engine and it also mean that every time you creating content, you should always have SEO techniques in mind. If you mostly using social media like Facebook and Linkedin for your business, it mostly means that your social media pages rank and appear first when someone searches them which should be a work up call to make sure, they are up to date, smart and promoting your brand and meeting minimal customer expectations. Also Search engine algorithms are continuously changing but if you are always creating relevant content you always stand out and win.

5) Generate Leads

This is mostly the main reason we are marketing as we striving to promote leads, attracting people to us and eventually getting them to buy from us and content marketing is mostly the number one lead generating method.Use additional premium content on your site (like ebooks) to draw them in even further.

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With the growing unemployment rates in Africa, there has been that demand or urge for innovative ways of survival, and in most cases, there has been comfort in buying and selling, but I'm particularly concerned by my fellow *copy-cats* They hear that shoes are selling these days, and they all start selling shoes, make-up business, everyone is doing it, combi business and everyone is doing it, mushika-shika, everyone is doing it.Think of any idea, everyone is doing it. Whilst there is nothing wrong about doing the same business, but there is something wrong by doing it the same way, same colors, same fliers, same marketing, same everything. I'm not talking about anyone else, but I'm talking of my fellow Afripreneurs Entrepreneurship, is all about monetizing solutions, you see a problem you think of a solution, people pay for that solution. It might be the problem, of transport to work, then one entrepreneur thinks of introducing bus system then the other car-pooling system or a taxi system.

 They all solving the same problem, but they all doing it in a unique way.That is part of entrepreneurship, the solutions must be innovative in a way..OK let's take for example Food World and OK Zimbabwe , whilst they all supermarkets, they have some services that distinguish them. Food World has an online shopping platform, which OK doesn't have.What does this mean, It means Food World allows even those in the Diaspora to make purchases directly from there to those back home. They also have door-to-door deliveries of purchased goods. Though they might all have promotions like for example OK runs the OK Grand Challenge Promotion and Food World has their own Promotion too, they still different. *Food World* is going a step further in solving problems like of the misuse of Diaspora money by family members where some could use the money sent for other things which is not the intended groceries etc. They also solving the problem of time spent in a shopping queue and allowing shopping on the go. This puts and distinguishes Food World from other supermarkets. Now we have these so called entrepreneurs who so fond of copying just like a guy in the exam who ends up copying the name and candidate number. They so believe in oneness, family, crowding etc and I want you to think of an lion who spends all its day with other lines, sleeping in the shade and playing. Where does it get the food? This is just like some of the Afropreneurs, they sell and market in the same platform. They into network marketing,and they have a group of network marketers, but you find some people putting up the same advert in that group.

 Who do you think is going to buy, when everyone in that group is also looking for a customer. The problem is when that group is your only target market, just like a lion trying to hunt down other lions. Look at the Hwindis, how they frustrate, abuse, force, customers. The problem is they all want to load at the same time, crowd at the same place, all want the same customers, all have the same marketing strategy and at the end of the day they become a nuisance to the same market. Look at the money changers, phone dealers etc, how they all crowd at the same place, want the same customer and at the end of the day they become a nuisance to the market. Now today as you thinking of any business to venture into or you already into one. It's time to re-evaluate.Aren't you just a copy-cat?? Aren't you just like the normal so called entrepreneurs of Africa.

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