FOREX TRADING & ENTREPRENEURSHIP LICKS

In my quest for knowledge on sustainable business, I have been opportuned to meet couple of people over the days. One of them is a 25 year old entrepreneur who hopes to make it big in the Real Estate Industry. I had a chat with him on how he hopes to get enough capital and he simply told me that the businesses he does right now (share dealing, Bonds, Equities and buying and selling of goods and services) are actually a means to an end. He generally discovered that it’s not possible for him to get a huge sum of money to venture into the Real Estate world, so he's determined to invest the little he has and then climb up the ladder step by step.
He is also involved in being a middleman between landlords and tenants at a small fee so as to help him in gaining more knowledge and also carving a niche in the real estate industry.

Another great young person I met is Oluseyi Gbadamosi, the CEO of Lydway Global Network. LGN is an E-consultancy and Forex trading enterprise that deals with training people on how to make money online through Forex, google adsense, google adwords as well as stock trading.

I have known Seyi for quite a long time but I never got interested in his kind of business despite repeated persuasion from him. I finally visited Ibadan and branched at his house when he took his time to explain Forex Trading with all dexterity.

Forex is all about buying and selling currencies. Until very recently, it was only meant for the big guns like banks, big institutions, and rich individuals who can trade as much as thousands of dollars. With the advent of online trading, so many trading platforms make use of the power of leverage to give an average small scale investor the opportunity to trade currencies.
Having a Computer, an internet connection as well as a good knowledge of Forex Trading is all that is needed to get started. There are couple of trading platforms that are online such as http://www.northfinance.com/ , http://www.fxcm.com/, http://www.fxsol.com/ e.t.c.

A beginner can make use of Demo Account to trade in other to gain experience without fear of losing any money. Once an investor is comfortable and familiar with the trading platform, they can then proceed to trade real currencies using their own money.

After a whole day discussion with Seyi, I was able to gain more information about Forex that I intend venturing into it full time as well. Luckily for me, I got some e-books off him that I can peruse and read during my leisure time. I also got a free invitation to one of his upcoming seminars coming up in Lagos on the 1st of May 2007. The venue is Excellence Hotel and the seminar fee is N27,500. I have arranged a 5% discount for every reader that is interested in attending the seminar. All you need to do is to quote http://www.apekanuko.blogspot.com/ as the referral source. For more information about the training seminar, you can visit http://www.lydwayglobal.com/ or email seyimags@yahoo.com .

On Wealthsolutions and Wema Bank

I have recently being so busy with some business intricacies that I find it hard to create time for blogging. I visited treasureline again last week to finalise my own investment.

I did visited wealth solutions as well to satisfy my curiosity as to how the whole process works. I went with a very good friend of mine as well who is able to navigate his way round the big city. The office is situated on 63 MKO Abiola Way, opposite Dikat House, beside the Mount Zion faith Ministry office on ring road, in Ibadan.
While I never got inside the main building due to the population, I could see young and old people under a make shift tarpaulin rented for the purpose of sunshield to cater for the unending streams of people who flock the office to invest.
I sincerely did not get to speak with any officials at the main office, but I spoke to a semi-illiterate guy who is an agent for wealth solution and who seems and claims to know nearly everything about the scheme.
From my interview with him, I noticed that they copied the Treasureline business model. They now go a step further by making sure that pay-off period is within 6-8 weeks as opposed to Treasureline’s style of operational week.

While admitting that the MD of wealthsolutions copied the treasureline idea, the agent further accused Treasureline of Invoking the wrath of EFCC on wealthsolutions. This I probe further and he doesn’t seem to have concrete proofs for.
I then further asked him on what Wealthsolutions invest the capital into and he told me they do invest in Oil and gas, forex, Real Estate, Stock markets e.t.c.

He later gave me a slip on the available slots as detailed below:
Slot Amount Invested Amount Pay-off
3 slot 3,900 10,000
7slot 9,100 30,000
9 Slot 11,700 40,000
15 slot 19,500 70,000
21 slot 27,300 100,000
23 slot 29,900 110,000
31 slot 40,000 150,000
41 slot 53,300 200,000
Etc.

He further told me that the process is that you pay into the account of Wealth solutions, and then take the teller slip with you to the office to obtain an application form from one of the agent which you’ll fill and submit with two passport sized photograph and then afterward come back for your slip.

I later thank him as he rushed towards another person who called his name.

I don’t think I’ll be investing too much into wealth solutions as I seem not convinced with the information available to me. I am even scared of the office they use as its infact a fraction of what a normal office will look like. I am considering risking 15 slots and see what that produces after 2 months. Like my watchword as an investor is, “I wont invest what I cant afford to lose!”

On another note, I decided to visit Wema Bank to withdraw some cash for my upkeep as well as transport as I have exhausted all I had. I dashed into the main banking hall of the Mokola branch only to see a long queue of customers waiting to be served. I, being an impatient person muttered under my breath after a period of almost 20 minutes waiting. On looking towards the service till, I could only see just two cashier serving almost a long line of about 60 people!. I am seriously not kidding. Behind those cashiers, I could see another woman behind her desk leisurely discussing with two other staff in a busy body way. Towards my very left, another staff walked in and started disturbing one of the cashiers on the till. I was so annoyed…..

While some of you will blame me for using Wema Bank, I still see no reason why they should lack good customer service. The staffs do not seem to understand the reason why they are being paid to work as bankers. Many people, especially the oldies are left to their fate as they queue for long hours in the bank.

Isnt it quite unfortunate that so many businesses like this lack god customer services?
As far as I am concerned, the customer always come first, and more staff should have been drafted in to cater for the increasing demand. But this doesn’t seem to happen.
What basically brings back customers to businesses is when they are treated right and fairly.
As an aspiring entrepreneur, I plan to ensure that every small business that’ll be created by me will be based on delivering good customer services as this will make me happy and also make my customers happy. I prefer it to be a win-win or 50/50 situation rather than me thinking of the profits and leaving my customer out of satisfaction.

I won’t be closing my Wema Account; at least for now based on personal reasons, as this is the only avenue for collecting some little allowances. Until Wema Bank changes their customer services, I guess we all (the customers) will be at their mercies.

Further more.......

I had a call from Johnson this morning, telling me about the so many calls’ he’s been receiving in regards to the article I wrote on this blog.
I must say that the information contained in my last post is enough information to make an informed decision.
Like I said earlier on, I will be visiting Treasure line Interlink tomorrow again to meet with the MD, and I promise to touch Wealth solutions for more information, especially for the sake of those living overseas.
Meanwhile, for those of you who’ve never been to Deolu Akinyemi’s blog, I suggest you do so for more analytic approach to High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP).

While these enquiries are going on, I once spoke to a bank worker at First Bank, and I am looking into possibilities of young people getting start up unsecured loans with little interest and hassle. I was introduced to U-First, but I since haven’t had much information on it. I promise bringing that to you as soon as I get more information.