Thought of the Day

 “Leaders Are Readers”

“There is absolutely no way to increase your income quicker than reading 30 minutes a day” ~John C Maxwell

It's Easy to Make Money at Home. Really?

Some of you may think: is this guy not going out of his mind, questioning the very name of his blog? No, there’s nothing like that but just a little more explanation of that blog name. The rationale for choosing that name was not to sort of loaf at home and see the money rolling in. The idea was to work smart, not hard to make money. Maybe to show that one can make more money at home as a self-employed person rather than commuting to work for someone else.

Now, how am I trying to make money at home? In other words, how can I describe my typical day as a young blogger and recent affiliate marketer?

Well, we’ll begin with the rising sun and not end by the setting sun because I very often go way beyond that.

I usually wake up at 5 am to the sound of my cell phone’s alarm and then to that of the chirping birds who come to roost in the trees in our homes. I don’t groan nor do I wince; I’m waking up early to do something that I love, something that is going to bring me money, and loads of it. Short, I’m getting up early to build my own business, not someone else’s. That’s a powerful stimulant, believe me.

Still lying in bed, I would thank God for his care during the night and for giving me another day and confide it to His Grace. Just a simple straightforward prayer, not a lot of blah, blah, blah because Jesus taught us to be simple because God knows what we want before we ask. I continue with my positive affirmation. Here it is once again for those who may not know it:

            I effortlessly attract leaders, affiliates, and entrepreneurs to my

team and have a massive, solid residual income flowing constantly

every month into my bank accounts on autopilot enabling me to

become who I want to be, to have what I want to have and to do

what I want to do and thus live the life my dreams since the world

responds positively to my endless faith in its promise and I thank

the good Lord for that.

Then I will crawl out of bed and drag myself into the bathroom and brush my teeth. Next, I will trudge to the computer and switch it on. My Ailiang Home Theatre System also. First I check my yahoo box for my private messages, delete spam and answer those needing that action. Then I will log into my gmail boxes for business and do the same. The first is my primary box where I deal with serious business matters; the second is the secondary one where I sign up for offers and other stuffs that I had to consider before embracing them. Then I begin to blog.

I have my first blog on blogger.com, then came empower network blog, IMglobal blog and others I haven’t yet begun using. You’d think I love blogging so much but I think blogs love me. I’d sign up for a program and receive a blog.

I have a bank of blogging topics concerning blogging or making money on line got through Google research, Google Adwords, and reading. I would look for one of these topics or even a company or product review and write about it. If I felt like it, I would write individual blogs for the three but on the contrary (or if I had a lot of ideas), I wrote separate posts for them. I always add a ‘Thought of the Day’ for my blogger blog post.

How long do these activities take?

It’s incredible but checking and answering my messages can drag on for hours sometimes. Those are times when I find new programs to join, welcome messages to send to new signups, or another thing concerning my affiliate businesses to do.

Concerning new businesses, I may subscribe, confirm and be directed to a capture page or another. There, there will be other important information to follow; sometimes even other irresistible offers. I used to follow one lead after another and finally get lost. So my advice is don’t follow offers on end, otherwise you’d never finish your business for the day. As for new signups, in addition to the messages, I add their details to the database for that business.       

Writing a blog post can also take up a lot of time. I would choose one, two or three from the bank, do some research on Google to find out what others have written about it/them and what can be my own way of treating that/those subject(s). Sometimes the writing goes very fast, other times (or rather, most often) it sort of refuses to come down on the paper and I may find myself spending hours on it.

I live in Africa where community life is very strong. Family, friends, neighbours and phone calls may butt in anytime and there is no way to let them leave you alone. Telling them you have this work to do and need time for it may sound rude to them. I view it as a form of break, although unplanned.

Also to reduce the stress of work, I usually write to the background of jazz or worship music on DVD. As for local music I usually listen to them on the radio. And what about ‘planned’ breaks?

I also pause for breakfast, lunch and supper. They are short breaks for a quick bite and then the day may drag on up to midnight and sometimes 2 am or even 5 (then I set my alarm for 8 am).

My two kids are always fast asleep when I drag into bed. My wife is too but she’s not a deep sleeper and often raises her head when I plod into the bedroom and she says, “Oh, done already? I would tell her the time and she’d sigh and say, “So late?” and wish me sound sleep.

I sleep like a baby. Hardly do I finish praying (thanking God for everything positive thing which happened to me in the day, confiding the night to him and asking for another bright day) and doing the last of my daily affirmations when sleep overtakes me.

I sleep like a log and get crazy when my wife tells me how loudly I snored that day! One day I caught her snoring too and recorded it on her own mobile phone and when I played it for her she just looked at me as if I had caught her doing something naughty. I sometimes bear a grudge but my wife isn’t capable of it.

In the light of the above, the question is: is it easy making money at home?

I’d say it depends on what easy means. If it’s getting rich quick and without much effort, then the answer is definitely no. But if it’s working smart and enjoying what one is doing and seeing promises of big things to come, then yes, it’s easy making money at home.

Thought of the Day

"The success combination in business is: Do what you do better...and: Do more of what you do..." -David Joseph Schwartz

About me

This is usually one of the parts one finds on a blog where the blog owner lets you know who he is. The following story is similar but a bit different; different in the sense that this is going to be a sort of a short autobiography. I think the more my Google+ followers and blog visitors know about me the better we can bond with each other.

I was born on May 6, 1953 to Togolese immigrants who had left their native land for the Gold Coast (which became Ghana on attaining independence on March 6, 1957) which, as the name connotes, is a rich land. My father worked as carpenter with the United Africa Company (U.A.C.), a British firm. My mother was a housewife only in the sense that she didn’t work in the classic meaning of the word. My mother cooked and sold food she hawked on her head from house to house. In that sense, she toiled harder than a female office, factory or outdoor worker.

I grew up at Bompata in Kumasi in a neighbourhood where northern Ghanaians and West African immigrants lived together, enabling us to speak three African languages: Twi, Fante and Hausa. Our parents, like many non-native dwellers, raised us in the Ge-Mina-Ewe language, so all their kids spoke four African languages.

I began my primary school education in 1959 at A.M.E. Zion Primary school. In Ghana at that time, one could go to school for 10 years, obtain the Middle School Leaving Certificate and go on to work. Others however sat for the Secondary School Entrance Examination from the 8^th to the 10^th year and gain admission to the secondary school. The school made me sit for this exam in the 7^th year and was the only candidate in the school to pass in the 7^th and 8^th years. This earned me the prize of “The best scholar, academically” for the 1966/67 academic year.

In 1967, I continued to Technology Secondary School. All universities in Ghana have primary and secondary schools for the children of the teaching and the administrative staff and outsiders. My school belonged to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, hence the ‘Technology’ in the school’s name. I left this school five year’s later with the General Certificate of Education, Ordinary (“O”) level.

Navrongo Secondary school in the north served me for two years to prepare my General Certificate of Education, Advance (“A”) level which I obtained in 1974.

I taught French at Dunkwa Secondary School during the 1975-76 academic year, then returned home to Togo to continue my university education. But rather I served as supervisor at a girl’s technical school and temporary secretary to my brother, a Catholic priest at Séminaire de Tokoin. Simply because having grown up in Ghana where Kwame Nkrumah’s African unity policy considered any African on the Ghanaian soil as Ghanaian, my parents never thought of getting us Togolese identity documents. Their illiteracy was also to blame for this situation.

Then in 1979 I left for Nigeria. The oil-boom there was attracting people from all over West Africa. I worked there as Clerk in the Maintenance Engineer’s Office. Two years later, I had saved enough money to go to Germany to continue my education.

After petty jobs, I returned to my brother in Ghana in 1983. I began studying with the Institute of Children’s Literature in Redding Ridge, Connecticut, USA, for the diploma in writing for children and adolescents. It was in Togo that I completed this correspondence course in 1985 and started publishing stories and articles in local and international newspapers and magazines. I finished three other writing courses later on (including one in writing for adults and another in poetry), obtaining a postgraduate diploma from ICS. My hope was to make a living writing. But that’s hard to do, especially for someone living in Africa and trying to publish in America. My biggest barrier was postage costs, and when the internet came, rejection slips.

In 1983 I obtained work as secretary with Pabu Trading Company (P.T.C.), a German import-export firm, largely because the owner was from Hamburg, Germany and that was where I had stayed and I understood German.

This company opened the world of business to me and shaped my future career orientation. West African representatives of Henkel cosmetics, it was thanks to P.T.C. that I got hooked to business, I whose childhoold dream was to become a gynecologist. The company also enabled me to travel frequently in West Africa. I rose through the ranks to become Assistant Manager in just two years and Manager a year after.

Desirous to build my own business, I founded Ets. (Etablissement) Pyramide in 1987 as General Merchandisers and ran it part-time. With rapid growth in three years I was planning to transform the company into an import-export-general merchandising firm and resign from my employment to run it full-time when my country entered socio-political violence linked to difficult democratisation of the military dictatorship as from October 5^th, 1990.

To force the regime to accept the holding of a national conference to discuss reforms, a nationwide strike was called in 1991. My shop was situated at Be, a zone of the capital still reputed to be pro-opposition and anti-government. We made the bulk of our sales from 6 to 9 pm. So my business suffered when the state set up a terror system, targeting opposition groups and their strongholds and people rushed home after work at 5.30 pm. It was this way that my shop went bankrupt and I lost everything. Economic doldrums seized the country and many foreign investors left. Thus my main means of livelihood also disappeared.

However when political tensions decreased a bit as from 1993, I opened an import-export office. With little capital, I couldn’t but work as manufacturers’ and exporters’ representative in Togo. With limited success, I branched into brokerage work, using B2B portals as alibaba, indiamart, ec21 and others to connect buyers and suppliers.

Big mistake: I dealt in big boys’ products such as petroleum products (crude oil, Diesel oil, jet fuel, etc), fertilizers, Portland cement, shiploads of grains (rice, soy beans, etc.), scrap metal, precious metals (gold, diamond) and other commodities which promise one millions of dollars of commission but which no broker I knew (and they were many across the globe!) could swear it gave him a single cent. I spent about three years in that dreamy sphere until reality (my rapidly dwindling resources) jolted me out of it.

I became a part-time teacher of business English in a vocational institute training high school diploma holders in various fields: secretaryship, banking, finance, computing, management, sales, international trade, etc. I continued to work online, hoping for the jackpot one day but it has been 13 years in the classroom and no big money to celebrate.

In effect, from one search to another, I discovered blogging last year and clung to it like a leech to its victim. What makes this system attractive is that it encompasses teaching, doing business and writing.

With blogging, have I come to the end of the road? I should think so, especially with high-paying affiliate network programs from SFI, GDI, Empower Network, Pure Leverage, GDO, Jubirev, etc. not even the sky is the limit.  

Click here to visit my new blog 

Thought of the Day

"The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible." - Richard M. DeVos

Thought of the Day

Today I’ll like to share the following email message with you on Good Customer Service:

from:	John Anderson <address withheld)>
reply-to:	John Anderson <address withheld>
to:	akolipenoukou@
date:	20 August 2013 06:13
subject:	Good Customer Service
mailed-by:	65leads.com

Hello there Akoli Penoukou,

How are you? We're doing well here.

Another Home Business Quick Tip.

Communicate with your customers. They'll begin to trust you and get to know you on a more personal level. People will purchase products quicker from somebody they already know and trust.

Business definition for the week:

Ex gratia, 'out of grace'. When something will be done for free.

Prima facie, 'at first sight'. Something that seems true but is wrong.

Look for another home business quick tip soon!

See you soon,

John

Thought of the Day

Today's "Thought of the Day" is special, in that it calls for your feedback, dear follower and visitor.

'One cannot be judge and judged' is a proverb I like very much. It has several equivalents in African languages that I know: 'the person clearing a path cannot tell whether it is going crooked or straight,' 'one cannot dance and appreciate themselves.'

I've been writing a lot concerning the first anniversary of this blog. I wish to thank all those who have been following me and visiting the blog. Your encouragement is going to let big things happen because I couldn't have had the stimulus to continue without you. But now I need you even more.

I write for you, not for myself, otherwise I could have kept a diary. Therefore I would want to know what you like about my blog posts, where or what I'm doing poorly and how you'd like future postings to be. Why not even tell me what you'd like me to write about? I'd happily serve you.

Let me assure you once again that I'm entirely at your disposal for any sollicitations and thank you very much for your feedback.

Your 'servant'
Akoli Penoukou

Tel: + 228 92566652 / 99496197

Email: akolipenoukou@gmail.com

Skype: akolipenoukou

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