On Growing My Blog From Nigeria To $3K/Month
This is a follow up story for Entrepreneur Business Blog. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
My name is Emenike Emmanuel. I’m an internationally award-winning blogger, speaker and the Chief Evangelist of Ebusinessroom Ventures, a digital marketing agency based in Lagos, Nigeria.
I run one of the most educating business blogs in the world today, EntrepreneurBusinessBlog.com which is focused on helping small and medium scale business owners. I am also the Lead Coach of an exciting Facebook Community called, The Excellent Entrepreneurs’ Network and the author of The Magic Headline Hooks - The most practical guide on how to create attention-grabbing, eye-popping sales copy, email and blog post headlines every single time using a plug-and-play template.
Since the past 3 years, I started this business blog while serving as a Corps member in a remote part of Nigeria, I have gone from generating $0 per month to generating over $3,000 USD every single month.
This I have been able to achieve because of my consistency in content creation, mastery of sales, marketing, and advertising, and above all, God’s Grace.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?
Since the last time I was featured here, I would say that my online business has been growing. Yes, we’ve gone from just running a blog alone to starting an e-commerce company that imports products from China and sells them in Nigeria for “ridiculous” high-profit margin - as far as 300% profit.
Never give up on a business with a great prospect.
My students have gone on to build businesses that generate tens of thousands of dollars every single month using the simple but effective strategies I shared with them in my Inner Circle Program for just $249 USD.
I wrote a new book, The Magic Headline Hooks, created a new online course called, “Digital Product Business Webinar” and launched a brand new program called, “The Inner Circle Program” where I take a handful of ready-to-learn people and coach them to start earning thousands of dollars every month on the internet.
Since the last time I was here, I have won two international awards; first was in the United States of America as the “2019 Blogger of the Year” at the Global Excellence in Marketing Awards and the second one was in Cameroon as the Best Digital Media at the Afrikpreneur Awards.
In February 2020, I had my first event of 2020 at the NairaBET HQ and also got the opportunity to speak in a foreign country.
It’s been a good ride all along until I got two heavy hits that nearly tore my business apart if not that I had already strategized for it. PayPal permanently restricted my account twice in 2019 and Facebook blacklisted my blog URL the same year until a friend of mine called Remedy Nwankwo helped me out.
But that notwithstanding, it taught me a great lesson and made me value Google traffic more than anything else.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
The most painful mistake I made was leaving a substantial amount of money in my PayPal account. PayPal permanently terminated my two accounts within a space of 6 months interval and I lost over $3,000 USD.
Ever since I had that awful experience, I became more careful about my activities. It also made me start creating other income channels that won’t require me to use PayPal as the payment gateway.
As God may have it, I partnered with my friend, Patrick Enyum of Email CopyDyno, a software that helps consultants, affiliate marketers, product launchers and business owners, in general, to create highly converting and sales pulling email sequences in less than 5 minutes, to relaunch my Blogging Business Masterclass and it was a blast. This taught me how not to depend on one stream of income.
What I consider to be the most helpful habit and skill I learned in the past year is saving skills. Interestingly, I learned it from my girlfriend, Lovinda. She literally forced me to stop flushing money down the drain - something most people that were close to me enjoyed watching me do.
When I looked at what I was able to accomplish from my savings, it made me realize that it is not about how much you earn but how much you are able to achieve with what you earn. Most entrepreneurs actually don’t think about this. And little wonder they work so hard only to go broke as quickly as the money comes in.
To help myself key track my savings and automate the process, I’m using a local app called, PiggyVest that automatically deducts the money from my account and saves it for me at an interest rate higher than what the Nigerian banks could offer. I can decide to withdraw the money anytime.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
Our plans for the upcoming year are huge. Majority of them will be centered on expanding EntrepreneurBusinessBlog.com
Before this year is over, it’s in my plan to have 7 writers working remotely while 3 can be reporting in my office. This year, we are moving into a 2-bedroom office apartment to help us accommodate our e-commerce products.
In five years, I will be expanding deeply into real estate. I have already started testing the market by helping businesses to generate highly-converting real estate leads. Our results so far have proven that we are on the right track. All thanks to this revolutionary email copywriting software, Email CopyDyno which helps me create highly converting email sequences in over 20 niches in less than 5 minutes.
I am excited about what the future holds for my company, Ebusinessroom.us because five years from now I am convinced that we should be recording one million dollars monthly revenue from our e-commerce, digital marketing agency, and real estate businesses.
As a person, I have it in my plans to be happily married soon. Haha... I am tirelessly working hard to see that everything is put in place before that new phase of my life unfolds.
Have you read any good books in the last year?
Yes! I read at least one book every week, online and offline and hundreds of articles and YouTube videos weekly. Some of the books and podcasts that have made the greatest impact in my business were Small Business Big Money by Akin Alabi, I Will Teach You Business by Ronald Nzimora, Pat Flynn Podcast, NPR’s business podcast, How I Built This with Guy Raz, etc.
Pat Fynn podcast, Smart Passive Income is one podcast I love listening to whenever I want to remind myself how valid my dream of running a location independent business is.
Though I have always known that a fancy office space nor an expensive logo and color-laced website aren’t the first things I should consider when trying to run a profitable online business but finding customers first, but reading “Small Business Big Money” by Akin Alabi, CEO of NairaBET opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities in starting with what I have as long as I can bring customers to pay the rest.
In his book, “I Will Teach You Business” Ronald Nzimora shared deep secrets about running a successful business. He took it to a completely new level by sharing the business lessons his mentor Dr. Sunny Obazu-Ojeagbase taught him.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
My best advice for entrepreneurs trying to grow their business is to follow fewer experts. Following too many experts have led many into confusion. While one expert is telling them to focus on creating the finest logo that will speak well of their brand, another is telling them that they should focus on customers first.
Before you know what is happening, they become confused and end up not achieving anything tangible. This would have been avoided if they followed fewer experts in their field.
This may not go down well with common sense but this is what I believe is going to help any entrepreneur get over their struggles in business.
What I did that completely turned my business around was cutting down on the experts I model. In six months I was able to double my income by simply modeling Ronald Nzimora and John Obidi of Headstart Africa. I found in them what I needed to learn and modeled the exact same thing.
One thing you need to know about running a business is that most success stories can be replicated if you are willing to put in the work needed. Never give up on a business with a great prospect.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
I will be hiring later in the year for the position of tech content, personal finance, and career writers but not immediately. However, anyone interested in handling our insurance blog, My Top Insurance Blogs at a revenue-sharing model of 60:40 can send me an email now to [email protected]
The insurance niche is one of the niches with high CPC. So your chance of making at least $1,000 every month while working from home on this project is very high.
Where can we go to learn more?
- Website
- Email Address
- Blog Post: Why Blogging Should Be A Key Strategy In Your Business
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
