How to make money in Lagos Nigeria - Part 2

Felix Okoli

If you have been living in Lagos or any other city that resembles it for about 6 months - 1year and still not making any money, perhaps there are certain things you are not doing right. Unless you don't have the intention to make money yet, there is really no reason why you still are not making any money. You would need to remove some obstacles which could be clocking your progress.

In this part, I would like to focus on some factors that could affect your ability to make money in Lagos Nigeria.

Obstacles which could be reducing your ability to make money in Lagos

+ Little or No Education: Lagos works best for people who are educated or at least smart enough. You need to be intelligent to survive and succeed in Lagos. Being good in things like calculations, maths and english can really open many doors for you. It can be hard if you don't even know how to open and maintain a bank account, register your company and so on. You need to be conversant with what the law permits and what not. It's really all about information. The more informed you are about Lagos, the more money you are likely to make.

+ Non Socializing: Lagos may be an island but to succeed in Lagos, you need to socialize. Don't isolate yourself. Meet people. Join a social group like an association and it may not necessarily need to be a club. You should also try to connect with people of your kind whether it be religious, ethnic and people from your town meeting.

+ Not Advertising: At times, even if you have a good business idea, already run a small business, if people don't know what you are doing or offering, they could hardly patronize you. So you need to get the word out to people what you do. At times people may just patronize you just because you go to the same church, speak the same language or just live in the same locality. You can make use of sms, just talking and so on to tell people about your business

+ No solid/personal accommodation : If you have enough money and really want to have a long term success in a place like Lagos, you really need to invest in real estate. Renting an apartment or home in Lagos can be quite expensive or actually be a bad long term plan. Try to have your own place. Buy a piece of land for cheap. Nowadays you can get lands in Lagos from N200,000 to N2m. You can even buy old homes for about N5 to N20m. You need to consolidate your accommodation and even if you like living in rented apartments, there is nothing better than having some real estate investment, even if it is just a parcel of land. Try to work on having your own home and every other thing will fall into place. Think of it, rent keeps on rising every year in Lagos and so does prices of land and houses but the money in your bank does not appreciate at the same rate. There are a lot of people in Lagos who don't really have much money but the homes they live in belongs to them and that really helps them a lot. Most people who leave lagos back to the village due to lack of success mostly do not have their own homes.

+ No alternate source of income: You need to develop newer sources of income. Don't depend on just your salary or single business that you do. Try to see newer opportunities to make money and capture them before your competition.