How To Prepare for a Successful Grant Application

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July 6, 2021

Getting a grant funding is highly competitive. Usually, most reviewers review many applications depending o the organization, therefore, it’s essential that you present a brief easy to read application that addresses all the stated requirements.

Before you commence to write your application, you need to do the following:

check the eligibility criteria
read any accompanying documents (e.g. terms and conditions, frequently asked questions, application ‘tips’, e.t.c)
familiarize yourself with the grant funding process requirements, guidelines and application forms.
put together details of your business:
- products and/or services
- key personnel
- experience and skills
- description of your business and business plan
- proposed budget
- project description, including aims and objectives
- plan on how you intend to use the grant funds.
find out from relevant parties to provide, supporting documents such as financials, invoices, quotes, budgets.

Grant Application Tips:

# Prepare the application early. Get Started with platforms that provides startup requirements and tips.

# Keep the audience in mind. Keep the review criteria in mind when writing the application. Also, make sure the application and responses to the program requirements are clearly written.

# Ensure you follow the instructions and application guidelines carefully. Present information according to the prescribed format. Most reviewers are used to finding the kind of information they want in specific places.

# Be well organized Many applications fail because the reviewers cannot follow the thought process of the applicant or because parts of the application do not fit together.

# Be brief, concise, and clear. Make each point understandable. Provide accurate and honest information.

# Take Time to Carefully proofread the application. Misspellings and grammatical errors will impede reviewers in understanding the application. Reduce the use of abbreviations and acronyms.

We hope these tips would be helpful for you as you prepare for your next business grant.

Good luck!

4 Things To Know While Building a Side Business as a 9-5 Worker

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Buzwallet Team

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July 2, 2021

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Building multiple streams of income has become very essential in our days if you truly desire to reach certain financial goals and attain financial freedom. Now, for someone that still works as a full time employee, it is important to know how best to balance one’s regular day job as an employee with other side gigs so that it doesn’t conflict with each other in the pursuit of attaining financial freedom.

Check out these 4 tips to help you balance your Side Gig with Your Day Job:

# STAY WITHIN THE AREA OF YOUR CORE COMPETENCE.

For instance, let’s say you work in the tech industry, you probably understand how to create value using technology better than someone not in the same industry as you. So it’s advisable to begin with a business that falls within your areas of competence. That way, you’re able to understand the industry terrain in which your business belong and how to navigate through it to success.

# WORK WITH A PARTNER.
While running a business as a side hustle, partner with someone you that shares the same business dreams with you and is ready to fully commit to building it together. Because it is often essential for one of the business owners to work full-time in the business or better still you give a small equity holding to your most senior employee who can handle stuffs.

# NEVER QUIT YOUR JOB UNTIL YOUR BUSINESS CAN PAY THE BILLS.
Many people make the mistake of leaving their day job too early while their business is still in the early phase. Then, they later realize that their ROI cannot cover for their business expenses let alone pay their own bills. Ensure that your side business grows to the level where it can pay the bills before you make the decision of leaving your day job.

# START SMALL NO MATTER WHAT.
There many businesses that still fails despite the best laid plan and even great implementation. However, in the pursuit of building great business dreams, learn to start small, then scale up slowly until you are able to run the business full-time.

Good Luck!!

Four Simple Marketing Strategies to Reach a Niche Audience

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Buzwallet Team

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June 30, 2021

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In today’s digital world, even with all the digital tools available to use, knowing how to market or sell to a niche audience can make a huge turn-around for most businesses. As a business owner, it is very essential to know how to advertise to a niche market that would benefit most from what you offer.

Check out these Simple Strategies that could be Helpful for you in Achieving this:

1. Identify your Target Niche

Ensure you do a due diligence to understand those who will benefit from using your product or service and how it can help them address a challenge This goes beyond knowing their age, income and location. It also involves understanding their buying behaviours, patterns, values, interests, needs and wants. Then you use this information to further segment your customers. Knowing what sets your business apart will help you define your unique selling

2. Focus on ROI

Check out the return on investment (ROI) of the marketing channels you’re using and assess their effectiveness for your product or business. For instance, investing in PPC advertising allows you to strategically place ads that will help drive traffic to your website. You only pay when people click on them.

3. Study How your Competitors are Doing

Obtaining insights from your competitors can help you plan your marketing strategies for better impact and result. Find out the niche digital marketing strategies most of your competitors use and how they’re working.

4. Evolve with your customers

Another good way to connect with your niche audience is by listening to what customers are saying in real time. Use social media to engage with customers, monitor and track the flow of what they’re saying about your products/services and respond to feedback — especially when it is negative.

The Four Financial Life Cycle Chart You Ought to Know

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Buzwallet Team

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June 29, 2021

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In financial planning, four distinct stages are often described in a so-called Lifecycle Chart. These stages are the Accumulation, Consolidation, Spending, and Gifting stages.

The Accumulation Stage (Early Years):

The first stage is called the Accumulation stage. This is where you use your time well and make or earn money. It is critical to utilize this time in the best way to make money. The goal here is to generate cash flow either from a job, side hustles, working longer hours, cutting unnecessary expenses, saving etc.

The Consolidation Stage (Mid Years):

The focus of this stage is to move from saving to investing. At this stage, the income earned and credit scores must have improved. This is when you start thinking and talking of buying a home or starting a businesses. The key measure in the consolidation stage is the Rate of Return which is essentially how much has been generated from the investments you’ve made.

The Spending & Gifting Stage; (Spending and Gifting)

The spending at this stage usually includes buying annuities or perhaps relocating to another city, etc. At this stage, typically you begin to use your assets to generate cash flow and time. You’re spending from the return of prior investments. Withdrawal Rate is the key measure at this stage which is basically involves how much of investment can be withdrawn as cash annually to ensure we do not outlive our investments.

Retirement Stage

This stage is typically about living on passive income, which is the income we are making from investing from the accumulation and consolidation stage that is now sufficient to generate income and reduce expenses to meet our expenses in the spending/gifting stage.

*Never Forget This*

“Long term thinking and planning enhances short term decision making. Make sure you have a plan of your life in your hand, and that includes the financial plan and your mission.” ― Manoj Arora, From the Rat Race to Financial Freedom.

“Financial fitness is not pipe dream or a state of mind it’s a reality if you are willing to pursue it and embrace it.” ― Will Robinson

How to Set Financial Goals for Your Future

By

Buzwallet Team

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June 29, 2021

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Setting short-term, midterm, and long-term financial goals is an important step toward becoming financially secure. If you aren’t working toward anything specific, you’re likely to spend more than you should. You’ll then come up short when you need money for unexpected bills, not to mention when you want to retire. You might get stuck in a vicious cycle of credit card debt and feel like you never have enough cash to get properly insured, leaving you more vulnerable than you need to be to handle some of life’s major risks.

Even the most prudent person can’t prepare against every crisis, as the world learned in the pandemic and many families learn every month. What thinking ahead does is give you a chance to work through things that could happen and do your best to prepare for them. This should be an ongoing process so you can shape your life and goals to fit the changes that will inevitably come.

Annual financial planning gives you an opportunity to formally review your goals, update them, and review your progress since last year. If you’ve never set goals before, take the opportunity to formulate them so you can get—or stay—on firm financial footing. Here are goals, from near-term to distant, that financial experts recommend setting to help you learn to live comfortably within your means, reduce your money troubles, and save for retirement.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Proper financial and retirement planning starts with goal setting, including short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals.
Key short-term goals include setting a budget, reducing debt, and starting an emergency fund.
Medium-term goals should include key insurance policies, while long-term goals need to be focused on retirement.

Culled From Investopedia.

How to Start Prioritizing Needs Over Wants

By

Buzwallet Team

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June 21, 2021

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As a financially oriented person seeking to achieve financial independence, it is imperative to learn how to prioritize your needs over your wants. However, the line between wants and needs could be sometimes blurry, and it can be difficult to distinguish which expenses belong in which category due to different reasons peculiar to each person. Whether an expense is a need or a want often depends on how and why you use it.

The things you need are the things you cannot do without, your necessities, which include; healthcare, food, shelter, clothing and other essential items. If you often purchase everything you feel like purchasing even when you don’t need them, it might definitely have a huge effect on your financial life.

According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We see the Major needs of humans categorized into three, which includes;

Self Fulfillment Needs
Psychological Needs
Basic Needs

Now, if your needs don’t fall into any of these categories, then they should be considered as wants.

Wants are things you choose to buy but could live without, such as:

New clothing, shoes, gadgets
Entertainment
Travel
Buying a Home
Electronics
Monthly subscriptions or memberships
Cable TV or TV
e.t.c

The key to budgeting your expenses is to become more aware of how you are spending money. This allows you to spend within your means and also makes sure that your spending aligns with your values and priorities.

For instance, the 50-30-20 budgeting rule of thumb allows you to spend 30% of your take-home pay on things you want.

If you use the 50/30/20 budget system, your expenses will break down to:

50% of your after-tax income goes on needs
30% on wants
20% on savings or debts

When you need to cut your spending to save money, eliminating wants is often the easiest and first place to make changes.

Needs often make up the biggest portion of your budget, especially if you are following the 50/30/20 rule. When you rethink how your needs look, you can often make the most effective change in your monthly spending.

Therefore, be more realistic in your budget and don’t list out the things you cannot afford. If some of your needs will make you spend more, you may want to consider looking at other alternatives.