Factory requirements

For an entrepreneur, to ensure the availability of the raw material for production is very important. The selection of the factory site has to be near the place of the availability of raw materials. The factory site has also to be near the electricity sub station in village areas to get constant power supply. It should preferably be near the market for your products also.

There are two types of loan. They are term loan and working capital loan.

The term loan is given on the machinery that you require for your industry.

The working capital requirements will include the daily recurring expenditure to run your factory that is how much you need to meet your daily expenses to run your business. You should arrange for at least three months of this recurring expenditure from banks or any other source. It is very important aspect of your business. If you need to raise this money from banks then do not wait to raise it afterwards but you should arrange it for at the time of getting term loan . The term loan and working capital loan should be financed together for smooth running of your factory. If you have been able to get the term loan from a financial institution and need to take out working capital loan from another financial institution then you can carry the approved letter for the term loan on machineries to the banks or other financial institutions.

The entrepreneur may also have to apply for a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Pollution Board.

In taking loan from a financial institution, you may have to show a Provisional Registration Certificate (PRC) that you obtain from District Industries Centre (DIC). You submit your Industry Scheme to DIC office for approval and after its approval you are granted a Provisional Registration Certificate which is valid for upto 5 years. This certification helps in getting N.O.C. also. You get a Permanent Registration Certificate after coming into production from DIC.

An entrepreneur needs to have a Provisional Registration Certificate, a project proposal and his/her dynamism while approaching the banks for loan.

The entrepreneur has to apply for the electricity connection from the State Electricity Board and the representative from the electricity board at the time of giving electricity connection comes for inspection of the site. The representatives from financial institution along with the representative of the supplier of machinery also comes for inspection of the site/machines after the delivery of the machines and also in the case of the supply of defective machines.

Trading skills

There are six main components of National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) in Ranchi, Jharkhand .  There is Employment through Skill Training and Placement (ESTP) component and there is also Self Employment Programme (SEP) component. Under SEP an individual can take up to 2 lakhs personal loan and for group loan it is, Rs 10 lakh which is being provided by banks. They can avail 7 percent subsidy on loan interest. The urban poor can take advantage of this programme. They have to show Below Poverty Line (BPL) card or they have to show an income of Rupees 72000/- annually. There are sixteen skill training providers/agencies in Ranchi and they are given Rupees 15000/- for the training of a youth and they have to give training for approximately 540 hours. They are given Rupees 30/- for an hour of training to a youth. The youth after training is given a RDAT (Regional Directorate of Apprenticeship Training) certification and send for placement by these agencies. There is also a component under NUML which is Support to Urban Street Vendors in which after a survey an I card will be issued to them and a vending zone will be provided.

According to one agency of NULM, there are sixteen agencies in Ranchi.These agencies are training  youth between 18 to 35 years. The skill building is done on seventeen trades like textiles and garments, retail service and marketing, production and manufacturing, gems and jewellery, food processing and preservation, Tourism, Hospitality, Travel & Trade, Need Based Skill Development etc. Interested youth are given training for 500 hours then they are send to placement cell. Companies HR come to select them and for those youth who have not been selected they are send to SEP for municipality task force approval. Through SEP they are send to Banks for availing bank loan for business. The target in Ranchi/Jharkhand is to train 40,000 urban poor youth.

Sick Industry

 When an entrepreneur starts his/her business he/she may not know about the various problems that may crop up like may be the raw material availability which was there at the time of taking loan but it may not be there at the time of the production, the market security which was there at the time of taking loan but it may not be there at the time of marketing the products then the entrepreneurs may not be able to repay the loan to the bank. The industry may become sick. And if the entrepreneur now wants to take another loan to start another venture to repay the loan then it may be difficult for the entrepreneur to convince the bank for bank loan. So the entrepreneurs if they ensure/have other sources to repay the bank loan other than manufacturing and marketing the products from their industries then he/she may be able to repay the bank loan and may be prevent their industries from becoming sick.

If the entrepreneur takes additional loan to start another business/industry may be smaller than the main loan that may be included in the project proposal/industry scheme that may be sanctioned at the time of taking the main loan but the entrepreneur may start the other business/industry at an appropriate time and the additional bank loan is free from interest till that time he withdraws the money for his business venture from bank then the entrepreneur may be able to save his industry from  becoming sick that is it may be another activity other than his main activity to fund for his non repayment of loan which is just like other big industries who can use the funds from their other activities to fund the one that is in need. Or the entrepreneur may take loan for two industries at a time.  

According to a financial institution, for revival of a sick industry, bank will examine its viability when bank funds are involved. When the entrepreneur approaches the bank for a different loan that is for another business, banks will see the previous loan incurred by the entrepreneur, its entire liability to the market that is the bank will first create these liabilities, will see the own funds the entrepreneur will be able to contribute for the new unit and minimum percentage by the bank for loan. Bank will be examining the proposal. The bank may not be interested to fund for another business after the unit become sick. If the entrepreneur wants to go for two business at a time, the bank will see how it can be handled by the entrepreneur, his past experience, the local market for the product and the time period of the loan. The entrepreneur can go for several activities at a time.

According to a senior officer of a financial institution, when an account becomes Non Performing Asset (NPA), the bank will see the reasons for NPA. The bank will analyze the reasons. The reasons could be that that there is no adequate power supply to the unit, market is not there, raw material is not available, capital is required, the operating cost is not much then the bank will provide counseling and may be with counseling the problems may go away or the bank will go for additional funding in case, if it is possible that with further funding the problems can go away. If an entrepreneur wants to start two enterprises at a time then the bank will see his/her capacity that is whether he/she (a single/lone entrepreneur) has the capacity to handle two businesses or not, the project is viable or not. It is a hypothetical question. The entire economy will be affected. Banks will try to discourage.

According to another financial institution, when an industry becomes sick, loan may be restructured as per RBI guidelines. It will depend on financier. If the entrepreneur is not able to repay the loan at all, then the bank will take action to try to recover its loan amount. If an entrepreneur wants to go for two units at a a time, it won't be easy for the entrepreneur to run two units. There will be stress.

Empowerment of girl child into business and entrepreneurship

Girls can be motivated right from their childhood to become entrepreneurs. They can learn the basics of business right from their childhood.

In their daily routine girl children are making paintings. Some are good, some are o.k. If those paintings could be sold by the child's mom and dad by becoming their marketing managers then in this process the girl child will learn about marketing. When the girl child is buying the toys she is also learning  about the cost/pricing of the toys, their appeal for her - that is why  she is attracted to the toy which may be because of the packaging or may be for having fun with that toy. She can learn in this process about how important packaging is. She may also buy the toys because her parents could afford it. So she also learns about the affordability of the product as one aspect of buying a thing. She also shows or tells her friends about her purchase, how good it is, and how affordable it is and how fun it is to play with it. That is how she is building a brand and can learn about how to build a brand. Her friends also wants to buy those toys so the word of mouth marketing creates a market for those toys and she learns about this marketing strategy. She chooses a toy from a variety of toys available in the market and she chooses the ones that she likes which is more fun to play with and that is affordable. She can learn from there that the customers have a variety to choose from the market and liking is an important part of buying things. It adds value to the product. She learns the marketing potential of a product. Girl children can learn about the tools like pen, pencils, crayons, erasers etc that are used in making a painting that is she can learn about the tools required for the production of paintings. Here she can learn about the production part. The girl child has a gullack/piggy banks at home where she saves her money. She sees her money grow. She learns to deposit money, grow the money and spend the money  that is she learns how to invest money wisely. She makes her financial plans and deals with her piggy bank accordingly. She can be motivated to use her money for her future business. When the child's parents chooses a location to buy the toy products for her she can also learn the advantages of a location from them.

According to a small businessman, this kind of small tips to parents would motivate parents and parents will put efforts in the development of entrepreneurial skills in their children regardless of what in future they may make their career in. 

According to a financial institution, parents and guardians, school teachers and principals can play a role in their motivation towards entrepreneurship. Camps can be put up in rural areas for information and motivation of their interest. Banks can help in motivation in financial schemes.

According to another financial institution, a father who is in agriculture or in service class does not have the courage to take the risk involved in a business. The culture of industry has to be developed and after ten to twelve years only the picture may change. Entrepreneurship has to be in our culture. Industrialization and commercialization of societies is required. Government has to play a major role in this. The confidence has to be built. The government can build a 100 square feet two room parks where initially the skills of entrepreneurship and principals of business could be taught to youth. So that they can start with small risk appetite and from there they can develop to take more risk. Government can start with ten families security. NGOs also have to play a major role.

According to a senior officer of a financial institution, a contract cannot be signed by a minor. There is a programme under which each bank has to adopt a school to give financial literacy training that include skill development, banking, etc. There is also National Urban Livelihood Mission programme. 

Micro business solutions

Depending on the suitability of agro climatic zone, crops like vegetables, fruits, spices, ornamental crops like flowers etc are grown. The soil PH is also seen. The suitability of crops for different areas are decided by the scientists from the beginning based on their research work. There are government schemes to help the farmers. There are farmers into micro businesses.

According to a farmer, marketing of the products is difficult. He had to give rent of Rupees 10/- for a kg of Pumpkin but due to depreciation in rate he had to sell it for a lesser price in the market. Environment is not supportive.  Food inflation is there.  Rice, wheat, pulse has a minimum selling price and they can be stored. But tomatoes etc are produced and sold directly by farmers. If there are ten farmers and all of them produce tomatoes then there will be food inflation so marketing of products will be difficult. But this can be overcome. If a group of farmers produce different crops then there will be no food inflation. The variety of crops could be chosen by a group of farmers that requires no specific technology. So it is required to create awareness and simultaneously provide motivation to the farmers so that they can go for crop variation. For example, when there is season for potato, cauliflower etc, the farmers can go for those crops because they are suitable for that season and also produce different crops then and only then food inflation can be controlled and farmers can have better lives and be in this business. There should also be cold storage facilities. The farmers are now a days aware to make more income by growing certain crops before the season and selling the products at a higher price.

According to an agriculture organization, seeds are provided to farmers at a subsidized rate. It is difficult to motivate farmers for micro businesses and change of businesses. For example, because if a farmer is producing wheat then he is inclined to produce only wheat in his plot ensuring the supply of wheat for not only this year but will keep a stock also for the next year. He will not be inclined to produce flowers even in a small portion of his plot so that he could sell them and get better money. Seed money is being provided to a group of women that include even girls for their training in cultivation and food processing.

Entrepreneur quality

Entrepreneurs including women entrepreneurs have these qualities:

• Dreams - They have big dreams.
• Determination - They are determined to succeed. They never give up. 
• Fearless - They are not afraid of their problems,. They find solutions to overcome problems.
• Passionate -  They cling to their idea because they think they can do it. 
• Highly motivated - It is inner motivation. They really want to set up their industry. They want to be the owner of their business and recruit employees.
• Intelligent - They are intelligent. Although they do not have business sense they use their intelligence to move in their business.
• Dynamic - They are dynamic. They are highly impressive. 
• Exploring attitude - They explore thoroughly before finally taking a decision.
• Courageous - They have the risk taking ability. They are highly courageous.
• Their dream is their child and they cannot let it go. They nurture the growth of their business.
• Decision - They can take quick decision. They usually take right decisions. They even take spot decisions.
• Achievers - They want achievements, awards etc.
• Management - They have good management skills whether it is labourers, staff, material or money management.
• Leaders - They are the leaders.
• Wealth - They want to accumulate wealth and fortune.
• Recognition - They want to be recognized. They want name and fame.
• Success - They believe in success. They have to succeed.
• Active - They are highly active.
• Hard working - They are very hard working.
• Honesty - They are honest. They believe in honesty.
• Different - They are different.
• Punctual - They are punctual.
• Can Do It attitude - The entrepreneurs have the Can Do It attitude. 
• They are the gems.

Small entrepreneurs

A small entrepreneur can also give back to the community. When a small entrepreneur is establishing his/her factory in the most backward area then the entrepreneur is generating employment for those people and this in itself is a kind of contribution from the entrepreneur's side to uplift the people from poverty who are living in most backward areas. So rural employment can help in giving back to the society.

The entrepreneur can make a recreation club for the villagers/village youth. The entrepreneur can do it by donating a small amount of money for the club. The villagers may initially start their club with an existing brick and mud house and may be later on the house could be improved . This could be a place where the villagers/village youth could sit together and enjoy and discuss things. They could keep the FIRST AID BOX there, The entrepreneur can arrange free visits by District Industries Centre skill development teams to this recreation club to impart skills in micro businesses to those villagers/village youth as they are may be mainly farmers, gem stone extractors, villagers involved in querying or mining graphite or granite stones etc that is it could be for anything depending on what the villagers depend on for their living.

If the entrepreneur has to buy a agriculture plot for his factory land which he may have to convert it into industrial plot and if the agriculture plot is surrounded by other agriculture plots so then if the entrepreneur may have to build a pitch road/concrete road for the connectivity to the main road for transportation for carrying goods to and fro from his site then also the entrepreneur in a way is contributing towards the villagers in making them happy and providing solutions as they will be able to walk easily to their agriculture plots especially during the rainy seasons. This would be beneficial to both the entrepreneur and villagers. The small entrepreneur can also help the villagers by making small concrete road.

The entrepreneur can sit with the rural villagers to understand their problems and may take up those problems with the Collectorate office. 

Google search console explained

When an entrepreneur gets his/her business online, he/she may think that there will be many visitors to the site because it is internet and because worldwide people are using internet. But this may not be the case. The Google Search Console data gives the details about the site's performance meaning how is the website doing in search. It may be possible that some entrepreneurs or small businesses are seeing the search console data and may not understand what to infer from the data like how the website is doing or which is the top position for a website or which are the positions on the first page and so the average position of their queries or pages whether it is good for their website /pages/queries or not or the number of impressions that the website is receiving is good for their site or not or the number of countries where the page views or clicks are happening - how important it is for the website or whether does it matter for the website performance and etc. It is possible that the entrepreneurs or small businesses may have little knowledge about the technicalities of a website or about how to start analyze the Google Search Console data. By learning how to analyze the data available the entrepreneurs may improve their websites/pages/queries. The entrepreneurs or small businesses can begin to calculate their website's performance with this:

Google says, "The Queries report shows the Google search queries that generated the most impressions for your website URLs. By using this report you can identify search queries for which your site has a good average position (Average Position - The average ranking for your website URLs for the query or queries.For example if your site's URL appeared at position 3 for one query and position 7 for another query, the average position would be 5 ((3+7)/2), but poor clickthrough rates (CTR- clickthrough rate calculated as Clicks/Impressions * 100) . These are queries for which your pages get attention, so improved content could lead to more traffic. Keep in mind that the most typical search queries return only a single URL from your site and the average position for a search query is based on single URL position. In the case where the query returns more than one URL from your site, the average position is based on the most prominent URL in the search results when only a low number of URLs from your site are displayed.

Landing Pages Report - The Landing Pages report shows the URLs to your websites that have generated the most impressions (Impressions - The number of times any URL from your site appeared  in Google Web search results). With this report, you can identify landing pages on your site that have good click through rates (CTR), but have poor average positions in search results. These could be pages that people want to see, but have trouble finding it. In addition, a single URL is typically associated with many unique queries. For this reason, the average position ranking for a given page can be influenced by more generic queries, and if you are comparing the top landing pages to the top queries with respect to Average Position, you should keep this in mind.  For example, for a website dedicated to classic automobiles a query such as classic automobiles must return the URL for the home page only, whereas a query such as classic automobiles Ford might return the URL for the home page as well as other pages in the site. In this case the generic query improves the position ranking for the home page over the ranking of pages that are more specific in nature.

SEO Geographical Summary report - The Geographical Summary report provides a general view of Impressions, Click, and CTR by country. At a glance you can see which countries are generating the most search activity for your site on Google Search".

Handicraft items

The traditional handicraft items of Orissa which entrepreneurs could select for their handicraft business are traditional garden umbrella, hand umbrella and canopies in applique work, wood carving - wooden toys, god and goddesses figures, wooden painted toys that include wooden painted animals, birds, butterflies, flowers etc. Wooden painted toys are very cheap and beautiful items that could be used to decorate drawing rooms etc and there are wooden painted numbers and alphabets hangings that could be used for educational purposes, exotic wooden painted toys partition are available that could be used for office purposes and drawing room and dining room  partition etc, boxes decorated with lacquer work are beautiful to look at and that could be used for keeping jewelries, even walls could be decorated with lacquer work, wall hangings, wall letter hangings and hanging lampshades in beautiful colour combinations that are made up of applique work are available, golden grass hats, wooden painted toys that include flowers, butterflies, animals, birds etc fixed on golden grass that could be used for decoration purposes are available, plain golden grass items like drinking glass covers, coffee mug covers etc that could be used for dinner tables, office tables etc are also highly qualitative items, there are golden grass boxes that are used for kitchen purposes like to keep chapatis which would also add decoration to the table, file covers with applique work for office use purposes are in many beautiful designs, cushion covers, table cloth, bed covers, etc having applique work on them are also available that could be used in home decorations etc, silver filigree ornaments, dhokra items that include for example animals like fish, elephants etc which are available in both small and big sizes - small dhokra items are also cheap handicraft items,  traditional terracotta items, beautiful traditional playing cards that is unique handicrafts that could be used for glass covers etc, pattachitra paintings, palm leaf engravings, stone carving - beautiful stone garden lamps used for decorating gardens of hotels, houses etc, stone table lamps,  stone figures of gods and godesses etc and many other traditional handicraft items of Orissa.

Many of these traditional items could be made as per the specifications of the buyers. These items are decorating drawing rooms, gardens, dining rooms, offices, being used as gift items and personal use. Pipli is a place in Orissa where one can see the various traditional handicrafts of Orissa. There is also crafts village where artisans are manufacturing and selling traditional handicrafts of Orissa.

If entrepreneurs are looking for handicraft loan, bank will look at credit limit, all setup stocks at their end and the market. To explore the market possibility for the chosen handicrafts you may have to give the unique story about that particular handicrafts, from where you are sourcing it or how you have created it.

Women's Entrepreneurship Day

Empowering women entrepreneurs on Women's Entrepreneurship Day.

1. Handicraft business opportunities for women entrepreneurs - The Handicrafts and Handloom Exports (HHEC) Corporation of India Limited and Central Cottage Industries Corporation of India Limited are two of the big buyers of Handicraft items in India.

2. To Do
Women entrepreneurs Marketplace - Government may provide a marketplace( to empower women), where small entrepreneurs can showcase or sell their products.  A market for selling and buying small industry products. A marketplkace where all of the small women entrepreneurs may gather at one place to showcase or sell their products on a particular day weekly.

3. In the women's entrepreneurs meet and msme meets which are organised by banks from time to time women entrepreneurs can participate with their queries and find solutions to their queries.

4. Women entrepreneurs may network on this Day to facilitate meet up of demand and supply of raw materials, market and etc.

5. NSIC powered  msmemart.com (business to business model) where registration is free and msmeshopping.com (business to consumers model) supports in marketing the products online. Women entrepreneurs can use this platform. Women entrepreneurs can avail Marketing Intelligence Services of National Small Industries Limited (NSIC) that may help them in the successful marketing of their products.Women entrepreneurs may take this support.

6. Women entrepreneurs who do not have a website of their own can utilize the Google bloggers for their web presence, to add more customers and to do internet marketing of their products. Google blogger is a free service by Google. Google Free Keyword Tool is another tool that women entrepreneurs can use to be ahead of their competitors in their online presence.

Handicraft quiz

Handicraft quiz ideas that can be played to invite comments on  social media like facebook, twitter, google plus etc.

• Can handicraft business be seen as poverty reduction idea? 
•  If yes, then why it can be seen as a poverty reduction idea?
•  If no, then why it can not be seen as a poverty reduction idea?
• Is handicraft a traditional business only?
• If yes, then why?
• If no, then why not?
• Can there be design specifications and changes made in traditional handicrafts?
• Yes
• No
• Is there government support to handicraft business?
• Yes
• No
• Can handicraft be seen as entrepreneurship development idea?
• If yes, then why?
• If no, then why not?
• Is bank loans available for handicrafts just like for other businesses?
• Yes
• No
• Can handicrafts be considered as a soft industry for women?
• If yes, then why?
• If no, then why not?
• Can handicrafts business bring the same satisfaction for an entrepreneur as other businesses or is it just a cottage industry for the entrepreneur that may not be considered as challenging as other businesses to the entrepreneur?
• What are the advantages of handicraft business?
• Is handicraft a micro small medium enterprises?
• Yes
• No
• Is handicraft also a face of the culture?
• Yes
• No
• Can handicrafts business benefit from tourism business?
• Yes
• No
• Is handicraft market popular enough to motivate youth for this business? 
• If yes, how?
• If not, how the market for handicraft may reach the youth?
• Can small handicrafts be sold in trains and aeroplanes?
• If yes, comment?
• If no, then why not?
• Can handicrafts shops be entertained in railway stations like in airports?
• Yes
• No
• Is handicraft unique for its place/state?
• Yes
• No

Search help

When an entrepreneur first launches his or her website, his or her main concern is to see the website appear on the first search result page and to get the traffic. Google Search Engine Optimization literature and videos, Google help center and Google search Console are a great help to know the website traffic and know how the website is doing online and to get the website on the first page. But when the entrepreneur wants to do other things on the web may be to research with its website etc with its customers then the entrepreneur may not know how to go about this. Google videos and literatures are very helpful tools for small business owners to understand  how to optimize the search presence for their websites and this can help in the greater online presence of their businesses. So with experimentation, entrepreneurs, may possibly understand which is the best place for their websites and may find their websites appearing there  but what about the other areas where one may want their website/blogs to appear. For example, an entrepreneur has been able to make its site appear on children's entertainment app ideas first search result page and if the entrepreneur now wants to do some online marketing research with its website based on its target market or customers like for example teachers or parents or children to understand their reactions to the ideas then the entrepreneur in this case may feel helpless. The entrepreneur may only see its site appearing on the web result pages as before which may be a good place for those visiting the site to see the ideas and to buy, which was the first online target or business goal of the entrepreneur but now the number two goal for the entrepreneur is to find the market reaction to its app ideas online and the main consumers of this app would be now the children, parents, teachers and schools so now the entrepreneurs may need guidance in the form of literature/videos etc from google and other search engines on how to go about it. The goal of business is now to do some kind of market research on the app ideas. 

So if there are some literatures , videos, advanced search tools/tips etc coming out from Google and other search engines then this may really make it easy for small businesses may be to get their website placement where they need it and get the needful done. This may help entrepreneurs in doing business online.

Rural business ideas

The earning skills that could be imparted to students in government schools and municipality schools and to youth in villages may include 1) natural dyeing of textiles and 2) handicrafts. These two skills may help them to become future micro entrepreneurs. Schools may focus on this also. NGOs working in villages may also focus on this. Handicrafts is also a traditional business.

If village youth can learn the technique of natural dyeing of fabrics then that may help them in  manufacturing and selling the naturally dyed finished textile products like cushion covers, table cloth, bed sheets, curtains etc.  A natural dyeing kit consists of a burner, the dyes etc. The government and the companies involved in this may help set up the laboratory in villages to impart this skill. This technique could be mastered in least expenditure and the naturally dyed textile products are also very much in demand.  Natural dyeing kits could reach the government and municipality school students also and the schools may have the lab facility and the professionals could help the students in learning these skills. 

Arts and crafts classes are already run in schools. Handicrafts skills training with designing assistance could also be imparted to such school students and the rural youth. Their products could also be exhibited and the students may earn from the sale of the handicraft products. They can learn the business of handicrafts in schools. They can in future start a micro business on this also.

Weavers' Service Centres are there in many parts of India. They also conduct training in many products like dyeing, block printing etc. If these kinds of services may also reach the interior parts of the villages, the rural youth may gain skill in this products for their livelihood. They may also go for micro businesses may be with the support of government.

These may help in achieving poverty reduction.

Poverty reduction ideas

Organizations should encourage and do volunteering to bring poverty reduction. It could be Corporate doing Corporate volunteering/CSR activities, United Nations volunteering and other kinds of volunteering like NGOs and schools could take up volunteering activities in villages. 

UN through United Nations International Year of Volunteers 2001, provided volunteering opportunities to many by providing an infra structure that included basic office operations facilities like office space, a brand name of UN  International Year of Volunteers (IYV) 2001, letter heads with IYV logos, print outs, zerox , courier service, fax, telephone, computers to work upon, floppies, UN notice board where one can paste the information about the events that was being conducted for a specific cause, to create awareness and participation and etc, United Nations (UN) Conference Hall to conduct conferences and the brand name helped in building partnerships/ collaborations with reputed organizations, creating and marketing the ideas/initiatives and raising funds. One could also bring media attention to their initiatives including Doordarshan (Television), radio and print media attention . United Nations International Year of Volunteers 2001 was celebrating volunteerism in all forms. It was giving a platform and an experience that was not only satisfying but also very valuable. It was a platform not only to build skills but also to carry on one's own initiatives. It was just being a part of United Nations.

This kind of Office infrastructure facility/platform, if it can be provided by many corporate, NGOs, United Nations organizations and even Government can look into this volunteering initiative, then many youth/rural youth can use this infrastructure facility to build their own future and brand. For educated unemployed youth and individuals who do not have proper education to compete in the market can through this kind of organization's volunteering initiative, not only achieve status, recognition but also income. A much needed initiative that would give space and positive encouragement to youth. This may bring poverty reduction and achieve the millennium development goals of United Nations.

Website statistics

Entrepreneurs should make use of Google Search Console to improve their websites as they can gather valuable information/statistics about their visitors, web pages, audience, clicks, queries, content keywords, links, index status, blocked resources, crawl stats, spam etc and this requirement may be placed in their business plan.

Google says, "Who should use Search Console?

 Business owners who delegates- Even if you don't think you know how to use Search Console, you should be aware of it and become familiar with the basics. You might hire your webmaster or marketing specialist to help you set up your website with Search Console (SEO specialist or marketer - you can use the information in Search Console to influence technical decisions for the website and do sophisticated marketing analysis in conjunction with other Google tools like Analytics, Google Trends and AdWords). In that case, you can work with that person to ensure you have access and control to all of the reports from your website. In addition, it's a good idea to learn all you can about how your site is performing in search results so you can make important business decisions about your site".

Google says, "If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site. While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways".

Businesses should employ Search Console data analysis to evaluate and improve their web presence and marketing.  

Business strategy

For your business strategy,  an entrepreneur needs to prepare on these:

Your business goals and how to achieve them?

Customers - Who would buy and why they would buy from you?

Target market  - Which age group you target for your product? Which section of the society you target for your products? Whether your products need rich clients only or any income group ? Whether your product demand depends on design, colour and buyer's taste besides quality?

Market research - Research on a group of your target customers in your choice of market (local, national, international) to understand the sales potential of your products amongst the target group of customers.

Market demand -  What would be the demand for the product when you come into the production/business? Would the demand for the product type would have changed?

Competition - Depending on the location and product demand explore on your competitors and whether you can also be in that business and make profits?

Pricing - Market research/exploration to know what price is running in the market and whether you can supply at that price and make profits? 

Orders - How will you get orders? Will you go to the buyers? Whether you will send samples to the buyers to collect orders? Or whether there will be factory site visit by buyers for placing you orders? For example for granite blocks/tiles, international/national/local buyers may visit the factory site for selection of granite tiles or go to querries for selection of rough granite blocks. What would be your marketing expenditure?

Payment mode - What methods/channels the buyers will use to pay you?

Internet - Can internet help in marketing of your products?

Manufacturing - How much you will manufacture annually? Land requirements for your factory site? What building construction you need for your factory site? Raw material availability? 

Finance - What are the costs (all costs) to be incurred for your business? Which financial institutions will you approach for loan? What other methods you will employ to repay the loan in case of non -repayment of loan to banks to stay in business?

Risks - what are the risks involved in your industry?

What advertising schemes you would use for your products and what would be the cost to bear?

MDG goals

There are 8 millennium development goals of United Nations. Entrepreneurship and especially women entrepreneurship could help in achieving two millennium development goals of United Nations and they are:

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty and
• Goal3: Promote gender equality and empower women

According to few third year engineering students: Their colleges have a society for students interested in becoming entrepreneurs. There is a central body of which the society members are members. Every year the central body gives a summit call where the society members present their full entrepreneurial ideas and the best one is awarded. They said they do not mind taking risks in business but needs to participate in those activities which will not interfere with their studies like art and craft business, laundry business and food business. The society members interested in entrepreneurship were helping other hostel students by bringing caterers to their doorsteps to solve food problems. The hostel students wanted assistance in laundry services also. Amongst the society members, there were marketing teams which were going to Big Bazaar (corporate retailing) and Archies to sell greeting cards. The college society facebook was the medium to join.

Similarly if rural youth can make use of the facebooks for connectivity and form a society for entrepreneurship development with the central body being the local government body like Block Development Offices in the grass root level then there may be development of entrepreneurship in rural youth and growth of entrepreneurs in villages. They may also look for the requirements in the villages for their entrepreneurial activities. They can also submit their ideas to the Block Development Offices not only for awards but also for bank loan sanction from cooperative banks and other banks. This may help in their empowerment and self employment through entrepreneurship and especially there will be empowerment of women through women entrepreneurship and this will bring gender equality.

This may help in achieving poverty reduction and gender equality and thus may achieve two of the millennium development goals of United Nations.

Business web search performance

What business owners should know for their website's performance in search results?

Google says, "Google's goal is to return highly relevant results for every query. Search results are returned from our search index. Our search index is constantly evolving as content is added and modified on the web. The changing content, as well as updates to our ranking algorithms, can cause URLs to change position in search results, and possibly though less likely to be removed.

If your site isn't appearing in Google search results, or it's performing more poorly than it once did, check out these steps to identify and fix potential causes of the problem - Check your site is in the Google index, see if your site has been impacted by a manual spam action, make sure google can index your site, make sure your content is useful and relevant.

If your site is very new, we may not know about it yet. Tell Google about your site. One way to expedite Google's discovery of new pages is to submit a Sitemap. Even if your site is already in the index, Sitemaps are a great way to tell Google about the pages you consider most important.

There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question.

Occasionally, fluctuation in search results is the result of differences in our data centers. When you perform a Google search, your query is sent to a Google data center in order to retrieve search results. There are numerous data centers, and many factors (such as geographic location and search traffic) determine where a query is sent. Because not all of our data centers are updated simultaneously, it's possible to see slightly different search results depending on which data center handles your query".

Entrepreneurship marketing skills

For how to bring market for your product entrepreneurs should know these:

• Location is important
• There may be government order to buy small scale industry products. Contact DIC or Directorate of Industries for more information
• Advertisements: Print, TV and Radio advertising and internet advertising
• Awareness creation through internet for your company's website
• SEO
• Blogs for business online presence and to attract more traffic
• Promotion: Online and offline promotion

Google says, "Putting effort into the offline promotion of your company or site can also be rewarding. For example, if you have a business site, make sure its URL is listed on your business cards, letterheads, posters, etc. You could also send out recurring newsletters to clients through the mail letting them know about new content on the company's website. Promoting your site and having quality links could lead to increasing your site's reputation. By having your business registered for Google Places, you can promote your site through Google Maps and Web searches. Chances are, there are a  number of sites that cover topic areas similar to yours. Opening up communication with these sites is usually beneficial. Hot topics in your niche or community could spark additional ideas for content or building a good community resource. Reach out to those in your site's related community. Know about social media sites - Sites built around user interaction and sharing have made it easier to match interested groups of people up with relevant content".

Businesses can make use of Google's free webmaster tools.

Google says, "High-level analysis is possible via Google Analytics and Website Optimizer. Web analytics programs like Google Analytics are a valuable source of insight for this. You can use these to get insight into how users reach and behave on your site, discover the most popular content on your site, measure the impact of optimizations you make to your site - e.g. did changing those title and description meta tags improve traffic from search engines?". Entrepreneurs, this may enhance your marketing skills.

Search engine optimization

Businesses to have top placement in search engine results may have to go for search engine optimization (SEO).

Google says, "Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site's user experience and performance in organic search results.

You should base your  optimization decisions first and foremost on what's best for the visitors of your site. They're the main consumers of your content and are using search engines to find your work. Search engine optimization affects only organic search results, not paid or "sponsored" results such as Google AdWords.

The various points on search engine optimization (SEO) are:

1. Create unique, accurate page titles - A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. Page title contents are displayed in search results. Page titles are an important aspect of search engine optimization.
 .
2. A page's description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a summary of what the page is about.  Description meta tags are important because Google might use them as snippets for your pages. Note that we say "might" because Google may choose to use a relevant section of your page's visible text if it does a good job of matching up with a user's query. Write a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result. Avoid using a single description meta tag across all of your site's pages or a large group of pages. 

3. Choose a URL that will be easy for users and search engines to understand. Simple-to-understand URLs will convey content information easily.

4. Navigation is very important for search engines. You should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more specific content. Plan out your navigation based on your homepage. Controlling most of the navigation from page to page on your site through text links makes it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your site. For navigation, the focus should be on simplicity and ease of use.

5. Heading tags are an important website component for catching the user's eye, so be careful how you use them.

6. Linking to sites that google considers spammy can affect the reputation of your own site. Make sure you have solid measures in place to deal with comment spam.

7. Optimizing content - Offer quality content and services.  Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content".

Entrepreneurs, search engine optimization is one of the online marketing techniques.

Handicraft marketing

HHEC (Handicrafts and Handloom Exports Corporation of India) and CCIC (Central Cottage Industries Corporation of India Ltd) are buying handicraft products from women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs who buy handicraft products from artisans if are unable to have HHEC or CCIC or State Emporiums as their buyers and do not have a showroom to sell their products then such women entrepreneurs if given a counter/stall  in HHEC or CCIC or State Emporiums showrooms to sell their handicraft products directly to customers that is direct customer interaction, then they may be able to overcome market difficulties. Artisans and women entrepreneurs both will benefit out of this activity.

The outcome of the interaction with the Government Handicraft organizations:

1. Handicrafts was in ancient times used for temple decoration  but now it is treated as economic/commercial activity, export earnings, small investment, labour oriented and a part of our culture and the need to preserve culture. The main motto is poverty reduction. The handicraft products now can be seen in the hotels, palaces. drawing rooms etc. Handicraft craftmanship is passing down form generation to generation and is a traditional product but it is a heterogenous product because it is handmade and not machine made.

Marketing of handicraft products depends on the quality of the product.  Artisan cum women entrepreneurs if in a raw stage can take financial help from banks for working capital assistance to start their business. They can avail marketing avenues/platform under the umbrella of DC Handicrafts. They can directly approach CCIC, HHEC for the formal processes. Registration would be needed for the inside hall counter. These organizations can also do visual merchandising for their products. They can also take export membership from Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts. Artisan cum women entrepreneurs can participate in international buyer sellers meet, domestic events and international events at nominal charges or that may even be exempted. Women will be self reliant in the field of handicraft and can support the group of artisans.

2. The government is promoting artisans by organizing state level, district level, block level different exhibitions, providing free stalls, transport allowance and daily allowance to facilitate sales of artisans products. Artisans are also deputed  to outside the state to participate in other state exhibitions.The prime work is marketing. Government is giving all kinds of financial support to the State emporiums (government) to buy products from artisans and also organizing special events and seminars.  State Emporiums are purchasing from artisans and selling the handicrafts. There are several schemes for marketing of the products of artisans but there are no such schemes to support women entrepreneurs.    Handicrafts is also a micro small  enterprise. So some mechanism has to be thought of so that women entrepreneurs also get the opportunity to market their products. Artisans require no registration .

Women entrepreneurs may first have to establish as a women entrepreneur, so they may have to register or get listed as women entrepreneurs with DIC, MSME, Director of Industries and Director of Handicrafts. This will be done for authenticity for their participation in events and space taking in showrooms. Also women entrepreneurs from marketing side, CCIC/HHEC and State (policy maker in government) together can form a marketing policy to provide  opportunities to women entrepreneurs to enter the showrooms/events to market their products.Women entrepreneurs can come as industry or NGOs.

If Government may support then this may become an incentive for many women to take up handicraft business. This may result in poverty reduction and achieve mdgs of United Nations. There will be growth of women entrepreneurs.

Online marketing techniques

Entrepreneurs should know how search engine works to have good online visibility.

Google says, "Search Engine is a website that allows users to search the Web by entering words or symbols into a search box. How Google Search Works
When you sit down at your computer  and do a Google search, you are almost instantly presented with a list of results from all over the web. How does Google find web pages matching your query and determine the order of search results? In the simplest terms, you could think of searching the web as looking in a very large book with an impressive index telling you exactly where everything is located. When you perform a Google search our programs check our index to determine the most relevant search results to be returned ("served") to you.

The three key processes in delivering search results to you are: crawling, indexing and serving.

Crawling
Crawling is the  process by which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index. We use a huge set of computers to fetch (or "crawl") billions of pages on the web. The program that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider). Googlebot uses an algorithmic process: computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site. Google's crawl process begins with a list of web page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes, and augmented with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. As Googlebot visit each of these websites it detects link on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing sites and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index. Google doesn't accept payments to crawl a site more frequently, and we keep the search side of our business separate from our revenue-generating AdWords service.

Indexing
Googlebot processes each of the pages it crawls in order to compile a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page. In addition, we process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes. Googlebot can process many, but not all content types. For example, we cannot process the content of some rich media files or dynamic pages.

Serving results
When a user enters a query our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the users. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page. PageRank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site's PageRank. Not all links are equal: Google works hard to improve the user experience by identifying spam links and other practices that negatively impact search results. The best types of links are those that are given based on the quality of your content. In order for your site to rank well in search results pages, it's important to make sure that Google can crawl and index your site correctly. Our Webmaster Guidelines outline some best practices that can help you avoid common pitfalls and improve your site's ranking".

Google says, "Google's Did you mean and Google Autocomplete features are designed to help users save time by displaying related terms, misspellings, and popular queries. We display predictions only when we think they might save the user time. If a site ranks well for a keyword, it's because we ha've algorithmically determined that it's content is, more relevant to the user's query". Entrepreneurs, if you want your website/product to appear where you want it to appear online, then you may have to do some research. Type your keywords in Google search box and also take the help of Google Autocomplete feature (Google says for Autocomplete -  "As you type in the search box you can find information quickly by seeing search predictions that might be similar to the search terms you're typing. When you choose a search prediction, you do a search using that prediction as your search term") and then see the kind of search results pages that appear from your typed keywords or from Google Autocomplete feature. You may go through the snippet of every website on the first search results pages. This will give you a better understanding of whether you want your website/product to appear in the search results there or not. There are categories so see which category your product would fit in. Keep experimenting for your Title of your website/product, till you arrive at where you want your site/product to be online. This is how you can work on your Title of  your website/product to make sure it appears there where you want it to appear to get customers.

Successful women entrepreneurs

To become successful women entrepreneurs, it depends on

• The right selection of the industry - explore the opportunities  for the business you are entering into in your desired location. Meet the nearby owners/entrepreneurs in the same industry to understand the  business and its opportunities. Meet other professionals also from both the government and private organizations in this field. Listen to their advice. Do not ignore.  Because if there is lack of experience then this may become a costly affair for you. The business domain you are entering into is essential for you to understand if you can manage that industry or not.
• Raw material - there should be selection of right supplier of raw material to ensure quality of raw material and timely supply of raw material. If it does not happen then there will be delay in production and delay in delivery of goods will occur.
• Machinery - the purchase of machinery will depend on your supply of raw material, how much labour you can employ, how much electricity bill you can pay, maintenance and replacement cost you can afford, your technical know-how, how much bank loan and interest on your bank loan you should avail because to be successful you have to repay the loan, who are the best supplier of machines to ensure production of quality product and to have their services for the installation of machinery
• Management of money - there should be sufficient money to run the factory because if there is insufficient money, procurement of raw material will suffer, there will be no timely payment of daily wages to the labourers and production will stop.
• Management of labourers - pay wages daily to prevent labour problems which is required for smooth production
• Delivery - check the quality before delivery. Deliver perfect quality materials to your buyers to get repeat orders
• Intelligence - although you may not have the experience but you need to have the  intelligence to take the  right approach to a problem. Intelligence is a must for business success.
• Transportation - arrange transport to take the raw material and the finished goods to and from your site.
• Market - market requires competitive price, quality products and timely delivery

Digital marketing entrepreneurs

Small entrepreneurs may use Google AdWords for their online marketing strategies.

Google says, "Over a million businesses rely on Google AdWords. Whether you're looking to attract new website visitors, grow online sales, get the phones ringing or keep customers coming back for more, Google AdWords can help. You can reach relevant customers on relevant websites across the web. People see your ad on Google. If the words people type in Google match your keywords, your ad can appear above or next to the search results. Your business gets found by people on Google precisely when they're searching for the things that you offer. A range of options let you target by website type, audience type or remarketing, when and where it matters and advertise locally or globally. Target your ads to customers in certain countries, regions or cities - or within a set distance from your business or shop. How much you invest is up to you. Just begin with a daily budget you're comfortable with, then change it at your convenience. Most businesses get off to a good start with a budget of Rs 1000 a day. You only pay when someone clicks your ad to visit your website, or calls you. In other words when your advertising is working. You can adjust, pause or end your campaign at any time without extra charge. Google AdWords lets you manage your campaign by yourself, or you can call us for free expert set up and support on 1800-4219-6331. You can pay using a regular credit or debit card ( Visa, Visa Electron or Master Card) or via a bank payment if you prefer. Signing up for Google AdWords is free. Just create an account, set your budget, write your first ad and decide where you would like it to appear. You can always fine-tune it later on. You can see how your ads are doing at any time by logging in to your Google AdWords account. With the tracking tools you can even see the actual sales your website is generating as a direct result of your ads".

Small scale entrepreneurs can also use it for the online branding of their businesses.

Entrepreneur branding

The cost of running ads on television (Doordarshan) requires many lakhs (approximately about 4 to 4.5 lakhs) for 30 seconds. The minimum time slot for ads is 10 seconds. For some social causes, there is 25% less to be paid.
The cost of  advertisements on radio (All India Radio) runs in thousands for 30 seconds. The minimum time slot for ads is 10 seconds.
The cost of running business advertisements in leading newspapers are also in thousands and requires investment of many lakhs (for example for Times of India, it is about 10 laklhs  for 12/20 cms) for giving ads in front page. There can be only single ad in the front page and the minimum size is 12/20cms.

Businesses may need to use traditional methods to advertise about their companies to build a brand but due to the very high cost to be incurred on such methods, they are usually not able to give ads on TV, radio or in newspapers.

If women entrepreneurs, micro and small businesses can give their ads on TV, radio and newspapers these companies can also build up their brand and very soon.  The government and other private broadcasting agencies can support these women entrepreneurs, micro and small businesses to air their products/ads in commercial time on TV, radio and in newspapers by providing a platform for them.

banks entrepreneurs

There are bank loans that the would be entrepreneurs can avail. Grandeur Industries at msmemart.com says about the bank loans that will help grow MSMEs.

According to Grandeur Industries at msmemart, "PMEGP is a government sponsored scheme for educated unemployed youth for setting up any manufacturing unit or service unit.

Eligibility criteria

Education: Minimum 8th pass

Age: Maximum 35 years

Manufacturing unis can avail loan up to Rupees 25 lakhs and Service unit can avail loan up to Rupees 10 lakhs respectively under PMEGP scheme. The proposal has to be routed through KVIC (Khadi & Village Industries Commission) and DIC (District Industries Centre) and KVIB (Khadi & Village Industries Board). State Level Bankers Committee can also approve the loan selection of borrowers. You can also apply online  through KVIC and DIC websites. Trading units and MSMEs already doing business are not eligible for this scheme. They can directly go to banks.

CGTSME scheme is for small and medium enterprises. The guarantee is provided by the government for loan up to one crore. The scheme is only for manufacturing and service unit. The trading units are not eligible under this scheme".

Things for entrepreneurs to know about banks:

According to Grandeur Industries at msmemart.com, "Banks do Know Your Customer (KYC) norm, presanction survey, take market opinion and utilize all the market intelligencies to know about the antecedents of the borrower and the company and its activities. According to the RBI and  guidelines of Ministry of Finance, every bank regularly organize customer and entrepreneurs meet in their own branch premises or any other comfortable place other than the premises. During customer meet the concerned bank carefully listen each query of known customers and unknown customers and they try to ratify all queries. Each bank makes a report regarding these meets and they send the customer meet report to their administrative unit, the administrative unit then sends it to the RBI, Ministry of Finance as well as the lead bank. These meets are of different kinds like msme meet, retail loan meet, meet specialized with women entrepreneurship etc".







.

Exchange of business

This exchange of business is a model or a concept based on barter system. The exchange of products would be on the worth of money, the product is being exchanged for. For example, a hundred rupees product will be exchanged for another product that is of worth of rupees hundred only. There is exchange between products of micro and small businesses. Municipal corporation can give vending zones for such businesses, create a database of micro businesses and businesses for exchange. For maintaining quality of goods, government can have some quality seal/regulations. This kind of trade may allow for big thinking, retail business, production, growth of business and increase in the value of business i.e. there will be many products to sell.

Views of the various professionals from corporate retailing outlets, micro and small business owners, micro vendor federation and SME institution

According to one of the small business owner (retailer), today whatever product we buy is a licensed product. If something goes wrong then the blame should not come on us but the business who supplied it. We have business associations to protect us. Government license is a must to sell a product. Business exchange between small and small , micro and micro, and micro and small can be a feasible concept but there are things like who will ensure the quality of the products etc. If government makes some kinds of regulations to facilitate this concept, then it may be accepted by the businesses. Also small business owners wants to buy from those who may sell the product for a lower cost compared to other businesses. For example, a 50 rupees product if I can get it from someone for 40 rupees then I will buy it from him who sells it for rupees 40 and not from the one who sells it for rupees 50. So the government has to come into the picture.

Another very small business owner (retailer) says, that this exchange model will benefit small and micro businesses. The government can make rules and regulations for quality and fix the same rate for a particular commodity. For example, a 5 rupees product should sell for 5 rupees only and there should not be anyone who sells it for 3 rupees. Then and then only it will work.

According to another small business owner (mobile), this kind of exchange should be there but the product that I will choose to sell would depend on the customer's choice.

A fruit and dry fruit vendor said that this exchange model is good as because he will be able to sell clothes or mobile phones too.

Some of the micro business selling only fruits or vegetables in a particular area were of the opinion that they know only this business and they learnt the trade of selling fruits or vegetables with great difficulty and were not interested in other businesses. Few of them but wanted to see this scheme and then decide if they could get involved into this.

Some of the vegetable vendors in a different area said that they will be able to grow their business, if such things happens because they believed in looking forward and going forward. Today, they have a government place to sell and they don't have to pay anything to anybody or the Government. So they could arrange more than one place to sit in that market and sell many products. They also wanted to know the variety of products available for exchange for them to choose. One of them was interested to sell spices. They said the rate for a commodity that they would exchange would be decided by them. One of them was concerned with who will guarantee for the quality?

According to a micro vendor federation, workshop or seminars have to be organized and specialists in micro finance should be invited. Municipality gives vending zones, but who will monitor? If government makes rules and regulations for such business exchange then, this can be implemented and there may be business growth. Government organizations like National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and municipality should be involved.

Another professional from Government organization was of the view that awareness needs to be conducted for such a business. NGOs can take part in this.

According to another professional from SME institution, if this kind of business is done for a small quantity then may be it will not work . It should be done on a large scale, so that production will increase. For different types of commodities, the sale will increase, when there will be good turnover, there will be increase in profit. Many different types of customers would come. It will be convenient and comfortable for customers also. In corporate retailing business exchange offers are there. Awareness is to be provided, so that both the micro and small businesses and the bank benefit. Banks can provide capital. Government rules and regulations have to be there. Local government bodies can monitor this.

According to a corporate retailing outlet professional, nothing works in isolation. So the entire economy has to be taken in barter system. For example, for flying in a aeroplane, the barter for this service is money. In today's scenario, barter business as a whole is difficult. There are government regulations. Barter system business is o.k. for micro or small businesses and that too for only one or two products. This business exchange may fulfill only small needs. Since in barter system there was not 100% need fulfillment and that is why money was introduced. Currency is important. If there are twenty products for exchange then one is forced to take only specific things. In barter business exchange the biggest hurdle is that 100% need fulfillment is not being met.

According to another corporate retailing outlet professional, the compatibility in this has to be seen. It can become a good platform because exposure will be gained for the products of micro and small businesses and roduct awareness will occur which is very essential in today's business. It is not easy for everyone to attend trade fair.The number of product increases to sell in a shop. Khadi products will also get exposure in mass populi. If this business exchange is good and works, then policy formulation will not be far on this. There will be growth of businesses. In corporate retailing, daily need products are sold. Big corporate retailers can look into this to support such activities.

This business exchange could become a possibility if government may take some initiatives.

Keywords importance

Entrepreneurs and business owners need clicks on their ads or websites to gain customers.
Google says, "Are you a business owner, online marketer or content creator? You would definitely need to grab people's attention in order to make them click on your ads or even read your content. For that, you will have to first understand what your potential customers or readers are actually searching for. There are billions of searches each day on Google. For a typical query there are thousands if not millions of webpages with helpful information. 

Every search is an expression of people's needs, wants, interests and desires. Imagine how your business would benefit if you could analyse these search terms that are related to your business domain and customise your product to serve the actual needs of your customers.

If you want your website to get traffic from Google or other search engines, you need to make sure that your website contains content created around the right keywords. What this means is that you should be using words that your potential audience is already using while looking for similar products or services online. The best way to discover these keywords, as it was proven by thousands of thriving online businesses, is to use Google's auto suggested keywords as a base to create content for your website. By creating content around these popular keywords you are readily giving great value to your website visitors, in return Google will reward your website with higher rankings which entails traffic increase.

Keyword Tool will help you discover thousands of the new longtail keywords related to the topic that you specify by automatically generating Google's auto suggestions. Keyword Tool generates over 750+ keywords in the language of your choice. You can export the keywords and use them for content creation, search engine optimization, PPC or other marketing activities. Keyword Tool is extremely reliable as it works 99.99% of the time. It's free.

If you are looking for keywords in languages other than English, you will find keyword Tool's features really useful. It allows you to select from 192 Google domains and 83 Google language interfaces to generate keyword suggestions. The generated keywords will be relevant to the country that you are creating your content for".

Tip for entrepreneurs and business owners to try: Each and every word for the title or few words description of the product to market can be a keyword extracted from Google Keyword Tool. Use the most appropriate keyword suggestion for each word. You thus make a new long-tail keyword for your product which may help you compete with your competitors for those keywords because there is a probability that the existing keyword suggestions may already be taken up by your competitors.

Clue search engine

Freshness and events are two search engine things that entrepreneurs may know and utilize them may be for quick and successful business presence online.

According to Google, "Freshness- Shows the latest news and information. This include gathering timely results when you are searching for  specific dates".

Entrepreneurs may plan for an event online (that also says about dates) because due to the Freshness factor and also since Google filters by events, the business may become quickly visible,  attract traffic which is the entrepreneurs business brand goal  and may be attract the future customers also. Using Google FREE Keyword Tool entrepreneurs may create the name of the event and have a high quality content for the event/business to be found on the web. 

According to "Google Inside Search Tips and Tricks, (learn more about what you can ask Google):
Filters by:

• Events - Look up the date for upcoming events and holidays.
• Conversions - Convert currency, volume, weight and more.
• Songs 
• My Packages
• Reminders
• Camera - Take a picture.
• Websites - "Go to wikipedia.com."
• Local Movies
• E mails- You can also say an email address like "Email samrhorwith@gmail.com..."
• Entertainment Trivia
• Finance
• Calendar Events - "Create an event dinner with Jamie at 8 PM"
• Local Business - "Where's the nearest ice cream shop?"
• Nutrition
• My Contacts - Find phone numbers, email addresses, birthdays, and addresses from your Google Contacts
• Directions
• Social
• Music
• Navigation
• TV Shows
• Famous People
• Travel Info
• Dictionary
• Menus - "Show me the menu for Los Cubanos."
• Alarms
• APPS
• Places
• Customer Service
• Images - Explore the world through pictures.
• Sports
• Radio
• My Schedule
• Time
• My Photos
• Phone calls
• Weather
• Tip Calculator
• My Trips
• Translations
• Notes
• Local Businesses - "Call Fierror's Pizza?" Call any business, like a restaurant, florist, cafe or comic bookshop
• Books
• Movies
• Texts"

 Entrepreneurs and businesses may utilize these tips and tricks i.e. look into these filters/clues and may take appropriate approach for how they want (or to enhance) their business presence online.

High school entrepreneurship

The high school students of a school can form a "student volunteer club for making young entrepreneurs". They can launch this club on a special day like Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) etc. In this club, there could be different  product/enterprise sections. All these different product/enterprise sections could be headed by the senior school students.

The school can come into collaboration with the government agencies who can provide informal education on youth entrepreneurship. This informal education on entrepreneurship may become a valuable form of imparting skills to students for their future entrepreneurial opportunities. If students of one of the product/enterprise sections for example are interested in shoe polish or detergent powder, government agencies may send their experts/mentors on those products to the school.

The technical information for shoe polish formula as well as on the raw materials and manufacturing process of shoe polish or the technical information on how to make detergent powder, the formula, what are the raw material required and manufacturing process and for other products of the club can be made available to the students by their mentors. Wherever possible, the practical development of the product may take place. There could be a free distribution of the product samples to other students of the club, teachers, school staff, parents etc to take their opinion on the quality, pricing etc.The students can also take the samples to the local shop owners to know the feedback on how the customers of the shop rated it.

For students to understand the viability of the projects, banks can give lessons in the school. Banks can help in the development of project proposals from their point of view. This may become one of the bank's initiatives.

Students can be exposed to entrepreneurs to guide them about the market, risks etc and practically see the production in the factory.

There could be visit of other government and private professionals concerned with the factory laws, registration of unit etc. There could be professionals who could talk on how to cost a product, how to price it, choosing the best packaging material, designing of the material etc.

Students may share their skills with other students in the club.They become exposed to skills of many industries (micro, small, medium enterprises). Now there is less apprehension and more risk taking abilities developed in students.

A paper on each enterprise could be submitted in the school which may be then followed by banks interviewing students on their project proposals and assigning marks on their project.

Lastly there could be high school students entrepreneurs show, where the judges could be from banks, micro small medium enterprises (MSMEs) world, entrepreneurs, students etc. The students may present their work to others in the school so that the other students, teachers, school staff etc can vote for them. The best student based on the judges marks and vote  given, may be awarded by banks with a certificate and cash that the student may in future utilize it for his/her entrepreneurial activity.

If the volunteer organizations and NGOs can take up this activity in different government, municipality and private schools, then there may be development of many future new entrepreneurs.

Handicraft questionnaire

Before you start your handicraft business, know all these to better equip yourselves with the skills in this business.

• Why people buy traditional handicrafts?
• What are the sources of handicraft items?
• What are the handicraft business opportunities?
• Which handicraft products to take up to start the business?
• Can artisans make the handicraft product as per the buyer's specifications?
• Who are the people who buy handicrafts?
• What are the different handicraft products of a particular place?
• What is the sales volume of the handicraft item in your target market?
• Which handicraft products are more in demand from others and why?
• Where would you be selling the handicraft products? 1. setting up your own shop 2. taking orders and supplying to the buyers
• What packaging is required for the handicraft product? 
• What are the uses of the handicraft products of your choice?
• Are equipment required to lift the handicraft product for transportation like for heavy stone items etc?
• How to sell the handicraft product online, offline etc?
• How is the export market for the traditional handicraft product?
• What are the purposes of handicraft product? For example: gift, decoration, souvenirs, teaching and learning (material) with the handicraft items etc
• Is the handicraft product affordable in your specific market?
• Can artisans make bulk production of the handicraft so as to meet the orders because it is handmade?
• What is the time involved in making a single product piece?
• How many artisans are required to make a single product piece?
• Can you make timely delivery to your buyers?
• what are the government and private orders the artisans have to meet? What orders of yours they can meet after supplying to them?
• Are there enough skilled manpower for production of traditional handicraft?
• How much the artisans can produce? Numbers and quantity to specify?
• Are they hiring other craftsmen? 
• Will the artisans give quality handicraft products? 
• Do artisans have sufficient raw materials?
• What price they quote to the government and what price they quote to you?
• How will you market traditional handicraft? Will you supply to government buyers, private buyers, hotels, relatives, emporiums etc?
• Will you exhibit handicrafts in trade fair or participate in international fairs? 
• Do you have sufficient money or will you need to raise money from banks?
•  Should you learn the craft before taking it up for business?
• Who are the master craftsmen?
• Who are the awardees?
• Which product and design has been selected for national award?
• What are the designing assistance being provided by the government to the artisans? Whether you can avail these benefits? 

Youth and others can leave their comments on #handicraftandHandicraftquestionnaire

Youth entrepreneurship opportunities

Youth entrepreneurship opportunities may be found in the District Industries Centres (DIC), entrepreneurship training programmes, government organizations concerned with small industries, government micro small medium enterprises (MSMEs) organizations, Khadi Village Industries Commission (KVIC), National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), NSIC Marketing Intelligence Services, Office of the Development Commissioner Small Scale Industries. There are various schemes of banks that may allow for youth entrepreneurship opportunities. Youth entrepreneurship opportunities may be found by participating in bank msme meets, bank women entrepreneurs meet etc. Youth entrepreneurship opportunities may also be found in the marketing of raw material itself like for example marketing rough granite blocks (which can be marketed internally or for export purposes), raw handicraft tussar silk etc. Banks hold town hall meetings for entrepreneurship development. Reserve Bank of India has a mandate that all banks should give 40 per cent of the total lending to priority sector like for micro small enterprises loan etc. For bank loan if the project project proposal has not been approved by banks then one can go to Reserve Bank of India concerned department.

From the Entrepreneur Development Programme  (EDP) training  youth may get to know about District Industries Centre (DIC) which may be the first place for the youth to visit. From there youth may start for their industry. You may get to know about the various industries suitable and existing locally and in the state so that you can choose an industry, you get the help to know the various locations for your industry, you get to know about the places to visit to find the locations of  raw material availability, market, help in preparing the project proposal for your industry, get Small Scale Industry (SSI) certification, help for subsidy application, help from DIC and Director of Industries to know the various government schemes for buying small scale industry products. So the office of the District Industries Centre is an an adviser throughout. 

In the msme meet, women entrepreneurs meet etc which is organized by banks from time to time, youth can participate with their queries in these meets and get solutions for their queries and may understand more about the viability of their chosen business.

Youth entrepreneurship questionnaire

Fill this questionnaire to see if you have the skills of an entrepreneur.

Q1. Are entrepreneurs intelligent?

A. YES
B. NO

Q2. Are entrepreneurs honest?

A. YES
B. NO

Q3. Are entrepreneurs hard working?

A. YES
B. NO

Q4. Are entrepreneurs dynamic, have big dreams and highly motivated? They think they can do it.

A. YES
B. NO

Q5. Although they are new, can an entrepreneur calculate and decide on the spot what to do or what not to do ?

A. YES
B. NO

Q6. Do entrepreneurs have the courage to take risks?

A. YES
B. NO

Q7. Do you think an entrepreneur knows what is best for his/her business?

A. He should implement only his decisions
B. He should allow family members to decide and implement their views

Q8. Is time important in the success of an entrepreneur?

A. YES
B. NO

Q9. Is the project proposal a direct reflection of the entrepreneur's business and the entrepreneur?

A. YES
B. NO

Q10. Bank loan- Is it the entrepreneur himself or herself  who takes away the loan?

A. YES
B. NO

Q11. When an entrepreneur chooses a business he chooses depending upon

A. The money he/she can invest
B. His/her first time as an entrepreneur
C. His/her experience
D, Profit
E. His/her technical know-how
F. Risks
G. A,B,C,D,E,F

 Q12. When an entrepreneur chooses a location, the entrepreneur looks for it's suitability depending on being a men or women entrepreneur?

A. YES
B. NO

Q13. The location suitability is dependent upon

A. The electricity supply
B. Raw material supply
C. Market

A. a (YES)/ b(NO)
B. a(YES)/b(NO)
C. a(YES)/b(NO)
D. A(a), B(a)&C(a)

 Q14. Is repayment of loan an integral part of an entrepreneur?

A. YES
B. NO

Q15. When an entrepreneur chooses machinery, he/she chooses it depending upon

A. Capital
B. First time as an entrepreneur

A. a(YES)/b(NO)
B. a(YES)/b(NO)
C. A(a) &B(a)

Q16. When an entrepreneur is going for a trial production, the laborers sents him/her a message to increase their wages. What should the entrepreneur do?

A. Bow down to them
B. Should not bow down to them

Q17. Does an entrepreneur need continuous supply of raw material?

A. YES
B. NO

Q18. As an entrepreneur how will you asses your competition?

A. Brand
B. Demand and Supply
C. A & B

Q19. Is the trend of market important?

A. YES
B. NO

Q20. If there is government dealings then

A. Risk is less
B. Risk is same
C. Risk is less or same


Q21. If there is private dealings then

A. Risk is more
B. Risk is same
C. Risk is more or same

Q22. An entrepreneur must depend only on one large market or must have many other alternatives with him /her also?

A. YES
B. NO

The answers to the above questions are given below:

Q1. A
Q2. A
Q3. A
Q4. A
Q5. A
Q6. A
Q7. A
Q8. A
Q9. A
Q10. A
Q11. G
Q12. A
Q13. D
Q14. A
Q15. C
Q16. B
Q17. A
Q18. C
Q19. A
Q20.C
Q21.C
Q22. A

How entrepreneurs control risk

Entrepreneurship is taking risk.

Banks look for capital investment from entrepreneurs. They give loan to sound industries for which the demand is stable. Banks invests in entrepreneurs and protect themselves from risks by taking mortgage or collateral security from entrepreneurs and that could be a fixed deposit, land etc. They also ask for a guarantor for the loan amount.

Sometimes the entrepreneurs also invests their own money in the ventures apart from taking bank loan partly. But there is no mechanism to protect the entrepreneurs from the risks of loosing their entire business because of non-repayment of bank loan.

When the entrepreneur starts a business they think that he/she has ensured everything but if the machinery is delivered and found defective and the entrepreneurs waits for the replacement or rectification, or if the entrepreneurs procures raw material at a higher cost for the production, or if the market condition has changed due to delay in production, and if the time for repayment of loan has begun and the moratorium period or the holiday period given by bank to the entrepreneurs before starting the recovery of bank loans is over, then the entrepreneurs are not able to meet the repayment of loan on time. There is piling of interests on loan amount. There is financial burden on entrepreneurs and a fear of loosing everything.

The government give subsidy as an incentive to entrepreneurs which is more for women entrepreneurs and less for male entrepreurs. The entrepreneurs need time to adjust and gain experience. Where there is no provision of government subsidy then there could be government incentives and if the government subsidy or incentive is disbursed directly to banks during the first year or so to meet the installments dues/non-repayment of bank loan then the entrepreneurs get time and can protect their business from risks and may be able to save their industries from becoming sick. This may be for help to entrepreneurs and especially for those entrepreneurs who due to no fault of theirs own come late into production. This may also become an incentive for many youth to become entrepreneurs.

UNDP and other UN organizations can work with the government to create financial incentives to make many new successful entrepreneurs.

According to a financial  institution, after completion of every work the bank releases a certain amount of the loan amount. Similarly, the government can also simultaneously schedule release the subsidy stage by stage in the same proportion as the bank to reduce the burden on entrepreneurs and burden on banks. Subsidy should be released within a time frame so that the industry does not become sick. It should be a time bound subsidy not only for women entrepreneurs but for all youth entrepreneurs. Reserve Bank of India can work together with the government to formulate the subsidy scheme.

According to another financial institution in this situation, malafide activities may occur. Subsidy should always be given towards the end.  The culture of an entrepreneurship business is always taking a risk and if that kind of subsidy is provided then non-genuine players will emerge. If there is no risk factor then what is the use of becoming an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur enters a business with confidence and risk taking ability.

#entrepreneursrisk Entrepreneurs and businesses can comment through the comment box.

Entrepreneur marketplace for sustainable development

A market for selling and buying small industry products.
Government can provide a marketplace where small scale entrepreneurs can showcase or sell their products. A marketplace where all of the small entrepreneurs may gather at one place to showcase or sell their products on a particular day weekly. Sometimes it is stipulated that the Government also buy from small scale entrepreneurs. They can also be present in this marketplace to give a chance to all entrepreneurs and buy from these small industries present there so as to give a fair chance to all. A ringing of a bell at a particular time may start the market business every week. Every entrepreneur can have a table and chair and wear a badge representing their particular industry so that it is easy for consumers to look for them for their particular products. All industries locally may be present there or participate on a rotation basis every week. Volunteers or company heads or the representatives can represent the companies there. Government can create ads for this marketplace on TV, radio, newspapers and through other channels to create awareness about this marketplace so that many consumers and sellers get to know and participate in this marketplace. When a small entrepreneur sets up a business he generally thinks of a local market to survive. So the Government may organize this marketplace in  district level in a state. This may help create a brand for every industry in the district. For those suppliers who cannot supply the required quantity or have excess demand in the marketplace may also buy from the nearest suppliers locally or from another district and so entrepreneurs may develop business with each other also. There may be networking, market and growth of business.

Government and small industry associations may work together to create such market place for small entrepreneurs.