Rullion's Blog

The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) has called for vigilance over the invasion of the estate agency practice by foreign interests and pseudo practitioners, otherwise called quacks. The institution notes that foreign estate agency practitioners, mostly from the United Kingdom, Dubai, France and the United States come into Nigeria, check into high-class hotels, advertise their presence in the newspapers, and thereafter invite prospective Nigerian investors to their suites in order to arrange property investment abroad for them. Worried about this development and its implications for its members whose profession as critical stakeholders in the Nigerian real estate sector is at risk, and the government whose economy is under threat with rumours everywhere of money laundering through real estate investment, the institution laments that the alarm it has raised in respect of this to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has not received any ...

Customers in B2B markets are becoming increasingly sophisticated about purchasing. Recognizing that most products and services they buy are not strategic to their businesses, they begin by simply seeking suppliers that will meet their basic specifications at a competitive price. Then, after they’ve winnowed down the contenders, they often ask the finalists to offer “something more.”   Many suppliers misunderstand this request. They’ll respond with the well-worn tactic of stressing features their offerings have but competitors’ lack, and when that doesn’t work, they propose price concessions. But it turns out that customers are looking for neither of those things. During a three-year research project, we discovered that when purchasing managers ask for something more, they are actually looking for what we call the justifier: an element of an offering that would make a noteworthy difference to their company’s business. A justifier’s value to the custom...

Esther Macully used all of her 1.52m frame to face down a bulldozer and save her freezer from being destroyed, as a wrecking crew guarded by armed security forces razed her home in Badia East slum of Lagos. While she salvaged the cooler, she is still waiting for the Lagos State government to fulfill a pledge to help replace the home she used as a store to sell beverages and food. A general view of houses built in Makoko slums in Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria, October 10th, 2009 The wooden shack was flattened last February, along with the dwellings of thousands of others that authorities said were moved for a housing project that is yet to get off the ground. “We can’t be living in this kind of condition forever”, Macully said as she prepared to move back home about 160km east of Lagos. “We’re citizens of Nigeria. Let them have mercy on us.” The demolition is making way for more than 1,000 one-to two-bedroom apartments that will be beyond the means of Nigerians like Macully. La...

Networking is one of the most powerful tools you can use to grow your company and reputation. But if you do it the wrong way, your would-be professional contacts won't remember you, and may even be offended. "If you want to network successfully with high-level professionals, you have to inspire them to want to connect with you," Dorie Clark, an adjunct professor of business administration at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business   and the author of  Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future , writes in the Harvard Business Review. Clark says that networking is a quest to build relationships in a short amount of time. But bad networking will destroy that opportunity before you're able to starting building a connection. Below, read the three mistakes Clark suggests you work on avoiding before you next hand someone your business card. 1. Misjudging the pecking order.

Citing his government’s desire to encourage low income Lagos residents to own homes without much stress, the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola on Monday flagged off the Lagos Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (LagosHOMS). Mr. Fashola said LagosHOMS is part of his administration's solution towards reducing the acute housing deficit in Lagos State. According to Fashola, "the economic realities had made house ownership almost impossible for most income earners". He went further to say, "for many years, our people have had to acquire houses, often times being required to pay cash once and for all, as if they were buying a shirt or a pair of shoes in a shop. This approach in part, explains why a large number of ordinary middle class and working people, cannot afford to acquire homes on the basis of their legitimate income derived from hard work. In Lagos, we are of the view that a home is not something you buy in one day, but over time in a way that your...

There’s that project you’ve left on the backburner – the one with the deadline that’s growing uncomfortably near.  And there’s the client whose phone call you really should return – the one that does nothing but complain and eat up your valuable time.  Wait, weren’t you going to try to go to the gym more often this year? Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them?  Not to mention how much happier and more effective you would be? The good news (and its very good news) is that you can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy.  Figuring out which strategy to use depends on why you are procrastinating in the first place: