I saw this newspaper post headline while driving in Johannesburg this week:
“Ex-Bafana boss sells shampoo”
I wondered if Joel Santana, the former coach of South Africa’s national soccer team, Bafana Bafana, was out of luck.
But I couldn’t imagine him walking the streets with a sample case of shampoos, selling door-to-door to ladies. Not after earning a reported R300,000 ($30,000) a month when he coached the national soccer side.
Like I said, I was driving so I had no way of knowing the former Bafana coach’s involvement with selling shampoo.
The poster headline teased that somehow selling shampoo was some sort of lowly or sleazy occupation.
Funny how it is with selling. People who haven’t sold for a living sniff at the profession. But when people have no other means of income selling can be their saviour.
I was talking to a woman who makes and sells jewelry on the side while holding a full-time job. She needs the money because of her personal circumstances. She says she is amazed at the number of people in their mature years that are still working and are selling products (those they make themselves or sell for others).
These are the people who when they had one source of income were unable to save and invest spare cash. Household and family expenses ate up their finances. In recent times national and local government has taken up more household income: higher personal taxes, steep electricity prices, punitive petrol prices, health costs, toll road fees and even more costly rubbish collection.
It’s too easy to say people should have saved for their later years. Even savings are being eaten away by government and labour as inflation rises because of wage hikes and administrative prices.
“Retirees no longer have any sense of security, whether they retired last week or 20 years ago,” Joanne Jacobsen, 63, told USA Today.
A comment like this from what was once considered the richest country in the world?
Employers have dropped medical benefits for retirees or if they still have them have spiked the premiums.
Turns out the ex-Bafana coach Joel Santana has appeared in a hip-hop style shampoo ad with the Brazilian doing some hilarious dance moves. He may be out of coaching at the moment but at least he’s selling himself and shampoo products.
If you are not someone who pulls up your nose at selling and you need to come up with ideas to supplement your diminishing income, you may want to take a look at “Secrets of Generating Ideas for Profit”.
