Have you heard about the big problem Cape Town has with its beaches quickly losing sand and disappearing into the ocean?
The nudist beach at Sandy Bay has lost so much sand, the Cape Argus reported this week, that 25,000 m³ of sand is being taken from Hout Bay to Sandy Bay “as a last-ditch effort to try replenish the beach’s stocks”.
On the West Coast Langebaan’s popular beach is under threat of completely disappearing unless something is done to stop sand erosion. “The beachfront houses here are in big trouble,” Jaco Kotze from the Langebaan Ratepayers’ Association, told the Argus reporter.
Table Bay has experience substantial erosion as has Plettenberg Bay’s Lookout Beach.
A good friend and small business owner Alf Caplen and me visited Smitswinkel Bay a few years back and discovered that the entire small strip of beach had disappeared. In its place were only rocks.
Explanations for the disappearing sand from beaches in the Cape range from flash floods and high tides to urban development. But nobody really knows why the sand is disappearing so quickly.
The mysteriously disappearing sand from beaches reminds me of the conversations I’ve had with small business owners. They have told me how in this economy their cash has been disappearing. Those I have talked to know exactly what has been the main causes of eroding cash flow: lower sales and increased costs, especially electricity and fuel costs.
Yet many businesses have gone to the wall in this uncertain and sick economy because they have woken up too late to know that they have been slowly heading towards a cash flow crisis.
It’s understandable when start-up and small business owners have so much to deal with in an economy in turmoil: sales drying up, costs eating profits, more picky customers, banks threatening to take away assets, large customers dropping them for alternative cheaper suppliers, internal staff fraud and armed cash robberies at their premises.
Before cash flow reaches crisis proportions it’s important to have in place sound cash flow management. We have developed a 10-part cash flow guide called “A Simple Guide to Cash Flow” with practical fixes to cash flow crunches and crises for start-ups and small business owners.
The “A Simple Guide to Cash Flow” has taken several months to research with the best management accounting, finance, small business and legal advice that I could find. I have spoken to small business owners and have used my own experience to cover every conceivable cash flow problem for a small business owner. It would be of benefit to large businesses as well but I want this to get into the hands of start-ups and small business owners who need this information more than anyone else.
Email me or go to the “Contact” page to find out how you can get hold of a copy for yourself.
