Expert Financial & Business Insights for South Africa
Strategic analysis from Idea Accelerator and ready-to-publish content from Financial News Daily.
An artist who organised a large exhibition in the old part of Johannesburg was asked how she and her business partner managed to pull together a large exhibition and celebratory evening.
She said, “You’ve got to make it happen otherwise nothing happens.”
That statement says a lot.
It reminds one of the energy that is required to get anything off the ground, to start something from scratch. Continue reading ““You’ve just got to make it happen otherwise nothing happens””
A business person was caught in a situation where he received ugly treatment from a media company and decided to throw in the towel.
There is only so much that anyone can take.
Unfortunately, despite value statements engraved in brass plaques or high-gloss and framed posters, some companies do not live up to their espoused values.
Anyway, this business person left and a few days later received a call out of the blue to say that the lease had expired on a small restaurant and would the business person like to take it over. Continue reading “Is it possible to manufacture your own lucky breaks?”
I came across a business owner the other day, someone who now owns a franchise in a large national chain, but on his LinkedIn profile, he said he was still open to corporate opportunities. It makes one think about small business ownership and whether it can satisfy people who have been in the corporate world and enjoyed it. Sometimes it’s not by choice or design that people buy a franchise that because circumstances in their career in a large company have changed. Continue reading “Are you really a business owner or still trying to be someone else?”
Johan van Rooyen noticed the street posters on his way to work. The posters screamed out how the Rand had reached another record low. It was time, Johan thought, to speak to his pal Dave Jones. He gave him a call and they arranged to meet the next evening at the Bush Pub.
When Johan left the townhouse complex where he lived he noticed that outside that the dirt bins were piled to the brim with plastic bags full with rubbish. In front of the bins were more bulging black plastic bags. Johan had his car window open and the putrid, rotten smell of garbage reached his nostrils inside the car. “What can you do?” Johan thought. “This is the way we live.” Continue reading “A Bush Pub tale – An underfed Rand and what small businesses can do about it”
If you told someone 20 years ago what you saw coming, they would probably have thought you were arrogant or crazy. But now we are here in volatile times with a currency that is being beaten slowly to death. People somehow forget that a country’s exchange rate is one of the most important indicators of its economic health.
Have you ever been to one of those bar parties where someone has a tab running. The party goes on. The drinking continues like there is no tomorrow. After midnight the revellers in a drunken stupor leave, escaping any contribution to what they’ve readily drunk. If you are still there at the end of the evening you will see someone there making hasty phone calls or haggling after midnight desperate for someone else to pick up the tab. Continue reading “How to survive as a small business when your own currency is weak and volatile”
When I started out researching, interviewing and experimenting for my book “Breakthrough Ideas” I wanted practical, hands-on tools and resources that would give people the best possible chance and actionable results.
I pride myself on action orientation and leadership of change and used these qualities to go beyond deep research into the subject of turning new business ideas into viable products and services. I collaborated with several start-ups and experienced small business people to test-drive my concepts to ensure that they work in the real world.
One key ingredient was to ensure that the tools and techniques would be fun to use. This is important. Why would you put all the hard work, time and money into developing a promising new idea unless it was going to be fun to do?
One of the celebrity entrepreneurs who I admire says that you should ask yourself when pursuing an idea whether you would do it for fun. This comes from an entrepreneur who started at the very bottom and worked his way up. He’s not someone who has become rich and famous and dishes out advice to extend his brand personality. No, this entrepreneur walks his talk. He has a genuine interest in helping others do well for themselves – a rare quality.
Pursuing an idea that you want to turn into a small business needs to be fun. It especially needs to be fun if you think you are eventually going to make a living from it and it will be your main lifestyle. You need to put in the extra hours, burn the midnight oil, suffer the pain of the challenges that are presented to you and work weekends until you don’t even know what a break feels like. Of course, you need to take breaks but you know what I mean.
The important ingredient of fun comes with the underlying belief that doing something for yourself, starting something from scratch and making it work gives you a freedom that others year for.
Yet once you have earned your freedom through the vehicle of a successful enterprise you need to be extra careful to not give that freedom away. What do I mean by this? It’s simple. You can so easily give your freedom away to bankers when you take out loans. You can give your freedom away to shareholders who take a cut of your business. You can give your freedom away to a landlord who sinks you and your business into a deep spiral of debt by jacking up your rental with exorbitant annual increases.
You have to be on your guard. All of these and many other traps lie in wait for the unwary. They may be furthest from your mind when you start out but when you plan your formal legal structure, access to finance and location it’s important to consider how much of your freedom you are giving away to others.
Yes, that celebrity entrepreneur knows what he is talking about when he says ask yourself whether you are doing this for fun. It sounds like an innocuous question but behind it is really how much meaning does it give to you and how much freedom?
A woman who lived in a southern African country told me a story of how a pilot who had several years flying experience went to a tourist resort to CASEVAC a tourist who had a medical problem. The pilot took off as the sun was setting and made a misjudgement on the height of a mountain after take off because of the poor light and distortion of visibility. He crashed the aeroplane into the mountain side killing himself, the foreign tourist and the medical personnel. Continue reading “How do you avoid a fatal mistake in your small business?”
A surfer from the Eastern Cape took his son to the beach. While they were there, his son was stung by a bluebottle or Portuguese man o war. The surfer began investigating what could work to relieve his skin because vinegar certainly didn’t. He discovered that papaya or pawpaw has a substance that works to relieve bluebottle stings. He developed this idea and now has a product that relieves a range of stings. Continue reading “A new business idea needs this one quality to really succeed”
A middle-aged women and members of her family were jailed for coming up with an investment scheme that fleeced many people. It’s amazing how many people parted with their retirement funds and retrenchment packages to invest in the too-good-to-be-true pyramid scheme.
It goes like this. People think that they can make money quickly and become hypnotised into believing all the fanciful promises of people who claim that they can make them unbelievable income. How can people believe such nonsense? But many do going by the millions that were invested. Those who hocked most if not all their savings on this scheme ended up in dire circumstances. Continue reading “Extra caution needed when dealing with new investments and other income schemes”
In the song “Heroes and Villains” from Brian Wilson’s “Smile”, there is that memorable line “In the Cantina Margarita keeps the spirits high”. It conjurors a picture of men and women in a bar having a fun time possibly after hearing bad news or witnessing some awful event. But it reminds me of the importance of morale, especially when times are bad. Continue reading “When times are tough, keep the spirits high”
