Are you as good in sniffing for opportunities as these dogs are?

English: Female Lagotto Romagnolo, 2½ years old
English: Female Lagotto Romagnolo, 2½ years old (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

California landowners are planting orchards of truffles in the hopes of harvesting them because world demand is rising. Black truffles which come from Europe or Australia cost anything between $800 to $1 200 for 0.5kg but supplies are shrinking while appetites are expanding worldwide, according to AP report.

Black truffle hunting dogs such as the Italian Lagotto Romagnolo are some of the best to sniff out the “diamonds” of the culinary world. They sniff for signs of Perigord and burgundy truffles on the roots of oak and hazelnut trees planted next to vineyards. Winemakers started planting truffle orchards five years ago and want to harvest their truffles next year. Continue reading “Are you as good in sniffing for opportunities as these dogs are?”

Are you still not promoting your small business online?

English: Flymo hover lawn mower
English: Flymo hover lawn mower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s amazing to see how many small businesses that have a physical presence are still not promoting their business online. Some small businesses don’t yet have their own website and others who may have a website merely use it as a listing of their products and services and provide their contact information.

Perhaps these small businesses can’t find someone to do their website design for them or they believe that hosting a website costs too much money. Yet a website for your small business doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. With WordPress you are able to come up with a website that looks professional and can handle online queries. There may be reasons why some small businesses don’t want to stick their necks out on the Internet but that’s another story. Continue reading “Are you still not promoting your small business online?”

An old Kalk Bay fish trap reveals a secret to sales

(Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)
(Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)

Over the festive season, I walked down to the rocks near Kalk Bay to show my daughter and son an old fish trap along the coastline. They were amazed. They asked me how old the fish trap, made in the rocks on the water’s edge, was. I really can’t give a precise answer because to my knowledge there is no history of these fish traps around the South African coast. Some romantic historians would put these fish traps in ancient times but this one in particular looked as though it had been made about more than 100 years ago. Continue reading “An old Kalk Bay fish trap reveals a secret to sales”

How can you learn to be more creative?

Mind-map showing a wide range of nonhierarchic...
Mind-map showing a wide range of nonhierarchical relationships (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Small business owners, start-ups and entrepreneurial venture founders use idea generation and creativity in coming up with a new business idea whether that be starting something from scratch or taking a second-hand business and repurposing it for a specific target market. Once the small business is up and running, the small business owner would typically deal with a number of difficulties, problems and challenges – all of which need creativity to be solved. Continue reading “How can you learn to be more creative?”

Are you a solution finder or problem solver?

Photo: Wikicommons
Photo: Wikicommons

A few weeks ago I was walking through a mall in a coastal town and noticed a retail shop that was converted into a play room for children. Inside the playroom were several children sitting at tables playing games, making things and enjoying themselves.

Some mothers can have an awful time of it shopping when the children are nagging and even screaming for attention. This is a problem for mothers. I have not seen local entrepreneurs come up with such a playroom but have heard of an entrepreneur who has developed several for mothers in Malaysia. Their children play mainly with Lego which he sources cheaply from an Asian country. Now an entrepreneur locally has woken up to the problem that mothers face while shopping and has developed a playroom for kids where they can enjoy themselves while their mothers shop peacefully.

An author of a little book on advice for entrepreneurs claims that employees are problem solvers while entrepreneurs are solution finders. But is it really fair to say employees are problem solvers rather than the solution finders? The thing is that when people write books like these they tried to simplify everything and often these statements are not accurate or based on fact. As much as entrepreneurs can be solution finders, employees need not only be problem solvers but can also look for solutions that benefit business entrepreneur really.

Just in recent months I have come across entrepreneurs who have found solutions for green gardening and landscaping, energy efficiency in the home, an ointment for bluebottle and insect stings from the humble pawpaw fruit and a woman entrepreneur who came up with specially designed swimwear that doesn’t fall off when women are surfing.

What problems save you come across recently in your daily personal or business life or that of others that you can turn into solutions other people would be willing to pay for? There are so many problems that consumers and customers have that it pays to look and listen. What about health and safety issues in small businesses? What are entrepreneurs doing to protect their staff from harm? As you probably know, many accidents don’t always happen in an industrial workshop or factory but occur at home. Slips, trips and falls are common accidents at home where many entrepreneurs now set up the home businesses. How can they better protect themselves?

Problems with poor quality products seem to have grown exponentially. Do you have any solutions for helping to improve the quality of products or come up with a better quality product? It was sad to see how many presents under the Christmas tree this year – sourced from Asian countries – were damaged or fell apart. What can we do about better quality products? Do we have to accept such cheap junk?

Poor quality service is now so prevalent if you stand out with excellent service you will be far ahead of other businesses. Small businesses have a huge edge for better quality service. The cost of eating out needs better solutions as the price of meals rises out of reach of many people. The high cost of electricity is begging for domestic energy efficiency solutions.

If you are looking for a solution to turn your promising business idea into a source of income, you may want to consider “Breakthrough Ideas”. It’s essentially a solution finder. It helps you find a solution that you can turn into a product or service to form a small enterprise, something of your own from scratch. You have an opportunity to secure this resource with a special incentive before the general public… So don’t miss out! Don’t let your dream pass you by. Secure your copy now by putting your name down on the waiting list.

Businesses that don’t keep their promises to customers get away with it but at their own peril

English: Grilled calamari
Grilled calamari (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Christmas morning we went down to the beach at Muizenberg for a swim. The water was lovely and cool and enjoyable beyond measure. Afterwards, we all felt a bit peckish from the sun, sea and sand and went up to a small restaurant for some calamari, chips and coffee. The coffee was all right but the chips and calamari were nothing really to speak about. In fact, the calamari was tasteless. It was so easy to spot the fault with the calamari. It had been soaked in meat tenderiser to make it soft which had left the calamari tasteless. Continue reading “Businesses that don’t keep their promises to customers get away with it but at their own peril”

How do you look after yourself in your business in hard times?

Slangkop, Kommetjie. (Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)
Slangkop, Kommetjie. (Copyright © 2015 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)

In Australia a team of emotional resilience experts and a family business professional travelled more than 1,300 km across outback Queensland to give practical advice and inspirational to regional communities hard-hit by drought. The resilience experts provided practical advice on how to best manage personal and business change, challenges and opportunities.

One of the experts said that people can’t look after their businesses, family or property without looking after themselves. Their aim was to change the conversations around the dinner table on the need to focus on hope, strategy and action rather than despair and difficulties. The roadshow series reinforced the importance of emotional well-being and resilience during difficult times. Continue reading “How do you look after yourself in your business in hard times?”

Where’s the opportunity in this problem?

Manhole cover in Tokyo
Manhole cover in Tokyo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was running on the verge of a road in a suburb when I heard rushing water from the raised pavement. I wondered where the water was coming from. Was I imagining it? It was early in the morning. I looked up on the pavement and saw that the manhole cover was stolen. The sound of water was coming from the storm water pipes because the manhole covers were gone. Further on my run I spotted another to manhole covers that was stolen.

It took close to a month for the city water department to replace these three manhole covers. They were replaced with cast iron manhole covers. But these ones are just as vulnerable to theft as the others were. They have been there for about a month but one wonders how long it will be before these disappear too. Continue reading “Where’s the opportunity in this problem?”

No shortage of opportunities, only a shortage of imagination

Your Imagination
Your Imagination (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Think of all the new products and services that have come about over the past five years. Products for the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room, the home office and small business tools. All these products and services were initially conceived in the minds of people who used their imagination to think up new ideas. In the next five years there will be many more new products and services for the home, working environment, entertainment and sports field. Many of these products and services will come from the imaginations of entrepreneurs who’ve taken the time to explore their world and people around them and have come up with new solutions to problems and challenges.

You see, there isn’t a shortage of opportunities but a shortage of imagination. Whether you use your imagination to come up with a new product or service, many others will do so because of the opportunities that abound. If you took yourself back five years or even further into the past, and looked ahead over the years to where you are right now, you would be amazed at the number of products and services that have been introduced into the market over this time. As a famous entrepreneur said, they is no shortage of opportunity, only shortage of imagination. Continue reading “No shortage of opportunities, only a shortage of imagination”

How do you get to opportunities first?

Brian with giant kob off the Breede River
Brian with the giant kob he caught with rod and reel in the Breede River in the late 1960s. Photo courtesy of his book, “Fish Aren’t Fools” published in the 1970s.

Today’s blog post is dedicated to my father Brian who celebrated his birthday on 31 October. As a dear friend said of my father this week after reading a recent article on the skiboat pioneers in South Africa in SkiBoat magazine, Sep/Oct 2104, “It’s a pity that his real, great legacy isn’t out there for all to see and admire –  like he deserves it to be.” 

My father Brian was a keen fisherman, a pioneer in the skiboating scene in the Western Cape, who chalked up records for catching giant bluefin tuna in False Bay.

As a sideline to his main job of motoring editor of the Cape Times, he wrote a regular angling column for the Cape Times.

We’d go out fishing on his ski boat at, for example, the Bellows or South West Reef off Cape point and get stuck into shoals of longfin tuna.

Out there on the blue water we’d have the shoals all to ourselves or perhaps with one or two commercial fishing boats because he had identified the shoals first. Continue reading “How do you get to opportunities first?”