As an entrepreneur, you will have successes. It’s nice and it’s rewarding and it feels damn good. But beware – it is also very seductive! With the bank account looking flush, it is more than tempting to go out and reward yourself. A new computer sounds good (the old one is looking grubby) and a well-earned rest is definitely a […]
In the current tough economic climate everyone is looking to cut costs. But what about increasing sales? Take the following example and magic will unfold: Current sales assumed at_____________________________R100,000 Increase Prices by 10%_______________________________R10,000 Increase customers by 10%____________________________R10,000 Increase frequency of purchase by 10%__________________R10,000 TOTAL INCREASE____________________________________R30,000 = 30% I bet you thought you needed to increase […]
Ask any of the most successful entrepreneurs and they will tell you – they failed many more times than they succeeded. This is quite astonishing. Isn’t success just plain success? Well, apparently not. That worn out rendition of Thomas Edison’s journey in the discovery of the electric light bulb is too often repeated is an affirmation of this very idea. […]
Here’s the deal: ACCOUNTING IS ARITHMETIC MADE DIFFICULT In any event, the size of the numbers have grown exponentially (from shillings and pence to billions of Rands) and so the accounting systems have needed to be much more complex. Now I am not proposing that we drop the systems and revert back to the old back-of-the-cigarette-box methods. What I […]
There is a strange energy that emerges when you start making progress in your business and the smell of success begins to waft by. People who you used to be close to you start to drift away. And new people make an entry. It’s just the way it is. If you are unprepared for this, you run the risk of becoming […]
When I started my business I agreed to coach a friend of mine for free. I had known him previously from a course I had done on self development and, because I had quite a lot of spare time on my hands, I agreed to help him. He wanted to compensate me in some way so he invited […]
Once again bear in mind that entrepreneurship is a process not an event. You don’t just arrive – you evolve. Also please note that this series on entrepreneurship deals specifically with the start-up phase. I would be surprised if the best entrepreneurs experienced this phase any differently. I would suspect that only the time that they spent in this […]
I come from the Sixties era. As a teenager it was a great time to be alive (and as a parent, a nightmare!). The picture shown above is a scene from the movie Easy Rider. The movie was released in 1968 and starred Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper. The story was about some hippy-types who sold a parcel […]
The greatest epiphany that I ever had in my life was discovering the true meaning of responsibility. I remember my mother always telling us kids about irresponsibility – especially if we left the door unlocked or forgot to switch off the heater. Of course we always got into trouble and the word ‘responsibility’meant anguish, pain and failure. My […]
If you don’t know it already, here it is – entrepreneurship is not for sissies. To be sure, it’s is a pot-holed ridden journey where the road splits into a number of different routes most of which come to an abrupt end. And more often than not, it’s a slippery highway to bankruptcy and disappointment! It is certainly not a rose-scented highway to […]