Rural Business

How do Businesses in the rural areas utilise  Black  Friday?

Health crisis Now out of all other things that can hinder your business especially when you are a start up. Your health. This is a situation that requires you to be out of office for days and and be in bed. I have been recently not feeling well and had to be on house arrest,resting for days. This has been very bad for business, I can't deliver my products, can't meet clients, can't take order, can't finished ordered products, basically I couldnt do anything. And the most challenging part is having no one to take over. It is sad becuase this is one of those things that are way out of our control. But this can be utilized very wisely as a break and way to evaluate how one has been doing business,  how can one improve and what innovations to bring on board.and one can finish reading that book they have been dreading. I would say Be sober and vigilent. Especially of what you put in your mouth..be very very vigilent. Develop that Mind

Beating Time. 2 Timothy 4:2. "Be prepared in and out of season." Business is not always on the highs and sometimes we relax because of the state of the economy or seasons. Recently I got a call from a client on Friday that she wants a product for Sunday morning  As on Fridays we have to make rounds and check the progress of the week, I scheduled to make it on Saturday.  Come Saturday morning the client was at my door step saying she is here to take the product she ordered. I'm like to her, "No you said you wanted the product  Sunday morning". The client was saying no I want it now for 10:00, and that time it's 08:50. Now it is in this moment that we see what you are really made of and how capable you are  of working under pressure. There I was assembling  and making what the client ordered in less than an hour. It is then very important to be able to bear fruit even in dry, unplanned, short noticed and busy seasons. In finance we learned...

Failure! As humans we are scared to get out of our comfort zone and try new things because we are afraid of failure.  But we need to understand that the fear of failure paralizes us and robs of us true liberation. The magnitude of success is based on how many times one fails at something. We are afraid of taking risks in our busiensses, because we fear that we will not see it's fruits. These multi-million rand's  businesses are what they are because they have failed more than we can imagine and have lost and suffered a hundred times. And yes the education system is the one to blame because when one fails they are considered stupid.  Business requires long and dull hours of hard work where even it's success is not promised. I always say that success in not guaranteed but failure is inevitable. Let's rid ourselves of trying to avoid failure and embrace our flaws and learn and move forward. Develop that mind

Can we about the people who are supposed to support us and help us grow in business? I have seen about 80% of businesses fail because there was no money to buy stock or materials.Why? Because the business did not make any money to do that.  There has been a business in my Kasi selling cooked food. During the day relatives would come and dish themselves shocking amounts of Food saying they are just tasting.  The business didn't even run for three months and was shut down. We even have friends who want credit. I mean guys this is pure disrespect.  There are a lot of similar scenarios I can talk about but I am sure you get the picture. Why do we do that as black people? We are not helping or building anything, in fact we are tearing the foundation. I think we need discipline to call these people to order. Let's stop with tendencies that keep us stagnent and poor. Develop that mind.

Values in business In every one of us there are things that drives us and influence our decision making.In business too, we have such. This then lays a foundation on how we operate and see the world of business.  What I am referring to here is values.  Now values are what guides us in every step we take. In  business we need to have values that are very productive, have  a positive impact and not selfish. We have to be driven by empowerment, kindness, life, health,innovation, creativity and respect. This helps in a sense that how we make money  should cater  for these  values. For instance one would not sell drugs if you value the lives and the health  of others. I have seen people in business being greedy and making money in anyway possible but neglecting the fact that they are killing people. People must check their value system and re-evaluate their lives. What is the use of gaining the whole  world and...

Selling doesn't mean you are poor. Why do South Africans disregard people who are in business or who sell things? We have people who are not South African that are selling things and are doing pretty well for themselves then you find poor South Africans looking for employment? We need to deal with such a mentality that when you are selling you are the poorest of them all. Entrepreneurship should be taught in communities and we shouldn't wait for the government to come to our rescue. People we need to be moving in a different direction and shift our focus. Young people should not go to school so that they can get a job and security but to build a multi-million company.  We need to be investing in our future by inventing and innovating constantly. #Develop that Mind

Technology advances How is your business taking advance of the Mobile phones, the internet, apps, online and self- help services.? How much do you know about this wireless technology? In this regard we need be reading alot of tech news. Gone are those days where we have to come to your store to know or buy your products. People want to look it up on their phones, place an order and get it on their door steps. How are you in the rural areas taking advantage of this change and making more money? Technology is making things convenient and better. Political action New laws create new business ideas. But do you know of these changes. The instability of our politicians can be a great business opportunity, you just have to learn and think how you can tackle this issue

 How does one take advantage of opportunities in the rural areas.? We come across four trends we can observe to spot opportunities. Economic trends,social trends, technological advances and political actions and regulation changes.  let's look at the first one. Economic trends. Here we look at the state of the economy and how people behave whenever there is a change, people  tend to spend more on luxury goods when the  economy is strong . When the economy is weak people are hesitant to even spend their money and are terrified of losing their jobs. What does this mean for you in the rural areas? Firstly we need to understand the level of impact of the economic change. Are you really affected by these changes or you never even notice? Do you see a change in your customer's buying pattern with respond to the economy. Most businsses in the rural areas  are not even aware or they might be but fail to analyse and take action. Now...

The Lean start up Have you ever drafted a business plan? What did it entail? Did you really achieve the figures you put in your 3 year budget?  A business is nothing but a prediction of the unknown and now we have markets that change like never before. We can draft a business plan then tomorrow the market changes. What then? As Vusi Thembekwayo states that business plans are useless  and a waste of time and indeed they are but why are we still asked so present one when we seek funding from the NYDA or any government institute?. Firstly I can say that we are too depended on the government to do the thinkighng for us. The Americans has been using this new methodology called " the lean start up". This  method focuses on experimentation over elaborate planning, Customer feedback and iterative design . This sends you straight to the  market , one must do their research of the particular offering and most importantly involve the users of ...

Everyone in business is having a hard time dealing with the disruption and innovation brought forth by the forth industrial revolution.  This means one has to be ahead of every one. This move can benefitial for companies as they will be cutting costs from the the redundancy of human labour. More work will be done in less time as well as at a lower cost . But if we look at the other hand. The labours are left hanging because their skills are no longer in demand. How then is the government going to convince us that the people will get employment.?  In the SONA 2019, President C Ramaphosa promised millions of jobs to South Africans, but what kind of employment was he refering to if he didn't even touch on small businesses? What does this mean for the businesses in the rural areas?  It means they must educate themselves about this 4IR and how it will benefit and impact their traditional ways of doing business. We can fool ourselves about creating more jobs but I ...

Market your business. How often do you meet a person in the rural area and they tell you about  the products or services they offer? Well in my experience I tend to meet those who do network marketing for these big companies and promising us financial freedom.  But why are we wscared to talk about the business that can grow us and our communities.? How then do we except to grow if we never market ourselves? We see adverts on TV all day everyday  about what they can offer to the public but with us there isn't even one thing telling us about the business that BabSkhosana does. How do we then get customers? How well do we reach our target market? Marketing is a crucial function in any business. People must know about you even if they will not be buying, they might refer someone to you in the future. The internet has made all things so easy.  You just need data and access to a smart phone. The social media is a place where everyone lives, th...

Running a business requires strength, time and commitment. It needs one to be fully zoned into their own world and to have little regard to what others think of the them. But now since one works with people, one must then deal with people's egos all the time. I don't know why but Black people find it hard to support other black people, they have a mentality that they are making you rich and they will continue to suffer. This also is a black on black abuse. Not supporting a business is abuse. We need to do away with such mentality and I mean we are the majority in the country and if your own doesn't support you then we are  doomed as a nation. Let's rewire our thinking processes as black people and to not even think about discounts when working with a black business. Develop that mind.

Accounting. It has come to my attention that most people do not keep a record of the transactions that take place everyday in their business. This is the biggest flaw in business. Busineses  should have at least a book where they write down where the money is coming from or where it is going. This is called financial statements . One has to know how much they receive on a daily basis, how much in a week and how much in a month.  Look you must know your finance like the palm of your hands. You must know days when business is less productive and days when business is booming. keeping  a book where you write these things helps with this information. Most of you do not have a budget for different reasons. But a budget shows estimated income and expenses and one must work towards achieve these figures. This is how you keep progress of your finances. Having done this it will help with future funding requirements, investors will want to see how much you kn...

Travelling  Business needs one to be open- minded and adventurous.  Traveling opens one's imagination and you get to experience different people, food,cultures and perspectives .   This can give one ideas about new things to add or change in the business. Make travelling a habit and find inspiration to be innovative.You can see something you never thought can be profitable and besides people like things. Travelling can also help you market your business and networking with other business minded people. You never know maybe you can meet your next biggest client, supplier or investor or an employee. Travel and develop that mind

Ignorance. People get to lose a lot of opportunities due to ignorance. When you are in business you need to be woke and knowledgable. Markets change and technology is making everything and everyone irrelevant. But if one is hard headed and think they know everything they will wind up like Nokia, Blackberry and Wal-Mart.We live in a era where information is everything and time the new currency. People must be open minded and this comes from exposing one's self to a gang of information and  I always emphasise the importance of reading. Can you start reading something related to what you are doing in your business. Find a similar business and see their strategies and learn how you can implement them in your business.  Being in business is not easy but you need to be awake at all times. Develop that mind.

Taking care of your health. When you are in business you are taking care of alot of things and people. One must be both mentally and physically fit to exercise such responsibility. Reading is an exercise for the mind and working out or running is for the body. Business is about trust and how do you trust someone who looks like they are about to give birth? That is unhealthy. Heath concerns me alot and people need to educate themselves about the kind of food they need to eat. A healthy individual will run a healthy business. Physically appearance is everything especially in the service sector. Therefore, be neat, healthy and fit. Exercising for an hour a day will make a whole difference in your life and your business. Develop that mind

Be in the know. Politics plays a major role in a country's economy. The stability of politics has an impact on the well-being of its people. As business people we must know and be involved in politics. I am not saying that we should be politicians but we must be inclined with the lasted news that affect our operations. As small businesses that are the future of South Africa, we must always be in the know. One must watch relevant TV channels, read business news and look at international markets.  Develop that mind.

Sales As we know that business is about what you are offering and also receiving more than what you spent. What is imperative in this case is how we present our offering in the market. In his book,  the art of Hustling DJ SBU talks about the importance of sales.  For us to get the most in our businesses we need to be able to make a sale.  It doesn't matter what your offering is as long as you are able to bring across your message and the other party is convinced and willing to make payment. But people in the rural areas do not see Sales as a skill that they should possess. Yes most people can make a sale but I am taking about a sale that doesn't need axillary components. One must approach more people to make more sales.  But we never want to do the work. When making a sale one should also close the sale. We should not be depended ona the 3 sales that we make but we must be able to convince the masses.   More on sales can be learned...

Financial literacy   As we are still on the issue of money. Money is our everyday need. As it is said " it makes the world go round" Since money is a crucial concept you would wonder why  it not taught at school. And there are a lot of arguments on this issue. But now we need to educate ourselves financially and we should not expect this from the government. Business is about money and the operation of money. So get hold of the books mentioned in this blog and you will be on your way to financial freedom. Once you are financial literate you will understand how money works and how to make more in your business.  You will see that the money from the business is not to fund your     lifestyle but to grow, create wealth and contribute to the economy. Develop yourself.

Let's wash that brain away. How do we then  brainwash our selves? Well we have the luxury of the internet, now this is the greatest place where you can find everything. We have Youtube where we get podcastes, audiobooks, motivational videos and seminars.  We also have e-books. There is plenty of fish in the sea. Here is a list of books to read. *Rich dad poor dad-Robert Kiyosaki *The art of hustling - DJ SBU *Is your thinking keeping you poor?-Douglas Kruger *The science of being rich - Wallace d Wattles  *Start with why- Simon Sinek *Think and grow Rich - Napoleon Hill *As a man thinkers - James The Allen  Develop that Mind.

What about money? Right so everyone has that one amazing idea or that great business.  But as we  all know everything needs money. How do we then innovate,grow and expand if we do not have the  money? People go into business for different reasons  One of them is, in the rural areas to be specific  that people are unemployed and they seek a way of making a living. Now this becomes an ihinderance to growth because whatever profit is made goes to buy electricity,food, clothes and other basic things people need. How then does one grow the business if this is the everyday life.? I mean we cannot blame and expect them to go hungry whilst they have a running business. Others must be taken to school with the same money. So there is no way we can grow if the purpose of starting the business was not to grow. This is where we then need to brainwash or unlearn some of the reasoning and beliefs we have. We then need to read business books,  watch or...

  Why not compete? Competition  is inevitable everywhere , people always want to be part of all the profitable markets , that's the business system. The issue is how do we deal with competition and how do we ensure that our services or products add more value than the others? I believe when one is faced with competition " Your Why" should direct you and help capture the market. But as you know how black people are, we want to eliminate the competition as soon as we see it, we tend to focus more on the outside factors instead of being strategic and aiming for innovation. Things in business almost always never go according to plan but one must find ways to stay relevant and to continue with the vision. Competition is our number one enemy and  this then hinders our progress . We need to learn that it's an inside out factor not vice versa.

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Think big or go home.  In the past week I have been talking to business people in my area and gave one or two some financial advice. But I have been getting a similar response from most of them. There is this thing of how long the person has been in business and how much they know about what they do and how one can not tell them anything they do not know. I was concern about this because clearly the experience has not served them any good.  What I mean is that what's the use of being in business for 6 years and still have one shop, same or no permanent/ stable employees, and still in the same building that you started in?  To me I see no innovation, no value adding and no improvements. The point I am stressing is that it does not matter how long you have been doing it , as long as you are thinking big and expanding. We need to strive to be big and I mean have more than 10 shops at different areas, we need to employ more than 100 people, we need to make mor...

   What about employment.? South Afrika is currently faced with high rates of unemployment, the youth  is mostly affected.  Many graduates can not find employment and since it will be elections soon we see people being lied to about job creations. I mean how will the goverment provide that meanwhile it can not sustain its own operations, we had retrenchment at the SABC Last year, SAA is still not doing well and not to even mention billi ons of debts by Eskom. The government itself can not provide employment but what it can do is to enable platforms for job creations such as easy regulations, land and funding for business  and then these businesses can create employment. How then do we go about doing this? Young people need to be radical thinkers, game changers, innovators and must want to go the extra mile.  The only employment that is needed is that of our minds.  We can not all be dependent on employment.  We have people complaining...

Magic or innovation? As most rural areas are occupied by black people it's inevitable that the use of black magic is there.  In today's  Article we will be looking at black magic and innovation.  Recently I have read an article on daily Sun News paper about how people can call " mama Nathe" to boost their businesses or receive some miracle money. It is also believed  that one can have a snake that will sustain the business provided some sacrifices are made to it. The purpose of this is to make money and sustain the business. How does  these practices  take black businesses to making millions in revenue annually? How do they add value to the customers? How do they contribute to  the African economy? Maybe this explains why most companies from the rural areas never make it to the JSE listing. Maybe that's why we never expand to other provinces. Now innovation is  to make -  changes in something established, especially by introduci...

Run the business.  Many businesses are ran by people who call themselves business people. But actually most of the businesses are job producing equity. What I mean is that they are no different than those employed. . For example you find someone who has been  operating for more than 2 years with no employees, the person starts with cleaning, help customers  and then they make payments to him. If the person is not around or maybe he goes to the restroom the business stops operating. Some times you find only casual workers , employees come and go. This is one of the things that hinder people from growing and expanding their territories. As started before, it's all in the mind. One must educate the mind and learn how big companies like Shoprite, Apple and Amazon are able to make billion of dollars/ rands annually. We need businesses that will reach  many people  while adding value to the lives of the people in Africa as a whole. We therefore need to s...

Nothing is hard like having to think differently especially if you are lacking even the basic of the basics. I mean people's minds are occupied with meeting their needs, they need water, power, shelter but to mention a few. It can be proven that poor communities/ countries are less innovative compared to the developed. This can be a hindrance to the economy because now how do we move forward and grow our businesses? Nonetheless we are compelled  to learn,innovate,improve and add value regardless. Entrepreneurs seems to be the only hope for this problem of unemployment and innovation in Africa.  We then need to work together and be brutal with our time and how we spend it.

Changing the Mindset first. Now following the last posts I am finding it very important one redefine education. Education is a continues learning process and this is not limited to a classroom learning.  We then need to unlearn everything we think we know about business and start learning from people who have been in business, I mean a book can cost you from R120 depending on where you shop. We even have the luxury of the internet where we can download some more books at a small cost.  This is how we then change the mindset, also with the people we follow on the social media we need to change such small things in order to get in line with business. The mindset of a business person should not be ordinary because now you need to be addressing problems that  people are facing and this requires a different point of view. With this said I encourage people to try and learn things from different sources, there is a quote that says " A person that is only educated at sch...

Question. How do we get into the culture of self- development to move way from the mentality of being workers to business people?

Basic principles of Business People get into business for various reasons, be it profit, be it to support their families or just to have a source of income. If you are in the rural areas you get to be affected by almost the same issues.   The biggest problem I  would say it is the lack of basic principles about how to run a business, this we see in businesses having a life expectancy of less than 5 years or if it exceed such years it barely does well. Well there is no one to blame really I mean as black people what we really know is how to be workers. Workers understand showing up for work and get paid month end regardless of how business is doing. How do we then move from such a mentality to being responsible for the marketing, finance and operation of an entire business?

Dear Reader.  I welcome you to my blog where I will be addressing issues and topics that are very crucial for businesses in the Rural areas of South Africa. I hope we have a wonderful journey together and I look forward to learning from you all. #RuralBusiness