Rural Business

  Under the umbrella of Venogroup we are driven by innovation and value addition.It dawned on me when I had a certain business dealing that most of the time we do not get much value for our money.  There are two things I would like to look at. First is the cash value, this is the actual paper money we have. Secondly is the use value, this is the value you get for using  a certain product/service. In a transaction there is usually these two, we pay for a service or a product.  But how often do you get value from using a certain product/service, and as entrepreneurs what value are we giving?As entrepreneurs we need to focus on the Use value.   How is your product/service adding value to your customers? I would like to take a kota for example, in a time where we  are health conscious and obesity is a disease that lurkes amongst us. What value in the contents of the  kota does one get? Is our health considered? Or rather what other options are there f...

  How do you navigate bad weather conditions?  As in rural areas our shacks or our buildings are not in such great conditions. We struggle to operate when the weather is not favourable but then how do we deal with such?  How do we still provide standard service/product? The thing is no matter the weather we still  have to open and as much as not every client will come but some will come. And it is in such conditions that we win our client's heart. Either way we have make it through, we have to think, we have to create, we have to  improvise, we have to will, we have to do it. But what I also struggle with is that  on rainy days we so struggle to work but come sunny days, we forget we ever struggled to work due to bad weather, like we do nothing about it until it happens again and again.   Also how often do you clean your place when it is raining?. Do you know how not nice it is to be served at a unclean place regardless of the weather?   There is ...

  It has been a while not engaging with you on this platform however I trust that you are still pushing and adding value in every transaction.  I have recently come across some obstacles and what I have deduced is that my thinking is flawed. Think and grow rich states that our   thoughts or impulses can be transmuted into their physical counterpart. We are what we let dominate our mind. I learned that we are not having  right thoughts, we think something else but habitually we do another. Our actions and thoughts must be in line, this will help assist in building great and big businesses. I have also learned the art of waking up at 5Am, meditating and contemplating how I am going to run my business.   As entrepreneurs there is so much internal work that we have to do prior focusing on our craft. We need to live our craft, when people use our products they should feel and find our energy, that is the kind of focus we need, it shouldn’t be about profits or hig...

    I was reading this book about being world class and how we can use our genuis to our outmost benefit and I came across a statement that said “A man said he wanted to first lose weight before he could start running”. I found this so hilarious and it made me think about how many of us have business ideas but we wont start until we get funding, just think about it, it is the same thing. It is always best to just start with whatever you have, work on your craft and strive.  Lets not let funding get the best of us, lets innovate and add value.

  Resilience is the back bone of business. If you lack this bone you won’t be able to stand. It is being able to recover quickly after a difficulty. As a start-up or rather any business there is usually an abundance of difficulties, you lack this, need that, can’t have that or whatever. But with all these adversities resilience should be your number one strength. I was reflecting on how now one can do anything just with the use of an App, this is really amazing if you think about it. Now this also indicates how quickly the market and the economy fluctuate and just how fast you have to change and adapt, imagine now if you were taking forever to recover? How can you then survive in this fast paced economy? Just after a long time of being silent I am reporting back that the fight is still far from being over, we innovate, we add value, we move.

 Women! A specie that was made with a bone, this specie of the human race is able to conquer and uphold nations. In the past centuries women were subjected to household chores but that has drastically changed, we have women doctors, lawyers, engineers, you name them. In business we also have female CEOs, CFOs, founders and entrepreneurs. Women are doing great things in the corporate.  Big Ups to women.! Innovate and add Value

                Women in small business and  entrepreneurship In the past four decades we have seen women rise from all sorts of exclusion, we have and still are seeing more women engage or rather take leadership positions. They are taking up careers that were dominated by men. There has also been an increase in the number of ownership in small business by women; this is a result of the increase inclusion of women in the education and training, policies like the BEE and other women empowerment programs. At Veno group we are happy to be celebrating women’s month with you.   We will therefore be sharing some insights on how we women rock business. I however have to state how disappointed I am in the number of young women who own their businesses where I reside. I wanted to feature them on the blog but I tried engaging some and the response was negative. I still urge more women to start their own businesses. Innovate and add val...

 

  How best do you know your industry? Do you know the lasted technological inventions that will have a huge impact on how you do business? I was helping a client who is in construction  with some research and the things I found are astonishing. There is a new technology called a ABT, this is like nothing we have ever seen. It is now amazing how a house could be built. This technology those not use the traditional materials we  usually use.  With this I asked another client how well they know their industry and the person was unresponsive. It then dawned on me that most businesses are not looking for new ways to be innovative, effective and cost efficient. We need to take some time and know where we are heading. This is crititical especially when we want to be competitive and own the market, the new technology might be expensive but we will be knowing what we are working on and how it will impact our business and besides companies want to work in South Africa, just im...

I have been seeing posts about how to start a business. The first step is to register  the Company, get a tax number, register on the government database and have a website and other do things .   Every time I see such posts being shared I burst into laughter. You can have all these things but not a viable product/service or there being a zero market for it. People you can't thumb suck business  without patience, sacrifice and suffering. You need to be plugged into some energy and not give up. Starting a business is hard work, it's not some registration on  paper, website or any of those mentioned.   My advice is before doing the admin, take the business into the streets, do it practically, check if people are vibing with your offering.  You can alsodalso something related to what you want to do.   For example if you want to be in property get a shack somewhere and rent it out, see how this works, use the rent money to get another then another. Th...

I have realised that time is such an important factor in business. The availability of your product/service is very critical. Customers want to always get what they want whenever they want.  How do you then meet such demand? Well you open an hour before your competitors and close an hour after they closed. There are also other ways one can  explore to always avail their offerings. We also have to mind lead time, imagine someone waiting an hour for a kota? This is just crazy. But what about value? Should value be compromised because of time.? Of course no! Quality and value addition is what drives a business.  We have to teach our employees to always add value at a fast pace. But then again how do we do that? We just have to do and find ways that suite our businesses. Rather have more employees than have customers wait for long. Value is more important in this era. More value results to more clientele. Time is all we have, time is money.Literally!. Innovate and add value.

As a start up of anything. We  lack funds and there is no one who is willing to just fund you, no matter how much you need.  Now one has to marry the idea of having to do what one must do in order to do what one wants to do. Now this is not easy, this could be taking a part time Job, selling in the streets, any other  side hustle you can do, do it.   Always keep your eyes on the goal even if sometimes  it means derailing for some time just to make some cash. Innovate and add value.

Here is something I found Interesting and innovative. No more hassle of going up and down for days trying to register your business. The First National Bank( FNB) has partnered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC)for your convenience. You can now register your company and open a business account with FNB at the same time. This is great right? Here is the link where you can register at your finger tips  https://www.fnb.co.za/cipc/#/form/startcipc Innovate and Add value.

It has been such a long time not posting in the blog.  The past few months have been hectic.  Entrepreneurship is hectic itself . Operating under the lockdown restrictions has been challenging and one had to mind one's health. It has been nothing but hustle, day in and day out. But we fight,we move and we innovate.  Now we will be operating in level 3, we are hoping for better and innovative ways of doing business. Innovate and add value

Change is something we want but fear and right now change is inevitable. Since the lockdown a lot has changed, how we work, how we eat, how we relate to people. Actually everything has changed.  This we know. I now find it very wrong to be waiting for the lockdown to end then go back to how things were, the thing is that things are definitely not going back to how they were. Personally I think we need to be on our toes  finding great things to do online because that's there only platform we can roam around and minding the law and regulations governing the lockdown. We shouldn't be just on survival mode but we need to find life and adjust to this change. Is it now that we have to embrace the present because we don't know what tomorrow holds.  We don't know if President Ramaohosa will extent the lockdown by another two weeks or months, we really don't know. Amid all difficulties let's find life and embrace it.

We are proud  to announce that we now have Podcasts available for streaming.  We saw it fit to have these Podcasts since we are in lockdown and by this time we were supposed to be having business talks.  The business talks will be delivered through podcasts and we will take it from there.  https://anchor.fm/venogroup is the official website for the podcasts. The podcasts are also available in other platforms: Spotify-  -https://open.spotify.com/show/755pLSupaUZMyVKUT7ikIT Breaker -https://www.breaker.audio/new-podcast-1  RadioPublic - https://radiopublic.com/new-podcast-Wxba77 Venogroup is looking forward to your views and engagements. Innovate and add value

Let's get to the future of Work. If you are less than 25 years of age do not do any administration work courses.  If you are unemployed and have been in the past two years. You are unemployable, things have changed, technology has advanced and new skills will be in demand, skills that needs complex problem solving. We are moving from a world that needs physical efforts. Question is are we ready for such a drastic change? Skills that enable workers to design, build and work alongside with technological systems will be in high demand. We are so used to buying and paying for everything , how are we going to do this if we have no money? Does this mean we need to go back to being agricultural ?  Do we even have the land to do that? And I am not talking about hectares of land but a 2-10 meters to plant veggies? Since we live in flats and in the cities? However, people that do computer science , mathematical and engineering will be more in d...

What is your understanding of a revolution? Here is something to indulge in. Revolution- A sudden, vast change in a situation, a discipline or the way of thinking or behaving. As we are about to enter into a lockdown in South Africa as a measure to prevent the spread of Corona virus.  Take  some time and read on revolution, from the agrarian age up to the recent and advanced technological advancement. This is a very interesting read and should be a way to encourage us to prepare for what is to come.

South Africa is in crisis and no matter how ignorant you are, you know that we are in chaos.First we are still dealing with power failure which costs us a lot of production time and we are losing money.  Now as small businesses we struggle to make ends meet due to not having an alternative source of power we find it hard to run and make money. The sad reality is that this will be going on for some time. This is a national problem minding the technical recession we are in. But we need to persist and be innovative on how we go about finding alternative power.  How do we maintain business in such hard times? And just as we are recovering from load-shedding. We are told of Corona virus. This pandemic is freaking us out and people are told to stay at home but how realistic is that.? It is day 2 of not going anywhere but I have had enough. Business has not opened in the past two days and I am feeling the load already. Like what are we supposed to...

This is one interesting tool that businesses must employ. Automation basically is having systems  that are running in your absence.   In times like these the business must have computers and systems that do the job on your behalf .This saves time and exposes one to new  opportunities. This is a follow up on you as a business person " not to be the business" but run the business. How can one automate.? Well it is depended on your business. Therefore one has to find best books on automation for  businesses. Here are a few suggestions. # Daniel Hall - Easy ways to automate your business. #Tom knowles - Systemize,Automate,Delegate. #Valeri Little- Automate your Business. Innovate and add value .

So when in crisis what do you do? What strategies do you usually implement? Are they useful? How often do you revisit them and make changes? Leave your comments below.

Client Management. How well do you know  your clients? How often do you contact your clients for feedback on your product/ services? And how have you considered the feedback,? Besides advertising and marketing what other lengths do you go to get more clients.? Do you know the Top 5 people that your revenue is depended on and how do you even communicate with these people? We need to understand also that more customers does not mean an increase in revenue.  The end goal is having an increase in revenue regardless of the number of clients. For example say you are selling cakes and have 10 customers that buy a cake each or you can have 4 customers that buy 10 cakes each.  The matter here is revenue. Therefore take caution of your best clients. Client management is important. The primary goal  is maximum revenue even with less customers. Innovate and add value .

This is one of the things venogroup will be busy with this year.  This new introduction is something that the South African youth need. Actually it is the starting of our own businesses so that we can be part of the value chain we need the most.  There is nothing shocking as the Unemployment rate in South Africa, and it continues to rise.  Companies are retrenching everyday as we have seen with Telkom  in the past week. Where will we be in the coming 5 years?  What will we be doing?   We need innovative, creative and disruptive minds. 

Consistency is key. I always say  that consistency beats commitment when commitment is not consistent. We need to understand that people buy out of habit, people are so afraid of change that they always stick to what they know.  It is then crucial that  as an entrepreneur you  always avail your products when people want to buy something.  I know a lady that sells magwinya and she shows up twice a week,  the clients always ask about her whereabouts and whenever she is around the clients start asking for the price, this is not well for the business, client trust is lost and people will even decide to buy something they can always find everyday. We need to be consistent, in everything. Innovate and Add value

Venogroup is excited to announce that we will be having business talks soon. keep your eyes on the blog for more information.

Welcome to We are ready to make the most of the year. Venogroup hopes that the insights we shared in 2019 were of good use and you enjoyed the blog. We are hoping that you continue to journey with us and make more money in 2020.