Rural Business

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.