OF COURSE YOU CAN!

I've just finished the rewrite of my book - Of Course You Can! - for people wishing to start and build sustainable and profitable businesses. Once we've put Covid-19 behind us it will go to print.

The new theme is the sea turtle because there seems to be a correlation between the number of them - 5% - who survive to maturity and new business in South Africa that become sustainable and profitable. I’m really passionate about improving these odds and that’s what I try and achieve through the book and the workshops.

I thought that it may be good to share some of my experiences as a result of my interaction with the business people who have read my book or attended one of my workshops over the past five years.

The first is that very few people actually read anymore and those who do, very rarely seem to apply all the advice and suggestions that they read or hear. We seem to have become used to short sound-bites and 140 character Tweets. Some new entrepreneurs appear to believe that by just buying a copy of the book and/or attending a workshop they will magically morph into a great business person. You can't simply hold the book in your hand and hope that by some combination of osmosis, alchemy and the incantation of buzz words you will suddenly have a great business! I read or listen to – on Audible - at least five books a month and I watch at least two You Tube videos a day! Let me be bold and say that if you don’t sponge up useful information on a continuous basis you will not be successful!

Secondly you have to put in the hours and the great Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10 000 Hour Rule. There are no shortcuts and there is no lift or escalator, you have to take the stairs! Someone once said “it took me 20 years to become an overnight success”!

Great business people are those who walk the walk! Talk is cheap but determination and commitment are the critical success factors. Without them no business succeeds!

I meet lots of people at networking functions who have no idea WHY they started their business and WHERE they are going with it. As the cat said to Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - "If you don't know where you're going it doesn't matter which road you take"! Now would be a great time to go back to the drawing board and decide on WHY you are in business.

Another observation is that most small businesses are “Me Too” enterprises meaning that their offerings are not innovative or unique. The classic examples I use are hairdressers and IT support people and they have to find a way to DIFFERENTIATE themselves otherwise they will not succeed. There are many ways that they can do that which are too numerous to mention here. Differentiation is the single most critical success factor and your product or service has be such that customers fall over their feet to buy it! If you can't compete, don't!

Another important litmus test for a business is whether it can continue if the founder and/or owner is tragically hit by the proverbial bus. If it can’t then you are self-employed and not an entrepreneur! An entrepreneur is someone who creates a business or businesses while building and SCALING it to generate a profit. Simply put scaling means that the revenue of your business is not dependent on the hours that you or your team members put in.

Finally, be humble and listen to the advice of others that have traveled the road before you! Read biographies and autobiographies of successful entrepreneurs - or watch them on You Tube - because many have taken hard tackles and some have shed a lot of blood. If you don’t, you run the risk of making the same mistakes that many of us have.

Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. My new website will be up by the end of next week.

#OfCourseYouCan! #Entrepreneurship.