Seeing a little more clearly now - at long last

My favourite book says it well - "Without vision, the people perish". Experience has taught me how true this is.

The past six [oh wait, seven - how time flies] months have been quite extraordinary to say the least. And there have been times where vision has been... well, lacking. Faith has been tested, the fire has been hot and its been an exhilirating ride [although I can't say I would ever choose it intentionally, but hindset is 20/20].

However, the past few weeks have brought with it a slightly clearer vision. Let me put it this way - I've got some of the puzzle pieces. I have only a slight idea of what a portion of the picture looks like, and no idea how many pieces there are... but I've got some of the puzzle pieces! It's an awesome feeling, so forgive my excitement.

In these few weeks I've met some amazing people [some of those listed alongside, and another of those meetings this morning, which I'll elaborate on another time] and come to understand more clearly how true it is that you need to "go" [to the people, to the nations, to wherever] to really change your perspective. Let's face it: sitting in an office on your own all day will kill your vision. Guaranteed. But seeing the people... talented people, people with MIND-BLOWING potential, people who can impact this country significantly [and probably most importantly, people who's lives you can impact]... it does something to you.

So I'm absolutely psyched to be taking on the challenge. The search is really on... bring it on!

Calling all Nation Builders

My heart has been captivated by this.

Nation building!

One little phrase that seems to make sense of all the madness, and that encompasses so much meaning.

It is wildly comforting to my heart to know that all we're doing is not just for money. Or for comfort. Or for ourselves.

There's more at stake. More to life. A future brimming with potential and hope... despite what the newspapers and the naysayers would have us believe. Sure, life ain't perfect. SA definitely isn't. And neither am I [or you]. Perfect match :-)

If you've never thought much beyond your salary, your car or your next outing to Edgars, may I challenge you to consider that all the talents and abilities you've been dealt in life do actually have a far more significant reason for being.

And to all of you who do believe...

[after all - true faith is believing in what we have not yet seen]

... I would call you a Nation builder! Are you up for the challenge?

Lets watch the growing evidence of that belief unfold before our eyes as we just do what we can do. Nothing more, nothing less.

Is less really more?

You've surely had those moments when it seems everything is just too much... and you would give a king's ransom to just take out complexity and make things simple again. I know I've felt that way often, when the noise from the world around just becomes too much. TV, radio, work, computers, cellphones, internet, wi-fi, global village, entertainment, and the list goes on. And with everything going on around and all the tasks and responsibilities, sometimes I wish it would all just be a bit easier.

Put simply, sometimes less is actually more.

Its so important I'll say it again -

Sometimes less is actually more!

We have officially moved from the information age to the attention management age. This is equally true in life and in business. Grant Brewer wrote an interesting article entitled "Why are products so complex?". His concluding paragraph hits a very sensitive cord as far as business goes - "One of the keys to overcoming the challenge is to stop trying to please everyone — accept that some potential customers won’t buy your product or service, and this takes courage." Interesting in an age where chasing market share and new customers results in many businesses trying to be everything to everyone.

In business I believe that we are increasingly moving towards a phase where delivering less results in more value.

Think of the choices when trying to buy a product online [a beautiful thing in itself, where the "long tail" truly has impacted our reality]. But imagine this... an online store where the entry page offers two different paths [I see two big buttons to make it easy]:

1. One path for people who don't mind the complexity and want all their choices, the standard e-commerce stores you see now such as e-bay, Amazon, etc.
2. A simpler option - where you follow a path of answering 5 or 6 simple questions which lead to the most logical product to suit your needs.

Let's face it - not everyone wants to customise their toilet seat or be able to choose the colour of the lights inside their desktop computer. Choices, choices, choices.

There's a fortune waiting for those who can bring simplicity back into an already overcrowded life.

Start thinking upside down

Amazing how the little moments in life can really bring a change in the way you look at things, and how questioning the small things can lead to BIG changes in the reality you live within.

This morning was one of these moments for me - confronted by paid parking at a hospital [I won't go into that now as its a whole other story] where the first 45 minutes was free and then you pay for time after that.

What first got me was that if a "customer" [aka patient in reality] is delayed through no fault of their own - why should they get penalised for this. After all, there must be cases where its actually beneficial to entice people to stay longer...

... shopping malls, for instance. Menlyn Park [in Pretoria] - the paid parking does disgruntle me somewhat. But what if they encouraged you to stay by reversing the rates. Still make the first 15 minutes free for sure. But then what about, for example, R10 for the first hour, R8 for 1 - 2 hours, R7 for 2 - 3 hours... working down to a flat R2 for over 6 hours.

Psychologically, couldn't this drastically impact a shoppers perceptions. To the point of encouraging people to spend another hour [and several hundred rand, probably] at a restuarant [or wherever] to "save" a buck or two on parking. Sounds crazy, but stranger things have happened.

Please, I'm not encouraging shopping malls to subconsciously rip off consumers.

All I'm trying to do is give an example of how turning your thinking upside down is sometimes a wonderful thing and can open a world of opportunities we were previously blind to. Not to mention that it could be substantially profitable at the same time.

Does anyone else have a good example of how turning our thinking upside down opens big windows of opportunity?

Just when I thought I was starting to understand...

...they went and changed the rules.















Saw this link to my site here today [in case you can't read it - OutThink features as #1 under 'Today's Recommended Blogs'] - this list is sorted by "Fastest Gain in SocialRank". Really?

Yeah, I love writing and always wanted to have my voice heard out there, but in reality I know the readership here is still, well, not huge. Those guys in MindValley must be on something :-) Still, its always a blast to see your blog featured high somewhere, so I'll enjoy the moment while I can. Thanks SocialRank and dailyvoices and the brains at MindValley. [Has anyone told them about all the other blogs listed on Amatomu and Afrigator yet?]

However, in the end quantity is totally irrelevant - its the quality that counts. So here's to what I hope will be quality content all the way.

And thanks for reading. Much appreciated!

Cutting our costs to spite our revenues [and our country]?

Have a look at the picture above - this is Checkers' current in-store promotion, and what I read to be their current new business strategy. Basically, they've put their promotions in "no frills" black and white [rather than the usual colour advertising] to bring "savings of R10 million every week!".

Cost-cutting. It's the first time I've seen this specific technique, but in the end all they're trying to do is cut costs.

What on earth are they thinking? This sounds like something a bunch of accountants dreamed up! [and I can say that because I've lived in that world]

Fantastic idea. For a handful of interested people - yes [investors, management and possibly a portion of their customer-base]. But not if we look at the big picture.

Lets just think about what's really happening when we cut costs in any business, say ABC Limited [I'm not picking specifically on Checkers here... this is applicable to tons of companies].

• Step one - ABC's profits start declining, investors scream at the board who tell management to sort it out.
  
• Step two - management sees that as sales have declined, prices have been dropped to bring customers back, leading to poor results. Well okay, if we can drop our costs, profits will go up. They look at the facts - hey, we're a big company... let's get all our suppliers to give us an extra 10% discount and boom we're done [or in Checkers' case, lets just cut our spending on "unnecessary" colour copies] - and they commence the creditor-crunching.
  
• Step three - costs drop, profits go up [say] 20% and "everyone" in ABC's world [with our internally-focussed blinkers on] is happy.

In reality, what else has happened here?

• First of all, management and the bean-counters take the easy way out rather than actually using their brains and finding out what the real problem is and solving this.


• Second, cutting costs affects tens, hundreds or thousands of suppliers leading to their profits declining and effectively reduces the spending power of the individuals working in and investing in those businesses [in one way or another]. These individuals, in turn, have less to spend on ABC's products... big picture - in the long-term ABC loses more than it gains. Hello?


• Thirdly, these suppliers all institute similar measures, resulting in widespread reductions in quality of life and spending power throughout the community [and country]... thereby effectively making the country poorer and worse-off [the really big picture].

How on earth can this be the best strategy?

What are the options? Well, there are many, but it starts at the beginning, getting to the real heart of the problem. Consider, for example:

• ABC performs in-store surveys and discovers the store setup and product selection is wrong leading to customer frustration and them leaving for other stores.


• Management hire experts to improve their store setup and alter their product selection to meet the needs of customers [hiring other companies - creating prosperity in the bigger picture; meeting customers needs - attracts customers, thereby increasing revenue rather than cutting costs]


• End result - costs up, revenue up even more and profits soaring - "everyone" [BIG PICTURE everyone - customers in ABC's world, previously unrelated suppliers and in the end - the country at large] is happy!

I've oversimplified it here and this is just one very general example, but I think it communicates what I'm getting at. As businesses, we have to look at the BIG PICTURE and not make decisions in isolation. There's no point in me making a lot more money if the only way to do it is to make sure that everyone around me makes less.

Yes, I have been harsh here. But after seeing it happen time after time, I'm just sick of seeing businesses with their blinkers on pushing to get ahead by pulling down all those around them rather than considering the great scheme of things and coming up with a creative way to make a win-win situation for everyone. Here's a fantastic RealBusiness [net]work article on how cost-cutting can be handled virtuously.

We need a significant change in our thinking if we are to make South Africa thrive [economically and socially] and for us to grow together. We can do it!

I believe it! Do you?

You can tell its October by...

... all the Christmas decorations out in the shops.

almost 3 months before Christmas! [for crying out loud!]


A tell-tale sign of a consumption-driven nation in desperate need of help.

The previous generation's biggest challenges involved world wars, sweeping pandemics and crippling recessions.

Our generation's biggest challenge? What colour shoes should I buy this month?

[Excuse me while I scream]


It's time for a righteous anger to rise up against how things are! If we keep going like this, you have to ask yourself... will we really be any better off in 10 years than we are now? We need leaders. We need PASSION! LET THE FIRE GROW WITHIN.....

China's 600% growth - for the rich, anyway

Just spotted this article on Fin24 entitled "106 billionaires in China".

Two amazing things -

1. The list is headed by a 26-year old woman; and
2. From 15 billionaires in 2006 to 106 now, that's over 600% growth!

And they've done that on the back of 11% growth for the country.

The only snag is that this list really only touches on the rich, and you know what they say - "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer", so perhaps it is not a fair reflection.

According to 2006 World Bank statistics, China's per capita income was $2,010 - putting them at #129 on a list of 209 [at least they've moved from lower-income to middle-income]. In comparison - South Africa was at #84 with a per capita income of $5,390. Taking into account that the rich offset the poor in these calculations, and looking at how some of SA's people live in [what we consider to be] abject poverty - just think that their average is less than half of SA's - and the number of people there that must be living in even worse poverty!

Will be interesting to see what improvements show for 2007 - for both China and SA, and to see what a difference 11% growth makes to the majority of people in the country rather than just the richest of the rich.

How free haircuts could revolutionise the economy...

No, I haven't lost it [just yet]. Just following a train of thought that has challenged me every time I've had a haircut over the last three or four months -

What do you pay for a haircut? R20? R50? R100. Whatever you pay, the price they charge must be worth it to you.

I challenged my barber to really test the value of the service he delivers - what if, for just a month, they stopped charging a fixed price for haircuts, and instead asked customers to pay them what the customer believes the service is worth?

Needless to say, he hasn't yet taken me up on it. I can't really blame him either, because the results would reflect the purest form of honesty regarding the value of his service... and good or bad, this would be quite a pill to swallow. Some customers might not pay a cent and get a free haircut... good for them. Some might pay more than you charge... HEY!

Think about the benefits for a second:

• you know exactly where you stand with all your customers
• customers can never complain about prices or inflation ever again
• the potential for free marketing [word-of-mouth or other media exposure for having the guts to do this] - HUGE
• how can your "competitors" compete with this?

The million dollar question: What if all other businesses ran this way too? Okay so this is just a haircut. How about cellphone service providers. Garden services. Security companies.

The billion dollar question: How could this revolutionise the economy, taking away "pricing-parity" excuses and really delivering value to all people in the country at a relatively affordable price?

And the trillion dollar question: What happens when your competitor starts doing this? How will that change your business? Are you in any way prepared for it?



We can laugh at this now. I can too. But who'll be laughing in 20 [or 10, or maybe even 5] years time when "Freevest" is the JSE's largest company?

The school of hard knocks for aspiring entrepreneurs

Nice post by "Thought Leader" Beverley Merriman on the challenges entrepreneurs face, well worth a read - particularly for the five tips which are more about the social/mental/life aspects of starting a business than traditional advice.

My thoughts on the entrepreneurial challenges faced in SA are here.

I still believe the solution is right at our fingertips, and its just a matter of working it out the right way. This is a common third-world problem - imagine what an impact South Africa could have on the developing world if we could button this down and then teach it into the other struggling countries! Just imagine the possibilities...

PS - I love the description on Beverley's profile - "ideas magician". What a stunning phrase! Nice one, Beverley!

Web 2.0 vs Business - where love and hate collide

Although you would think this title is ridiculous, there are many times when I think its absolutely true. Just looking at the interaction between the new media bloggers here on the web compared to the steps being taken by their "traditional business" counterparts... there seems to be an eery gap, and I can't work out whether its widening or shrinking.

Obviously there are many brilliant active social media / new media specialists [and some not-so-specialists] - hence the popularity of tags like "blogging", "facebook", "social" and the rise and change of the bigger media sites [M&G's Thought Leader springs to mind]. I was pleasantly surprised to see my old high school mate, Marc Forrest, making waves down in Durbs [no pun intended] in this sphere.

And then there's traditional business... lagging behind [it seems to me] and not really creating much of a stir [admittedly some are making a go of it, such as Jacaranda FM and Jacobsen Attorneys]

The business of web 2.0 is pushing ahead, as evidenced by all the thrilling activity and the real community that you can see being built! So why can't business push ahead with web 2.0? In that world, I see some of the unbelievable talents present online revolutionising the way traditional business is done.

Guys, you know who you are [some appear here]... the time is coming [SOONER than we think] where the big business opportunities won't be called "internet businesses" or "e-commerce" or "dot com's", and won't be laughed at by anyone who doesn't have 'vc' in their title or job description. Where business models won't be hugely reliant on the infamous "advertising revenue" [case in point from Guy Berger at newmedialab]. Are you ready for it?

Is business ready for it?

He, he, he.

[Just for the record... my skills and training are in business while internet opportunities are part of what I love - yep, I feel rather stranded in the middle of these two gargantuan powers battling it out, hence this post. And for the record, I still see the existing web opportunities as awesome too, and much like "The Colony", I'm looking at how to get involved and best utilise my skills in this environment to add value]

There's no place like home

Barely a day goes by that you don't hear about someone else who wants to leave SA for the "better opportunities" and safer environment of [insert country name here].

I've watched in agony over the past few years as family, friends and colleagues [including many people absolutely brimming with potential] have packed up and moved to London, Boston, Washington, the Cayman Islands... [you get the picture]. All beautiful places to live, no doubt. Their pictures and stories enthrall me. Their lack of lustre for SA saddens me.

Know what I'm saying?

Thank goodness sanity prevails in this amazing place. Great to see sites like SA Rocks, and many proud SA bloggers still touting SA.

WELL DONE guys and girls!

Now let's make 'em sorry they ever left!!! Rock on SA!

Are the only options really "zero growth" or "drown in red-tape"

We often hear talk of South Africa's informal sector [aka second economy], but I don't think that business people really understand the significance and challenges of this cog in our economy. In fact, I'm incredibly sure that, not only do we highly underestimate the significance and challenges, but also that we don't have a cooking clue what needs to be done to dramatically improve the situation.

Here's a Business Day article which gives a little bit of insight into this interesting phenomenon.

I recently had a chat with a highly respected audit partner from one of the "Big 4" auditing firms recently around this topic. What really stands out is the disparity between what this second economy represents, and the business mechanisms and legislation being put in place as South Africa "progresses".

Here is just the tip of the iceberg in this love-hate relationship:

Informal sector -

A veritable wishing well full of potential-laden young entrepreneurial mogul-wannabes. BOAT-LOADS of skill [some we would easily recognise, others not so much]. OODLES of enthusiasm. TONS of ingenuity.

And no tools to overcome their greatest needs.

What do [we believe] they need?

• A bit of guidance. [and we say "but we have many organisations providing mentors, etc..."]
• Some education. [and we say "all government ever talks about is education..."]
• A structured, practical means to develop their business [and we say "ummm..."]
  

Why is this?

Consider the current business environment in SA -

• Registering a business, along with all the prerequisites takes ages [and we know they need to do this to attract funding from any serious business-person, that funding being critical to help them grow into a serious business themselves]
• Our tax requirements are onerous, complex and absolutely mind-numbing [and we know they need to meet these requirements to be taken seriously and to avoid any nightmares down the growth path]
• Opening a bank account is a borderline I'm-off-to-crazy-land exercise [and we know many can't provide proof of residence and other similar documents which are required. we also know the Mzanzi account doesn't cut it as account balances can't exceed R15,000]
• After this its the accounting, auditing and other legal regulations that companies have to comply with [and we know that every existing business already struggles with these - so how is a newcomer supposed to cope]

What I had to ask myself was this: do you leave these young firestarters alone to dwindle along in the second economy for the rest of their lives, just trying to make ends meet?

or do you help launch them into the bubbling cauldron of business as we know it - the same cauldron where many experienced directors of companies are calling it a day due to the high personal risk involved in being in business?

Honestly, both options are appalling to me.

We need some, no - many, no - HEAPS more success stories like this. There must be a better way. Government? Lawyers, regulators, SARS? Can anyone help please?