the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
By Lori Milner: author, entrepreneur, thought leader and founder of Beyond the Dress
If you are a regular reader of my blogs, you will notice I have a huge passion for reading and knowledge about how to become the best version of ourselves. One of my muses is Seth Godin, best-selling author of Purple Cow and Linchpin. I wanted to share one of his blogs as he so brilliantly demonstrates again the power of habit and how it shapes our lives.
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by Karen Wessels, co-founder of SnappSales and VA Connect
It’s that time of the year again to review what transpired this past year, to make sense of the madness, learn from our mistakes and look forward to a great year ahead.
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by Sylvia Walker, author of SmartWoman
The festive season is upon us. For many people, the pace slows down, and we may take some time off work, spend quality time with family and friends, and perhaps even go away on holiday. Whatever shape your festive season takes, it’s an extra expensive time of the year – apart from the obvious giving of presents, we also tend to eat more, socialize more and generally spend more.
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In ‘Own your Space; The Toolkit for the Working Woman’, my co-author Nadia Bilchik and I found it imperative to include a chapter on owning your finances. We reached out to author and speaker, Sylvia Walker, to share her insights and guidance. This is a snippet of what she had to say about how to own your finances.
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by Benji Coetzee, founder of EmptyTrips
I've witnessed animals outcasting one of their own, and today, I can appreciate being outright rejected too, a lone wolf. I am broke, skinny, pale, sleep deprived, fighting with loved ones, neglected and maybe delusional.
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By Lizl Naude, founder of Lilly Loompa
Entrepreneurship rocks! Well it does most of the time! I am not going to tell you this is the easiest journey, but it is truly rewarding! In my case starting out, I was one of those “go with the flow” people. I never had a plan of what I was going to be. I didn’t have it all planned and I was definitely not goal driven! Now, years later and after many learning trials, I can honestly say today that by the grace of God and my entrepreneurial journey, I am a different person. Better I would say!
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by Sylvia Walker, author of SmartWoman
Most of us will all need to apply for credit at some time in our lives, and as an entrepreneur, this is almost a certainty. By taking ownership and being pro-active in managing your credit, you can avoid any unpleasant surprises and make sure that financial support will be there when you need it most.
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We love mobile and have been fortunate enough to work on the initial versions of many of South Africa’s leading apps over the last 7 years. In some cases, we have continued working with these brands throughout the course of their app journeys and these are some of the fundamental (as well as subtler) learnings anyone looking to make a dent in the space can take from this experience.
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It happens often: we appear to be listening but in fact we are so distracted by other thoughts, other people, and other things we have to do, that we’re not really actively listening. Or we’re thinking about what we’re going to say next and how we can say it so that we sound fabulously articulate and intelligent. We don’t entirely hear what the person in front of us is saying. We’re not getting the whole message. In our careers, it’s critical that we are heard. But it’s just as critical that we hear, that we truly hear. Our ability to really listen to others is as vital to our overall presence.
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Have you ever asked an entrepreneur how much they make? And they respond with a ‘million from last month’ but no smile coming with it? Or any triumphant fist in the air? Yep. It is because it is deeper than that. Revenue is the easiest part of operations; if you have built a good brand and something people want/need; you will have sales easily. The trick is ‘where are those sales going’?
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By Karen Wessels, co-founder of VA Connect & co-founder of SnappSales
Didn’t think it was possible to outsource your accounting? Not only is it completely feasible, but if accounting is not your forte you’ll be eternally grateful you did.
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In my last few blogs, I focused on two of the key things you need to get right if you want to grow your business in 2017: setting your strategy and relentlessly executing your plan. But no matter how well we plan, no matter how hard our teams work, there will be setbacks along the way.
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Our to-do list has started to become a guilt list constantly getting longer and a reminder of what we have not achieved. The problem with the to-do list is it has become a collection tool but does not provide any clarity in terms of order of importance of tasks and what truly needs our focus to achieve our goals.
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In my last post we spoke of the importance of outsourcing your marketing function. You can find the article here to refresh your memory. I have a tendency to lump marketing and sales together. And yes, I do understand how very different the two are! However, for me, the one cannot work without the other. In order to have great sales deals you need to have a converting marketing campaign, therefore sales and marketing go hand-in-hand.
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One of my favourite authors is Derek Sivers, he started the company CD Baby as a passion project which was later sold to iTunes for over 20 million dollars! He released a book called ‘Anything you want: 40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur’. I have shared the most useful excerpt which has made me think differently about how I run my company, Beyond the Dress, enjoy!
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As a business owner, you need to ensure your business runs smoothly and you need to mitigate your personal and business risk. Here are 5 ways to protect yourself in business.
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Ever wondered what your day would look like if you could focus only on the things you love doing and what you’re really good at? If you have quite a structured day then most probably you fit in about 2 hours of marketing each day. This is to help build the business brand, increase your social media footprint and to navigate potential clients through the first part of your sales funnel.
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Roka Roko was started from passion. I simply wanted to make dresses. What an easy idea, right? No! I love making clothes, specifically dresses; hence the name Roka Roko (sew a dress in English). I am not quite sure when this obsession started, but my sister tells stories of me making dresses out of boxes for our dolls. I then managed to hone this love as the years went by, getting better each year. Then one day I decided I am going to make this business idea a reality.
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Our people skills come down to how well we interact with the people around us, and the strength of the relationships that we build. We already know that performance alone doesn’t count for everything. Of course, our ability to do our jobs well is critical to our career success, but often it’s our overall image that plays a bigger role in determining how successful we will be. And central to that image is how we handle our interpersonal relationships.
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Establishing a business is really not for the faint-hearted. It requires faith, stamina, and perseverance. In essence...it is more of a mental challenge to overcome than anything else.
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