April Is Nearly As Bad As December For Productivity
Tomorrow is a public holiday in South Africa being Freedom Day and making matters worse is Thursday being May 1st commonly known as Workers day. A 3 day work week is not great for business as we all know most people will take 3 days leave which means this week is a total write off. I will try get some work done in areas where I can which will place me in a stronger position by being more prepared.
When I was an employee I loved this time of year, but now seeing the other side being an employer I hate it. This week I would have hoped to add one or two more clients to my packaging business but the realty is tis one week will hold things up for another 14 days as most business owners or managers will need to spend the first week back catching up.
I have been here before and know what to expect so I will not waste my time and will only be proactive again mid May. I the mean time all that can be done is to arrange meetings for 2 or 3 weeks time and research any companies that may be of interest.
Growing a business takes time and every account that is added could take weeks or many months to land. Currently I have been active with 7 prospective businesses that will hopefully become clients in the near future. If you look at each new client in monetary terms ad ca add just one each month to your client list this could be worth between $100 and $200 additional income to your pocket each month. It may seem like such a little, but do that for a couple of years and you will be amazed at how much this is all worth.
The big accounts is what everybody wants, but the smaller clients are generally less risky and in most cases you are dealing with the owner of the business so there are no games like back handers being offered. You will be amazed at how crooked buyers are and many expect to be compensated for buying your products. Corruption is everywhere in South Africa and I am sure businesses are aware of what is taking place and turn a blind eye.
As sickening as this may sound it is what we deal with each week and we know how much it costs the companies. Many companies are not exactly financially secure either and this is like a cancer eating them from the inside. The one company I tried to secure their business was throwing away millions of dollars each year and eve tough my product was way cheaper I could not land the account because I did not know how to raise the topic of back handers as I did not know who was the one receiving the money. This is an account I will revisit later in the year with the hope the buyer has moved on.