Marnus Broodryk, founder and CEO of The Beancounter, put the call out for small business ideas to 27,439 business owners on his mailing list. The best ideas have been compiled into a free eBook. Broodryk is best known for his appearance as a shark on M-Net’s Shark Tank South Africa and his best-selling book ’90 Rules for Entrepreneurs’.
The eBook ideas are relevant in almost any situation, not just the Coronavirus outbreak. ‘All of them should make you think, because, if we want to see tomorrow, we need to get stronger today, and the easiest way to do that is to get stronger together,’ said Broodryk.
According to Broodryk:
1. If this Coronavirus epidemic happened before the ubiquity of the internet (just 20 years ago) it might have been a complete and utter disaster. But, with so much tech already in place, most industries can actually carry on with work as usual.
2. I have read so many, many sad stories about people closing down their business, retrenching their staff and losing everything. Each one is a tragedy, but I hope we can minimise this fallout in the weeks and months to come. Because, what we have in the eBook is a selection of tips and tricks collected from a community of business owners that will help fellow entrepreneurs, SMEs and small business owners.
3. Despite the bad news, there are a lot of people trying to make new plans in a very trying time. South Africans are just like that. Ons boere maak planne. The rest of us can, too.
4. This is probably going to be the turning point for how we do business – people will be forced to do more things online, like conferences, and meet and plan and sell – and might just see a new world opening. This is the start of a new way of work – one we’ve all been very interested in for a very long time. We just needed the push to make the change.
5. There must be a big call on society now to actively support small businesses. The corporates will be able to absorb the knock, but most small businesses won’t survive a month or two without active support. So, start buying small. Move service providers around. Every business we lose makes us all weaker.
Despite everything, we must not let ourselves use this as an excuse for getting sloppy, or not getting stuff done. It’s so easy to fall into a trap of mediocrity when the world around us is lagging a bit.
Now is not the time to do that. It’s never the time to do that! Now is the time to give it your all, improve your business, get systems in place and come out better on the other end. And that’s what we hope this eBook will start.Â
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The Beancounter https://thebeancounter.co.za
