Why is small business so important to me?

Business, and more importantly, small business, is a passion that runs deep in my veins. I cannot be at a braai or at a dinner with friends, without asking about their marketing, or their staff, or their clients. And as soon as I do, I find myself instantly referring to what ‘we’ will do. How ‘we’ should incentivize staff.  How ‘we’ should market. I become possessive. I become obsessed. I sometimes have to be asked very politely to step away from the SMME.

And why? Well because I am a small business owner. I did not develop a business idea. I did not see a gap in the market and address it. I came in by default. As a temp staff member. And fell in love with the job. And for the past 20 years, I have been doing my job. 17 years ago I became a shareholder and in 2017 I became 100% owner of VCA. But in my mind, I still do my job.

And my job involves consulting to my clients. Sometimes around legislation. Sometimes around HR. But ALWAYS around compliance, and growth, and sustainability. Which is when I realised. What makes me excited is not the Acts. It’s not new legislation. It’s the entire jigsaw puzzle that is small business. It is how many hats a Small Business Owner has to wear. And when one starts out, one believes that you need to be proficient in everything. Then, you realise that there are specialists that can alleviate much of the burden for you, on an outsourced basis. So you can get the expertise you need at a fraction of the cost.

You also realise that you are not unique. We all feel extremely possessive over our businesses. My challenge is like nobody else’s. My product is unlike any other. My staff are totally different. The bottom line is that all business operates from the same lifeblood. All business operates in the same way, with the same veins, and the same bones. Some are miniature, others are giant. But all have the same frame, and the same structure.

Business is important to me because I was a single mom since I was 26. I am now 44 years old. I have been supporting myself and my two children for 18 years, and before that I was the breadwinner. I have done that by doing my job. In the process I have built a company, built a personal brand. I have coached around 3000 businesses in their compliance and towards their growth, including work for the Cheri Blair Foundation and Shanduka Black Umbrellas on a volunteer basis. I have coached micro and small companies for GIBS. And I have enjoyed every single second. Because business changes lives.

It helps a single mom out of an otherwise impossible hole. It validates the hustle of an otherwise feeble voice. It grows employees in turn, who can start their own passions. It turns conversations at parties into a takeaway other than a party box. Small business is the lifeblood of our economy. Join us. Its fun.

What advice has stuck with you and who gave you that advice?

 

Many years ago I had a best friend. She was there for me at a time nobody else was. I was going through an ugly divorce (aren’t they all), and I had no support from my family, but this friend was there through thick and thin and supported me beautifully. She then went through a transformation a few years later and became a person I did not like very much. She became a bully, both to me, and the people around her.

 

Here started an internal battle for me. I could not just turn my back on her, not when I owed so much to her. But I also couldn’t condone her bad behaviour, as bullying is something I just cannot condone in any form, having been bulled in some form or another my entire life. So for years I had a push and pull on my emotions, and my brain, until a mentor explained to me the way the Universe works, and it changed everything for me

 

She said: The Universe is like a big universal bank. You make deposits, and you make withdrawals. And just because you made a withdrawal at a certain ATM does not mean you need to wait at that ATM forever until it runs out of cash and you need to make the deposit to return it. You can make your deposit at any ATM. Be it smiling at a stranger, tipping somebody who does a service. Small baby deposits. Or large deposits, helping somebody move, lending somebody money, being there in a time of crisis.

 

I knew that in the past few years I had been there for many people – friends, family members, clients, strangers. And I knew, in that moment, that my karmic debt had been paid many times over. I was able to drop my invisible debt in my very heavy backpack, just there, on the floor, and never look back.

 

This was for me the best advice I ever received and has served me incredibly well in the years that came thereafter.

 

What is some of your best advice?

My bucket list – what is on it and what have I achieved so far?

I never really saw the point of a bucket list

 

a)      a) I was far too young

b)      b) Who plans that far in advance?

c)      c) Who on earth was going to help me traverse these items?

 

 

And then… covid hit. Things that needed money and some leave time previously now required a whole lot more. Vaccines. Negative tests. Countries bounders closed. Indefinitely. Family members became isolated and estranged. Husbands and wives were bound to different continents. Parents had to adjust to living without their children! Suddenly, my dreams of travel seemed very unattainable indeed

 

I fell pregnant at a very young age and my parents, being of a different era, made very sure that I got married. Which lasted a grand total of 3 years. So my twenties and thirties I was a single mom, with very little resources, and no support. Travel was a pipe dream for me. my friends were going overseas. They all had more money, more time, and no obligations. And if they did have children, they had supportive parents or spouses. When I turned 40, and my time suddenly seemed to become partially mine again, I started looking at where exactly I would travel to, if I could.

 

And the list was exhaustive. The wonders of the world, modern, ancient, and natural, were first on my list. These were followed by anything cultural, and encompassed Russia, and extensive European destinations. I started saving. (for the first time in my life). Wanting to do this guilt free, and worry free, and in a responsible manner. Unfortunately, life happened, and I had to build a flat for my father, so my savings said a reluctant farewell and I was left at starting point again. I am now at a point where I have booked tickets for a show in June next year, in Holland, and I am saving towards that and starting to make the arrangements I need to get there.

 

If I had to say what I had already achieved, none of them would have been on my bucket list. It was all things we took so much for granted. Music festivals. Driving through the night for holiday and watching the sun rise. Protest marches. Raising healthy headstrong children, on my own. Being self-sufficient. Being healthy. Surviving 100% of what life has thrown at me. Run a business for 18 years, 3 of those entirely on my own. Being open to love, after being in an abusive marriage. All stuff I would never have seen or imagined in my future.

 

My immediate bucket list items are all things I would have scoffed at a few months ago, but now seem like things I need to do, need to plan and need to savour. They include a holiday with my 8 dogs, learning to snorkel, doing shark cage diving, going to seal island and on a wine tour. It has become about the small things. May I never take one single day for granted