About Bruce Wade

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So far Bruce Wade has created 224 blog entries.

A picture is worth a thousand numbers

When you are asked for your financial information, most business owners think TAX, which is very pertinent at the moment, since there was a tax deadline at the end of January and there is a provisional tax deadline coming up at the end of February.

But financial information shouldn’t only make you think about your taxes and complying with SARS’s requirements. There are so many other important reasons to understand the finances of your business. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Dragon’s Den, you’ll know that Peter Jones always wants to know the numbers of the business, and it is fatal if the business owner doesn’t have the right information at their finger-tips!

You might not be entering Dragon’s Den any time soon but it is still important to know your numbers; what your turnover is so far and in the last month, what profit you’re making, which are your most successful products, who are your worst paying customers.

As creative entrepreneurs, we often shy away from the numbers, but the information tells a picture and sometimes a picture (or graph) can tell the story. We are using graphs more and more when communicating financial information to clients, as it is easy to see what happened and where you are going, without engaging with the numbers.

If you are not getting a clear picture of your accounting system and financial reports, give us a call and we’ll use the numbers to help you tell your story.

By |2018-02-06T16:01:43+02:00February 6th, 2018|Financial Management|0 Comments

Innovation Eco-System Map of Cape Town

The Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry through its Innovation Initiative is embarking on mapping the Innovation Eco-system in the greater Cape Town region. This eco-system is defined through the Innovation Initiative mission of being an assistant to the Innovation Entrepreneur in their business and product development.

Cape Town has become the hub of innovation activity across many different sectors in recent years. We have a thriving ICT sector with numerous businesses making world headlines all supported by local organisations and programmes. We also have a well-established academic and private support programmes and Tech Transfer Offices within the main universities who support both students and other SMME in their innovative product development. The selection of Incubators and Accelerators who span across both the private and public sectors offer a full range of services and products.  And the list goes on.

Through the Innovation Initiative, we aim to identify and map out as many of the role-players and stakeholders within the innovation eco-system in order to create a seamless process roadmap for new ideas and products.

We have identified 13 different sectors within the eco-system and will over the next few weeks, using email, Monkey Survey and in-person interviews begin to build and populate the map.

All identified organisations will be pinned to an open source Google-based map application detailing each sector, offerings and details. This map will become a part of the Innovation Initiative toolkit offered through the Cape Chamber to the entrepreneurs in Cape Town.

We call all interested parties, people and organisations who wish to become a part of this process to please email us on InnovationCapeTown@gmail.com for more information or to gain access to the questionnaire.

By |2018-02-06T10:18:42+02:00February 6th, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Innovation|0 Comments

Entrepreneurial events this week

This week we have two exciting events for you to enhance your marketing and financial skills.

Cash Flow 101

If you have not yet heard of or played Cash Flow 101, then this is your chance to join us on Wednesday evening for a fun edutainment event. Robert Kiyosaki’s game has empowered countless of people to realise the basics of wealth management in the rat race. Come play, learn and go home more money wiser than before. We play at our offices in Woodstock (directions)

To book: call Amanda on 021 8739 2281

Weekly Wednesday Webinar @ One

This week we chat about customer profiling using various paper and online tools. We will begin to explore FaceBook’s new Customer segmentation tool that they recently released.

If you are in marketing or sales, DO NOT miss this one.

Join us at 13:00 on Wednesday online here: https://zoom.us/j/9071494212

By |2018-02-05T12:29:31+02:00February 5th, 2018|Business Resources, Entrepreneurship|0 Comments

Mapping the Innovation Landscape of Cape Town

In association with the Cape Chamber’s Innovation Initiative, we have begun a process of mapping out the Innovation Ecosystem in Cape Town. This mammoth task is required to understand the different role players and offerings to innovative entrepreneurs across all sectors and how to best leverage their idea to market.

We have been joined by Ricardo Padrón, originally from Venezuela on a three-month internship program to assist in this project. Ricardo was a project manager for New Ventures, a platform to catalyst social entrepreneurs in Latin America. He earned a Degree in Business Administration with a minor in Marketing and a Master’s degree in Administration and Development of Sustainable Enterprises. (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center – Costa Rica). Prior to coming to Cape Town, Ricardo was responsible for implementing SMEs and actions linked to the socioeconomic integration of refugees in Panama, Colombia and Venezuela for international humanitarian organizations.

Ricardo will spend the next few months interviewing and visiting people and organisations across the greater Cape Town region to understand the different offerings and opportunities each has to offer.

If you have a contribution to the innovation sector, then please email us or contact us at our offices, so we can include your information on the new innovation map.

The future is here.

By |2018-02-01T12:41:59+02:00February 1st, 2018|Entrepreneurship, Innovation|0 Comments

Become a Game Changer for your industry

Become a Game Changer for your industry. Become extraordinary and a positive influence on those around you. Take your business to new heights

A Game Changer changes the way that something is done, thought about or made for the better. This could be you.

Managing a business through all the phases of development calls for creativity, bravery and many different facets of skills: not all these can be found in books or online.  The Game Changers program offers those who are in the early stages of business development to come together to hone their skills and grow their businesses.

Signup for the next Game Changer program starting in February and join others on a journey over 6 months that will develop both you and your business.

First session:  Thursday 22nd February 09:00 – 13:00

Investment: R500 per month for 6 months: includes a file, notes and worksheets

Reserve your Game Changer place: call Amanda on 021 839 2281

By |2018-01-30T15:54:15+02:00January 31st, 2018|Business Resources, Entrepreneurship|0 Comments

Marketing Master Classes

Marketing seems to be on everyone’s lips as we start 2018. This is because of the assumption of “if you do marketing, you will get money”. But this is not always true.

Marketing is no longer an academic exercise of numbers and shuffling people through a predefined sales process in order to scoop up a percentage of sales.

Marketing today is all about developing profitable relationships. Relationships with contacts, customers and suppliers and then creating a strategic process to ensure every person within the system is handled with care and appreciation in order to develop high levels of trust: very different to the old numbers game.

Our current series of Weekly Wednesday Webinars at One covers different aspects of marketing as we take time to unpack the theory as well as some examples and implementation of the ideas.

The first master class covered the Sales Cycle:

We followed this up with a look at the new functional, trust developing sales funnel:

This week we unpack some of these in practical examples in discussion with those online at the time. Join us on Wednesday at one: https://zoom.us/j/9071494212

By |2018-01-30T10:10:29+02:00January 30th, 2018|Marketing|0 Comments

Tax Season Scams – don’t get caught      

As we near the end of January we are busy completing a number of our client’s online tax submissions on eFiling before the 31st deadline on Wednesday. This is not a complicated process as the new ever-improving eFiling system is user-friendly and fast.

All one needs is the right information, documents and a little know-how in order to do the online submissions. The system gives you an instant review and an online calculator will give you an estimate on your result of a pay-in or pay-out.

After completing a number of these in our offices and then doing one at home for my wife, we have noticed a few issues that people just need to take note of in order to avoid being duped by scammers and phishing sites.

Firstly the banks and SARS will never ask you to do anything via an SMS. This includes validation of accounts, ID number or tax information.  Any queries that they may have will be sent to you via email and be detailed on the eFiling website.

Any refunds due will be deposited directly into the bank account you have submitted on your tax return. You will not have to do any further work, including verification of your details.

My wife got an SMS just a few days after her return was filed asking her to please click on a link and complete the bank details in order to facilitate the refund process. Firstly this is wrong and an obvious scam, but very interesting that it only took the scammers a few days to get her information from the SARS site and then set up this scam. A little scary to how insecure our information is in the SARS process.

Please be careful: if in doubt, contact us for any information about your tax returns or check directly on the eFiling site for any additional documentation or information they may require in order to complete your return.

Oh, and remember that the deadline for income tax returns for all provisional taxpayers is Wednesday this week.

By |2018-01-29T11:52:49+02:00January 29th, 2018|Business Resources, Financial Management|0 Comments

Stimulation through Simulation

Learning for life requires not only a bunch of theory exercises, but the application and implementation need to be included to complete the cycle of understanding.

When this comes to financial issues, we fail time and time again. There is always a bunch of ways to learn the theory of finances: we listen to talks, our financial advisor speaks to us and we read stuff. But we do not get time to practice through simulation. We put our real money into real investments and then often have to wait more than 5 years to see if we got it right. This invest, look and repeat process is a little too long to make mistakes and then try to rectify the situation when we are now bordering on the fearful investment period in our lives.

But what if we could stimulate our investment and money brains through simulation in a fun learning environment?

That is just what we will be offering you during our monthly Financial Games evenings. We have a number of financial games or “outcome-based fun activities” as the professional put it. These we will set up and facilitate with a group of participants each month as we have fun and learn all about money and money matters.

Join us this month on Wednesday 17th as we ‘play’ Rich Dad Poor Dad’s Cash Flow 101. This simple yet effective board game teaches us to understand and manage our finances within the rat race of monthly income and expenses and find ways to escape into financial freedom.

To book your place call 021 839 2281 or email marketing@em-solutions.co.za. R100 gets you a seat and an opportunity for a fantastic financial future.

By |2018-01-10T09:04:43+02:00January 10th, 2018|Business Resources, Entrepreneurship|0 Comments

Action Model 7 Conclusion

We have been talking about the action model for the past few weeks. We have looked at 3 different columns which are Fear, Confidence and Frustration. Let us look at what we can do to handle or address them.

 

By |2017-12-19T15:39:22+02:00January 10th, 2018|General, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Innovation Information Session

The Cape Chamber of Commerce’s Innovation Initiative Forum invites all Innovators and Inventors to our first monthly Innovation Information Session. If you have a new project or idea and need help to get it to market, then join us and other like-minded innovators and inventors as we unpack the challenges of product and business development.

  • Planned activities for 2018 will be presented
  • Feedback on issues and desired topics of future talks and workshops will be discussed

Speaker profile:
Bruce Wade, following 15 years in corporate life, has run his own business since 1998, giving him a wide range of experience in developing ideas into sustainable companies. He is an author, speaker, trainer and the inventor of The Sphere of Mankind and the Business Arrow.
Bruce is a qualified Merchant Naval Officer, Fire Fighter, Ships Medic, Radio Operator, Ski boat Skipper, Advanced Scuba Diver, Computer Programmer, Business Analyst, Project Manager, Retail Analyst, Trainer, Counsellor and Business Coach.

REGISTER NOW:
•  Register now
021 402 4300
Linda Roopen

By |2018-01-09T11:29:36+02:00January 9th, 2018|Innovation|0 Comments
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