The Global Entrepreneurship Week

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The Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) – which attracts high profile entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson and Michael Dell – is almost here.

For people who are planning to start their own businesses, the need for plenty of tips and advice to help them succeed in realising their dreams ranks high on their hierarchy of needs.

As a result, attending entrepreneurship workshops is an excellent way to get all of that.

The GEW is upon us in South Africa and is scheduled to start next week, with the first event taking place in Cape Town on Monday, 16 November. To be part of this incredible event, EI will also be having a range of workshops focusing on social media and marketing on 17 and 18 November 2015.

Launched eight years ago, the GEW is the world’s largest entrepreneurship event.

It takes place every November all over the world and its aim is to celebrate, educate, inspire and motivate all the innovators and job creators of this world.

The GEW inspires people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.

This not-to-be-missed event is run by people who have already successfully navigated their way through the business world – which is why it continues to attract and engage high-profile entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Russell Simmons, Muhammad Yunus, Mark Cuban and others who are enthusiastic to share their personal experiences and insights.

Those who are among the privileged few attending these much sought-after events are equipped with valuable nuggets which could enable them to follow in the footsteps of these great global entrepreneurship icons in their own business ventures.

People who are planning to attend these insightful events that are taking place at various areas across the country can expect to benefit in a number of different ways – including but not limited to networking, connecting participants to potential collaborators, mentors and even investors and introducing them to new possibilities and exciting opportunities.

 

– For more information please visit: http://za.gew.co/

 

 

By |2016-11-01T10:20:18+02:00November 13th, 2015|Business Resources, Entrepreneurship|0 Comments

B.O.B Episode 5 – How intentional is your business

How intentional is your business? This might sound like a weird question, but it is a question that will challenge you and make you introspect yourself about  your business, why it is there and where it is going.

If you know the intentions of your business then you should be able to answer this question without grabbling with the answer first. If you find yourself finding it hard to answer this question, then you need to pause for a moment, think about this question, and ask yourself how intentional is your business.

We’ve been working with John Maxwell and his new programme called #IntentionalLiving that has started and spread all over the globe in the past few weeks. This programme is challenging us to think about how we live our lives intentionally on a daily basis. It challenges us to really go into introspection and ask ourselves what is it that we are doing intentionally as people, as staff, as businesses, etc?

Now, if your business is just waiting for something to happen in order for it to react, then you have a reactive business. That is a business that waits for opportunities to come for it to grow. That means it is the opposite of an intentional business. It is almost like waiting for an opportunity to hit you in the face for you to make a sale and to grow.

An intentional business is a business that does not wait for opportunities, but goes out there to look for them. . It sends out scarves to unknown territories, beyond comfortable and known territories. That involves networking, talking to people, selling your products or services to a whole lot of people out there.

By |2016-11-01T10:20:18+02:00November 9th, 2015|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Congratulations to the Rugby World Cup winners!

It is really interesting that in championships like the Rugby World Cup, so many teams arrive to participate, and all f them except one, have to go away losers. it’s not quite fair, is it? Of course for the winning team it is alright, but what about the loosing teams?

Do they ever get a chance to reconcile with their emotions, management or fans, to understand what went wrong? In instances like this it is natural for the fans to point fingers and blame. they blame the referee, the coach and sometimes the weather.It is always nice to blame other people for the failures we encounter, because it makes us feel validated in our misery or anger.

So how does that relate to business? do you ever take time to analyse both your failures and victories in business? Do you spend some time in a postmortem discussion, understanding the things that went right in your business, so you can do more of those and the things that went wrong, so you can do less of them.

By |2016-11-01T10:20:19+02:00November 2nd, 2015|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

Do your clients trust you?

Zig ZiglarIn business we all survive by selling a product, service or skill. but we need to build a relationship and trust with the people that we sell those to -our clients. Zig Ziglar said “Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” Now, I  want to focus on trust because trust is the most important factor in every relationship. If trust is lacking in any relationship, forget about everything else.

You may have product, service or competitive pricing, but if you don’t command and deserve trust , you will not enjoy long term success. It is never enough to simply invite trust, trust is earned. that is why successful companies make it their priority to build and maintain trust with their clients. Clients become loyal to a business because they have trust in it.

In a world that changes as quickly as ours, trust becomes a critical factor. Tom Peters – a business consultant calls trust “the issue of the decade”. Trust makes relationships stronger. it makes a lot of things easier. It takes a lot of years to build, but only a minute to destroy.

For each and everyone of us and for every organization, trust remains something to build up, protected, valued and cherished. without it true success is impossible.

By |2016-11-01T10:20:19+02:00October 29th, 2015|General|0 Comments

How to be awesome on video calls

Four ways to optimize your video calls:

1. Prepare yourself

Make sure your video looks good. the good thing about video is that you can control what the other person sees. Use the ABCD method.

The ABCD method means:

A – Ambiance

– Have a nice quiet place and good lighting to record. Lighting is important, so make sure the lighting is nicely bright.

B – Backdrop

– Make sure  your background is professional and neutral, e.g Bookcase, plain wall with a few nice pictures.

C – Clutter

– Remove all clutter from the desk so that you don’t get destructed or find yourself picking up something from the desk when you are nervous.

D – Dress to impress

Put on formal clothes. Do not wear striped, low cut or too tight clothes, they don’t look good on camera. Do not wear clanky  jewelry, they can be so noisy to the camera and cause a destruction.

2. Digital First Impression

It is important to look professional on camera just as you would when you meet in person. Use use professional language. since you cannot actually shake hands with your caller, give them a nice, warm smile, a nod or a wave.

3. Virtual Body Language

Your non-verbal communication is as important as your verbal communication. Be sure to look at the camera and not on the screen at all times, that gives a better eye contact.

4. End on a High

Make sure you end your call with a compliment or a call to action. Make an impressive ending.

By |2016-11-01T10:20:19+02:00October 28th, 2015|General|0 Comments

Bruce On Business: 10 questions you need to ask and answer when venturing into business.

Are you thinking of venturing into a business? Here are the 10 questions you need to ask yourself  and answer.

1. What do I want to do?

2. What do I need?

3. Where do I want to be in 3 to 5 years’ time?

4. Where do you want to be in 10 years’ time?

5.1. What would I need to have to help me get there?

5.2. What would I have to be?

6. Who would I have to meet?

7. Where am I currently?

8. What are my current financial capabilities?

9. What education and experience capabilities?

10. Where is your track record?

 

 

By |2016-11-01T10:20:19+02:00October 26th, 2015|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

How do you show up for work?

How do you show up for work? No this is not about your fashion or dress sense, but more about the emotional engagement you have when you walk in the door at work.

 

Workplace

The Gallup surveys tell us that the majority of the work force in USA is not engaged in their day to day activities at work. More to this is that a vast amount of available time and energy goes towards covering their backs and hiding their mistakes from colleagues and superiors. All this reduces the input and impact on the businesses output. How sad it must be to not want to go to your place of work where you spend up to 40% of your time.

Running a small business requires the same if not more energy to keep afloat. There is a constant battle to keep the ship upright and headed in the right direction. There is no time to be disengaged of distracted from the task at hand. A business owner and their staff need to be focused on the vision, lead by the mission and guided by the values and keep the eyes on the prize at all times.

But this is not always possible; things do go wrong. People have off days, get sick and have personal issues with each other. During these times the balls get dropped and issues fall through the cracks. It is a business that has well defined business procedures and processes that will thrive even in bad times. Simple well rehearsed drills, similar to a good sports team, will keep the ship on course.

As a manager, take time to flow chart the processes within your department and reduce, where required to paper using lists, flow charts and forms. Introduce these to the staff through training sessions and then encourage and enforce their use until they become automatic and part of the everyday life in the office.

Then sit back and manage by exception rather than fighting fires. This just makes your life a little easier and allows your staff to be more engaged with the purpose of the business not their personal agendas.

By |2016-11-01T10:20:20+02:00October 14th, 2015|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Are you afraid of failure? Well, you are not alone.

Most of us have exactly what it takes to start a business, achieve our goals or embark on any important journey in our lives, yet we find it difficult to take the first step simply because of one thing – fear of failure.

We are all afraid of failure, but does it mean we have to stop trying?

Taking action can be the most difficult step and can appear to be paralysing from time to time, but remember there is no success without failure. Everyone who is successful will tell you about the many hurdles they had to jump for them to get to where they are.

Success in life or business doesn’t happen until you take that very first step towards reaching your goal. As Don Shula once stated, “the start is what stops most people”. Well, fear of failure at the starting point contributes largely towards many people not taking off at all when they have the potential to reach for the stars.

Remember that everything you want is on the other side of failure.

It may seem like failure tends to be more public than success, hence we try to avoid it and question ourselves every time we have new ideas. But the simple truth is – no great success was ever achieved without failure.

Instead of seeing failure as a measure of your capability, rather see it as a learning curve. The renowned Mike Lipkin once unpacked the acronym FAIL as standing for ‘First Action In Learning’. So pick up your lesson and have the second attempt in being better equipped.

Go out there and use that knowledge that you have inside of you. That small business idea you have, act on it.  Most of us have exactly what we need to get to our goals, but we make excuses not to even get started.

Living a successful life is all about experimenting and trying new things. The more things you try, the closer you will get to true success.

Just to borrow from Robert F. Kennedy, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

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By |2016-11-01T10:20:20+02:00October 12th, 2015|General|0 Comments

Bruce on Business – The power of assumption

If there’s s anything that we learned from the host team England over the weekend , it’s that you have to be careful about assuming that others see the world the way you do. It’s very easy for any organization, a team or a company to get caught up in its own echo chamber of like-minded believers, forgetting that there need to check and make sure that the vision and the goal  matches the external reality, or you could be enthusiastically charging towards a similar shock as the England rugby team that has fallen by the way side.

In business, most companies are the centers of their own universes. It’s a natural enough impression; after all, the products and services they offer are on their minds 24/7. The trap is in those companies deluding themselves into thinking that they are as important to their customers as they are to themselves.

But how do we fix that?

Make sure you are continuously seeking a more thorough and objective understanding of your customers, harness the fresh perspectives of new employees, and have the humility to recognize that your customers may have needs and lives beyond your company. Admit where you maybe wrong.

Don’t wait for a catastrophe to show you when you’ve become too caught up in your own hype.

By |2016-11-01T10:20:20+02:00October 5th, 2015|Bruce on Business|0 Comments

How to live your dream as an entrepreneur and see it pay off

Do you have the energy, passion and attitude to start a business?

When developing a dream as an entrepreneur, having a proper structure and procedure is where to start. Do a thorough research about the business you want to venture into, ask questions from every different angle. Think of the various ways of doing things differently from your competitors – a lot of creativity and innovation might come pouring out of that. Have a long term plan. Just like a house needs a good foundation, starting a business does too – otherwise your business is bound to fall by the wayside and therefore fail to fulfil its mission.

But to know how not to fail in business, it is essential to know what makes start-up businesses to fail.

Some of the things that can make a business to fail are poor planning, lack of financial resources and lack of knowledge.

Every year thousands of people start businesses, but how many of those keep their businesses operational throughout the year? If you cannot endure the stress of running or starting a business then you will surely need to rethink your idea of starting one.  All businesses, no matter the size, need hard work, energy and passion.

Just to borrow from Dr William Arthur Ward: “The gates of opportunity and advancement swing on these four hinges: initiative, industry, insight and integrity.” So, go out there and grab every opportunity that will steer your passion towards fulfilling your dream in business.

By |2015-09-28T13:16:41+02:00September 28th, 2015|General|0 Comments
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