“Gertina Watermeyer is the Director of Young Nails Cape North. She started her small one-man business whilst studying health and skincare for 3 years from 2010 to 2012 at Camelot International.

 In 2011 Gertina attended an additional Nail Course as it was not covered as part of her studies not knowing that this will be the main direction of her business. In 2013 she converted to the brand Young Nails and since then never looked back. Her passion grew for the art and technique behind nails and later felt the urge to help ladies who have the potential to build their empire by perfecting their skills and building their businesses.

In 2015 Gertina became the mentor and distributor for Young Nails in Cape Town.

 Gertina has this big vision of expanding her business into more branches, creating jobs and helping the woman to build their careers and become independent. Therefore she registered her company in 2017 and together with the help of Bruce at EMS, this will be achieved. Keep your eyes open and be on the lookout for the Young Nails name becoming more and more familiar on everyone’s lips.

 Gertina is married to Riaan Watermeyer. She is a former Cape Junior Ballet and Cape Town City Ballet ballerina with a passion for reading and just spending quality time with her family. “

Any business owner who has children will know the challenges that arise. To be honest, working from my home office, even though it is separate it still presents huge issues when the kids are home and want to play with Dad. As a parent business owner you are faced with two decisions: Do you want your kids to inherit your business? Do you want your kids to learn about business from you? Each ‘Yes’ answer will require a huge amount of time investment in exposing them to the various aspects of the business. Often family-owned businesses are never passed down successfully because the children have seen their parents struggle and moan all their lives and they are expected the arrive at work with a smile on their face and do the same thing. Secondly, if you allow your children to participate in your business, are they going to learn good practices or will they see how badly you run things and how your cheat your customers and never pay suppliers. What message are you sending out to your family? Take a moment to consider how your kids see you in the parent business owner hat. Ouch!

When I wear my husband hat and then work in my business, I have a huge responsibility to my wife. Having the Spouse hat requires us to communicate openly to our other halves as if they actually are our other half. We like to go out on dates and just chat about the business and all the challenges and opportunities. I cannot expect my wife to understand all the technical stuff I talk about but she does appreciate the communication and openness. I always tell her about any new client we get and she pops her head in at workshops to say ‘Hi’. My role is to not only talk but to listen as well. So often when I am facing a huge decision about a new venture or partner programme, I will bounce it off my wife to get her opinion on not only the idea but the person. Women have this 6^th sense thing that will often detect issues that I am blind to and if undetected could lead to disaster further down the line. I have also agreed to open up completely to my wife about any dealings with other women I have. Often as a coach, our conversations could get personal and lead to that place where information is shared and doors could be opened that lead to dark places. I have a rule on this, always meet in public places and always tell my wife about any female clients, and keep that channel open at all stages. Men are weak and need the support of our Spouses. We can only get that if we share and talk to them.

Oh, to be single and have no responsibilities or time barriers. Just think about how much work we could get done without the nagging of family commitments. Sound familiar? Well, let me share with you a secret. If you are single and have not yet started a family, you yearn for the day, and those, like myself, with a house full of noise, yearn for the old days. Not always but there are times that a quiet home with no noise or agenda sounds appealing.

But as a business owner with a family, you need to wear this hat with pride and take on the responsibility that it comes with. We need to be aware to watch the clock and be home on time to spend quality time with loved ones. I am often the envy of wives at school functions when I am the only Dad on the outing to the forest, beach or museum. My son loves having a present parent at functions. I do see more and more parents in casual clothes at pick up time, not sure if this more unemployment or well organised business owners, but the children love to see Dads and Moms at school. And do not forget the extended family. My mother loves to hear about my business as does my Sister who vows one day to out earn me on a month to month basis. To share with people what you are going through both good and bad without the threat of ‘being fixed’ or taken advantage of is a rare and precious thing. Wear the Family hat with pride and walk tall in the community but never forget to also find the time to get the work done.

First, let me explain what the difference is between an Executive Director and a Non-Executive Director is and what their hat looks like. Any board of an organisation is made up of paid staff and outside consultants. The Executive Director heads the organisation; they have day-to-day responsibility for the processes and procedures of the business and draw a salary for this.

A Non-Executive Director sits on the board and is a non-salary person but has responsibilities that include Strategy, Performance, Risk and People.

Every business needs Non-Executive Directors, or as we call them, consultants of Business Coaches. They are people who sit in on meetings and are able to speak into the life of the business with their experience and non-emotional, unbiased opinions. It is critical to have such a hat in your business. We get too close to the trees to see the wood and often fail to move beyond our current blinked vision. Allocate someone who has experience in your field and who have gone places you wish to go to and appoint them to your board as a Non-Executive Director. Give them the hat and allow them to use it as they see fit. We find that to network with such people or to join a think tank or community is hugely beneficial to any business. It does take a humble Manager and Share Holder to stop and listen to what is being said, but the entrepreneur will gladly seize these ideas and run with them.

We continue discussing the issue of the VAT and its implications for your business. Today we look at how you can make your business VAT efficient, especially with this VAT increase already in effect.

If you are a VAT registered company, it will be VAT efficient to ensure that as much as possible your suppliers are VAT registered. I have come across many VAT registered businesses who have no VAT registered suppliers at all except their bank of course. This meant that whatever they charged to their clients on the tax invoices as VAT Output was what they were meant to pay to SARS. Therefore they never set –off some of this Output VAT with Input VAT; thereby reducing their VAT payable.

The disadvantage is that if in any VAT period, you purchase a lot of inputs for a project that will only be invoiced in later periods upon completion; you will end up paying the maximum VAT on the little invoices that you have raised for your clients. If on the other hand, the suppliers had been VAT registered, this may have resulted in little VAT payable or even a VAT refund from SARS. This defeats the benefit of the VAT. As per its definition, VAT is meant to be a tax paid on the value added to the output goods from input goods. In plain words, your Output/Sales less Input/expenses (VAT) is =Value Added x15% is the VAT payable.

Purchasing from non-registered suppliers also means that the business has to charge higher prices as their costs a relatively higher compared to having purchased from a VAT vendor. This may make the company’s products more expensive and thus less competitive, reducing demand for the products/services. This, in turn, means that the company’s output VAT is higher, not only making its products more expensive but also resulting in them paying more Output VAT to SARS. Whereas, if they had purchased supplies from VAT vendors, their prices would not have changed as a result of a VAT increase, their prices would still have been competitive and they would owe SARS less.

In these challenging times of adjusting to the VAT increase, it pays for a business to figure out ways of being VAT efficient. This will go a long way in saving than some Rands and will also reduce their VAT burden as VAT paid will be in line with business production activities.

I was once appointed to a management board of a Non-Profit Organisation and duly elected Chairman. It has become an interesting journey finding my place as Chairman of a board of an organisation that I do not work in on a daily basis. What is the role of a chairman? What do the other board members and the staff expect of me? And how do I get along with the CEO?

The Chairman’s hat is a large and often heavy one to wear. It is woven with responsibility and procedure and can often bring about long discussions and uncomfortable decision making. Any organisation from the smallest to the multinational needs someone to play the chairman role and wear the hat. Not having a chairman is like going on holiday without a map. Maybe fun and exciting for a while but soon you will be lost and have no sense of direction.

In my experience, it is always good to get the Entrepreneur and Chairman hats to chat at length to discover the possibilities or opportunities of the business before you bring in the Manager and Share Holder. This allows for expansion before fear sets in. If you do not have a Chairman in your business then take it upon yourself to wear the hat or hire a consultant or coach to wear it for you.

Think for a moment how you would act or react if you had equity in another business? What sort of input would you like to have in the way the money is spent on R&D and marketing or wasted on yet another batch of pink T-Shirts for the next convention. Now consider your own business, I assume you have equity in this? Why then do we ignore the way we often waste our resource just because we have the authority to do so. The Share Holder’s hat needs to be worn all the time to assist in the distribution of funds and budget compilation and approval. How different would you run your business if you have 30% equity invested in say me? I would require regular financial reports and discussions about where my money is going. When any person owns 100% of their business they seem to throw this hat away or hang it up on a peg of non-concern.

It is very interesting to see how this changes when a loan is required and some form of equity or surety is signed. Then all of a sudden the papers fly and new reports are produced. Take time out today and put on your Share Holder’s hat and consider what you would say to the business manager about how they are running your business. Then go look in the mirror and have a board meeting.