Growing your own business to start your business! [2006]
- Date : (2006-01-04)
- Author : SAIE
Growing your own money to start your business!
So many people think that you have to have money to make money. This stops them in their tracks as they say to themselves “I can’t start a business! I don’t have enough money!” They then turn into Iris If-onlys and moan at the world about how things would be different if only they had better financial backing or if only they had money in their family or if only they had more support from their husband or if only they had won the lotto. The long list of moans and excuses is never ending and allows the moaner to become professional at just that! Moaning! They never do anything because they have long ago convinced themselves that it would be impossible for them to do anything until something in their circumstances changes for them. They are absolutely right of course! The only thing that needs to change is their attitude and expectations of themselves!
You can do it…. Anyone can!
It is a lie to believe that you need to have lots of money to make money! All you need is a few rand and some clever thinking. You may have a dream of owning a sewing machine or running your own business. It may seem far out of reach, but if you just get started, you will soon be on your way to success. You can find many creative ways to make the money you need to start up your dream business.
Start tiny to get to small… big is just further along the road!
Don’t look down on small beginnings. If you only have R5 you can get going. The trick is to make sure that you put enough money back into the business to make it grow. If you buy for R5 you should sell for R 10 you can’t go far wrong on a simple double-up on what you charge. If you start with R 5 you do not have very many options, but after a few days you will have R 20 or R 50 and you will be able to do bigger things. Here are some ideas which we have seen people succeed with and make good money for themselves!
Make something at home
School kids are always hungry at break time and it is considered not COOL to take sandwiches from home for lunch. You could make fatcakes, popcorn, muffins, cooked fish or sausages and sell them at breaktimes. Things you make sell for higher profits than things you simply buy and re-sell.
Supply something that people need or want
Kids always want sweets or chips, or ice creams in summer – you can sell them from your home. One enterprising man we met always spent his entire wage packet, every Friday afternoon, on bags of oranges on his way home. He put them in a trolley at the station and sold them one-by-one to thirsty workers on their way home. When all his oranges were sold, he continued his journey home with a double wage packet! When we challenged a group of women to think what they could do with R 10 to grow their money, one of them thought for a while and then realised she had discovered a really desperate need. She bought a few rolls of toilet paper and then stood outside the local public toilets (where there was never any toilet paper!) and charged people 20 cents for a few sheets! She soon doubled her money!
Use your skills
Ask yourself what you can do well that others may be prepared to pay for. Can you cook well, or bake lovely cakes that everybody raves about? Are you good with a sewing machine and able to make or alter clothes or run up curtains? Can you type letters or help others with their admin? Do you love creative gardening or arranging flowers? Any of these skills can be turned into a way of earning money.
Get your money to work for you!
Many people think that growing money in the bank will work for them in the long term. Yes, they are right, but they may have to wait a long time. If you put R 100 in the bank in January and you get 10% interest, you should have R 110 in the bank by December (if you do not get charged any bank charges!). On the other hand you could put R 50 in the bank (and get R 55) at the end of the year, and take the other R50 and invest it in yourself and a business selling cooked fish once a week. If you sell your fish for double what you paid for it, you will have R 100 at the end of the first week. If you never buy more than R 50 worth of fish and always save the extra R 50 that you get in each week, by the end of the year you will have R50 x 52 weeks or R 2600 in your bank account. Oh! Don’t forget the R 55 from the money you put into the bank at the beginning of the year! It is easy to see that in a small business, money can work for you and grow very much quicker than if it just sits in a bank.
Success is a great trainer
There is a wonderful feeling you get when you succeed in growing your money. It is wonderful to see R5 grow to R 10 or R 20 and then R 20 grow to R 50 or R 100. If you have personally made R 20 grow into R 100, then you have learned the beauty of running your own business. If you can turn R 20 into R100, then you can use exactly the same principles to turn R 200 into R 10 000.
Now no-one has any excuse to be an If-only anymore!
