by Claudia Folgore-McLellan 

It quite aptly feels like January and February are one long, drawn out month and I’m sure most of us are suffering latent fatigue from having had to push that much harder in the past year. As solopreneurs and freelancers, the demands on us are just that much greater, it’s literally a permanent no work, no pay situation. The ‘holidays’ also often feel like an extension of the year that casually morphs into a new one with the only change being the date. With Covid fatigue we’ve all felt the exhaustion from being hyper virus vigilant. The easy option is to simply give up (even just a bit to have a rest) – the better option, though, is to KEEP PUSHING!

Running a business in South Africa, during a global pandemic, battling with intermittent load shedding and failing wi-fi connections, during a double recession, is NOT for the feint hearted. Alas, we do it, we battle all odds to get the work done. If anything, our resilience is a force to be reckoned with. 

Take a deep breath…

Plan a few days of reprieve and start next week with a solid plan of action. A plan that you haven’t tried yet or at least made an effort to jot down and follow. There is magic in trying new things, experimenting with what you know you’re capable of.

How inspiring is this thought?

“You are never too young to build an empire and never too old to start a new dream.” Keep that in the back of your mind while you recharge and allow it to motivate you to find your bearing.

Being a freelancer takes tenacity, considerable grit, and self-belief that very often needs to be inflated so as to not suffer the creeping lurgies of imposter syndrome and all those other complex insecurities. I recently read a tweet from York Zucchi that seemed perfectly accurate, he said, “Entrepreneurs are neither born nor made. Entrepreneurs are panel beaten.” – how true is that? I’m sure we all feel a bit battered and bruised after 2020, 2021 and making it to 2022. It’s now February 2022 and I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about the economy opening up and things normalising somewhat. I’ve already had two in-person meetings which is more than I’ve had in the past two years. Zoom is still a time-saving, safe commodity but I’ll be honest and admit I’ve missed visiting busy offices and enjoying coffee with a potential client over a casual introductory meeting – I’ve noticed I’ve become quite chatty and perhaps I’m making full use of my daily word quota.

It’s no time to give up, trust me. Put your ‘A’ into ‘G’ and start March 2022 with a clear mind and a healthy dose of positivity about your future.

Here’s a list I’ve compiled as a guide for you to use as a starting point:

1. Get over the ‘I can’t’ attitude, it takes up too much space in the mind and apply yourself to making a list of what you CAN do and WANT to do.

2. What’s your best offering? Build on it, price it right, and then package it.

3. Be consistent with how you describe your offering across all marketing channels ie: LinkedIn Profile, Website, Twitter Bio etc.

4. Define your Goals: An example of a goal is ‘to increase your client base’
   (four goals is a good starting point and not too overwhelming)

5. Work on your Objectives to reach those goals: detail ‘how’ you’re going to go about achieving them.

6. Start advertising yourself where you know your ideal customer will learn about you and start conversations.

I’ve included a valuable link to a FREE online course compliments of my associate York Zucchi (Founder of The StartUp Tribe) has put together to help get you on track https://www.thestartuptribe.org/courses/how-to-find-clients

If you are a solopreneur, entrepreneur or owner of a retail or corporate business and would like to know more about how you can leverage your brands’ potential, get in touch with me. Email me at hello@visual8.co.za and visit my website at www.visual8.co.za to know more.

What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?

The flexibility, the ability to live my purpose and passion, to inspire and influence a wide audience. I can say I love what I do every day (except the admin that I outsource to my virtual assistant).

What’s the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?

What we do every day defines us. I had to learn to be critical on what I spent my time on and ensure it is a priority and a good investment. I learned that it is about boundary management rather than time management, and you cannot be everything to everyone. It is really Okay to say No.

I have the first-hand experience that “perfect” can be a big blind spot. When I started out, I wanted everything to be in place: the website, my marketing collateral, my automated e-mail response, my full client database, etc. I needed to remind myself that the only way to grow is to get outside of my comfort zone and learn as I go on. It was (and still is) quite an enlightening and empowering experience. When you are focused on learning, it is amazing what you can achieve.

Be intentional about personal growth – you will be stretched outside your comfort zone so embrace it and learn something new every day. I make it my priority to spend time with people who inspire me to stretch myself.

More importantly, don’t take yourself too seriously. Have fun and be real – about yourself and your business outcomes. People don’t buy goods and services, they buy connections, stories and magic.

Find out more Anja van Beek Consulting & Coaching

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | EMAIL  hello@anjavanbeek.co.za

Sad, but true. As we always say, once we know the rules of the game (even if we don’t agree with them), we can play (do we have a choice?!). Obviously this generalizes terribly and we have a number of excellent forward thinking PE Investors we turn to, so fear ye not, all is not lost. Still, its always better to know how the cards are stacked!

So last week we looked at your raw material supply and your production of Green Widgets, but what about the other end as your production rolls out to your customers? Having decided that a massive automation program is necessary and that you will move your production from 1,000 Green Widgets to 70,000 – do you really have customers waiting to handle such a massive explosive rise in your production? If you have decided that 70X your current production is necessary (note necessary  – always possible – but necessary?), then you clearly believe this, but there must be reasons behind that belief. The Investors will be on these numbers like a rash to check both your conviction and also the data you use to back this up.

Are your current customers able to confirm their needs, how they will increase their orders if you increase your production, will they increase at the same time and same rate as your production or will your warehouse start busting at the seams as you wait for your current customers to catch up or you find new and extra customers? 

Cash Flow Concern – will your current customers insist on credit terms such as 90 days to pay, if they increase their purchasing? Yikes – bet that was not in your plans!

Looking for new customers to take your increased production? How do you acquire new customers and how much does each new customer cost to bring on board. What is your retention rate? No point bringing 100 new customers in through the door each year, if over 80 are leaving through the back…

If driven by social media – how does one engaged user cause another to be more engaged? Post on instagram, one ‘like’ – sorry, but ‘big deal!’, but what about a share or comment – does this then start a conversation and encourage others (potential customers) to join and try out your products?

Ultimately we want our customers to be engaged, then stay and encourage others. This is what an investor will also look for. Even in ‘old’ industries – a long term client is great, but if they recommend you to others and they become a customer, how cool is that. You have just cut dramatically your ‘customer acquisition cost’ to zero. No advertising, no Google or Facebook ad costs, no lengthly expensive meetings, no trips to trade fairs with expensive hotels.

Ever wondered what a Bank is doing asking you to recommend them to friends of yours and ‘awarding’ you with $10 if the friend becomes a customer? The Bank has simply calculated that it costs significantly more (around $40 for most international banks if our reading is correct) to acquire each new customer (their ‘Cost to Acquire new Customers’ or ‘CAC’), so why not pay current customers less to give the same result? Paying you $10, they have just cut their acquisition cost by $30 AND have got a customer who is likely to be more ‘sticky’ because one of their friends recommended. 

CAC is typically calculated as follows:

CAC = Total Marketing + Sales Expenses / # of New Customers Acquired

Please do not forget that Sales Expenses include salaries (when you include salaries this is called ‘fully loaded CAC’), overheads (rent, equipment allocated etc) and any tools they may use, such as ‘Salesforce’, tent and sleeping bag for those hard to reach Trade Fairs (ok – just threw that in to check if you are still with us!) and so on. 

It is also good to show you are aware that this is not a perfect equation. We talk about time value of entrepreneurs’ money as it rushes from production to stock to warehouse to customer to invoice to bank account, and back to production… and especially how you need to make your cash work (keep it fit by exercising it) – not have it stuffed in a product gathering dust in the warehouse, or sitting on your debtors list. The same is true of CAC, if you move your customers quickly from first touch point into a paying customer, celebrate that and therefore mention it. If it takes months to move them from a customer who is trying out your free product before they move onto your fee charging part (as we see in so many tech companies) or your cheaper start-up Green Widget  that attracts and brings customers in, before moving them onto the far more profitable product you produce, then this should increase CAC.

‘Stickiness’ – how long a customer stays, the retention rate, is also important, if not essential. It’s far more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain a current one—anywhere from 7 – 20 times more expensive! That means your your current customers are more valuable than you think and wake up those old sleepers – at least they know you already and you don’t have to take time explaining!

If you can’t hold onto current customers, marketing and sales become like pushing a bolder up a hill. An Investor is going to want you to be growing customers at a decent rate, not standing still and certainly not losing, so you must expect questions on this.

Ten – Fifteen years ago, Mobile Phone companies had customers that would jump with no hesitation to a competitor with a better deal. They would look at envy at the ‘stickiness’ of banks’ customers that would stay for years even with terrible service – so what was the solution? They moved into mobile banking (we kid you not – this was their central driver). Now they have the best of all worlds, they are nimble, able to move, react and surprise, whilst attacking banks and stealing their customers, with a product that automatically creates ‘stickiness’! 

What if you receive Purchase Orders (‘POs’) from larger customers? Great to get such large orders from which you can plan your year, but what if they don’t want you to deliver immediately, what if they ‘draw down’ subject to their own requirements through the year. This is no doubt how many Lionesses will work with their own suppliers. Brilliant at the back end of your business where you are taking in raw materials to feed your production. You can order 100 tonnes of raw material knowing that if you use 10 tonnes a month you have 10 months of stock available whilst gaining from cheaper pricing from ordering in size, plus your supplier now can only invoice when they deliver to you, so their not your money is in product gathering dust in the warehouse. The same is at the front end of your business. A large customer may order a huge quantity, but only require a small amount per month. Of course this means that you can plan your production around this, but what if you have no planning from your customer and you know that some months they take 10 tonnes, other months significantly more. Your cash is sitting in the warehouse gathering dust whilst waiting to be delivered and invoiced. Not a good position to be in. That is why the breakdown of your customers will also be of interest to investors. Large is great, but what of the speed of production vs speed of invoicing vs warehouse dust collecting!

So ‘Large is Great’ is not necessarily correct. That is again true when reviewing your entire customer base. Investors will be particularly concerned if your 3 largest customers are over 50% of your customer revenue base – even worse if you have one customer over 50%. Lose them or even one of the three and suddenly your revenue stream is meaningless. Cocoa production and have say Nestle as your only customer? Looks great – but you had better be close to their purchasing manager (and not forget their Birthday!) – that would certainly be a bleak end of year if you lost their business.

Once again, this is not an exhaustive list of questions and concerns to expect from investors, but they are often the ones overlooked by all entrepreneurs.

If these start to give you an idea of how to think like an investor and especially one that will naturally and sadly err towards prevention questions rather than promotion ones, as you view your beautiful business, your baby, then it is a start. 

As we said last week, Investors are not there to catch you out (although we would hope for a better balance between promotion and prevention questions of course), but they are certainly there to ensure you have considered all angles, that their risk is mitigated as much as possible and that at the end of the day they are getting into bed with the right partner.

Stay safe.

Outside of habeshaview, Tigist’s passion is supporting charities worldwide. She is an advisor for Citizens Advice Bureau in Berkshire, UK, a trustee for Home-Start West Berkshire and a volunteer with a Cancer Charity in Berkshire. Tigist has raised significant funds for charities, orphanages and schools in Ethiopia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines and continues to do so.

LoA learned more about Tigist Kebede’s business building journey and her aspirations for her media empire in the future.

What does your company do? 

IPTV, Distribution, and Co-production. habeshaview has developed advanced technology and a user-friendly platform and apps to provide a premium viewing experience that includes live news channels, entertainment channels, audio channels, with a catch-up service and View on Demand (VOD). Also, original content sourced from a wide variety of studios worldwide with Amharic, English, French and Arabic subtitles at an accessible and affordable price. Besides being a streaming service, habeshaview is also the first international film distributor currently for Ethiopian-made content, taking selected films to international festivals and for theatrical release in Europe and North America to promote good quality and original Ethiopian films worldwide. habeshaview has co-produced and is building on this experience and is in the process of commissioning further original content in collaboration with talented filmmakers from Ethiopia, and in time to collaborate with the wider content creators in the rest of the continent. habeshaview is headquartered in United States of America, with offices in London and Addis Ababa, and with a technology development office in The Netherlands.

What inspired you to start your company?

A lack of dedicated service for original Ethiopian films. The lack of knowledge, respect and understanding of the Art and Culture that exists within Ethiopia by the major streamers. Being able to tell our own stories through films and documentaries without having to conform to “what is acceptable”. Having a choice and giving subscribers a choice to watch homegrown content at their leisure.

Why should anyone use your service or product?

We have developed a ‘first of its kind’ dedicated platform with advance technology and user friendly service for Ethiopian content to be readily available at affordable price.

Tell us a little about your team

We have a dedicated team from six nationalities spread round the globe. As a tech company this has been more obvious to us over the past 18 months and each staff member has to be able to multi-task and lend a hand in and when required. In short: Brilliant engineers, friendly customer service team, creative social media, scary head of finance, wonderfully organised administrator and logistic manager, robust PR and communication, with outsourced marketing and advertising team.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

My mother is an entrepreneur and still going strong in her late 80’s. I arrived to this stage having being a teacher, volunteering in the charity sector, and taking time off to bring up a family.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

To provide a dedicated space for African film makers to showcase their content, whilst at the same time generating a fair revenue for them so that they can keep telling wonderful stories which are plentiful.

What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?

The satisfaction seen when a hardworking film maker has his / her film accepted to be shown for a theatrical release in London and attending the opening night with them. To think our company has made this possible.

What’s the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?

Collaborate and support each other even if you are competing in the same market – the market is bigger than you think!

Find out more

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | EMAIL tigist@habeshaview.com

A brief discussion about Ethiopian Film Week London 2021 (Sept. 10-14) with Audrey Thomas from BBC Africa Desk and Tigist Kebede, Operations Director at habeshaview  – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMsfNSoI9Nc

The BBC Focus on Africa program interviewed habeshaview’s Operational Director and co-founder Tigist Kebede.  – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT9Dc6k8rog

VOA Interview in Amharic here