Never walk alone

WHILE it might be good for the ego to say you established a small business on your own, the reality is that you are going to need to tap the skills around you to build something genuinely sustainable.

Building a quality small business needs a variety of skills - administrative, sales, marketing, product and strategy development and execution. Even the world's most talented entrepreneurs don't have all of these skills in a single package, so they are constantly on the lookout for people to fill their skills gaps - sometimes permanently and sometimes for specific projects or opportunities.

Last week, I had the opportunity to shadow a group of MBA students from the international business school IMD who were in South Africa as part of a skills development initiative.

The students were given the assignment of looking at high-growth small businesses in South Africa and providing them with strategies to not only increase but manage their expansion.

My group of students assisted a micro-lender to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The microlender, Mazwe Financial Services in Sunninghill, is operated by female entrepreneur Xoliswa Bebula. She said that the MBA students had provided her with valuable input.

Obviously, we don't all have a group of international MBAs to call on and I am personally somewhat cynical when it comes to paper-pushers being involved in SME start-ups. I spent quite a lot of time trying to gauge what real value these guys could offer. After all, Bebula had been very successful at getting her business off the ground without their help.

In my usual blunt style I asked them to give me some examples of what they could actually bring to the party. After all, you can theorise about a lot of things and never actually make a success in business.

They felt their fresh eyes helped boost a business by:

• Opening doors between entrepreneurs and larger corporate clients or supporters - in this case, literally picking up the phone and facilitating a meeting on the back of their MBA credentials.
• Working out the real cost of doing business, something that would be vital in operating manufacturing or financial services businesses.
• Providing insight in terms of developing marketing strategies and product expansion.

While Mazwe was fortunate to be involved with the group from IMD, there are a number of good ways for entrepreneurs to network and build their skills.

Two things that occur to me are the weekly forums operated by the Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs) at their Illovo campus, and the Standard Bank franchising breakfast series.

Here entrepreneurs get the opportunity to meet and exchange notes and experiences about what has worked and not worked in their businesses. Often new contacts are made over bacon and eggs or coffee after the presentations - these entrepreneurs have taken the time to step back and learn from other successful business people.

If you are one of those small business owners who do not seek the counsel or input from others, I leave you with some statistics from business financiers Business Partners on the reasons why businesses fail:

• Poor management of financial activities - 34%
• Lack of management competence - 16%
• Inflation and economic conditions - 12%
• Poor record keeping and bookkeeping - 12%
• Sales and marketing problems - 11%
• Staffing problems - 9%
• Union problems - 6%

Makes you think about what is really important to make a sustainable small business, doesn't it?

- Fin24.com