The following is an excerpt from the Testimonial received from ErgonomicsDirect (Pty) Ltd: “… The dedication and commitment demonstrated by OptiGrowth consultants have consistently exceeded our expectations. Their approachable yet informative manner has steered our company towards greater autonomy and efficiency. Their professionalism, efficiency, and transparent communication have been instrumental in our journey towards becoming a more streamlined and scalable enterprise…”

See the details of the full Testimonial here: ErgonomicsDirect Acknowledgement of OptiGrowth

Ergonomicsdirect offers a comprehensive range of specialist ergonomic equipment for office and home working environments and is constantly seeking creative ways to change the way that people look at office ergonomics. It sources its ergonomic products from several recognised and leading global suppliers. When it comes to their products, they:

1. Strive to offer an extensive range of products and brands to offer solutions that fit both your workspace requirements as well as your budget.
2. Only stock products that have passed critical analysis by their experts and met their strict product quality standards.
3. Also, offer Ergonomic Office Workstation Assessments as well as talk and information sessions on Ergonomics.

Discover more about this great company here:  https://ergonomicsdirect.co.za

You can read the Testimonial HERE 

For more on Gary & his offers to the market-palce you can visit the Company HERE

Receiving recognition such as this from Jayson is heartfelt and a testament to the opportunities that he has afforded OptiGrowth in scaling and growing his business over the last 12 months. You can read the Testimonial HERE 

For more on Chin & Partners Inc., you can visit the Company HERE

At OptiGrowth we are in awe of our customers when they have a purpose in what they do and why. It shines through their everyday work and how they seamlessly can empower those around them.

Receiving recognition such as this from Jackie Hahn and her Team is heartfelt and a testament to the opportunities she has afforded OptiGrowth in scaling and growing her business over the last 12 months. You can read the Testimonial HERE 

For more on Pencand Fine Jewellery and how Jackie manages to express herself without a word. you can visit the Company HERE

The technological trend, Internet of Things (IoT), is finally making a move on the industrial sector, promising a fourth industrial revolution with the collective force behind many products and services that are fast becoming indispensable to modern life.

But what does the creation of next-level intelligence mean for us today and in the near future ?

The number of connected devices is growing, and businesses are collecting more data. Artificial intelligence (AI) integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT) gives organisations a leg-up by resolving their data issues. By providing data value solutions, AIoT helps organisations become more competitive, nimble, and productive. AIoT is now being used by enterprises to improve their operations and competitive advantages.

Simply put, artificial intelligence refers to the ability of machines to learn and make decisions based on data and analytics. . . and you probably interact with artificial intelligence (AI) on a daily basis and don’t even realise it !

The latest hype around ChatGPT, Microsoft’s massive investment of $10Billion to this product from Open AI, but also the recent effort by Google to fight back, are signs that we have now entered an era that will transform our modern lives.

At OptiGrowth we keep an eye on the fast moving, big guns of business and their strategies (and solutions) to outplay each other and to be the next best thing. With some success, we have used ChatGPT, Bard + some other ChahBots and Bing vs Google, in our customer and industry engagements.

The road forward is surely exciting, but will require from business owners & executive decision-makers to get out of their comfort zones – if they want to remain competitive in the future market-place.

Where are you positioned and to what extent will you absorb what works for you in this fast-growing revolution ?

Reach and connect with our team at OptiGrowth and see how we can take on your business ambitions with you and see you to success!

The first way to consider is that you can’t service or sell your product to everyone. It’s just not good business and takes away focus from creating a service/product focused on market that truly values your business.

Consider this, never undercharge for what you do. Not only is it not financially sustainable, but also drives down the value (in this sense is defined as value perceived by your market) of what you are delivering.

When it comes to running a feasible business, your asking price is one of the drivers driving your profitability. To be profitable you need to consider both the costs of making the sale and the costs delivering your offering. Be that rent, license fees, salaries, and marketing as examples. Many business owners try and under charge with the intention of generating more sales by appealing to a broader market. What this tends to do in drive down the perception of value/ quality and instead push away the market you’re targeting. By trying to please a broader market you risk not focusing on you target market and therefore not reaching them.

The second way of this hard learnt lesson is to consider the people you employ. Many business owners fall into the trapped of hiring friends, family, or people in need to help them at a particular moment in their lives. While commendable, this could be detrimental to your business – read more about our hard learnt lesson on loyalty – especially when clear roles and KPIs are not defined to drive performance and delivery of expected functions within your business. This again could lead to your business becoming unsustainable and not shifting your or your teams focus on growth and progress to correctly and guiding employees unfit for a particular position.

Consider this, if you don’t trust your people at some point, your business is going to struggle. As important as it is to be as involved in the beginning of launching a small business and building your processes and value propositions, once things are up and running it’ll be important to take a step back, especially when it comes to the more menial stuff. If the people appointed to delivery on these are performing and therefore can’t be trusted, you’ll be needed to jump back in and take control of this. The result, you’ll get stuck fixing rather than building and growing.

As a final thought, many lessons are best learnt through experience and sometime multiple occurrences. That doesn’t always have to be case. From our experience, we found many business owners don’t ask for help and rather muscle and power through obstacles. This can result in years of minimal growth, frustration and ultimately the feeling of being stuck in your business.

Why not let an objective Business Confidant help you avoid or find your way through the complexities business will certainly bring about? Why not give yourself the best chance of scaling and finding Freedom in your business?

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can do this on your own.

Reach and connect with our team at OptiGrowth and see how we can take on your business ambitions with you and see you too success

NOTE: This article is referenced on a blog that was released by John Warrilow (The Value Builder System) on 15 June 2021.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a courtesy call as: “… a visit, or phone call that a company makes to customers, for example, to thank them for their business or ask if they are satisfied with the company’s service: Use courtesy calls to encourage feedback and strengthen customer relations.”

To be more accurate – and in our experience – the Unscheduled, Unexpected and Unplanned (3 U’s) courtesy call is one of the most powerful ways to build customer relations in the modern era of business protocol, corporate governance, socio-economic and legislated environments.

We cannot remember ever making a courtesy call to an existing customer (for no particular reason) and not feeling a sense of worth and value thereafter! Here are our golden rules that we live-by in making a courtesy call:

• We will never make an “in-person” courtesy call at a customer’s place of work. For us, that is what scheduled meetings are for and as such remains the standard in ou business engagement, whether it’s for formal, or business-social meetings.
• Instead, we prefer to make a point of irregular, unscheduled telephonic calls to our customers (and other business stakeholders), placing emphasis on the fact that we are calling for no particular reason. And fundamentally meaning it.
• In our opinion, we don’t see a follow-up call to check customer satisfaction, as a courtesy call. Every professional service provider, or supplier should check on satisfaction as standard practice. In fact, the customer will not be surprised to receive such a follow-up, after-service call. It’s the expected thing to do.
• What is not expected by the customer however, is the mindfulness of a service provider to call and check-in unexpectedly, with no agenda, no expectation and purely as a professional courtesy.

Our 3 U’s to a courtesy call:

• Unscheduled: irregularity of your courtesy calls over the lifespan of the customer relations is the key consideration here – no schedule to it, but it is a pointer engraved in your business ethos.
• Unexpected: the customer must be surprised to hear from you – in our experience “pleasantly surprised” will be the norm, once your customer gets to know that you are genuinely interested in the first instance.
• Unplanned: This ties-in with the unscheduled part of the call and underlines the “for no particular reason” statement.

Jon Kabat-Zinn defined Mindfulness as: “ the awareness which arises when we pay attention, on purpose, without judgement, to the experience of the present moment, in the service of insight, wisdom and compassion.”

See the details of the Testimonial here:  2020-05 Pinocchio Creche – Testimonial

In turn, we are proud to be associated with Helen & Maggie and their business brands. In 1974 the Domestic Workers’ Association in South Africa was founded by Maggie Shongwe. It was a labour organisation fighting for the rights of low-income earners, including domestic workers, casual labourers and gardeners. In 2001 the organisation was re-launched under the Domestic Workers’ Association Educational Trust.

In 1984, Pinocchio Crèche, a project branch of the Domestic Workers’ Association was launched.

Maggie’s daughter, Helen, an Executive Director at Pinocchio Crèche, was also one of the first children enrolled at the crèche. It’s essentially where she grew up.

In 2010, Pinocchio Creche launched a Cape Town International Service Learning partnership with Howard University School of Social Work in Washington DC. Over 300 members of faculty, Masters and Doctorial students have passed through their doors to learn and experience social work within the early childhood sector.

for more on the DWA Trust and Pinocchio Creche: https://lnkd.in/eipHSE4