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!

At OptiGrowth, we apply the philosophy of building a sellable business as a means of growing and eventually getting Freedom from your business. In this way we help Business Owners take a step back and view their business as a investor, looking for a return on their investment in the business.

It’s a sometimes harsh, but objective way to plan and implement the structures and changes required to achieve the goal you, as the business owner or shareholders, had at the inception of your business.

So why is the language of a business your financials?

Your financials speak to what’s happening in the business. It drive strategic thinking and sets target for where you, as the business owner, wants the business to go. By evaluating financials, you can ask yourself tough question like how big is the market I am part of and what share of that market am I targeting to take hold of. Building on that, the business then starts planning its spend, return on spend and pricing models to suit the market, as an example of follow-through questions.

Have a look at the pitch below from the UK’s Dragon’s Den. See how seasoned investors quickly withdraw from a potential investment due to the business owner not being able to justify her business model, due to not having a good understanding of her company’s financials.

In this clip the business owner does get an offer, for a far greater amount of equity than she initially proposed, due to the high amount of risk the investor would have to take-on. Thus resulting in a far lower valuation and greater need for return from the investor.

The basics are this:

• Your profit and loss statement, indicates whether or not the business model works. That is, can the business generate enough revenue to result in a business making money after all expenses are incurred.
• The balance sheet speaks to the business’ current state of what it owns and owes, as well as contributions from its shareholder – either through capital investment or retained income
• The business’ CashFlow statement indicates the relevant cash flows either into or outwards for the business.

When determining the value of the business, an investor will use these three reports to justify the business idea and assess if the investment is worth the risk and, hopefully, the return of the investment made.

So, why don’t more business owners take the time to evaluate these reports? They are critical to the success of any business and justify any strategic plans, or future investments they may be considered.

The answer tends to be simple – its intimidating and sometimes scary. We all have have an Accountant that’s required to do compilation, review and, depending on the size of the business, an audit each year. However, small to medium sized business don’t ask questions about their results and often only evaluate these results months after they’ve happened, if they understand how to intrepid the results.

So where do you start?

Ask questions. Speak to your accountant or bookkeeper to understand why certain transactions are in certain reports. Question reasons for why some transaction are move between various accounts and why your profit doesn’t match what’s in your bank account.

Draw on the knowledge of people who know. Speak to your trusted OptiGrowth mentor or Business Advisor to sit with you and drive a financial review process. This should allow to, no matter the question, get a deeper understanding of what the effects of your business decisions have your financials as well build strategies to improve your business operation as a whole.

Reach out to us and let us show you how we can not only build your business but make it Dragons Den ready.

From taking a leap and a risk to start your business, all the way through to facing the difficulties of cashflow and ensuring your business can operate, there’s a misperception that you’ve achieved/made it and those around you set certain expectations.

Based on the experience of our 3 Partners and drawing from over a combined 80 years of entrepreneurial experiences, we’ve put together a list of lessons we wish we knew or had someone to share their experiences with. Many of these come with hard learning curves, some from trial and error, but most with great success stories. We learned, maybe forgotten, and then re-learned some of these again, more often than we all would like to admit.

Lesson 1: Loyalty has a dark side

Loyalty can be both good and bad! As Business Owners, we inherently will be loyal to those who share our purpose and those who commit to build our business with us. We bring them into our close circle and reward them for the successes achieved. But what happens when that loyalty isn’t measured, or your business starts to outgrow the shared vision once had between you and those who have committed to its earliest needs?

It’s a challenged faced by any growing and scaling business owner. Often, the emotional decision overrides the logical and business need. We elevate those who were loyal to positions of authority and give increases as a reward for their previous commitments, rather than for their ability to perform.

This brings about entitlement and a perceived / genuine sense of authority, often resulting in frustration, lack of performance and, in the worst case, a manipulation of the Business Owner’s vision. Turning passion and purpose into resentment.

How do you keep the beauty of loyalty and limit the negative?

There’s a phrase that every business owner should recall when hiring, promoting, and rewarding staff, directors, and potentially even fellow shareholders:
“Build the people around your business, not your business around your people.”

This doesn’t mean you don’t reward excellence. Not at all. On the contrary, reward excellence and not just loyalty.

The way to achieve this is the following:

• Design your company organogram and define the departments and positions required to deliver to your key business functions – forget momentarily about the people currently fulfilling roles.

• Design job descriptions for those roles, considering the competencies, job requirements, performance metrics and person specifications.

• Re-evaluate employees currently fulfilling these roles

• Engage with employees and if required, define gaps where they don’t fit defined positions.

This is not an easy process, and it may require having difficult conversations with long standing employees, directors, and shareholders, about where they are currently falling short and their potential ceilings are. It does however draw a clear line between performance and loyalty.

Remember, the business must perform first and foremost. Thereafter, the stakeholders can reap the rewards

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.”