He explains that SMEs should stop looking for funding and start looking for clients.
On 16 October, SME Movement co-founder York Zucchi will be speaking at Finance Indaba.
His session, titled “Coffee with Mr Murphy” will be in Ballroom 3 of the Sandton Convention Centre at 1pm.
About his session, York said:
“It is an interactive talk, based on our work supporting SMEs in over 83 countries, about what works and what doesn’t to reduce the chances of failure, as well as finding clients.”
He explains that most businesses struggle with getting market traction, yet research shows that finding clients is much easier than it often seems, requiring only a few free practical tweaks to their current lead generation activities.
“The audience will leave the talk with practical steps they can take immediately to drive up their and their clients’ sales efforts,” he says.
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York’s view is that, without clients, a business is just a hobby. “Too many businesses spend far too much effort on product and service development and processes and not enough on finding clients,” he explains. “I have personally met hundreds of phenomenal innovators and entrepreneurs working on solutions that are truly needed, but who struggle with gaining commercial traction.”
He says that entrepreneurship is the lubricant of the economy ? a major driver of improvements in how business serves society ? and the biggest single group that can fix the economy (for example, 67 percent of all people employed in South Africa work for SMEs).
York also believes that the trick to starting a business isn’t money or a great idea. “The trick is to have an action plan that is composed of thousands of tiny doable steps,” he says. “You won’t believe how far you go by taking small steps.”
He says that the future of employment isn’t in big comapnies.
“It is about you becoming a small and medium enterprise that solves specific business needs which other companies will pay you for. Job security is long gone. Time to take your destiny by the horns and stop hoping for the old days.”
He explains that the future of work isn’t in finding a job. “It is in finding business opportunities for which you can charge for your expertise,” he says, adding that “people will become resources in the just-in-time economy which means lifelong learning is fundamental versus once-off education. Stop looking for funding and start looking for clients. They are your best investors.”
