A reader posted this question: “What is the importance of entrepreneurship in the South African economy?”

Firstly, let me start with my own definition: An entrepreneur is someone who creates new wealth through the creation of new value. The simplest way to understand this is to think of someone making, say, fudge (my favourite). Fudge is more valuable than sugar and milk by itself.

The entrepreneur, let’s call her Maggie, simply combined the power of her mind and her body (“labour”) with some raw materials (“resources”) and added a dash of inspiration (and perspiration) to create something new with value.

People will buy the fudge, and through a somewhat more complex system, new money will eventually enter circulation to reflect the value that has been created by the tasty fudge.

Although this sounds very basic, it is crucial to realise that this new value never existed before! We are talking brand, spanking new value that has just been added to the economy.

It is, of course, possible to create value without baking fudge (or manufacturing any other goods). For example, Joey runs a transport company that delivers the fudge to fudge eaters around town. Fudge is more valuable when it is delivered to my office and I am willing to pay extra for the convenience.

Again, this is additional value that has been created out of thin air! Well, not quite… let’s not forget Joey’s ability to drive (power of his mind and body) plus petrol (resources)

As Maggie & Joey’s companies grow, they’ll need to employ people to help them. These people will also add value, but they are not traditionally considered entrepreneurs, because Maggie & Joey saw new opportunities to create or add value to the world. Of course, it’s possible that their employees will come up with ideas for new markets or new Fudge flavours or ways of saving costs. When they do, we say that they are “entrepreneurial”, something which all companies need from their employees.

In most economic systems, new money is created to match the new value, or wealth, that is created by entrepreneurs. (Though often there’s a bit of a mismatch, we won’t go into that now…)

So without the creation of new value, there will not be any new money!

Of course, a government can print more money than the corresponding value, as has happened in Zimbabwe. And as in Zimbabwe, what’s left of the free market will respond by considering the money worthless.

One can also get money into a country by selling raw materials and this can sustain some countries for many years. But, unless the money entering the country is invested in entrepreneurial businesses that create new wealth, the country will eventually run out its raw materials, without any remaining wealth.

So to answer the question on importance: Entrepreneurship is the single most important activity in our economy.  It is the only activity that enables enterprising South Africans to apply their mind to create new value, new wealth, new money and new jobs. Without it, we are simply sucking dry the value that was created by entrepreneurs of past.

It is therefore crucial that our leaders, governments and lawmakers ask the following question whenever making any decision: Is this decision going to inhibit or encourage entrepreneurship?

Henk is a computer scientist and Internet junkie turned social entrepreneur. He is the CEO & founder of Skyrove, which enables anyone to set up a WiFi Hotspot and earn an income by sharing their internet access. Henk is also the chairperson of the Wireless Access Providers Association (WAPA) and the M&G has named him as one of "200 Young South Africans You Must Take To Lunch" View more articles by Henk Kleynhans.

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The Short Answer:

Do Something Different. It doesn’t have to be expensive, as long as it’s memorable and leaves a favourable impression with your target customer/s. What you do will depend upon who your customers are…

The Longer Answer:

It’s important to remember that the best form of marketing – anywhere, anyhow, anytime – is word-of-mouth recommendation, officially known as Referral Marketing; and one of the best ways to get that is to stick to one of the most basic tenets behind any marketing activity, namely –

IF YOU MAKE – AND KEEP – YOUR CUSTOMERS HAPPY, THEY’LL COME BACK FOR MORE – AND BRING THEIR FRIENDS!

This is a fundamental principle of marketing that most companies – ESPECIALLY the bigger companies – forget in their rush to continually chase new customers; they ‘forget’ about their existing ones – you know, the ones who actually pay them money…?

So, if you want to ‘rise above the noise’, do it by giving your customers the best customer service you can; not only is it inexpensive (and common courtesy), it’s remarkably effective, sets you apart from the ‘crowd’, and will make your customers ‘ambassadors’ of your business, thereby maximising your chances of getting new customers…

Tim Cruise is the co-founder and co-owner of SMSWEB, a provider of school-to-parent communication solutions in South Africa. Tim is a Marketing expert and enthusiast who aims at making marketing fun. View more articles by Tim Cruise.

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Today we’re talking with Quentin Krog, South African actor, writer, editor and now web superstar with his YouTube comedy series “(Almost) Legends”. Quentin is changing the game by launching this brilliant (bloody funny) series online. We spoke to him briefly – read the interview and then do yourself a favour: make a cup of coffee and check out the videos. (Just be careful not to snort out the coffee on your keyboard.)

Quentin, thanks for chatting to us on Ideate. What’s the idea with “(Almost) Legends”?
Almost Legends is a new and popular comedy web series that was independently produced by a local proudly South African production house.

We at Ideate almost feel like we’ve got a scoop since you haven’t really gone ‘public’ yet?
Yes. It’s doing really well on YouTube and is getting a great response from the SA Web community. The production company haven’t done any formal advertising and only shared the clips on their Facebook profiles and a fan page a few weeks ago. It’s been really interesting to see how well its doing on a zero budget!

And you’ve even pulled in favours from some local acts too? 
Yes. The theme song “Know Your Bones” was enthusiastically sponsored by popular SA band aKING and adds a great “local flavour” to the series.

Yep, we’re big aKing fans here at Ideate. Nice work! So what’s the series all about?
“(Almost) Legends” tells the story of seven different South Africans and how they hope that the 2010 Soccer World Cup (and beyond) will change their lives forever. As they are followed around by a camera crew we are exposed to their interesting and strange ideas and, ultimately, their failures and character flaws. We get a comical & tongue-in-cheek glimpse into the lives of very “normal” South Africans.

Ideate readers: check it out now, the webisodes are between 10 and 15 minutes long. Here’s episode one… (the entire series can be found here)

Awesome stuff, well done Quentin. We look forward to the furthering adventures of Andre, Luke, Gary and co.

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. He runs a web marketing company called World Wide Creative and loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. View more articles by Fred.

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We have the winners of the Friday Giveaway some weeks ago where we asked our super smart Ideate readers to enter the draw for the fantastic Mobile Web Africa conference happening from the 28th Sep to the 1st October at The Hyatt Regency. Firstly, thanks to all those who entered! To recap, here is the prize list:

1. First prize (one winner) – One ticket worth R9000 to attend the entire event
2. Second Prize (one winner) – One ticket worth R6500 to attend the entire event
3. Third Prize (three winners) – Qualify for a 40% discount on any of the event packages
4. All entrants qualify for a 20% discount on any of the event packages

And the winners are (drum roll)….

1st Prize: The person who has won a ticket worth R9000 to attend the entire event is: Paul von Hoesslin from Internet Architects

2nd Prize: The person who has won a ticket worth R6500 to attend the 2 main day conference is: Gift Motsei from Rethabile Web Designs

3rd Prize: Now, the good people at Mobile Web Africa were intending to award a third prize of a 40% discount to the next three people drawn out of the hat, but now have decided that anyone who entered the competition can now claim a 20% discount on attending the conference.

To the Ideate readers who entered: to claim this discount when you register @ www.mobilewebafrica.com you need to use the discount code “IDEATE”… but I would recommend that if you are going to take advantage of that you react fairly quickly as there are only 20 to 25 seats left at the venue.

By the way if you are a Developer or Student or represent a Start-Up, ie, less than 8 employees and/or 2 years in existence, you may actually be entitled to a further subsidy – so contact Matthew directly to find out more about that

So, a big round of applaus and congratulations to Paul and Gift (please get in touch to confirm you can still make it) and we hope the 20% discount means that as many of the other entrants can also attend – it really is a fantastic event not to be missed!

Anyone else wanting to attend, please contact the organiser Matthew Dawes at All Amber:
Tel: +44 1376 521 170
Mob: +44 7944 789 788
Email: matthew[at]allamber.co.uk

…or check out the website at http://www.mobilewebafrica.com

Yolandi Janse van Rensburg writes about social media, marketing, life and, of course, cars. We say “of course” because Yolandi is nuts about anything on 4 wheels. Besides moonlighting as the Heavy Chef girl at World Wide Creative, Yolandi runs Autofemme, a blog about cars, as a business on the side. View more articles by Yolandi.

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Every business needs an accountant; it’s one of those essential service suppliers like your insurance broker or stationery supplier. You can’t really go without one. How you regard your accountant however is a completely different matter.

Fixed Cost or Asset

If you expect your accountant to just “do the books” then most often you hand in your ledgers (shoe box filled with receipts even?) once a year and he/she’ll turn it into a readable profit and loss statement, balance sheet and tells you how much (corporation) tax you’ll have to pay. And of course, you get billed for the work done – end of story. The invoice gets booked under your fixed costs – like the utility bills, travel costs, letterheads etc -  those types of costs that only deduct value from your bottom line.

Or…

• Your accountant talks to you at regular intervals, quarterly or even monthly. Informing you about new legislation your business can take advantage of by adjusting your methods, your legal position.
• He tells you how you can lower your salary costs by turning employees into B-share holders. This might also give your employees an extra incentive to find more efficient/effective ways to do their work, now their earnings are more directly related to the overall performance of the business.
• He spots a marketing opportunity for you, a new marketing method other clients of him have implemented rather successful and he’s convinced it can work for your business as well.
• You pick up the phone and bounce off an idea you have, would/could it be feasible? He’s a step further away from the business so he can give you a more objective view; highlight the risks or the gains you hadn’t spotted. And together you discuss, brain storm where to take the business next, a rolling 3 – 5 year plan. Put on paper, outlined in more or less detail to which he refers every time you meet up again: are you where you’re supposed to be now, are you ahead, are you implementing all the tactics and strategies from the plan? If not, why not?

When you regard your accountant as trusted team member, an essential part of your business then he becomes an asset: adding value to the bottom line.

Been there, done that, paid the bills

10 years ago, after an initial meeting we never saw our first accountant again. We did talk to them in the beginning, only to receive a new invoice every time they’d picked up the phone to answer any of our questions. And as newbie’s on the block there were many questions. To be honest, they never did more than answering our specific questions. Billed us for the annual accounts and “advice” given.

Fixed costs – not an ongoing relationship.

We stopped calling in the end, rather muddled through on our own than having to add to the fixed costs.

When the business we worked for folded and when we started our own, we were in the fortunate position to have found a true asset. From day one he’s been driving us onwards and upwards, helping us grow the business from a struggling start-up to the successful business we are now 8 years later – and he’s still convinced we can do more, better, grow further/faster.

We’re always looking forward to our meetings, bouncing off ideas, plans, being brought down to earth again – often too, we’re being told we’re not bold enough. He’s relentlessly driving us forward. An asset, an ongoing valuable relationship, adding value to the bottom line.

Your decision

Which of the two above examples does your accountant represent at the moment? Is he/she only a fixed cost, can he be changed into an asset or do you have to part ways and find one who is?

Think hard about what your accountant represents to you, but don’t think too long about it – if you regard your accountant as fixed costs it’s high time to stop wasting money. Find an asset, quickly and start adding value.

If you are in any doubt, fill in this little questionnaire to help you decide. We’ve made our choice 8 years ago and have never looked back.

View more articles by Karin Hermans.

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This is possibly the most important step of all. We see websites across every industry that fall into the trap of forgetting who they’re targeting. The common marketing mistake of listing features rather than benefits is ubiquitous in the digital marketing trade.

When making your list, try and think of singular people rather than large segments of the population. These people or ‘personas’ represent your market segments. It is important to ask three questions:

1. What do they want from your website? (e.g. find critical information or compare product prices)
2. What do you want from them? (e.g. sign up for my newsletter, or buy a product)
3. What information can I give them to make them feel confident enough to take action? (product specs clearly

Next up we’ll look at Steps 3 to 5 (out of 7) where we’ll discuss the messaging and tools that you can employ on your way to creating a kick-ass, profit generating strategy for your new website.

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. He runs a web marketing company called World Wide Creative and loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. View more articles by Fred.

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How to measure return on investment from social media has got to be one of the most commonly asked questions regarding social media marketing. It is also one of the trickiest topics to define a single solution for, as it depends heavily on your influence within a community of people.

We are all brand ambassadors talking to our friends and family about experiences we have with brands whether good or bad. We do this almost every day and the viral effect does influence purchase decisions for many people.

Positive influence in a social network or community has a snowball effect that’s return for your brand can be invaluable. Here are a few guidelines to get you started, using social media to drive traffic to your e-commence store, website, blog or place of your considered conversion.

Know your beginning in order to track your progress. How long or at what rate is your community growing and what is your influence or reach? Your primary goals should be to:

• Share company updates that your community would want to know about or would benefit from.
• Provide real-time customer support
• Build lasting relationships

Determine your Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for your social media activity, this could be Facebook likes, Twitter retweets or mentions, subscriptions, comments, sales, sign-ups, Digg’s or whatever have you. Measure your KPI’s on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to provide data of growth and development within your network.

Use Facebook page insights to analyse data of your community such as: activity, likes, demographics of your audience, media consumption and interactions. When running campaigns on Facebook, there are further means one can use to track return such as purchases or sign ups. On Twitter you are sharing links and these can be tracked using tools such as Hootsuite, bit.ly, TweetDeck, and many others to monitor page views or clicks on your links. This is a powerful way of driving traffic to your website and congruently driving sales, which can be measured through analytical data. To measure your influence and reach on Twitter, you can make use of Twittergrader or Klout. They both generate scores of your twitter account based on various resonance factors within your community.

Financial investment on development and daily time spent interacting and providing quality content, versus the strength of your consumers/leads should tell you if you are doing something right. Use the data you accumulate and determine if the information correlates to an increase in sales or converted leads.

Have you used your social platforms to drive traffic to your e-commerce store, list of service, website or charity? Have they all showed return with a rise in sales, subscriptions, event turn-outs or whatever your metric of return may be?  If the answer is ‘yes’, then continue doing what you are doing and if the answer is ‘no’ then reconsider your social media strategy (ask the audience). Please feel free to share ideas, thoughts and suggestions in the comments area.

Adam Mitchell is a lover of all things online, though not professing to be a social media guru, he has a passion for social networks and engaging with people in the digital space. Adam writes for a casual blog of his own and you can catch him on Twitter. He’ll be focusing on Social Media and Marketing. Adam is also an enthusiastic campaign manager at Traffic Brand, a company providing online marketing services specialising in Google search and display advertising. View more articles by Adam Mitchell.

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The short answer is – probably not. Traditional advertising channels are relatively expensive, and require significant investment to produce a reasonable return; the kind of money you’re talking about is usually way more than a small business could/should spend on advertising and marketing…

The long answer is – it depends.

It depends on a number of things;

• What market is the business in?
• What product/service is the business selling? Is it advertising sensitive?
• Does the product/service have a USP (unique selling proposition)?
• How much marketing/advertising spend does the business have available?
• What is the idea behind wanting to advertise – to create awareness, or to sell?
• Does the business have any ‘in-house’ marketing/advertising skills/expertise/contacts it can draw on?

Tim Cruise is the co-founder and co-owner of SMSWEB, a provider of school-to-parent communication solutions in South Africa. Tim is a Marketing expert and enthusiast who aims at making marketing fun. View more articles by Tim Cruise.

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One of our Ideate readers sent us a very interesting question through our suggestion box: “How can a small business survive and prosper in markets with larger and stronger competitors?”

In a market with larger and stronger competition a small business has the unique advantage of being able to adapt fast and position their products and services to niche points in the market place.

Today the customer is demanding fast reliable personal service and who better to be able to deliver than us the small guy. Just listening to Simon, CEO of Woolies talk about their results: they have taken 2 years to position themselves in a new market with their improved clothing line; that is an age in the real world. The small guy can design, produce and launch a new line within a week.

That has to be the advantage we need to use to capture larger slices of pie. But that said, it still takes skill for the Entrepreneur to identify these often minute cracks and then drive a wedge offering into them to gain access.

Hey if it was easy, it would not be any fun!

Bruce Wade is a survivor of the corporate and NGO world, author, speaker, business owner and entrepreneur, Bruce now runs the Entrepreneur Incubator; a member based organisation dedicated to serving those in the trenches of business through coaching, mentoring and leadership education. View more articles by Bruce Wade.

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We are proud to announce that we have made it to the Top 10 Best Business Blog category for the SA Blog Awards! Thanks to everyone who’s nominated us and now the real voting starts!

The SA Blog Awards have already kicked up a storm on Twitter and Facebook! With brilliant YouTube videos out there and everyone getting all excited, it’s been a real treat so far.

The Top 10 of each category gets a spot on the SA Blog Awards website and anyone can vote. Please vote for your favourite superhero business blog and support us!

Yolandi Janse van Rensburg writes about social media, marketing, life and, of course, cars. We say “of course” because Yolandi is nuts about anything on 4 wheels. Besides moonlighting as the Heavy Chef girl at World Wide Creative, Yolandi runs Autofemme, a blog about cars, as a business on the side. View more articles by Yolandi.

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