How to stay motivated in business
by Andrew Smith on 06/12/07 at 9:26 pm
1 comment
A couple of times a day you’ll hear one of our team shout out "Aaaarg!". Usually it’s when they’ve just dealt with a service provider of some sort. Usually it’s because the service they received was terrible. And over-priced. And late.
I often feel like throwing my hands in the air and giving up, because it’s so damn hard to run a small business in South Africa. If you’re not being screwed over by bank charges, dodgy electricity and ridiculous internet speeds, you have to deal with a shoddy supplier who delivers a half-baked product and looks at you funny when you try and get some sort of apology (never mind compensation).
Here’s our secret for staying motivated:
"Where this is great difficulty, there is great opportunity!"
Whenever one of us is feeling down someone else in the team will shout that out, and it reminds us how we manage to keep the doors open each month. Joel Spolsky refers to something similar in this article, and quotes the old phrase, "Where there’s muck, there’s brass".
If you’re feeling used and abused by your suppliers, know that your competitors are probably giving the same shoddy service to their clients. All you have to do to succeed as a South African small business is deliver what you said you would, when you said you would, and you’ll stand head and shoulders above just about everyone else that your clients normally deal with. They’ll treat you like heros (or name a boat after you, like in that FNB ad that I wish was true).
Embrace the difficult marketplace as an opportunity to shine. If nothing else, you’ll live a little happier!
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
rowan
Dec 7th, 2007
Great article, agree with you 100%!
Often find myself wondering how the person i’ve just dealt with on the other end of the phone earns a salary each month!
At least now i know i’m not alone