This week a group of our Incubator members attended at short course in Speed Reading presented by Britha Padkin from Read Fast. One of the most essential skills that a business owner needs to learn is to be able to read copious amounts of material in a very short time and be able to recall the facts and data later when marketing to clients. To master this skill will save you time and money.

 I am a book junky and could easily spend every cent in my monthly budget on books, but as I have learnt to skim read a potential buy in the store I can gather the fundamentals of the book and decide there whether the book is worth the purchase or not. I am also reading up to 50 online articles each day from blogs, newsletters and emails to keep up to date with trends and new developments in business and entrepreneurship. Without the ability to speed-read I would be lost and would never get to bed.

 Check out Britha’s offering on www.readfast.co.za and if you want to join our next course, drop me a line and we will add you to the list of attendees.  Just incase you are not convinced then time yourself reading this email and if you can’t get through it in less than 15 seconds then this programme is for you.

This month our radio spot focused on small business feasibility.

The journey from dream to idea to goal to business is often lost because of unforeseen issues and problems. Knowing if a business idea is feasible goes a long way to ensuring the business is sustainable.

 Our Feasibility Assessment is how we measure and identify the factors that influence your business that you may not have any control over. This is based on the well known Porters 5 forces analysis

1.  How hard will it be to break into the new market?
2. What affect will your suppliers have on your business?
3. What affect will your customers have on your business?
4. What other products can be used in place of yours?
5. What competition will you experience in the market?
6. What financial factors do you need to consider?

 The Entrepreneur Incubator has developed a list of all the factors and tasks that any business owner would need to address within the first 1000 days of business together with tools and worksheets to get them done. This is offered to those on the Incubator programme together with the guide of a business mentor or personal coach.

Any business owner wanting to develop their business while gaining the unfair advantage in the market place should contact Bruce for a no obligation chat over coffee.

Once again Bruce Wade will address the business advantage clients at this months ABSA breakfast on Tuesday.

ABSA hosts regional networking breakfasts each month for business owners who have subscribed to the ABSA Business advantage programme that includes Quick books, Training programmes and Network education breakfasts.

Bruce will cover the early stages of the business life cycle highlighting the importance of building the correct foundation for your business in order to promote and enable growth. Without the correct building blocks businesses will often grow and fail as their support structure is not solid enough to support the capacity and expansion.

The Entrepreneur Incubator offers a step-by-step programme and tools to assist the business owner to identify and correct any shortfalls in their business structure. Some of these include:

1. Understanding the business owners strengths
2. Developing business ideas around your own passions
3. Market Research to get to know the lay of the land
4. Feasibility Study to see if your idea may work
5. Setting business goals to gain forward movement
6. Defining a niche to distinguish your business from others
7. Defining your business so you know what you do
8. Financial plan to keep track of cash flow
9. Marketing plan to develop customer relationships
10. Implementation plan to get it right first time

We look forward to a successful talk followed up with enthusiastic referrals.