My heart is filled with joy whenever I visit the hood (as youngsters would say) and seeing many smaller shops and businesses that used to be our source of supplies for goods and services throughout my childhood still running. Despite the onslaught of shopping centres and well-established national retailers cropping up in the neighbourhood, they are still straddling along. It’s a good thing that they have survived the worst and are still standing, yet also concerning that they seem to be stagnant or are dying slowly.

By Nimroth Gwetsa, 31 August 2016.

Being a small-business outfit is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it is relatively easy to manage such a business. It’s a curse when their smallness is the reason such a business is discriminated against from supplying larger business outfits. It’s easy to say to small-businesses, “specialise, be unique, be attractive to investors, increase capacity and scale to expand the company.” But to many small-business owners, managing all those complexities is akin to changing the wheel of the car while it’s moving at high speed.

All these are important and necessary to do for the survival of the business. Notably, time and therefore life, is not standing still. Events change quickly more so in this economy where survival is of the fittest. Responding to current climate’s regularly changing internal and external business factors to remain relevant and profitable, requires skill, capacity and resources. Such capabilities are not easily available to many small-business owners. This explains why smaller businesses, especially in the townships, have remained stagnant or are dying slowly and have never grown larger than they have ever been since the old days.

How can that corner house traditional wear seamstress and carpenter maintenance uncle in the township grow their businesses to be suppliers to big-businesses?

All things equal, ultimately, everybody needs a break in life fostered by big-business and government. After all, growth of small-businesses means more employment of locals in the business vicinity. And since such locals would not spend exorbitantly on transportation costs, this means improved income and ultimately improved conditions of their lives.

By calling on big-business and government to consider giving small-businesses a break, I am not calling for universal assistance, but targeted interventions in areas small-businesses do not have sufficient resources to invest in.

Let us briefly look at some of those important areas intervention might be useful.

The obvious starting point is that the product or services the small-business is providing should be the answer to the problem the potential buyer is bothered about and wants resolved. With this, we now understand that it is important for small-business to ensure their offerings address the needs of buyers. Needs are almost compelling factors forcing the buyer to want to act.

But sustainable and successful sales are not always about addressing needs of buyers. Buyers are sometimes driven by other desires and not necessarily their needs. Big-business has mastered this aspect of the buyer’s behaviour. Big-business can create demand where potential buyer is oblivious of the offerings. This created demand is then shifted through promotions, marketing and clever packaging into a need, to which the buyer feels compelled to respond. This is the area I believe big-business and government can help small-businesses create an ambiance or environment for potential buyers to desire offerings of small-businesses.

Look at how big-business creates demand: They spruce up premises making them look funky and cool to be seen at; They attract “good looking” people to promote their brand; They change the packaging to make it desirable to keep as souvenir or use in a different application; They create a joyful ambiance by setting up unrelated business outfits such as specialised coffee shops; They literally invest vast amounts of capital to the environment to create a desire in nonbuyers, turning them into potential and ultimate buyers. The attractiveness of such environments, make it easy for people to want to spend their relaxation time visiting those places even for window-shopping. Such an environment becomes a “tourist” attraction and in turn, attracts buyers who would ordinarily not be in the mood to buy.

Small-businesses cannot always afford to operate in such environments, notwithstanding modernising their premises to increase their attraction and to create demand for sales where none existed. This is where government can assist. For example, imagine areas dedicated to hawkers being spruced up so there are nice coffee shops within the vicinity, urban family parks, restaurants and other entertainment areas for people to pass the time. What would such a move do in creating demand for their offerings? Also, imagine big-business, instead of having a black-tie event, ordering traditional wear from a local seamstress for the event, what that could do for the small-business in the vicinity? Better still, imagine big-business ordering such garments for their overseas visitors as corporate gifts and souvenirs how such small but impactful gestures could give that small-business much-needed break?

Small-business owners should certainly try to be as creative as possible and to think hard in promoting their offerings. This should include hiring top promoters, even if this means paying them by giving away some product equity. But the biggest impact in this regard can be made by big-business and government.

It’s understandable that not all people working in big-businesses and government are entrepreneurial enough to spot opportunities in fostering such relationships. However, it might improve the performance or profile of big-business or relevant government departments if they could intervene in such manner, even if doing so through the organisation’s social responsibility programme.

Humanity and discernment is what mainly differentiates people from any other creatures. Lending a hand to a fellow human being is the most noble humanly thing anyone can do to and for another. While acknowledging the need to preserve resources in dire situations, it is also more rewarding helping fellow man rise from the ashes to their productivity, to realise their full potential.

“Motho ke motho ka batho ba bangwe” – Ubuntu defined. What extraordinary thing have you done for your fellow man lately?