Why do Small Business Owners Get Killed?

Metaphorically Speaking.

Imagine a rugby field.

Your family is in the stands, along with all your friends. It's a full crowd. The opposition team charges out - 15 big men, ugly and rippling with muscle, loaded with steroids, and followed by their entourage. The coach, the under coaches, the team doctors, the team psychologist, the team strategists, the team manager, the entire management team of the sponsor, the team pom pom girls, the water boy[s], and a few other important looking folk.

Then the referee leads his team onto the field. That's himself, the two sideline judges, and the 3rd referee sitting in front of a TV to spot the tiniest transgression.

All of the opposition players have been briefed in the most intense detail. They know the rules, the law. They have lots of people in place to allow them to focus on just one thing: get the ball and put it on the ground behind your posts. They have the time to practice. They use computers to analyse each  aspect of their play to improve it. They've spent hours watching videos to dissect your past games - just so that they can find new ways to thwart you.

The media is there in force to cover the opposition team - because they're so important. The entire country runs its life according to their play schedule and nobody is going to arrange any other event while they're on the field.

And then you charge onto the field, alone, in your T-Shirt and shorts, lugging your PC and 16 files of overdue work. Your pom pom girl is at home looking after your kids. You don't have a coach, let alone any assistants for him. You're not on steroids, but probably throwing back a few anti-depressants because your doctor says you're too stressed.

You don't have time for a team strategist, and don't want anyone to know you're seeing a psychologist. You can't afford a manager - even if you knew how to delegate your workload. Looking for a sponsor is taking up way too much of your time. And the closest you've ever been to cheerleaders was when you watched Fashion TV while you fell asleep into your beer late last Saturday night.

And we wonder why we small business owners are getting killed out there!

Won't you please help me to help you? I have devoted the past 17 years of my life to guiding small business owners through the perils of this entrepreneurial life.

The biggest challenge we face is that the rules of the business game are being defined by a government that does not grasp the needs of us little guys. The rules are being written for large employers that have huge resources. This means that they can lobby government. They have  the time to wait out the delays and meetings. Their emissaries do not have to worry about making a living because they're on salaries.

Trying to get any coherent response from us as a group of small business owners is a little like herding cats. Impossible! And so we are simply ignored as a community.

If we were previously disadvantaged persons we would be able to find floods of government support - but most of us are fighting this fight alone. And the rules are changing often without us being able to do anything about it.

Over the past nine years of writing weekly articles for SA small business owners I have learned many things. The most important of these is the power of a group of people going in one direction. Each time I see an abuse, and I write an article about it, I find that the problem magically disappears before publication date. Big companies and government can get away with anything they want to when we allow them to fight us as individuals.

But they are afraid of the bad publicity when their behaviour is aired. As a group we wield immense power to make changes that benefit each of us. If I can quote the old SA maxim, never truer than for us, ‘United, we stand. Divided, we fall.’ And 96% of us are falling right now.

Our offline business community structure is such that we will not do the mass protest thing on the spur of the moment. We're unlikely ever to blockade the N3 with our expensive cars because the insurance won't pay if they're damaged. And we're too responsible to do stupid stuff that might hurt us [and our families] - even if we had the time to laze around all day catching a tan while we make some point or other.

But we do have oodles of technology, and we do have powerful direct marketing skills, and we can influence our environment by simply getting our voice heard en masse.

Currently we have laws protecting the government [and their income streams], big business, employees [and their income streams], investors [and their income streams], and previously disadvantaged business owners.

But almost nothing to help those of us who dare to try and support ourselves. In fact, we are penalised when we start out, penalised as we try to get off the ground, and severely penalised when our business efforts fail.

In the USA, a person who has been through a business failure is highly prized because she is much more likely to succeed next time around. In SA, a person who has been through a business failure is prevented from trying again for almost 10 years! What a waste!

Please join Business Warriors. We can help you get quick answers to any questions. But we can also amplify your voice a thousandfold.  It's a zero risk option.