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Don't hoard too much? I will be starting here before venturing broader into the main event. Doing business and doing business efficiently, productive and profitable is another. I happen to meet an entrepreneurial friend who stays around and as usual we were discussing business challenges. I am running a much broader business (Laundry, sewing and branding services) while he was in the laundry business only.
That is why it gets easier for me to associate with different entrepreneurs because as it stands I am operating in multiple fields. Ok, his challenge started first from the energy sector which has been very poor. It has always kept him on the run. Atimes he will have to sleep overnight in his shop just hoping general electricity will surface and curb the cost of burning petrol and also straining your generator.
I was opening to listening and also being if help to him. He laid a complaint/suggestion as regarding changing his mode of business operation. I must say he as been observing how we are doing business. We are staying in the same street, yet we are not competing for the street customers with him. 85% of our customers are far distance and most importantly those that give bulk services.
While he keeps servicing a lar carte customers who mostly turn up with one or two clothes which of course has disadvantages. He doesn't have much time, he cannot do a proper strategizing or restrategizing to meet up. An a la carte customers can show up anytime asking for his clothes. You re forced to spend urgently and huge on a service that will generate little to no profit at ALL.
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I understand where he was coming from in the statements he was making because I actually suffered same fate in my early business days. I will spend my entire Saturday burning petrol and straining my generator to solve a lar carte customers problems that ended up non-profiting. Sometimes I slept over at the shop or even returned very late at night.
Since he was into some proprietorship, my advice was drafted out of a careful follow up of his statements. There was a time he used to run this business right from the comfort of his apartment. At some point, a misunderstanding came in with his landlord and he had to opt for an external shop and right NOW, it is not favorable.
First, he is paying rent in two places and secondly, consider the cost of coming to and fro the office. Thirdly, you can understand that he is not able to have more control on decision making as he would have been able to strategize working a Night Shift some days if it was a home office.
This country needs strategy to survive not even to talk of thriving. I had to suggest he goes back to merge his business as his home office since he said he already has outside customers who can give him bulk services. The advantage here is, bulk service customers always give an elastic time for their service delivery. It gives you time to strategize on how to pair general electricity with your added energy equipments. In the end, cost becomes low, time becomes efficiently spent in-between and there is a reasonable profit margin to start off with.
To conclude let me add, so it means others are looking at my mode of business operation and are admiring it. I decided to use our home office which is like a warehouse to continue business after leaving our former rented office. The additional take home is; bulk services are good business. I look forward to penetrating this even into our sewing and branding sector. When this is achieved, we will be seeing a substantial profit.
This is an article covered by dani-EL; a broad niche writer. I write on faith, life facts and daily living, business and economics, small scale and daily businessing, cryptocurrency and technology. And yes, I do cover articles on financial education and investment updates. And note, if I happen to be a financial adviser to you, the TOP financial advice should be ‘DYOR’ (Do Your Own Research), I can't afford to break your heart.
