If not for most, many working individuals can relate waffling through their early careers and cutting their teeth in a work environment that would later become a less daunting, unfamiliar space. The feeling may be mutual for aspiring entrepreneurs and new and longstanding business owners who are serious about initiating and sustaining an attractive, profitable offering.

Startups are noteworthy drivers of economic development. The National Development Plan predicts that by 2030, small, micro, and medium enterprises (SMMEs) will be responsible for up to 80 percent of South Africa’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) increase. SMMEs will attribute approximately 90 percent to the 11 million new jobs anticipated.

While many entrepreneurs are fortunate to have found the golden thread to launch profitable ideas confidently, the notion of impending failure remains a constant for others who have little or no guidance. In more recent years, startups have received the footing they needed for lift-off. One such example includes the National Small Enterprise Amendment Bill draft to provide SMMEs with legal support. The idea of a government backing new business development is lucrative. Navigating such opportunities alongside the CV-19 pandemic’s fluctuating trade regulations can cause entrepreneurial novices and moguls alike to question their business model’s efficacy.

Business development, strategist, and communication consultant Heike Kannemeyer took her 13-year experience, including seven years as a business co-owner since the age of 25, to establish her communication and project management consultancy in 2021. This year sees her debuting a dynamic blueprint to help businesses design and understand their roadmaps: The Season Seven Consulting Business Start-up E-guide and Checklist program.

South African entrepreneurs are more likely to innovate and develop their business strategies when backed by learning opportunities, mentorship, and support in a digitally evolving economy. Kannemeyer’s 52-page workbook does precisely this. It hones in on seven key steps to help you simplify your business’ launch process and start your company mindfully at your own pace. The first step refines your enterprise concept’s purpose and goals. The guide then navigates through fundamental elements of development strategies, marketing, and financial factors, and finally leads you to pursue your to-do list actively.

“No business owner is an island on its own,” writes Kannemeyer in the guide’s prologue. “Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes many to build a business too.”

“I had no choice but to speedily adapt to the foreign territory of business management. I recall thinking to myself, ‘they’re going to ask for my input, and I don’t even understand how they got to the question!’. I sought help from paid specialists, financial advisors, legal and business, and spiritual mentors. I absorbed their insights as I grew in my role as a business co-owner. Such resources aren’t always readily available, and the road to developing my practical knowledge wasn’t an easy one. Good advice is a rare amenity. I wanted to make it fundamental to providing those wanting direction to explore such information portals. Kannemeyer’s consultancy, Season Seven, provides a gateway to a network of experts beyond her company’s business approaches.

The guide acts as a seasonal business partner, an important facet of how Kannemeyer conducts business at her consultancy. “Looking back now I wish someone sat me down and said – let me draw a mind map for you, let me simplify it for you. The guide encourages you to put your business ideals in perspective, break down the working parts that make the startup process practical and manageable, and to ultimately excite you about the prospects of setting up or rejuvenating your business concept beyond what the guide’s teaches.”

Signs that you need a guiding platform:

– You have a business idea and want to launch properly, but find the various elements of starting a business daunting and overwhelming not sure where to start?

– Want to start earning a part-time income outside of your full-time job’s hours. Yet, the latter keeps you busy with no time to get your idea off the ground.

– Feel like you need a ‘seasonal’ (for a selected period) business partner/advisor to bounce business ideas with and help develop and launch your concepts and ideas?

– You have a business but feel like you need a breath of fresh air blowing through it with a refreshed look and feel?

– You have an established and successful business, but you haven’t yet taken it online (social media, email & mobile campaigns, digital marketing)?

– You need company content created for your service/ products/ offerings (Company description, copy for digital platforms, presentations, social media, etc).

– Need an outsourced objective business consultant to have a closer look at all aspects of your business, assess it, review and provide recommendations on the best way to take your brand forward in the current climate.

For existing business owners, the guide veers away from putting you in the conventional development ‘box’. It refines your needs to refresh and re-launch your venture instead.

Season Seven Consulting Business Start-up E-guide and Checklist packages range from a once-off 2-hour Business Start-up E-guide & Checklist consultation, to actively executing the seven steps at face value with (virtual) one-on-one sessions at your own pace,  with business consultant, Heike Kannemeyer.

Article Source