by Abed Tau
Oh, how wrong I was – and thank goodness for that. Tebz and I discovered this when we left Deloitte in 2014, and found ourselves in a whole new world; a world of secret millionaires who I would never have met had I stayed in corporate. They’re all around you; yes, even now. You just don’t notice them because they’re wearing casual clothes, overalls, blue collar clothes. You see, the first thing I learned on our entrepreneurial journey is that the richest, or rather, the most successful people I know don’t own a single suit.
There’s a metaphor in this: Don’t make the mistake of believing that money can only be made in Sandton. Yes, it might be Africa’s richest square mile, but most money is made in the dusty, industrial part of the country; places that don’t make for a great Instagram post. Places where a suit is simply not the outfit of the day.
Opportunity is often disguised in blue overalls. This is something I’ve learned from my own experience at Thamani. We service more than 50 SMME clients every month, most of which are performing well. And yet if you were to pass the owners of many of these businesses in the street, you’d walk past them without a second glance, because they don’t fit our traditional mould of success. And you’d miss out on an amazing opportunity to engage and learn from a true expert.
When Dylan and I were raising money for Tuta-Me, we used to wear hoodies to all our business meetings. Some people thought we should wear suits so that we looked more professional, but I always argued that investors are looking to invest in people, not in the suits they’re wearing. We did, eventually, manage to raise the funds we needed – and, yes, we were wearing hoodies at the time. Because at the end of the day, it’s always about people.
CHAPTER 18
LISTEN,
TAKE GENUINE INTEREST,
BE AUTHENTIC
We recently introduced a sales star chart at the office. It works along the same principles as the star chart you probably had as a child: there are four different types of stars, and the bigger the sale you make, the bigger the star you’re awarded. We also ring a bell every time a sale is made, so the whole company gets to know that one of us has been successful.
It’s been fascinating to see how measuring sales in this way has impacted our business. When we introduced the system, we thought it would apply only to the five directors, but soon every employee wanted to have a chance to earn stars and ring the bell. There was a valuable lesson to learn here, and it’s an obvious one: winning companies are those which turn every employee into a salesperson, and which ensure that every employee has a customer-centric focus.
Shortly after the introduction of the chart, Dylan told me that he was having a poor sales week. He was worried that this meant he had exhausted his network, and that he would now have to turn to cold canvassing people on LinkedIn to find leads.
This got me thinking: do I have a strong network? And, more than this, is it true that your net worth is determined by your network?
The five directors in our company all look after different aspects of the group and drive different business lines. However, we’re all linked by a common thread, and that’s our focus on sales and the role that it plays in forging a winning business. In fact, all of us believe that there can be no business without sales. After all, every income statement in the world opens with revenue, even those of non-profit organisations.
I’ve been fortunate to close more sales than any other member of our team. In fact, sometimes my sales outnumber the combined efforts of the other four directors. Understand that I’m telling you this without arrogance or boastfulness, nor am I claiming to be superior in any way. I simply want to prove a point, which is this: although the entire team believes that sales is my strength, I maintain that I have never tried to sell anything to anyone. I have, however, done two things: I have striven to build a genuine rapport with everyone I meet, and I have listened to what they have to say. I take a real interest in people. It’s not uncommon for me to meet a complete stranger, and to know everything about them within an hour – from where they grew up to how old they were when they lost their first tooth; when they lost their parents; what sports they’re into; why they started their business; where they met their partner.
I have a gift for turning acquaintances into friends easily. I’ve been told that this is because I’m an extrovert and, fair enough, maybe I am more outgoing than others. But actually it has nothing to do with extroversion or introversion. Instead, it’s about taking an interest in others. I learned at an early age that people love talking about themselves, and you can learn a lot about them just by paying attention. Sometimes you can even find an opportunity by listening to what people are saying.
The business world is no different. Whenever I meet a business owner, I listen to their stories and I take a genuine interest in their lives and their business challenges. Sooner or later in the conversation, they’ll say it, the words that light a fire in any entrepreneur: ‘I have a problem in my business …’ You see, the role of the entrepreneur is to solve problems, and the solutions they implement or present are the things that ring the bell and gain the stars. For the entrepreneur, ‘problem’ is just another word for ‘sales opportunity’.
But listening doesn’t only apply to potential clients. I constantly challenge our directors to get to know our employees: where they come from, what their current situation is, what battles they’re dealing with, how they came to do what they’re doing, do they have siblings, are their parents still alive, how many taxis do they have to take to get to work, what are their goals and aspirations. Of course it’s not obligatory to know any of this, but I’ve found it incredibly helpful to listen, empathise, and try to find solutions for some of the problems our staff have faced. I can’t claim that I get to know everyone super well, and I accept that this becomes difficult once a business grows past a certain point, but I do know a lot about every single one of our staff members.
There’s another reason for doing this, apart from creating a supportive business environment, and it’s this: sales don’t start and end with your clients. It’s also about your employees. You sell to your employees every day: you’re asking them to show up for you, to believe in your vision, to go above and beyond for your clients, to buy into your promise. If your own people haven’t bought your sales proposition, then it doesn’t matter how many customers you have. Just as your clients and contacts will eventually tell you their business problems, your staff will one day need to unburden themselves. And when they do, it’s your opportunity to sell your leadership and cultivate their buy-in to your organisation.
I don’t believe that the size of your network has any importance. Rather, it’s about how you connect to the people in that network. People do business with people they like, full stop.
So how do you get people to like you? Again, it’s about listening and taking a genuine interest. I’m not suggesting that you set out to befriend the entire world, but a little kindness and a listening ear will get you far in life. Above all, be authentic in every encounter with everyone you meet.
CHAPTER 19
LESSONS FROM
PINKY AND THE BRAIN
It’s 11:30pm and Tebz and I are eventually heading upstairs to go to bed. We’ve had our usual fight about what to watch on Netflix. I’m usually easy; my philosophy is that we should just watch something we’ve seen before. Tebz doesn’t agree. She thinks that we should watch something new. She wins, always, and we begin our search for the perfect viewing material. We scan the choice of movies and series, disagreeing the whole time until it’s really late and we still haven’t picked anything. Eventually we’re too tired to watch something anyway, and we decide to go to sleep.
You see, Netflix has so many options that it’s difficult to commit to something as trivial as a two-hour movie. We’ll try it out for ten minutes, but if we’re not gripped instantly, we’ll look for something else.
In this, it’s just a mirror of life itself. We live in
a world where we are told we can become anything we want. In the end, we don’t become anything at all because, once again, we can’t commit to a single option. In fact, ‘keeping my options open’ has become a favourite saying for millennials. We drift through life, never making a conscious choice. We have traded long-term thinking for instant gratification.
This applies in every single area of life: we want what we want, and we want it now. We want on-demand music (right now), we want on-demand content (right now), we even want to earn R5 million right now. We are a generation of people who go to gym and expect to lose ten kilograms and have a six-pack a week later.
I used to think that it was fantastic to have a lot of options. I still think that it’s not (entirely) a bad thing, but I now also see the danger of having too many choices. You’ll never achieve anything if you’re worried that you’ll overlook one of your choices, or if you hesitate to make a decision because you’re worried that there might be a better option out there. Remember that saying, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? Our generation has a bird in the hand, but we’re still chasing not just two, but nine other birds in the bush.
Thamani Consulting has had the awesome privilege of servicing several clients of all ages. Now, I don’t claim this as empirical evidence, but I’ve observed that our clients who are older than 35 tend to be more successful than the younger crowd. I think this is because they stick to their knitting; in other words, they are clear and focused on what they do, and commit to a long-term view of it. For example, if they decide to make wedding cakes, they’ll make nothing but wedding cakes for ten years. They’ll do it well and build a name for themselves, and maybe after that they’ll consider adding catering to their offering.
The younger crowd (and I include myself in this category) – well, we want a little more, don’t we? We have seven ideas on the go at the same time, and we’re only halfway committed to any of them because it’s simply impossible to focus. We’re the itchy feet generation.
The wolf pack of four guys and a girl have ideas all the time, and we are able to act on those ideas or start a new business relatively quickly. However, I’m starting to worry that this talent is going to work against us. We are going to become experts at starting new things, instead of giving our existing businesses the ten or so years they need to develop into fully fledged enterprises.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with experimenting with new concepts or ideas, but I do find myself wondering when these experiments will turn into something solid. The year I turned 30, I told Dylan that I needed to find the ‘thing’; that one thing that will keep me so absorbed and engaged that I put my head down to focus and – wham – before I know it, ten years have passed. I’m becoming less interested in starting things or having several businesses on the go all at once. I’m getting tired of having new ideas every week, I’m getting tired of options, I’m getting tired of browsing.
I don’t know how many of you watched Pinky and the Brain when you were growing up, but in each episode Pinky and the Brain would hatch a new plan to take over the world – and, sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, they would fail. Every episode ended with Pinky asking Brain, ‘What are we going to do tomorrow night?’, to which Brain would reply, without fail, ‘The same thing we do every night: try to take over the world.’
I wonder if Pinky and the Brain would have been successful in taking over the world if they had picked just one plan. I think they might have.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t browse, try out different things until you find your passion, or even test out different business ideas. But I think it’s important to ask yourself: is there a danger that you might miss out on the bird in the hand while you’re busy chasing those nine other birds in the bush? Are you trying to take over the world by introducing a new plan every day, like Pinky and the Brain? If so, it might be time to hide the remote and sit through that two-hour Netflix movie.
CHAPTER 20
LESSONS TO TEACH YOUR KIDS
Tebz and I don’t have kids yet, but I often wonder what kind of parents we’ll be and whether we’ll be good parenting partners. Tebz is worried that I’m going to be too nice, while she’s always going to be the bad cop. Admittedly, I can also see this happening. I can imagine Tebz yelling at the kids while I secretively wink at them and whisper under my breath, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll have ice cream later when mom is sleeping.’ But beyond ice cream and discipline, I wonder what I’ll teach them. What are the lessons that I would love them to know?
There are three life lessons that I hold dear, and which I would like to pass on to my kids: learn to sell; whatever career you choose, find a way to serve people; and be a nice human.
LEARN TO SELL
Let’s start with why I think it’s important to learn to sell. In fact, ‘important’ is an understatement; actually, I often tell Tebz that our kids will have to present a three-page slide show explaining why they should get first option to pick the juiciest chicken piece at dinner. Whichever child has the best presentation will be rewarded with that piece of chicken; the others will have to make do with rice and salad. Tebz thinks this is child abuse; I call it an education. Jokes aside, I have learned that the man who can sell has a passport out of poverty.
You see, we are always selling. You sell yourself to your teachers, to the girl at the club. You sell yourself in the job interview, promotion discussion, bonus appraisal. In life, you are always buying or selling something, and my goal is to sell sell sell.
If I were to ask a group of employees at a large organisation to identify the most important person in the company, I’m sure that 98 per cent of them would point to the chief executive officer, the chairperson, or maybe even the chief operating officer. Actually, none of these answers is correct. The most important person in any business is the best salesperson. It’s that person who keeps the rent and salaries paid; they’re the ones who keep the wheel turning. It’s a pity that no university or MBA programme has thought to highlight the fact that all businesses, even the non-profit ones, start their income statements with revenue, as I’ve said before.
When you teach your kids to sell, when you make them earn their tuck money by washing cars, gardening and helping with chores, you are teaching them a life skill that will set them apart from their peers. In our highly competitive world, your distinguishing factor isn’t your degree or the fact that you can code. Thousands of people have those qualifications or skills. But not all of them can sell.
SERVE OTHERS
If there is one thing that’s even more important than selling, it’s finding your purpose. That’s why I’ll tell my children to find a way to serve others, no matter what they do.
For a long time, I’ve grappled with the question: what is the sum of the entire human experience? What are we here for? I believe that our shared universal interest lies in serving others, especially those who are marginalised, destitute and hopeless.
You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to do this. Lionel Messi answers his purpose through his gift of soccer, for instance, and every lawyer, doctor and business owner finds their own way to do the same. Whatever your field, I think that the people who lead the most successful and fulfilled lives are those who have found a way to serve others in their everyday lives.
The same goes for businesses. I believe that the businesses that continue to grow are those which never stop trying to make an impact in their communities, in the lives of their employees, or in the environments in which they operate.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that wealth is like happiness. You won’t find it if you set out to look for it. Instead, find a way to make an impact and solve a real problem for people and serve them – and the next time you look up, you’ll be both happy and wealthy.
I also believe that your happiness is a measure of how much impact you’ve had on your world, whether that relates to your children, your colleagues or your
employees.
JUST BE KIND
That brings me to my final point: be a good human. It’s simple, really: treat people as you would have them treat you. Goodness attracts goodness, in the business world too. I really do believe that people do business with people they like, so just be kind.
I’m sure that there are other lessons I’ll want to pass on and, luckily, I’ll have Tebz to pick up my slack if there’s anything I overlook – she’s better at things like that. So there’s another life lesson: choose your partners well, whether in your business or your personal life. It makes all the difference.
CHAPTER 21
STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH
Steve Jobs ended his legendary commencement speech at Stanford University with an exhortation to stay hungry; stay foolish.
In the world of start-ups and business, it’s important to know which of those two should be taken literally, and which should be taken figuratively. Sadly, I think that most people remain foolish in the literal sense, and think of hunger as a figurative notion, when it should be the other way around.
In June 2016, Tebz and I had reached a point where Thamani was really starting to take off. However, I was more focused on my new education technology start-up, Tuta-Me, which I had co-founded with Dylan. I felt conflicted because I was excited by the tech business and felt a huge responsibility towards Dylan, who had just quit his job so that he could invest more time and energy in our start-up.
This wasn’t good for Tebz, though, because it meant that she now bore the responsibility for Thamani by herself. So, we made an impulsive decision: we would hire a business partner in Thamani, or at least a senior manager, someone who would be able to take over all my day-to-day responsibilities.