The HUAWEI MatePad T 10s 64GB: the ideal tablet for families

Once considered a tool dedicated to the on-the-go businessperson, smart tablets have now evolved beyond specialist workplace equipment to become a mainstay within the family home. Designed as an affordable, high quality and durable tablet, the HUAWEI MatePad T 10s is ideally designed to meet the whole family’s entertainment and educational needs.

The HUAWEI MatePad T 10s runs on an octa-core Kirin 710A processor, allowing seamless switching between your social media, multimedia and other apps. And for the first time, the novel App Multiplier enables the user to split one app into two windows for easy viewing. Alongside this, supported by the latest version of Huawei’s Android-based operating system EMUI 10.1, the HUAWEI MatePad T 10s is a great way to access all your music and movies on its 10.1-inch Full HD 1920 x 1200 display. Alongside powerful dual loudspeakers, the HUAWEI Histen 6.1 surround sound feature, Harman Kardon tuning, and long-lasting 5100mAh high capacity battery, the whole family will relish the truly immersive audio-visual experience this Huawei tablet provides.

The students and learners in the family will be happy to know that they can say goodbye to harsh, glaring blue screens, as the HUAWEI MatePad T 10s uses an in-built Low Blue Light eye protection feature, swapping the discomfort of harmful blue light for warmer, softer tones designed for reading. While working on the HUAWEI MatePad T 10s, whether brushing up on your vocabulary using a study app, writing up homework, or reading an eBook, limiting harsh blue light exposure can help ensure a better night’s sleep and establish a steadier sleep cycle.

The HUAWEI MatePad T 10s is built to be used on the go, with a Micro SD slot allowing external storage of up to 512GB. Teenagers and young children in particular can enjoy  enormous download and storage potential to bring multimedia entertainment with them wherever they go. What’s more, with a premium metal body and shock-resistant glass, this tablet can handle every kind of challenge that family life throws at it.

For the youngsters in the family, Kids Corner is an exciting feature that turns your HUAWEI MatePad T 10s into a creative, educational and entertainment companion, keeping children engaged and stimulating their creativity with four simple pre-installed features – the camera, voice recorder, multimedia player and painting tools. Kids Corner issues 6 kinds of protective pop-up alerts to ensure that children use it in the safest possible way, both in terms of their posture and their eye health, for example when a child is holding the device too close to their eyes. Parents also have full control over their children’s access to particular apps from AppGallery, as well as being able to limit times and intervals of use of the HUAWEI MatePad T10s.

This new tablet is also equipped with Huawei Share, which can transfer photos, videos and other files between Huawei devices at speeds of up to 150MBps, all without using a single bit of data. The HUAWEI MatePad T 10s promises an exciting array of inclusive multimedia and essential features for all the family and, thanks to its large storage and quality build, it can be enjoyed anywhere by anyone.

The HUAWEI MatePad T 10s’ combination of immersive entertainment, powerful productivity, long-lasting battery life, elegant industrial design, and an attractive price point, the HUAWEI MatePad T 10s is definitely a device to consider, which can satisfy all of the family’s digital needs.

Available in Deepsea Blue, the HUAWEI MatePad T 10s, with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, can now be purchased for just R4,499 from the Huawei Store (Online) or Incredible Connection. The HUAWEI MatePad T 10s is also available from MTN, Vodacom, Telkom and Cell C on a 24-month or 36-month contract. The tablet comes with a free flip cover valued at R699.

5 hindrances to self mastery

When we start a new journey, in which we set up certain goals there are certain obstacles of that journey that will be new experiences. Those new experiences will challenge us in ways we may not be familiar with, but to truly get to the end of the journey we will have to go through those obstacles. Which will have plenty for us to learn, the trick is to understand that these hurdles will evoke certain emotions and will lead to us feeling confused and lost at times. Which is all part of the game/journey those mistakes and failures we make become our true lessons, This is the part of a concept known as “failing forward”.

Therefore with every lesson learnt we become a step closer to our true goal, there might be circumstances that will distract us from our journey. Those are understood in certain stages but for this piece we focus on 5 hindrances to self mastery.

Sensual Desire

The way I like to see sensual desire is through timing because, the process of timing things makes it easier to know when it is the right time for certain pleasures and when it is the right time for focus and determination. In an essence we should not divert from our mental practices for too long, as this leads to us going down the rabbit hole and losing track of our focus. The desire to be stimulated to forget certain problems or just escape our environment for a second because, facing those problems is too much to handle. The idea of diverting from our goals for a long period of time will affect our progress and eventually our pleasures will become our main priority. A form of addiction taking too much time from our actual work. We start to spend time on things that don’t bring us value. From our work ethic and using that time to sooth our desires. Just like any other addiction. Goals eventually seem impossible, diluting passion into something of a task, so we spend time on our pleasures instead. Some may say the key is to allocate very little time to our pleasures until, after completing all our tasks for the day/week/month/year, by using our pleasures as a reward system to our passions instead.

Ill will/Aversion

The process of moving forward in life without healing better understood as a process of bottling up our emotions, it may seem like a good idea until one day when we’ve reached our limit and we unleash all those emotions on the wrong person, resulting in situations where we find ourselves hurting someone else or ourselves. The idea of avoiding your problems is that it is nothing but a temporary fix and does not particularly resolve the issue. Only way to resolve an issue like that is to address it head on as; anger, fear and insecurities are part of the game of life and need to be dealt with compassion and understanding, in order to heal.

Dullness/Heaviness

This part is largely common and experienced by most. The feeling one gets of self doubt and just really being unable to see any positive outcome happening in our life. We usually experience a deep state of negative thought, when we’ve hit our level of self awareness of not feeling well mentally. Leading to an attempt of interpreting and processing our depression. We create our own suffering and it truly is difficult to get out this state in life and takes a lot out of us, to be able to overcome this state. Usually the trick is to truly treat this situation just like “quick sand”. The more we try fight the situation the faster we sink, so the best option is usually to approach this situation calmly and allow ourselves to feel what we are feeling and start processing ways to overcome this. Understanding what we are feeling and why we are feeling this way, where it stems from, leads to the key of how and what is the best way to move past that state. Mainly who can be around us to help.

Restlessness

We all hate the process of working for something, but love the finish product. We envision ourselves being successful but hate the fact that we not there yet and feel like we are not really going to make it so we quit or start to find ways to distract ourselves from completing the tasks at hand. Challenges will always be part of the journey. The idea that a person is impatient stems from comparing ourselves from other peoples accomplishments, feeling like time is no longer on our side. The desire to want to be great but not feel any suffering. Comparing dilutes a clear vision to what we must do to succeed. Finding ways to boost our inspiration from surrounding ourselves with like minded people and also finding things to do to help keep, us inspired and focused.

Sceptical Doubt

This part of any journey is quite interesting, this is the point where we feel like we are not ready to be in a certain position, so we use all our fears to delay the process of growth. The fear of failure, sacrifices we might need to make in order to reach a certain position becomes too big of an ask, for various reasons we tell ourselves it is not worth it, usually because it takes us out of our comfort zone.

The idea is to build a certain sense of resilience, where we trust our intuition in order to get us through a level of uncertainty we might be feeling / experiencing. This is usually when the vision to the end of our goal seems very unclear and we feel like its too overwhelming for us to even attempt to go on.

Assume nothing expect anything

The idea or concept of approaching anything in life whether in (business or a big move away from family) with a logical approach, is important. The approach of assuming nothing, by not getting your hopes up about what can or cannot work. This also applies to friendships, relationships, life lessons. It may help to assume nothing from anything or anyone, but prepare yourself to expect everything. This way you have a clear understanding and level of consciousness to be aware of anything unusual about a deal or contract you have to sign. What this helps is to be mindful about the decisions you make. Which teaches you to make sound decisions under pressure. We all know how life can get so overwhelming to a point that you become depressed.

Assuming nothing

The concept of assuming nothing is to create a way of being in which you are able to remove emotion in making critical decisions that could affect important decisions. Life can be quite humbling, leading you into situations you never expected yourself to be in. Planning your future hopes and dreams of having a particular life, but having to face the reality that some of those hopes and dreams may not come true. Depression is something that hits people hard on a daily basis. People are taught to work hard and to follow their dreams. However in reality certain hopes and dreams we have as we grow older, tend to show the fact that we taught from a young age to view the world a certain way. However, when it comes to how life really is we find it difficult to cope, which leads to many facing depression. Depression hits the best of us and we taught to just suppress those emotions and act strong. Sometimes the best option you have is to not suppress your depression but to pay attention to it and let your self heal, sometimes its best to talk about it with loved ones or a specialist. Sometimes you just need to have a day that is specifically designed for you to do things you feel like doing.

A factor that has helped me go through certain aspects of my life with a slight handling, is what I like to call “down days”, which is basically paying attention to me and my health. Paying attention to the food I eat and paying attention to my sleeping patterns and daily routines, working on my bad habits daily and finding good habits to replace those bad habits.

What I will say is that walking into rooms, making decisions on a daily basis like solving problems. I use a very peculiar approach pattern of thought, when it comes to how I present myself as I walk into rooms and how I make decisions. Which is that, I assume nothing and expect anything. By doing this I am allowing myself to be given the benefit of the doubt, by a certain situations. Furthermore by expecting everything I am eliminating any possible chance of having a certain high expectation and replacing it with a logical observation and understanding of that particular situation/moment. I am basically teaching myself to unlearn the fact that I deserve everything. Also I’m giving myself a clear mindset to see things with clarity in order to make the best decision towards a particular predicament I may be facing or the excitement of getting my hopes up before decisions are made. It allows me to manage my stress and it also as mentioned allows me to think logically and ethically about the decisions I make. this also feeds me the right energy to produce humility in my decision and analysis of things irregardless of the outcome.

This concept of assuming nothing and expect anything allows me to build a mindset that helps me narrow down the best decision without using ego or pride to make a decision. This particular process is similar to the concept of failing forward. Because in life things tend to move in a way which leads to you failing a lot. However failing is not necessarily a negative outcome, it is an opportunity for one to learn from their mistakes and to understand what went wrong by analysing what you could’ve be done different, could be lack of preparation, or how you communicate your product or idea.

Im not saying this will cure ones anxiety, but what it will do is allow yourself to not take certain situations into heart and to understand that life is filled with ups and downs, meaning not everything will go your way and that it is okay to be sad or angry from time to time, but its not okay for you to transfer that negative energy towards someone else because you bottled it up inside.

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020

The language of Colours

By Tshepo Leroy Dube

Colours evoke a sense of
feeling that can be described as a form of language, that is ideally used in
our daily lives to express certain emotions. The particular feeling one gets
when they are looking at a certain colour. How colourful nature gets, on a
spring morning when all the flowers blossom evoking a sense of good energy
around, as the sun shines. When a loved one dies, in certain cultures wearing
black for a few months as a form of mourning, until a cultural ritual is done
to cleanse your body from your loss to signify a clear path to a brighter
future and ready to move on.

  • Red: Passion, Love, Anger
  • Orange: Energy, Happiness, Vitality
  • Yellow: Happiness, Hope, Deceit
  • Green: New Beginnings, Abundance, Nature
  • Blue: Calm, Responsible, Sadness
  • Purple: Creativity, Royalty, Wealth
  • Black: Mystery, Elegance, Evil
  • Gray: Moody, Conservative, Formality
  • White: Purity, Cleanliness, Virtue
  • Brown: Nature, Wholesomeness, Dependability
  • Tan or Beige: Conservative, Piety, Dull
  • Cream or Ivory: Calm, Elegant, Purity

From
what you consider to be your favourite colour. To the common theme of colours
in your closet, to how Robots/Traffic lights communicate with us. Red means
stop, Orange means prepare to stop and Green means go. We are constantly using
colours to communicate on a daily bases certain colours used to indicate
specific signs others to define what we do, from police wearing blue and
medical doctors wearing white coats.

Testing out commonalities in colour
communications leads to discovering, that most countries and cultures use same
colours to express the same meanings without even realising how colours are a
universal language. The colour GREEN is mostly associated with nature. RED
being the colour commonly used to communicate power or danger or love. ORANGE
regarded as the colour that signifies Energy,
Happiness or Vitality. Black is known to represent a more Mysterious approach,
Elegance or Evil look. The colour white has been seen as a more Clean, Pure and
Virtuous representation. Other colours such as BLUE represent Calmness,
Responsibility and sometimes Sadness hence the phrase Blue Monday or feeling
blue when one is under the weather or feeling down.

Fun Fact about Colours in Japanese
culture

Ever heard of the saying Japan Blue?
And wondered why? When foreigners were allowed to
enter Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912),they were so astonished at the
fact that indigo blue was everywhere in Japanese towns that they called it
“Japan blue” Kimono, bedding, hand towels, noren–Japanese people would use it
for everything.

Indigo is a natural dye
made of fermented leaves of the indigo plant mixed with water. At first it was
used by aristocrats, but in the Edo period (1603-1868), all sorts of people
from common folk to samurai wore dyed clothes. Indigo-dyed clothes were not
only fashionable, but they also had three additional benefits: the fibre
becomes stronger after indigo dying, it has an insect repelling effect, and it
has a UV protective effect. Nowadays this colour is still used in a lot of
Japanese items, even blue jeans. https://kokoro-jp.com/culture/298/

When you enter certain
business fields you start to see how colours are important and also in certain
religious beliefs. In corporate life the suit blue is regarded as someone who
is trust worthy and responsible this can also be said as the reason for Police
being known to wear blue. Orange is a common colour known for energy, happiness
and vitality. Monks are known to wear Orange as a way to represent exactly
that, seeking happiness and having constant energy and not just any kind of
energy but the energy that can be received as peaceful and filled with Joy just
by being in their presence.

Many people in the
business field adapted the concept of colour importance. It could be stated
that in the past colours were used to differentiate the different rankings in a
certain company and also colours are used in places like restaurants such as
McDonalds chose the colour yellow as one of their main colours because that
colour represents happiness, joy. That also connects why their food is designed
to bring families together. 

Now that we know that
different colours symbolise different energies, it is easier for those who are
designing logos and starting new companies to understand that whatever they
pick from uniforms, to how their company looks colour wise. The colours need to
be communicating the right feeling, that speaks to their target market. You
want to make sure that the colours you pick make your customers feel safe
enough to want to use your services/product/goods.

your everyday life

miuc.org

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020

hedonic treadmill theory

By Tshepo Leroy Dube

“The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.” wikipedia.

To understand hedonic treadmill a bit better I’m going to tell you a story, a story that contains a father and son. Daedalus known as one of the greatest architects to ever live in the greek mythology. He was famously known for being the key architect of how Crete looked and designing a spectacular labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. It is said the labyrinth was so cunning that those who entered could not find their way out. The only way out was with a magical clue that would assist you find your way to the nearest exit. One day it is said King Minos imprisoned Daedalus together with his son Icarus. While imprisoned in the tower it is said Daedalus would watch the birds that would fly by and study their aerodynamic ways of flying. This is, where he thought of the idea to craft wings from fallen feathers and wax. By doing this he understood he would be building a risky escape plan for him and his son. It is said that Daedalus spoke to his son Icarus before taking flight, stating to him that they should not fly too high or too low and to follow his lead in order to have a safe journey. As usual Icarus felt the need to not listen to his father, believing he new better and he could reach the sun. It could be said he could have been mesmerised by his feeling of flying, after being in prison for so long. Wishing to go as high as possible in order to reach the sun. It can be said that sun was the only thing besides the birds that Icarus could see, which made him dream about reaching the sun one day escaping, his anxiety could have played a major role in wanting to escape his reflection of earth and reach the sun. By not taking heed to his fathers warning, lead to Icarus’s wax wings melting and his feathers scattering, leading to him falling to his death.

The feeling of not being satisfied with what you have. The feeling of, whatever you may achieve or get is never enough to make you happy, so you constantly wanting more. This also means that people who feel like they need to get to a certain stage in their career or life to be happy, quickly learn that wherever they go they still face problems. The trick is to find happiness/peace irregardless of your circumstances or life situation, understanding that life is meant to be lived through all kinds of problems and that the key is to understand that the worlds filled with ups and downs.  The spirit of Daedalus is a strong key of what we could consider as the hedonic treadmill theory, as you look at his story of how he designed an amazing labyrinth for a king and that same king placed him in prison later on with his son. In prison Daedalus. Daedalus at his lowest could have easily given up but his strong will lead to him designing a master plan for his escape. His son Icarus on the other hand is the example of what happens when you don’t find a balance in your life, this state is known as the Icarus effect.

When you chase your dreams or set goals always make sure to expect the journey of reaching yours goals to have ups and downs, twists and turns, reason being that every goal set or dream chased, comes with challenges that will test your limits and sometimes you will want to give up.

So in closing the key meaning to not only understand, but to take from this thread is that you don’t need a miraculous life in order to be happy, happiness is a state of mind and not a place.

The myth of Daedalus and Icarus

The Hedonic Treadmill: From Consumerism …

vacounseling.com

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020

If tress could talk

WHAT WOULD THEY SAY?

Fun Fact About Trees

“Trees can live anywhere from less than 100 years up to more than a few thousand years. It all depends on what type of tree it is. In the United States, the tree with the longest lifespan is the bristle cone pine, which grows in the mountains of Nevada and southern California. A singletree can live up to 5,000 years!”

Trees are known to live for thousands of years longer than the people who plant them. In those centuries it would be interesting to know what the trees have seen and experienced the difference in temperatures and weather changes over the years. Different animals who have occupied or fed from the trees. The stories that trees could tell would be far interesting. To live so long could it be said that trees could tell us our journey as human and how civilisation took place?

Civilisation

If we were concious enough to speak to trees could they tell us their pain from watching their families being cut down daily for human benefits? Could trees tell us about their trauma from listening to their loved ones crying for help as their cut down. They could tell us about the toxic pollution they’ve had to endure as we create our chemical based factories and constant smoke over the centuries. They would tell us about the droughts and fasting they’ve experienced the stories they could tell us could help us reflect on our own evaluation.

Humans

The love, hate relationship trees would have with us humans, would be a very interesting factor or discussion. What do trees think of us, have we been good to them?  The knowledge we could learn, in order to rectify a lot of our errors. Think of the information they’ve passed down generation after generation, knowledge that surpasses human existence. The stories they’ve been told by their ancestors about life before humans. They could tell us about our development over the years to our current state of Homo Sapiens.

Extinctions

Plenty of animals and plant based creatures have gone extinct in the past few centuries, imagine the stories trees could tell us about such creatures how they lived and what they particularly like to do during the day and what they did in different seasons, how they seemed to feed and choose to eat and what caused them to go extinct, what could have been done to prevent such from taking place. What could be done differently to prevent the next animals from going extinct. Imagine the amount of time effort it would save certain  scientist to learn about certain things, not only scientists but also historians and farmers and garden lovers, so many could benefit from communicating with trees, would we be better humans if we could communicate with trees? Would we see things differently if we could take a slight glimpse into what trees have seen over the years?

Health

Imagine the health benefits we could get from different trees, the knowledge we could learn from trees about certain things that they have that could be used to cure diseases and cure illnesses and how we could prevent certain animals from dying not only humans but all living creatures.

Fun Fact About Trees

Some tree species — such as silver maple, green ash, sweet gum and black willow — are thought to be more tolerant to flooded soils than other trees like black locust, black walnut, tulip poplar, sugar maple and American beech.

Recovering From Disaster

Great Basin bristlecone pine

At roughly 4,800 years old, this Great Basin bristlecone pine is one of the oldest trees in world. Methuselah grows nearly two miles above sea level in California’s Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. It’s been in good company over the past several thousand years.

Fun Debate Topic

I leave you guys with a cool fun debate to have with your friends and family, on the endless possibilities of this question. IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST AND NO ONE IS AROUND DOES IT MAKE A SOUND? Remember the more you ask questions about this and think outside the box the more interesting it will get.

For those interested to share their results after their Debate email me at tshepod@nsabasi-publishing.co.za.

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020

Ikigai: A word that transforms a life time of decisions

By Tshepo Leroy Dube

Pronounced as (eee kee guy) .

Ikigai: A personal, process of finding your true purpose in life. The process of truly understanding what you are good at. What you truly love. How you feel when you are doing what you love. Knowing, how you start your day everyday affects/defines, how your day will look like for the next 24 hours. In a nutshell it is a journey of discovering your balance through stages and phases of your life.

Now there are four stages of this flow-state process, to identifying your ikigai.

  1. Doing things that you are good at
  2. Doing things that you love to do
  3. Doing what the world needs
  4. Doing what generates money

Now the trick is finding a balance between these four stages in order to find your true level of ikigai.

  • What you good at + what you love = passion
  • What you love + what the world needs = mission
  • What you can get paid for + what the world needs = vocation
  • What you’re good at + what you can be paid for = profession

Without all four of these in motion at the same time you have not reached ikigai. Another way to look at how it works, picture four pillars. These four pillars, hold your purpose of being up and keep it at balance. The moment you remove any one of the four, the entire flow-state crumbles. So ideas such as retiring become non existent because what you’re doing is so fulfilling. Therefore with each stage and step of your life you are able to adjust it into your circumstance and able to face any hurdle / obstacle, that is placed your way. You are never certain which curve ball life will throw at you, nevertheless your flow-state is prepared for such situations and this too can be said for ones business.

Finding ikigai is not something that comes lightly as it requires you to dig deep and do a little bit of soul searching, while grasping your strengths and weaknesses. Understanding that your past and future are filled with attainments of growth. When you’re at your bliss, to remember the lessons learnt on your bad days. When you’re dealing with bad days it is ideal to understand that good days are coming. You just have to be patient and understand that life is a balance of every emotion. The journey is finding a true balance within your chaos and success, this is the state of ikigai.

It is fairly easy to speak about successes but, it’s very difficult to talk about our failures. With ikigai flow-state you’re suppose to see the bigger picture in your flaws as much as in your successes that balance is what fore fills your fuel to keep doing what you’re doing when you see the right results. It is the process of taking care of you’re self physically mentally

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020

Collaboration in the business

By Tshepo Leroy Dube

A picture from –What Is Collaboration and Where Does It (seapointcenter.com)

Collaboration in the Business Sector

The meaning of collaboration is to work jointly on an activity or project with the intention of reaching a certain goal. This is one important factor for business. Most start-up companies fear the idea of collaborating, because they fear the image of their business will be tarnished leading to their profits dropping. Most small businesses cringe at the thought of collaborating with a company trying to reach the same objective/s as them.  The fear of being out of business, fear of risk taking can sometimes be the downfall of your company. Such thoughts are a state i like to call “defensive mode”, where companies start to compete. Most reasons why some start-up companies don’t make it past five years is truly because the passion, vision and timing of why they started their business goes out the window when they try do everything alone, with hopes that no one takes claim of their success and so forth. Similar businesses start to look like threats so you compete and start to lose the reason why you started your business and what makes you different.

However collaborating with someone or a company to achieve the same goal, shortens the time frame of your goal being reached earlier. The reason being, it is no longer just you doing all the work. You are now able to trade with other people information and learn some of the things that you couldn’t have learnt alone and through this process, new projects are born for you to immerse yourself in. More valuable hours are put into your craft, with the help of a team that understands your mission. The approach of collaborating can be elementary if you ask very specific questions that have to do with you and your company. For example: what do I gain from working with them? How does my company benefit from this? How can we best work together? Why do I need to work with them? What value do I bring to the table oppose to the value I gain from collaborating?.

“What value do I bring to the table oppose to the value I gain from collaborating.”

To dissect this a little further, once you understand your value and the value of your company, it becomes easier for you to position yourself in places that make you understand what you have and lack (finding your niche). When you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your company. The process of projecting, what it will take for you to achieve or grow your company to its full potential, begins. The next step is then to position yourself with companies (networks) that have what you need. Which places you in a position to make collaborative decisions to benefit you and your collaborative partner/s. For example take a company that designs and manufactures tables for a living. The company may be doing well financially but until that company takes the approach to collaborate with a “chair company”, their sale may never grow as much as they want it to. The value of a chair company is the ability to now have a complete set to sell (table/desk & chair) from this you could split the profits and keep your individual profits from your original work separate. This makes each product viewed from collaborative aspect and individual aspect. The amount of time it would take you to start up and build a story line for your new chair line and “perfect it” to the desires of your clients, is shortened by collaborating. you not only get their experience from selling chairs. You have first-hand experience, their data base and  the time frame of getting your new products ready for market is far simpler as you both have the capabilities of making individual products on time then collaborative products should then be easier and faster to process.

You access their database to create a bigger database you both have a new target audience

Most of the time new companies who choose to compete find themselves losing the direction of where they originally wanted to take their business, because their vision is now blurred by wanting to be ahead of their competitors by seeing what they are doing and trying to produce a better product. By doing this you are not only closing your companies innovative potential you also tend to start forgetting about your clients needs and wants. You completely tarnish the reason why you started your company and everything starts to feel like a drag and your lack of passion starts to be seen by your staff and clients and that case your company starts to lose its value and next thing you know you have lost your company and your drive. When you could have avoided everything by looking at what your value is …and what you have to offer and how you plan to offer it without losing sight of why you started your business and why customers trust you.

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020

Slow down with Joburg’s newest artisanal market

Cedar Square launches new Slow Market with a wide variety of stalls and entertainment for everyone

Markets and fairs are enjoying a growing wave of popularity as must-visit lifestyle destinations that feature organic foods, on-trend artisanal products, and a unique community spirit.

The artisanal hand-made ‘vibe’ has always been a counterpoint to mall culture, but South Africans have turned that trend on its head, with malls inviting markets in as ‘pop-up’ tenants – going even further in their quest to provide shoppers with all the resources they need.

The new Slow Market at Cedar Square in Fourways, welcoming more than 40 stall-holders each Saturday from 9h00 until 15h00, catering to the community which is increasingly looking for healthy, sustainable and authentic experiences.

Stalls include artisanal cheeses, delicious baked goods, pure honey, handmade leather goods and handsewn clothing, as well as art, crocheted toys and jewellery, among others.

The product range has been carefully curated to ensure that there are no mass-manufactured or poor-quality goods for sale, with each vendor committing to the ethos of ‘slow’, i.e. prepared by hand, using high-quality locally sourced ingredients or materials.

The stallholder mix has been designed to complement the products and services offered in Cedar Square, giving visitors to the centre the best of both worlds: the uniqueness of artisanal produce and goods, and the range of premium products and services expected in an upmarket retail setting.

“Participating in Cedar Square’s Slow Market is the ultimate opportunity for local makers and smaller brands to cultivate real connections with customers,” says Zoe van Onselen, Head of Marketing at Accelerate Property Fund, the centre’s owner. “It’s a great launch platform for new businesses, giving them the opportunity to engage directly with customers. The market is also a manageable and affordable way for entrepreneurs to showcase their products in more of a ‘pop-up’ context in a premium environment, rather than investing in a full-scale brick-and-mortar location. ”

The Cedar Square Slow Market is more than a regular market experience – regular live music performances add to the spirit and excitement of each morning, while scattered seating and tables offer comfortable resting areas for shoppers to take a break and enjoy a snack or craft drink.

Visit the Slow Market at Cedar Square every Saturday from 9h00 to 15h00. Vendors accept cards or cash, and visitors are encouraged to bring their own reusable shopping bags. For more information and a list of vendors, please contact Jacqui van den Berg.

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020

Where to find your untapped profit potential…

 Let
us make the point that, it is not just one solution that works, but more a
number of simple solutions (let’s call them profit-drivers) that can be applied
throughout many areas of your business, to work in combination, and to drive
and multiply your bottom-line profits. 

A number
of years ago, Trevor Nel developed a series called the GROWTH PROFIT-DRIVERS,
which we would like to share with you.

The GROWTH
Profit-Driver Series

  1. Your PHILOSOPHY
  2. Your BUSINESS STRATEGY
  3. Your BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS
  4. Your BUSINESS OPERATING SYSTEM
  5. Your USP – UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION
  6. Your MARKETING STRATEGY
  7. Your PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
  8. Your SELLING PROCESS
  9. Your PEOPLE PROCESS
  10. Your CAPITAL RESOURCES

These
PROFIT-DRIVERS are very simple to apply, but it takes courage to make a
decision to actually apply them and learn from them, to proactively commit to
action them, and to persist with them long enough to see a trend or result
appearing.

 What
it takes is a good positive entrepreneurial attitude towards yourself to learning
new concepts, to looking at business principles in a new light, to your
business and staff, and to your current and prospective customer-base.

In essence
what we are saying is that, the key to successfully building your business is
to be found in your determination and enthusiasm to learn and implement the simple things and remember that life is
controlled by a very simple law called the Law of Cause and Effect.

It is the inevitable process that is the
thread throughout your business framework and methodologies, each step being a
cause, step or action that results in the ultimate effect or desired result.

The universal law
of cause and effect states that for every effect there is a
definite cause. So, if you decide on a desired effect, such as to run a
marathon, the causes or actions required are regular and specific training and
personal development that will allow you to achieve your desired effect, which
is to run the marathon.

The law of cause and effect relates to your thoughts as well. Your
thoughts express themselves through your behaviors and actions which create
specific effects that in turn manifest and create your life.
Negative thoughts will create negative behaviors; similarly, positive thoughts
will create positive behaviors.

If you are not happy with the effects or the results you are getting
in your business
, then you must change the causes or actions that
created them in the first place… which is the essence of what the book “The Fixer – simple ideas to grow your
business”
program is about, offering guidelines, rules, ideas and processes
to assist you in managing the causes.

The point of this process is to do the small
things extraordinarily well all the time and remember that consistency is the
key to successfully achieving your objectives.

This article is an excerpt from the book “The
Fixer – simple ideas to grow your business” by Iain Johnston and Trevor Nel 

For
more information and to purchase a copy of The Fixer contact Iain at iain@fccc.co.za


About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020