Unpacking people, money and networking

Here is the fourth and last in the series on starting your own business.

- Steve Reid

Customers

A powerful quotation is attributed to Mahatma Gandhi who, in a speech in South Africa in 1890, spoke about loving your customers: "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so."

These wise words, said more than 120 years ago, still carry such relevance today. I am convinced that living them out can still be of great value, irrespective of whether we are employed, self-employed or even seeking employment.

Just remember, customers don't care what you know until they know that you care.

Money mistakes entrepreneurs make (with thanks to Heinrich Grove)

1 Not separating business and personal expenses

You as the owner are only entitled to take money out of a business in one of three ways: Salary, dividends and loan repayments

Many entrepreneurs say "I am the business", which lands them in deep trouble as they start using the business bank account and a personal account and try and mask personal expenses as business expenses.

In auditing there is a term which is called a "fraud risk indicator" - a red light that something is wrong in the books.

What are the two main fraud risk indicators? Working with lots of cash and using a business account as a personal account.

What are the consequences of paying personal expenses out of a business account? If SARS picks it up they are going to start digging and you might end up in trouble.