Christoff Oosthuysen
The past year surely flew by! But as the saying goes, “time flies when you’re having fun…”.
This month marks a year since the launch of Small Business Connect.
The response to the print version of the newspaper and the engagement of business owners through the various online platforms we’ve been active on, are pointing to one realisation – the hunger among entrepreneurs for useful information is huge!
The need to be informed runs across the board – the youngster thinking of starting out his or her own small business; the entrepreneur who has grown the company to a point where renewal is needed; those coming together in a co-operative in a rural town to establish a business around available resources; and the new technology developer building the next best app to be sold to international markets.
It does not matter where you are at in the development of your business, or which sector you are in, you always need up-to-date and useful information.
The challenge as publishers of such information is, of course , that the content needs to vary among the different parts of the entrepreneurial community.
In a way the demand is for Small Business Connect to be “everything for everyone”, which is of course impossible.
We’ve aimed to strike a balance in the newspaper, but the 20 pages we are confined to only allow so much to be included. That is why we added new channels in recent months, including more active participation in social media (with Facebook being the dominant platform) and last month we launched an online radio show which you can join from anywhere in the country (or world)! See page 20 for more on this. We thought our reach was slowly growing until we saw the astonishing statistic that we touched just short of 100 000 people last month through our Facebook page.
The most important element of making Small Business Connect a success is of course the degree to which it helps owner-managers to grow their businesses, offer value to their customers, create jobs in their communities, and build a life they are proud of.
Christoff Oosthuysen
Publisher