Sabona business network (SBN) Project Fish
by Philip Scott
The secret to success in ANY situation is really quite simple:
Focus on the solution, not the problem.
With the global financial crisis, many businesses are suffering and people are struggling to survive. This may sound like its easy for me to say, but you simply cant just focus on the fact that you have bills to pay.
There is a very simple, but clear fact that no one can argue with: No amount of worry or stress will make a problem go away. So often in life we get told we should set goals, yet so many of us dont know how to clearly set goals. But that doesnt need to stop you. Even if youre not going to set a goal, at least do something. Live in denial if you have to, but do not stress about anything because it does not help, ever! It cant. So stop worrying and stop stressing. Get out and do something.
If you own your own business, but dont have enough work coming in, find another business and offer to do a bit of work for them for free. Dont tell them how tough things are for you. Be positive! People do not like to be around those who are negative. Just tell the people you are approaching that things are a bit quiet for you at the moment and you dont like being idle, so you figure you may as well help someone else out a bit. And say it with a nice big smile and happy demeanour. Before you know it, youll have made some new contacts and they may just love your attitude and introduce you to your next big client. Project Fish is a new initiative weve started at Sabona. We hope that it will be a solution to a problem that weve identified.
The problem is that while weve helped so many people who are in difficult situations (see page 8 and 9), were always asking for more help and more money. But there isnt an endless amount of money. So how do we hope to solve this problem?
We have created a project that will give people the opportunity to help themselves. It would be lovely to say that our goal is to ensure no Southern African in Australia will ever be in a position where they cant pay their bills, but that is not really something we could easily measure, let alone achieve. Sure that may be the ultimate vision, but to start with we need to have some realistic expectations.
Our initial goal is to set up one person with a part-time home based business that will earn that individual an extra $250 per week. It may not sound like much, but it is a great start. By making our goal a lot simpler to achieve, it is easier for us to be motivated, easier to plan, quicker to get started and ultimately quicker and easier to reach our goal.
No one said were not allowed to set new goals once weve reached our first goal, and thats exactly what well be doing. Youll be able to follow the progress on our website (www.sabona.com.au), but in a nutshell we have a simple business plan, with its own achievable goals. To allow us to set up that one person, well be raising funds, but heres the big difference: The funds raised will not be a donation as such, but rather a form of investment. The project will operate as a business with profits re-invested to grow the project and so that we are able to set up more people in businesses, resulting in more profits and an ability to help even more people.
In short, Project Fish enables us to focus our energy on a solution to the problem of the many Southern Africans living inAustralia who are currently in need.
Philip Scott is the chief executive officer of Sabona and co-ordinator of the Sabona Business Network. See www.sabona.com.auphilipscott
Home