2013…

Did you know that YouTube is the third biggest TV channel in the UK?

It’s a completely different way of looking at what the web can deliver. It made me realise that I have spent the past nine months recording more than 100 hours worth of videos online, while teaching 500 small-business owners all that they need to know to build a portable online income. (And some shows even got rave reviews.)

Before talking about plans for 2013, I thought you might enjoy the irony of my witnessing my first hijacking last Sunday morning.

It seems that they happen in Norway as well.

In this case, a few hundred yards from my home, the hijackers had to slap the driver once with an open hand because they do not really approve of weapons here in Norway. Then, probably because it costs about R40,000 to get a drivers licence and these fellows could not afford that, they crashed the vehicle into four other cars as they made their getaway. (No, they have not yet been caught.)

And since I have been talking about mobile offices for so long, I thought I would share this picture of one, Norwegian style. The local police stopped the driver for speeding, and despite knowing that he used his office while driving, could not fine him for it. Who says that men cannot multitask?

Which brings me to a business mentorship project for 2013.

The biggest challenge each of us small-business owners face, running a regular, offine business in South Africa, is that there is so much that we don’t know. In fact there is so much that we don’t know that we don’t even know how much we don’t know. It’s that lack of knowledge that creates most of the problems we bump into.

For instance, most of us sign sureties when we borrow money, with no real grasp of the dangers. Or we leave our tax returns to accountants, without knowing that their service levels are often at the same level as plumbers. And when those tax returns don’t go in on time, we’re in even more expensive shyte. Or our lack of knowledge about business assurance allows somebody to sell us up the river. Or we pay a techie 100,000 Rand to build an e-commerce site, when we could have had it built within 24 hours for 200 Rand. I could go on, but you get the point.

To succeed in business you don’t need the brains of Einstein, the muscles of Hercules, or the reflexes of Lewis Hamilton. You just need to know what to do next.

Having been in small-business since 1984 in three very varied countries, and learned a few things along the way, I will be starting a new mentorship project in January. It will be called Business Warriors, but it’s going to be unlike the earlier version.

After presenting online TV/webinars on deeply complex issues since 2007, and running three online mentorships, it is easy to present a weekly two-hour show featuring experts in each aspect of small business. We will cover the entire gamut from starting up to closing down. Along the way we will look at leasing premises, opening branches, funding without sureties, cutting staffing, outsourcing, tax, accounting, BBBEE, marketing, selling, applying tech to cut costs and ease loads, and so on.

The plan is to build a complete library, compiled by gurus in each arena, supported by a forum where you can access those specialists.

Each webinar will be recorded and stored for any Warrior to view or download at any time. The Questions and Answers that support each video will be on the forum.

You will learn as much as you need to stay out of trouble. And you can call on expert help if you need that knowledge applied to your problems.

We will kick off in the second week of January. I will get back to you with a offer just for PetesWeekly readers. (The fine folk attending the current World Wide Warriors program will get the January – March period gratis.) And if you want to register your early interest, with no obligation, you can get an even better offer by giving me your details here.

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For more information please contact Peter at this address

www.petesweekly.com