Entrepreneurs of all age groups gathered at the Florida Library on Wednesday 13 November for a workshop in entrepreneurship and drawing up a business plan.
The workshop was held in the large auditorium at the library at 09.30am and was presented free of charge by Vincent Erasmus who is the new development manager at Development First, a company involved in business growth, development and sustainability.
About his collaboration with the Florida Library, Erasmus said that he was “quite surprised to see such young people attending the talk.
“It gives me great hope to see that there are young entrepreneurs and even students among you.”
Erasmus’ general encouragement to his crowd of 30 people was that they could create their own happiness and even help create jobs for other people.
“We [as the company Development First] want to encourage job creation and development.
“The jobless figures are painstakingly high and it is time that we as business-oriented people work to turn this around.”
In his talk on entrepreneurial development, Erasmus highlighted job creation and economic development as the key factors to work on in the South African economy.
He later explained their company’s way of doing business plans, and broke it down into elements, which he discussed in detail. These elements were an executive summary, company summary, list of products or services, market analysis, strategy and implementation plan (including a SWOT analysis), management summary, financial plan (including projected profit and loss, a cash-flow statement, projected balance sheet and a break-even analysis) and appendixes.
“Consider your target market and do an analysis of your new potential clients.”
Those who attended received useful tips on how to obtain funding for their business plan and which companies to approach.
The Library hopes to host more skills workshops in 2014.
