Full Menu Catering, a small enterprise mentored by The Hope Factory, was awarded the best SMME stand at the Absa Enterprise Development Expo hosted at Smart Procurement World. “The Expo award is recognition of how far Full Menu Catering has progressed since joining The Hope Factory’s Entrepreneur Support Programme,” says Busi Raphekwane, a Business Mentor at The Hope Factory, in this month’s SmartProcurement.
“The business did not even have a pull-up banner when it joined The Hope Factory Entrepreneur Support Programme at the beginning of the year!”
The Hope Factory sponsored several of its current entrepreneurs to participate at the ABSA Enterprise Development Grow Conference, whose primary objective is exposing and linking Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises (SMMEs) to larger corporate counterparts.
Full Menu Catering, one of the businesses that took full advantage of this opportunity, made such an impression through their passion and love for what they do, that they were awarded the best stand at the SMME expo.
“Full Menu Catering has come a long way this year, considering that the business did not even have a pull-up banner when it joined The Hope Factory Entrepreneur Support Programme at the beginning of the year,” explains Raphekwane.
Here are some of the challenges that Full Menu struggled with before joining The Hope Factory programme:
• Poor cash flow management.
• High turnover, but with no profits, owing to undercharging and overspending and paying owners’ salaries.
• No record keeping and, therefore, no understanding of what the business was earning and how much it was spending.
• Poor negotiation and sales skills.
Fast forward nine months and Full Menu Catering’s profit margin has increased from -73% to 41%, achieved through gaining a better understanding of their finances and applying correct costing to their services to ensure profits.
As well as its success at the expo, Full Menu Catering was able to successfully deliver an excellent service to one of The Hope Factory’s biggest investors. This was made possible by ensuring that the business understood the expectations of this investor (client), was able to accurately cost its services and that the investor better understood the challenges facing SMMEs, notes Raphekwane.
The Hope Factory is an Enterprise Development organisation of The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). For more information visit The Hope Factory
