Many entrepreneurs dream about making their first million, followed by their first R100 million. The reality is that business is tough, and if you don’t follow your passion, you’ll never be happy. More importantly, passion is infectious. If you want people to love your brand, to buy from you, support you and even invest in you, you need to love what you do.
NicSocks was a side hustle for me. It stayed that way for nearly two years. I was building a consulting firm that was earning me significantly more money but was becoming increasingly more complicated with new partners.
The business began to grow nicely. I focused on expanding our subscriber base. Initially I wanted to meet our customers so I set up a pick-up point in Woodstock, Cape Town.
Every week between 10am and 2pm I would sit at a tea shop with customers’ orders and wait for them to come and pick them up. I’d meet the customers, get an understanding of exactly why they purchased a subscription, who it was for, how they heard about us, what they thought about our socks and so on. It was a fantastic way for me to gain insights into my customer base, but ultimately that kind of engagement is unsustainable as you scale. Our ecommerce sales were really starting to take off.
This was mostly driven by traditional media, if you can believe that. I discovered that the more exposure I received in magazines and on radio and TV shows, the better our website did. There was a direct correlation. So, I started to work my way into as many shows and publications as possible.
I was interviewed on 5FM, 702 and Cape Talk, tons of local radio stations; I appeared on Top Billing and did interviews for countless magazines (online and offline). The Top Billing feature just about made our sales numbers for that year. The incredible response was surprising because I honestly believed that TV was dead. It is not dead in South Africa.
Bu hikaye Entrepreneur Magazine South Africa dergisinin August 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Entrepreneur Magazine South Africa dergisinin August 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
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