Apples, worms, and fixing business challenges

When I was first diagnosed as diabetic, a lifetime ago in 1971, I overheard a specialist reassuring my mom that I would “probably” live a normal life. He described my body as a rosy apple, with a hidden worm. My adolescent mind interpreted this to mean that I was destined for an early grave, and I would probably be be losing pieces en route. First the toes, then maybe a leg, and a kidney, before going blind. It’s amazing how your mind plays tricks on you when you are in the throes of hormonal transition!

Genuinely, however, I didn’t give myself much hope, and mentally made my mind up about dying young. A couple of years later I read a wonderful book about an old man with a young wife. He controlled his business “empire” from his bed using computers and powerful communications, while living in an apartment overlooking the beach. This was in 1977 before Apple released the first PC. This became my dream.

Since then almost everything I have done has been preparation for living a mobile life, being able to set up office anywhere, operate anywhere, live anywhere, and get paid somewhere else. It’s amazing how complex tax law can get when you live in one place, get paid somewhere else, with a business based in yet another country. It’s amazing how simple that makes your life.

For example, when you need assistance in your business, the traditional route is to employ somebody. We’ve all done it, maybe we’re still doing it, and most of us have regretted some of the employment decisions we made. Employing somebody these days gives them more rights than your children. And then there is all of the red tape that you have to adhere to, and the fines if you don’t. Yet all that you want to do is get on with selling more.

The easiest way to solve all of this is simply to employ somebody in a different country. Some people call it outsourcing. I call it commonsense. Right now, I can hire a PhD from India or China for an hour a day to do market research for less than minimum wage in South Africa, without UIF, PAYE, CCMA, Basic Conditions of Employment, worrying about whether they are “Labour brokers” or not, or being forced to garnishee their monthly wages. No office space, no refreshments, no telephone abuse, no sick leave, no pension fund, and no payment for work not finsihed.

In less than ten years, my futuristic book seems old hat. Yet most of us don’t seem to have cottoned on to the new world.

A few weeks ago I asked you to tell me your biggest business problem. More than 1400 PetesWeekly readers did just that – thank you. Two of the biggest problems SA red tape, and staffing. Let me suggest a few ways that technology can help.

• SA Red Tape: the National Credit Act, all the paperwork that government wants, etc. Why not set up a small online business – while you still have your day job – and gently grow it until you no longer feel the need tear down a Brazilian rain forest every time one of our revered leaders gets a bee in his bonnet because he doesn’t know the average waist measurement of 40-year-old male business owners in Kempton Park (or some other meaningful statistic needed in the interests of state security)? For the price of a Spur meal, you could be ‘live’ tonight! No paperwork. No PAYE. No red tape. No CIPRO. No UIF. No VAT. Just an annual honorable mention on your tax return. And if you choose to move to Bethlehem, Brazil, or Belize next year – no fighting to make your money follow you.

• Staffing: Specify exactly what you want, head for one of the many websites where freelancers hang out waiting just for your brief, and ask them to bid for your business. Next week I will be showing Warriors how to use a variant this to write entire books in weeks for next to nothing. No government intervention of any sort! It’s a dream come true. It’s a whole new world, and governments worldwide have not yet figured out how to deal with it. That makes it a myriad of opportunities for the likes of you and me – little folk trying to look after their families.

On the one hand, the deeper I venture into the technology (60 hours/week doing a whole lot of research for the Warriors) the more inspired I am for the future of anybody who cares to embrace the technology, and the more fearful I am for those folk who reject it.

I am now forty nine years old – a bit longer than I expected to live way back in 1971. And, apart from two eye lenses, nothing has yet dropped off. Nor does anything threaten to. And the technology quest turned out to be so much fun that I spend my life teaching it to anybody who cares enough to listen. Isn’t life wonderful?