At about 4am on Saturday morning (5 May 2012) I woke up to find a blinding light in my face and two guys shouting “I kill you”. They pushed a gun against my head. Dragging me from my bed they tied me up with my bed-sheets and then started demanding information about cash and gold in the house. I don’t keep a safe, which made them rather frustrated. I was then gagged.

Over the next approximately two hours they ransacked the house, looting all my electronic toys (laptops, iMac, TV, PS3, iPad, iPhone, sound system, etc) while regularly shouting at me “I kill you”. It seems that they were loading all the stuff in my car.

I drive an automatic Audi A4 with electronic hand-brake and this seemed to have them flummoxed. They came upstairs and demanded to know how to start the car. I tried to explain to them but they didn’t seem to understand that the Audi doesn’t have a traditional key.

They dragged me downstairs to the car and I had to show them how to start the car, after which they took me back upstairs and tied me down to a chair.

They then went back downstairs and I heard the garage door open and the car start. A minute or two later they were back upstairs telling me I have to come with them. They dragged me back downstairs into the car, sitting in the front passenger seat with a guy and gun behind me. I then had to explain to the man how to disengage the electronic brake and drive an automatic!

We drove out of West Beach towards Brooklyn where they were meant to meet up with someone. Somehow their plans got messed up and they decided to proceed to Khayelitsha. I asked them not to take me there – thinking that if I saw where they lived they would never let me leave alive.

The driver told me not to worry and that they didn’t want to kill me. His friend on the backseat said they must rather dump me along the road (we were in Maitland at the time) and the driver said, “No, they will kill him here.” They then had an argument about killing me and leaving me alive (the second time that evening). The driver asked if I was a Christian. He said he was a Muslim man, and that as a Muslim he couldn’t kill anyone. He only wanted stuff covered by insurance and I mustn’t worry and he will even give me my car back.

When we got to the N2 they decided to blindfold me. We drove in circles all around Khayelitsha until finally coming to a stop. One guy held a gun to my head, told me to look down (I was blind-folded anyway) and then they emptied out the car. At this stage they all got back into the car (now 3 of them) and drove all over again.

They finally came to a stop (along the N2). The two guys in the back jumped out, the guy in the front pulled off the blind-folds and told me “it’s all over, you can go home now” and he jumped out and ran off.

So, all of this took about 3 hours. It was without a doubt one of the scariest moments of my life. I can only thank God that I am alive as I know He was protecting me that night!

So when you get clients, you’ll pretty much put up with any sort of abuse. Clients will ignore deadlines and your personal boundaries. If they find your private (home) number they’ll be quite happy to abuse it because “their emergency” is almost always more important than your life or your family. And because you’re petrified of losing the client (because they always threaten to do so) you’ll break your rules and do it anyway…and once you break the rule once, your peace and quiet is over for good.

About a month ago I had a client who became verbally abusive to my staff. We had done nothing wrong. In fact he had not paid his monthly retainer with us for 6 months but was still insisting on the service. When I finally pulled the plug on his service, he first got abusive, then paid up his account, and then got abusive again because his service had not been restored to immediately – even though our contract clearly states a 48 hour waiting time if there is a disruption in service.

And so I fired the client.

Most entrepreneurs will gasp and think I’m mad – you can’t fire a client. “The client is always right”. Nonsense.

I can’t even explain the relief that comes with getting rid of a difficult client, so they I can focus on my paying, happy clients – and I also have my Self-Respect back. I have value, not only as a person, but as a business owner. So please show me some respect and common courtesy.

Of course, if I’m in the wrong, point it out – I want to learn and grow and deliver the best results I can – but please don’t expect me to take your abuse.

So, my encouragement to you today: Find the most horrible client you have (you’ll see they also pay you very little but take up most of your time) and fire them. Just fire off an email saying that due to internal re-structuring in the office you will not be able to manage them from X-Date.

Good Luck!

So sitting around today stressing about everything going on in my life, I have realised that I have wasted a grand total of 2 hours this morning worried about what everyone else is doing instead of focusing on sorting out my own goals. I’ve got my own vision board, 5 year plan and all broken down into monthly and weekly goals …

But amazing how hard it is to focus on my own goals when everyone else’s goals seem like so much more fun!

Does anyone else feel like that?

If you don’t know, Canal Walk is the biggest shopping mall in Cape Town and incredibly popular. It’s not the closest shopping mall to me, but it’s central which means that I do have quite a few meetings there with clients who want to meet somewhere central, rather than driving through to my offices in West Beach.

Now, Peeve #1: Canal Walk has incredibly expensive parking. R8.00 for the first hour, after which it steadily climbs. I am personally opposed to shopping malls who charge for parking. Especially at Canal Walk, where there really is no alternative – they’re slap bang in the middle of unusable marsh-land that stretches out for miles, and you can’t park outside the precinct and use public transport, because, well, there isn’t any. OK, so I’m forced to pay for parking.

Peeve #2: Their parking machines don’t accept Credit Cards. If you’re the biggest mall in the Western Cape, with the rates you charge for parking, please accept credit cards. Happily the V&A Waterfront now accepts Credit Cards at their machines, and so does the Airport … no one keeps enough cash on them, and if you do have cash, the stupid machine spits out a pile of R5 coins when paying with R50.00.

Which leads to the incident yesterday where Canal Walk Shopping Centre held me hostage:

I had a meeting yesterday with my landlord to discuss a few things and realised after the meeting I had no cash on me, so I quickly drew some cash at the ATM. Since the devaluation of the rand over the last while, you may have noticed that ATMs no longer spit out R50 notes. The smallest amount I could draw was R100.00 – which puts me in a pickle … the Parking Machines don’t accept R100 notes! No problem, I’ll ask at the Canal Walk Information Desk if they can give me change … and this was their response: “We don’t give change for parking”. Which is the response I got from all the shops along the way from the Parking Machine to the Information Desk.

I explained my dilemma to the man at the Information Desk. I normally don’t carry cash with me, I drew money from the ATM and they only spit out R100 notes. What now? “Ah yes,” he says, “we are aware of that problem. A lot of people come to us and say the same thing. Sorry, we don’t give change”.

Well then, what am I supposed to do?

I can go pay my parking at the ticket office, but it’s in some dark dingy part of the parking garages, diametrically opposed to where I had parked. My alternative, is to go into a shop and buy something. I eventually ceded to the ransom demand and bought a bottle of water so that I had enough change to pay for my parking.

On twitter, a few followers suggested I could have gone to the bank and asked for change … but have you seen the queues at banks?

My gripes:

1. If Canal Walk Management is aware of the problem (ATMs spitting out R100 notes, and machines not accepting them) what exactly are they doing about it?
2. Why do Canal Walk machines not accept Credit Cards?
3. Why not give your Information Desk the tools/ability to give out change?
4. Why not allow the Parking Offices some space in two or three points in the mall to dish out change?

Why am I forced to buy something to get change to pay for my parking?

It’s absolutely unacceptable – and let’s not even talk about the attitude I got from the people at the Information Desk – they were as helpful as a screen-door on a submarine.

I got a tweet this morning that GoogleTalk Voice is now available in SA. Many people may already be familiar with GoogleTalk, which is just another Instant Messenger, like MSN or skype-chat. But I think this is a real game-changer, and let me explain:

I use Skype for more and more calls these days – so many people are connected to skype, and it’s just much easier on my Macbook to call them via skype, than use the Telkom phone. Besides that, I have integrated video, so the people I am calling can actually see me and if they have a web-cam set up (most people do) then I can see them too. Frightfully space-aged, but increasingly “normal” in the circles I spin around in.

Then there is Skype-Out, which basically allows me to make a phone-call to any landline or mobile number in the world at a reduced rate. For example, I can call my friends in the UK and pay only a few pence per minute, far cheaper than via Telkom, and the quality is pretty great.

And that’s where Google Talk with Voice is coming to play … it’s going to offer us some ridiculously good rates. Here’s my quick comparison:

Telkom to Telkom: 50c/minute

Telkom to Mobile: 140c/minute

Vodacom to Telkom: 199/min

Vodacom to Mobile: 199/min (165/min Vodacom -> Vodacom)

Skype to Telkom: 58c/min

Skype to Mobile: 167c/min

Google to Telkom: 35c/min

Google to Mobile: 119c/min

As you can see, Google’s rates are ridiculous! It’s going to be cheaper for me to phone someone in SA on landline via my own Telkom Phone.

So the question is: One cellphone, or two?

Option 1: keep my existing phone but ignore the calls I don’t want to take. The downside is that the phone is always ringing, bleeping or blurping with SMS, Whatsapp, emails and calls. Also, some clients don’t like to have their calls constantly diverted to voicemail.

Option 2: Get a second phone, give this number only to close friends and family. It does mean that during a “normal” day I have to carry two phones around with me.

What would you do?

One of the major things I learnt with my time at Amway is to Ask the Right Questions.

In any sales environment, asking the Right Questions can lead to a sale. Asking the wrong questions will lead to constant rejection. It’s therefore worth your while to sit down and write out 4 or 5 questions that you want to ask a prospective client that will help you in making the sale.

I spent a session with my Action Coach on creating my questions and have found it helps phenomenally in controlling the conversation. The person who is asking the Questions, controls the conversation.

Even more so when you’re working with an online business or online marketing strategy: What Questions are you asking your prospective clients? Are you leading them to a position where they are interested in making a purchase?

Here are a few questions I like to ask:

Tell me about the kind of marketing you’re doing for your business?

What would your ideal client be?

What is your average closure rate for your current leads?

The trick is to try and keep the questions open. You don’t want people to answer “yes” and “no” because then it’ll feel like an interrogation and not a conversation.

Asking the Right Questions could lead to heaps more sales and heaps more cash-flow for your business. So take out 10 minutes and write down the questions you would ask a prospective client … and use them!

I had heard the rumours a while ago about a new design on it’s way (having bitterly complained in the past to the sterkinekor guys on twitter) and was eagerly awaiting a site that was simple, easy to use and easy to navigate. So, today I go to the site, suprised to see the new one up … IN FLASH! Let’s be honest – and leave flash websites to the Noughties (2000 – 2009 is apparently the noughties), I cannot stand the fact that I have to WAIT for the site to download … counting slowly from 0% to 100% … and I’m on a 4MB line! I cannot even begin to imagine the frustration for someone who is on 384K or dialup!

There is absolutely no reason in 2011 to be using flash. Besides the slow rate, it’s a nightmare for SEO, doesn’t work on iOS (so every iPad and iPhone in the country won’t be able to view it) and it’s confusing to navigate. I don’t care if your buttons go bleep or dance on the screen … I just want to book a movie. And another really irritating feature is the site now tells me where it thinks I should go … in my case, Cavendish (about 30km away) where Bayside is only 2.5km away … now how much did Sterkinekor pay the developers for that useless feature?

If any execs from Sterkinekor happen to cross my blog: Whatever you’ve paid for your new site, you’ve paid too much. It’s ugly, useless and cumbersome … and what’s with the adverts on the top? Why do you think you need extra advertising revenue?

Isn’t R38 for a coke and popcorn enough?

Last weekend I had the most amazing opportunity to chill out at The Winston in Simonstown, by far one of the nicest Bed&Breakfasts I’ve ever visited. Mike, the owner is an incredibly friendly chap and his staff are amazing. Boston, the resident chef prepared me scrumptious breakfasts each morning.

But the best part is the room and the view. Just a stone’s throw from Boulders, I keep expecting penguins to walk past the room, you are that close to the beach. Because the weather was really crummy, I was “forced” to stay in doors for much of the weekend, but I cannot explain how amazing it is to chill out, reading a book and watching the storm brewing over the ocean. Pure Bliss! I finished two books over the weekend.

Also, Simonstown is an absolutely incredible little town with the SA Navy Museum and the Toy Museum right there … of course there’s heaps of curio shops, Antique stores and a few great boutiques – a shoppers paradise. There are also a few great restaurants around … I loved it…Take a look at their website here: www.thewinston.co.za

OK, so the moral of my blogpost … I love the idea of talking a weekend a month off and doing nothing. And this place was perfect – I’ll definitely be going back. Mike says the whales should be around from August so it sounds good to me!