Bertie du Plessis

Survival Skills for the Small Business Owner

I focus on small business owners. Small business owners regularly express three major needs:

• “I am so lonely, there is nobody that I can talk to.”
• “I am at the cross roads, I don’t know how where to go from here.”
• “I work myself to death and I don’t make enough money!”

1. I offer you a sounding board. You can’t talk to people working for you, yet you have been thinking in circles. You need a second opinion. Two heads are better than one!
2. I help you to analyse your threats and assess your options in a structured way.
3. I help you to find the reasons for working yourself to death and not making enough money. And I show you how to turn things around.

I have put together a package that makes executive level business coaching for small business owners practical. You come with one or all three of these concerns. We address them over three hour sessions. You send me in an email your major concerns and problems. I collaborate with you in deciding which is your major concern and treat this in the first session. You will have to execute actions and report back in the second session which is typically two weeks later. In the second session we address your second most important concern, once again you have to execute actions and report back in the third session. In the third session we pay attention to one basic business skill that is most important for you in your situation. Of course with time limited I can only give you some pointers that will guide you through the material I prescribe.

I coach for results – your business success. If you need references, please contact me and I will supply. A common theme in the responses of my coachees is: “You have helped us save our business and take it to the next level.”

You are welcome to meet me at my blog (www.bertieblogs.com) on fin24.com (South Africa’s largest business portal) where it is regularly the most read and most commented.

I am Practitioner Member of Coaches and Mentoring South Africa
(COMENSA #J00086_MEMP_DUP) and hold a Certificate from the Centre for Coaching at UCT Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town.

I subscribe to the Comensa Code of Ethics.

I would add to these an unflinching commitment to intellectual integrity: a practice built on transparent premises and a scientifically founded view of human behaviour.

Short bio

Bertie du Plessis (M.A. cum laude and DTh) had a brilliant academic career before turning to business. In his final year at school he was the third winner of what became known as the National Science Olympiad. Du Plessis has been a lecturer or guest lecturer at tertiary institutions in Afrikaans and Dutch literature, journalism, fine art, design, New Testament literature and business administration. He currently teaches a highly successful MBA elective, ‘Imagination for the business mind’ at the Gordon Insitute of Business Science. He founded the MindPilot consultancy in 1995. Du Plessis is also a professional fine artist who has exhibited at South Africa’s premier gallery, the Goodman. He contributed to two important publications on the old political dispensation in South Africa, Stormkompas and Wat kom na apartheid? Jong Afrikaners aan die woord oor ‘n toekoms sonder apartheid. He is an accomplished essayist and is represented in the volume Granaat, a showcase of Afrikaans essays in the 1980s. He contributes widely on the South African secondary and tertiary education system, as well as essays on philosophy and the arts to prestigious compilations. He has acted as an adjudicator for the English Academy of South Africa’s prestigious Pringle Prize in journalism (reviews). He acts as strategic communication advisor to some of South Africa’s leading business leaders and corporations. His client list includes BHP Billiton Southern Africa, Sanlam, Sasol, Media24, M Net, M Web and Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking. He has coaching and mentoring the sales force of a listed JSE organisation and a Director of one of South Africa’s leading engineering organisations, apart from several small business owners.

Qualifications

BA (Philosophy, Ancient Greek, Afrikaans-Dutch) cum laude; Hons BA (Afrikaans-Dutch literature); MA (Afrikaans-Dutch poetry) cum laude, BTh (Bachelor of Theology, inclusive of a three year course in pastoral counselling); Licentiate in Theology cum laude; DTh.