SABC 3 will be showing a program on Sunday evening, where the 89 year old President of Zimbabwe will be interviewed. Apparently, Robert Mugabe told Dali Tambo during the recording of the show that his people still need him. He has to keep on leading Zimbabwe, on this version of his, because if people still need you, it does not matter how old you are, you cannot say goodbye! He apparently went on to say, in the interview which would be broadcast on SABC 3 at 8.30pm on Sunday that he is not a deserter and “… never … thought of deserting people. We fight to the finish: That’s it. I still have it in me here.”

The Comrades Marathon will be this Sunday, 2 June, and slightly shorter than some years, coming in at 86.9 km. It is the up-run, which is harder but easier for taller, bigger men who tend to struggle more on downhills. I think the Comrades has lost a lot in recent years, not only because we are back into international sport and the Currie Cup Final is not the only game in town, but also because the commentary teams for this event on SABC in particular are so poor and it is so overdone as a unifying event that everybody has to have their chance, some with much less credentials than others, to give expert commentary.

Personally, I don’t really watch it anymore, other than perhaps having a look at about 10.15 am to see who the leading men are and then perhaps roundabout 10:45am by which time you should be able to work out who is going to win the race, most years in any event. The one thing that I will always credit somebody who runs the Comrades Marathon with is mental toughness and endurance. You don’t have to be an athlete to run the Comrades, and you don’t have to be in shape to run the Comrades as the images you will see on your TV close to 5 pm will testify to.

All you have to do is to have mental toughness and to be determined to finish and those who run and finish the Comrades will always respect any other person, from a perseverance point of view, who can finish the Comrades Marathon. It is not a limited number of people, and as I’ve said you don’t have to be physically strong, terribly fit or in shape, although attempting the Comrades without a basic level of fitness would obviously be a recipe for disaster. The one thing I will agree with is they are nuts to do it. I ran my last of three Comrades in about 1994 and I have no intention of ever doing it again!

SA Breweries has been a huge hit on the Stock Market, up more than 100% in the last two or three years, and they are doing even better when it comes to selling beer in South Africa. For the last five years their market share has dipped below 90%, but they are back now over 90% as a result of Amstel, losing about half the market it used to have. Amstel is now a brand of Heineken. Business has to be really good when you complain about dipping below 90% of market share!

The biggest winner, when it comes to beer sales, is Castle Light which has doubled its number of sales in three and a half years. So, it does not really matter what has happened to the economy, the one thing that is booming is beer sales and SABMiller as a company is doing fantastically well.

There is a whole world of payments being made totally different to how a business like mine would be making payments. We would use EFT’s, and in many instances cheques. Cheques still have the tremendous benefit of being able to prove, payment by payment, who a payment was made to, for which client or matter it was paid and whether or not that cheque was deposited.

That is particularly important when you deal with a lot of doctors, and other professionals whose bookkeeping is not always perfect! Rather than have a fight about whether a matter was paid, as part of a lump sum EFT, for example, you can simply produce cheque after cheque, with the case number on it and indicate that it was paid that way. That type of banking is quite expensive, particularly when it comes to the cost of the cheques, and so it is no wonder that the cellular phone companies got into the business of facilitating payments. I have seen quite a few adverts recently for MTN’s product, Mobile Money with the slogan “Mobile Money is better money.” By registering your bank account, branch code and your Mobile Money 5 digit pin along with your South African ID number, you can send and receive money, deposit and withdraw money, buy airtime and electricity and even pay for groceries at shops like Pick ‘n Pay. I have not ever used a similar product and nor am I with MTN, but I would certainly be interested in hearing from any readers of my blog who have used either this product or a competing product with another cell phone company and to find out how effective and simple it is – and of course how the cost compares to EFT’s and cheques.

I was stunned recently to hear that if you own a Porsche, which I don’t, and wish to sell it, you are almost force to use a Porsche dealership to sell it. The reason, if you don’t sell it by a Porsche dealership, they will not honour the warranty. I must say that I find that very anti-competitive, because essentially it stops people selling their Porsche privately, it forces them to take whatever the offer is from the dealer in terms of a trade-in price, and it also stops other dealers being able to sell any Porches that are still under warranty.

Who would want to buy a car that has a warranty, but is not eligible for it? It forces the person trying to sell it without going through the dealership to considerably reduce their price and keeps the price of Porches in the Porsche dealership, artificially high one would imagine. One then gets the impression from the media that when you buy a Porsche it loses very little of its value because the media compare the new prices to the second hand prices but, they are not comparing a new price to what you would get if you traded it in at the dealership. I am somewhat surprised that the Competition Commission has not looked into that, or indeed that it is acceptable, but maybe there is another side to the story which I am sure is going to be that only the dealership can make sure that the vehicle is in excellent condition – which of course ignores the fact that if you buy a Mercedes or BMW that is under warranty, it’s under warranty whether you buy it from the dealership or the guy down the road.

With the upgrades to Sandton City finished some time ago, it is now possible to see exactly how much extra space was added and how big the centre has become. It is quite clearly very easy to go for your Saturday morning walk to the centre, not repeat any routes and still get tired! It really competes, when it comes to size, with the malls in the UK or elsewhere.

I don’t believe we compete when it comes to clothing or prices – and particularly when you combine those two. The price of clothing in South Africa, for interior quality to what is available overseas, is exceptionally high. With the mall getting bigger, the Gautrain in the area and buildings going up everywhere, it is not hard to see that businesses that moved to the Sandton CBD about 10 years ago, made a fantastic decision and to realise that the traffic issues in the area are only going to get worse over the next two to three years.

Every year I get asked by people if I have a horse running in the July. The short answer is no, I never had one in the 10 years that I have owned race horses. Firstly, the July only suits horses who run a certain distance, namely 2 200 metres, and secondly, it really is the very best horses in the country at that distance. If there are 3500 race horses across the country, only 20 of them run in the July this year and it will be the horses that are in the best form and with the highest ratings towards the end of June that make the final field.

I’ve had horses entered into the July and I’ve had horses that would have run in the July and qualified, if my trainer at that time had believed in running 3 year old female horses. He appears to have changed his mind this time, with the ruling favourite for the July being the filly that beat my filly, Do you Remember, three times. Cherry on the Top is the winner of the Triple Tiara and is already quoted now as the 4/1 favourite for the July Handicap. Cherry on the Top is now the July Handicap favourite, so if she is the favourite and my horse has run second to her three times, my horse Do You Remember should make the race. Particularly, based on the fact that the July is a handicap, so we will not meet Cherry on the Top at equal weight – she will have to give us weight - which means we now have much more of a chance of beating her than we ever did previously. The second stage of entries for the July recently closed and now there are about 80 entries for the July, and what is important to note is that each entry costs R12 500,00 – so you don’t just enter the July – you have to make sure that you think you have a chance of running in the race because 60 of those entries are not going to get their R12 500,00 back!

That of course is cheap compared to racing in Dubai where the main races on the Dubai World Cup night, most of the entries are $100 000 per horse! It is a long way to go still, but this may be the year when I have my first runner in the July and apart from Do you Remember, I have also entered my colt, Master Sabina, but he would still have to win another two races just to get into the race. It is an unlikely scenario, but we are taking the gamble, which is probably why the bookies have listed him at 150/1 for the July whereas Do you Remember is 33/1.

Like all people who follow horseracing, I frequently have opinions as to whether a jockey has made a mistake or not, especially when riding one of my horses. It is very easy to comment on something when you are not the person sitting on the back of a horse travelling at 65 km/h, with a whole host of other horses thundering alongside you. The same applies to the difference between somebody who has never run a business and gives their opinion on how a business should be run, and people who actually have run businesses.

When you are an employee, you tend to have much more liberal views on what motivates people and what does not and what rules you would implement if you were running the business. People, like children, need love and they also need discipline. Unfortunately, many employees do not understand that discipline applies to all, and they believe that an exception should be made for them – on the basis that they are the most senior in the office, the prettiest in the office, the youngest in the office, the hardest working in the office – you get the picture, everybody has a category in which they place themselves and why they think they should get preferential treatment. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes I have made as a boss is actually taking part in those discussions – in fact, the people that I rely on to give me advice always tell me that I simply should not interact or enter into discussions with people making outrageous demands or ridiculous requests for exceptions – whether it is to work that half day in, or to be able to come and go from work when they want, because apparently they work hard.

The one thing that we can all learn though, is that until you have walked in those shoes, and you have dealt with managing 75 people who bombard you with requests on a daily basis, you really have no clue at all as to how a medium-sized business is run and how it should be run. If the business is doing well, it may well be because it is in fact run well, despite your belief that if you ran it, it would be run better. Ultimately, the enduring success of a business is the mark of whether that business is a success or not, and while it would be nice if every business could make exceptions for every single employee, once a week, as some employees would have it, unfortunately discipline is required. Certainly, you also have to recognise the achievers in your firm and give them credit when credit is due, which in my case I try to do by employee of the year awards as well as a monthly employee of the month, not to forget mentions whenever good results are achieved.

BusinessWeek recently ran a cover page article about law firms and saying that big law is about to get small. It refers to a new book called “The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis”. The book highlights that with a surplus of new talent entering the legal profession in America, many will not find jobs within the profession easily, and if they do it is not going to be an attractive one like it used to be. Of course, the big law firms are also finding it much harder to keep the rainmakers – the people who actually bring in the business – and those who simply do the work, are dependent upon.

Apparently, rainmakers now jump from one firm to another and are much more aware of the value that they bring to a firm in terms of bringing in new business. The article says the firms that generate the most profits per partner are typically not actually amongst the largest firms and for example, whereas there are quite a few firms in America with 1 000 partners, the most profitable two are at 79 partners and 83 respectively. Some of the bigger firms have recently gone bankrupt and experts have warned that an increase in proportion of young attorneys in America will get stuck working as non-partner staff lawyers or as employees of document processing outsourcing firms.

Estimates in America, and there is a similar overpopulation of lawyers happening in South Africa, are that the US economy will create 73 000 lawyer positions by the year 2020, but the law schools are pumping out 25 000 graduates a year which means that by the time they get to that year they will have an excess of 176 000 lawyers. As BusinessWeek says, “Young lawyers will increasingly struggle to establish a foothold … Firms are lengthening the route to partnership amid an over-supply of fresh labor.”

I used to believe that I would be lucky enough to avoid inheriting the migraines from which my mother suffered. Unfortunately, the last two years have shown me that that is not the case, and I have suffered from some terribly debilitating migraines. I think people who’ve had simple headaches don’t really understand how chronic a headache or migraine can be – with or without visual disturbances, which is something that I don’t get.

My worst headache starts off as a sharp piercing pain, which is quite manageable, but grows in intensity during the day, usually starting in the morning, and is not stopped by painkillers. The only thing that gives any relief is a very powerful drug called Maxalt RPD which apparently if taken for more than a few days in a row turns your blood green – something that they say is only temporary! When you are running a busy business, you just cannot take time off, so I would invariably still have to go to work but I must say that when one is in intense pain, it firstly makes you a lot more irritable, and secondly, once you’ve had the pills, a lot more dopey and stupid! If I was working for somebody else, I would undoubtedly take the day off, but I do think people would get tired of somebody who needs one or two days off a month – but I don’t have that luxury, so I suffer through the day. It would probably help to have “migraine alerts” for staff members to that they do know when one is suffering – it is definitely not the kind of day to come and ask for a favour or explain a drama!

A survey of companies, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, indicated those with the best reputation amongst the public. All the big names made the list, including Nedbank, Absa as well as Standard Bank. Of the insurance companies both Sanlam and Old Mutual made the list and of the retailers Shoprite and Pick ‘n Pay also made the list, although I do think that they have had a lot of problems in recent years.

Sasol came fourth and the list was headed by a cell phone company, with the other major cell phone company, MTN, coming in at fifth spot and the winner of this 2013 RepTrak Pulse Survey was Vodacom. I would love it if they did a survey like that for lawyers, so I would be able to see, particularly from a personal injury perspective, where de Broglio Inc fits. I would imagine it would be extremely high but until there is a survey, one would just be guessing if its first place or not!

There have been some recent issues with the Broadacres branch of Woolworths, where staff members are incredibly aggressive with customers, but I must say that the online service has really deteriorated in the last six months. There is not a time where they don’t call you, to tell you that they don’t have something in stock, even if you tick that you do not want to be called, and frequently I now get calls to tell me that the delivery will be late.

“The delivery will be late” is fine, the only problem being that normally when I get the call to say that the delivery will be late, the delivery does not come at all that day and nobody phones me to even explain why. It is only when I call the Woolworths Call Centre, the next day, to say that delivery has not taken place that they allege that they tried to deliver but nobody was there, when in fact somebody was at the house and always is.

To make things worse, they alleged an attempted delivery time which was at the same time that the branch was phoning me to tell me that they did not have things in stock, would like to arrange substitutes and that the delivery would be late. It is not possible to be phoning me to say that the delivery will be late at the same time that you have already entered into a computer that you have tried to deliver, but we were not there! Their Call Centre staff members also need to be trained, if the reference number is the be-all and the end-all, and they cannot pick somebody up by their surname, to at least then leave the reference number in messages every time they call. In other words, when they call me, it is not important enough to quote to me my order number, but when I call back, they cannot find anything by reference to my surname.
Woolworths has always been top of the supermarkets in South Africa, but I just wonder if there are not new people in charge of the online shopping division or what precisely is going on that the experience at the Broadacres branch is so unpleasant, in terms of the attitude of their staff, and the online shopping, which is presumably being serviced from the same branch, is also now so problematic.

The HP Byron Nelson will be played this week at the TPC Four Seasons golf course in Dallas. I had the privilege of playing there last year, and it is a beautiful little course and very different to ours. Different in that many of our courses are long whereas this course has quite a few short holes, which are actually extremely difficult to master. There are greens with quite dramatic slopes so that if you land on the green but in the wrong area, while you might think you are about in a position to be able to score, you may as well not be on the green and still be on the fairway.

The reward for being on the fairway is excellent – the grass really sits the ball up beautifully and you can chip very easily. Stay on the short grass and you will be rewarded with great places to chip from, hit your irons from and putts that I found very readable. Stray from the fairway and you are going into very thick but fine grass where the ball sits down very quickly and you can be faced with balls that either fly further than you expect when you hit them or don’t move very much. Dallas is extremely hot and those in contention are certainly going to have one or two hot days this weekend as they finish in the afternoon! The tournament has been won over the years by the Who is Who of golf including Jason Dufner, Adam Scott, Lanny Watkins (whom I met during my visit), Tom Watson, Fred Couples and now that I have mentioned a whole lot of names that you may not know, let me toss in as well Ernie Els, Phil Nickelson, Jack Nicklaus and of course Tiger Woods.

It is old news now, of course, with the aeroplane landing at Waterkloof Military Base, but it is still a huge issue in South Africa.  Where the people refer to the country now jokingly as Gupta-stan or the whole incident as Gupta Gate, there is no doubt that it is very embarrassing for us as a country that simple guests at a wedding can be treated like absolute royalty and bypass all of the protocol that would apply to ordinary people (which they were). 

It is funny too though, with all the scandals that we’ve had, about arms commissions and the like, that this simple story should be this one that has provoked people so much, because in the broader scheme of things, it really is not as important an issue as the allegations of corruption, etc that we have all read about over the years.  It is funny how sometimes it takes a smaller thing to galvanise people, and to see a new approach.  I don’t think it is the biggest story in the world, but it is certainly one that everyone is following and it is going to be very interesting to see how it plays out and who ultimately takes the fall for it.

The American Idols come to the grand finale this week and it’s a huge TV hit which will be watched by millions around the world. My excuse is my children love talent competitions and so that’s why I have been watching! The performances are top notch and I thought Angela Miller, particularly on her piano performances, would be the hot favourite to win.

The betting sites however saying it will be closer than I thought. Angela is the favourite at 14/10 but Candice Glover is a close 2nd favourite at 18/10 with Kree Harrison the outsider at 2/1. Those odds suggest a close final which may well get down to the best performance on the night. I’m betting that the winner will be Angela – and of course the producers of this hit show which must rake in millions every year!

It astounds me, over the years, how many of my former staff asked for their job’s back and the one thing I have learned is that many companies make promises about salaries that they don’t keep. It is not necessarily that they are dishonest but it is just that they include all sorts of things in their salary packages when they talk to candidates, that they create an impression that the candidate is going to walk away with more money than they are getting at their current job.

In many cases, once you strip out all the things that they list under “cost to company” you find that many employees are not actually better off, even though the package seems so much bigger and better. The first question I would ask is what the company’s annual increase policy is because I am aware of many companies that simply keep the salary at the same level for 5 years by which time your “career move” is anything but. I am also surprised that more candidates don’t ask the person who makes the offer to them, “What am I actually going to nett at the end of the month?” That will always require the bookkeeper’s calculations, but it can also give you a very interesting answer, because then presumably the company will take away the expenses and deductions relating to parking bays and all sorts of other things. Some companies, including those with their own offices, create the most wonderful amounts for parking, let’s say R1 700,00 a month and then multiply that by 12 months – so there is this wonderful benefit and impression created that you will be earning R20 000,00 extra a year in that regard alone, but in fact all you are getting is a space to park your car and you may well have been better off with a package that only gave you R5 000,00 extra a year, but in actual money, and park across the street! It is a too common occurrence for it just to be one or two companies, but it is amazing how many people are hoodwinked by “packages”.

One of my most exciting experiences was attending the African Nations Cup Final in 1996, when South Africa won. I certainly was not in the majority in that particular crowd in the old Soccer City, but there was a wonderful spirit and tremendous excitement in the stadium.

In South Africa there has always been a lot more interest in local teams, as opposed to the national teams and that was a time of rare exceptions. I would be very interested to hear, specifically from those who read my blog, as to which local teams they support – whether it is Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates, Supersport United or any of the other teams. It looks like this year the Absa Premiership is going to be won by Kaizer Chiefs but there is still a long way to go and it is still relatively close at the top of the table.

The results have been released, and of course it is going to be dissected and discussed in many ways revealing as they do so many interesting snippets about life in South Africa. What is quite interesting is the changing nature of the various neighbourhoods and areas with, for example Serengeti Golf and Wildlife Estate 51% African and 48% White.

In Johannesburg Dainfern Golf Estate and Bryanston are 63% and 62% White respectively, whereas Lyndhurst and Northgate are 57% and 64% African respectively. Interestingly enough, 81 White people live in Soweto, according to the census. It is probably not enough, but it does show, as with the figures above, that all of our suburbs are becoming more racially integrated and that is always a good sign for people living together. Surprisingly, despite its upmarket reputation only 12% of households in Sandhurst earn more than R2,45 million a year whereas of 13% of those living at the V&A Waterfront earn more than that a year.

Top TV announced recently that they received the go-ahead to broadcast three porn channels. Apparently, once they start showing X-rated movies and TV shows, they will shortly be producing local adult movies with local actors and actresses.

For R199,00 a month viewers get the three porn channels and while that is not offered elsewhere, and is obviously going to be a selling point for Top TV, one would imagine that DSTV has too much of the lucrative market already. The average person is not going to want to pile one box on top of another, so I don’t think the porn channels will be a huge selling market for Top Tv anyway. I also don’t think we are necessarily going to have a booming local adult movie production market overnight, but there is no doubt that when there is, it is certainly going to provide the news media with something to write about!

As an employer, I read with excitement that recommendations submitted to the President suggest changes with regard to public holidays. The committee feel that there are too many public holidays at the moment and some have religious connections to one religion only which is of course not fair to other religions. Some of the proposals make sense. If a date is important, because on that day, in the past something important happened, then that is the important day. It cannot be, when that day falls on a Sunday that you need to make the Monday a public holiday because for anybody to whom the date is important, they will naturally celebrate on the Sunday, and there is simply no basis to take the Monday off, when that date is of no consequence in terms of history.

We are taking part in a global economy and there is no point in simply giving people days off just because the remembrance of the historical day fell on a Sunday that year. Naturally, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry supported fewer holidays, given that they would obviously be in favour of more productivity which this country desperately needs. Other proposals include removing Family Day, Boxing Day and the Day of Reconciliation as well declaring some public holidays half days only, as opposed to full days off. I am sure for the usual brigade, who believe that you should have 30 days’ sick leave a year, not work more than 20 hours a week, and get paid overtime for the work you made sure you did not finish during working hours that there will be the usual howls of protest, but for those of us who would like to try and get our economy improving, it is a great idea – and it is only a pity that they say this process is going to take at least three years to finalise!

I enjoy going to a coffee shop which is supplied with some of the nicest carrot cake in Johannesburg. The problem is, every time I arrive and ask before I take a seat as to whether or not they have carrot cake, I get a different answer. Sometimes they are down to their last piece and every second time they don’t have any at all. It never ceases to amaze me that a business, and this has been going on for two or three years, cannot realise that one of their products is doing well and stock a little bit more because there are many customers, like me, who want something and if it is not on the menu, will simply leave.

It is not just about service, but it is also about business and I think the point that I would make in this blog is that probably the biggest problem with a lot of restaurants, and even more so with franchise chain restaurants, are that the actual owners of the business are seldom there. There is often an uncle, an aunt or grandfather who is overseeing the business but the person who has actually invested their money in it is not there. I have a favourite coffee shop in the Fourways area, and it is part of a franchise group, and when the owners are there, which is almost all of the year, it runs fantastically and there is never a problem with the food. When they went away in December, I got a slight bout of food poisoning and it just shows you that you have to be on top of your business, watching it all the time and making sure that all of the staff members do what they are supposed to do because otherwise you will run into problems.

There will always be staff who can be relied upon to do anything, and they come from a variety of different backgrounds, both in society and academically and simply have a hardworking ethic combined with honesty that sees them get ahead. You will also unfortunately always have those, who play when they get the chance, and who drift along with the ebb of life or the day, and don’t notice that the milk has gone sour or take care to do the same thing that they have been taught before and have done 100 times before, methodically and correctly the 101st time. You either need a very committed and capable manager or you need the person who has invested their money into the business to be at the business – preferably both, because it is seldom that anybody else cares as much as the person who is going to lose all of their money if the business flops. They are fully committed and the carrot shop restaurant owner is not.