Stephan Potgieter ← Back to the tools

What you actually receive

Real examples of the written work a paying customer gets. Names and details have been changed, but the format, depth and language are exactly what lands in front of you.

Sample 1 — an IncomePrint plan

Product: IncomePrint Starter plan · R29 for 10 written plans. This is one of them.

Sample · buying & reselling · Mamelodi, Pretoria

What to buy first

Start with phone accessories. They move fast and people replace them often.

ItemBuy for (estimate)Sell for (estimate)
Tempered glass screen protectorsR15–R25 eachR50–R80 each
Phone cases (popular models)R20–R40 eachR80–R120 each
Type-C and lightning cablesR25–R40 eachR80–R100 each

Buy 5–8 of each to start. Keep your first spend under R1,500 and hold R1,000 back. You will need it.

What to charge, and why

Aim for double what you paid. That is your minimum, not your target. You pay for data, transport and your own time, and you carry the risk of stock that does not move. If a cable costs you R35, charge R80. People pay it because they need it today and cannot wait for a delivery.

Where to find your first 10 customers

  • Community and church WhatsApp groups
  • Taxi ranks — people waiting have phones in their hands and broken cables
  • Spaza shops — ask about selling nearby or leaving a few items on consignment
  • Schools and colleges — students crack screens constantly
  • Salons and barbershops — people sit, scroll and notice
  • Month-end markets — people spend when the money arrives

Your first seven days

  1. Research prices. Visit one wholesaler or check online suppliers.
  2. Buy your first small batch.
  3. Photograph everything in good light on a clean background.
  4. Post on WhatsApp status and Facebook Marketplace.
  5. Walk your area. Show the stock to five people face to face.
  6. Follow up every person who viewed. Ask directly: "Can I bring it to you?"
  7. Count what sold. Reorder only what moved.

Before you spend money

Some municipalities require an informal trading permit to sell in public spaces. Check with your local ward office before setting up anywhere outside your home.

The mistake that kills this business

Buying too much variety too soon. Ten products that do not sell lock up your cash. Two products that sell fast build your business. Stay narrow until you know what your area actually wants.

One number to watch for 30 days

Your return on every rand spent. If you spent R1,500 and collected R3,000, that is a 100% return. Track it weekly. That number tells you the truth about your business — not your feelings about it.

These rand figures are estimates to help you decide. Check actual prices with two suppliers near you before you buy. This is not financial advice and no income is promised.

Sample 2 — a LifePrint blueprint (extract)

Product: the assessment is free; the R1,500 Personal Reading Session works through this with you. Roughly a third of a full blueprint is shown here.

Sample · woman, 52, between things

Where your strongest evidence points

Four separate sets of answers keep pointing at the same place: bringing order to things and guiding people through them. Before you were fifteen, adults praised you for organising — your things, other children, events. Today people still come to you when something needs sorting out. And when you described losing track of time, it was planning something for other people.

That thread has run for nearly four decades without you naming it. This is not a fixed destiny. It is the strongest direction your own answers support, and it is worth testing rather than assuming.

The golden thread

You wrote that you "know the way but feel empty". That sentence, next to your answers about the last five years, tells a clearer story than either does alone: your energy has not disappeared, it has been fully spent on other people. Years of night care, aging parents, and holding things together while working. That is not a character flaw. That is arithmetic.

Your strongest advantages

  • You turn chaos into order instinctively. In the South African market that is worth real money in operations, coordination and small-business admin — roles that pay R18,000–R35,000 a month and are constantly unfilled because most people find them tedious. You do not.
  • You can explain complicated things simply. You said you could talk for thirty minutes about your field without notes. That is a training and advisory skill most people never develop.
  • Difficult people do not rattle you. Years of sales and hard seasons built that. It is the single hardest thing to teach.

Three directions to test

1. Coordination or operations for a small business. Why it fits: it is what you already do for free, for everyone. What could break it: an employer who wants you available at all hours. Entry route: no qualification needed — a short bookkeeping or admin course (ICB, roughly R6,000 over six months) sharpens the offer. A seven-day test: offer one afternoon a week to a small business you know and see how it feels.

2. Independent client coordination. Why it fits: you said clearly that you want to work independently. What could break it: irregular income in the first six months. A seven-day test: name a fixed monthly price and offer it to two owners you already know.

3. Training or facilitation in what you know. Why it fits: the thirty-minutes-without-notes answer. What could break it: it takes longer to earn from. A seven-day test: run one free session for five people and ask them afterwards what they would have paid.

One direction to avoid

Anything that puts you back into managing other people's feelings all day. You named that as what drains you most, and you were specific about not wanting to return to the field you know best. Being good at something is not the same as wanting it, and nothing in this blueprint will suggest otherwise.

The one sentence for your wall

"I bring order where there is none — and this year I am going to be paid properly for it."

Sample 3 — a Team X-Ray (extract)

Product: Team X-Ray · R395 per person, minimum five, including a 60–90 minute session. This is an extract from a 9-person business.

Sample · 9-person workshop · Gauteng

What you actually have

This is a team of finishers with one starter. Six of your nine people score high on follow-through and structure, which is why the work goes out on time and why quality complaints are rare. It is also why nothing new has been tried in eighteen months. You are not short of discipline. You are short of someone whose job it is to look up.

Who is in the right seat

Johan — workshop floor. Highest follow-through and standards in the team, low people-energy. He is exactly where he should be, and moving him into supervision would cost you your best finisher and gain you a frustrated manager.

Precious — front desk and quotes. High people-energy, high patience, strong straight talk. Customers are dealing with the right person.

Who may be in the wrong seat

Sipho — currently in stores. His print shows the highest voice and persuasion scores in the business, with low tolerance for repetition. Stores is a repetitive, solitary job. This is worth a conversation, not a decision: ask him whether he would want to try quoting or customer follow-up for a month. Nothing here says he cannot do stores — it says it is costing you what he is best at.

Where two people will rub

Johan and Sipho. Johan scores high on structure and low on flexibility; Sipho is the reverse. This is not personal and it will not resolve on its own. The rule that fixes it: any change to a job on the floor goes through Johan first, in writing, before it reaches the customer. Give them the rule and the friction becomes a process instead of an argument.

If you took a month off

Johan holds the floor and Precious holds the customers, so the work continues. What breaks is anything requiring a decision that crosses both — pricing exceptions, unhappy customers, new work. Nobody in this team is built to make that call, and both of them will wait for you. That is your real risk, and it is fixable in one conversation with Precious.

A development, placement and team-building tool. Findings are evidence and hypotheses, never verdicts, and this is not a certified psychometric test for hiring or dismissal decisions.

Every one of these begins with a free assessment. You only pay for the written work, the whole-team analysis, or time with Stephan directly.

See what things cost Refund policy