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Speaker 1: For the third year in a row, the seven or

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Speaker 1: two Empty and Small Business Awards are back and the

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Speaker 1: cluckiest ticking. So nominations open on the twenty fifth of

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Speaker 1: last month and they closed this Friday. So if you

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Speaker 1: have been thinking about nominating your favorite small business, now's

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Speaker 1: your chance to enter. What joining us this morning is Solovello.

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Speaker 1: Noah Lasee, last year's Inspiring Winner and founder of Sada Communications.

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Speaker 1: Now she won to a two hundred thousand rand advertising

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Speaker 1: package from seven oh two and office space worth four

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand Rand for a year in the

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Speaker 1: buzzing hubs of Rosebank and Santon. Solofello, Hi, good to

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Speaker 1: chat you once again. It's been a while.

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Speaker 2: It's definitely been Noah, how are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm fine? How are you take us through? What happened

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Speaker 1: since last we spoke.

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Speaker 2: It's been a fantastic jelly. It's been a fantastic jelly.

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Speaker 2: I don't know what's to said. Where do you begin?

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Speaker 1: Well, right, you've got this beautiful advertising package, you got

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Speaker 1: the space. How do you scale up? What did you do?

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Speaker 2: All?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 2: So initially I had I'm going to start from the beginning,

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Speaker 2: So initially I had six permanent employees and six part time.

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Speaker 2: Our offices in sentence, they were very small and some

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Speaker 2: of our people were working remotely and sometimes we would

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Speaker 2: miss the appointments or even projects as a result of

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Speaker 2: not being in the same place right. So we had

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Speaker 2: the advertising and then a lot of people corporate actually

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Speaker 2: started calling and reaching out to say how can we

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Speaker 2: support you? And then how can we partner with you.

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Speaker 2: We started getting projects, especially with the ups, and then

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Speaker 2: we did a CSI project and I had to now

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Speaker 2: get more few and then I got eight, i remember,

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Speaker 2: and then I had to get eight and as time

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Speaker 2: goes by, there's a logistics company saying that we want

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Speaker 2: to tackle that with you with a sweeter delivery because

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Speaker 2: you understand Northern Care better. So I had now to

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Speaker 2: get more people, and then in total I had very

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Speaker 2: eight employees now, so it was a fantastic thing. We

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Speaker 2: developed an app for our driver so that people can

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Speaker 2: just easily get into the app and then check. But

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Speaker 2: it's an in house app, it's not an available app

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Speaker 2: for public. It was for us to have a hassle

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Speaker 2: small and a hassle thing for people in the Northern

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Speaker 2: Cape where they if there's a package they need to

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Speaker 2: deliver to Joberg Blulfontein or Upington. They collected and then

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Speaker 2: they get paid for that similar job that they're having.

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Speaker 2: So even though I had thirty eight employees, there's a

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Speaker 2: hussle part of it where I think we made payments

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Speaker 2: to like sixty three piece for in the last year.

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Speaker 2: So it's been a fantastic Jenny Wo.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it really has. It really has. Now. It sounds

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Speaker 1: like you've only not only been scaling up, you've been

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Speaker 1: scaling out. So if I set you say the communications

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Speaker 1: is describe the business for us then.

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Speaker 2: So because we did grow up so big, we have

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Speaker 2: now we have a division. We've got the logistic division,

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Speaker 2: and then we've got the technology development where we do

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Speaker 2: robotics and coding, we do software development and websites, and

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Speaker 2: then we've got the training division where we do digital

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Speaker 2: skills training. We also do AI scaling where we train

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Speaker 2: executives because even today we have an aim as a

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Speaker 2: chust with JIFA. So it's it's just fantastic, beautiful.

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Speaker 1: What have you learned over the past couple of months.

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Speaker 1: I mean this has been a learning curve for you

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Speaker 1: as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I think I'm a better person for it

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Speaker 2: because I am not sick id guessing myself. If I

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Speaker 2: want to try something, I go and do it. Because

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Speaker 2: the affirmation I've gotten from just winning this award as

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Speaker 2: someone who's coming from the rural areas, and then I

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Speaker 2: come here to sentence and I can even just like

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Speaker 2: my offices are next to Nelson Mandela's great, that's fantistic.

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Speaker 2: I've been daring. So it's just amazing to be affirmed

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Speaker 2: in the way that I've been and to get the

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Speaker 2: credibility that everyone has a place in this world. Everyone

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Speaker 2: has got a piece of the pie. And I feel

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Speaker 2: so proud that I get to look at myself and

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Speaker 2: how far I've come and how far I can go.

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Speaker 1: It's just amazing, absolutely amazing. So iet A well done

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Speaker 1: at sor of fellow Noah Lasa, she was the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five winner and going great places. So lovely to

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Speaker 1: chat you once again, and we'll keep in touch as well,

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Speaker 1: because he's seven or two empty and Small Business Awards

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Speaker 1: returned this year, but I'm sure we'll have sort of

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Speaker 1: fellow at the award seventy as well where we can

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Speaker 1: catch up once again. Don't forget entries, they close this Friday,

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Speaker 1: so get them in