Thembeka Vena

What does your company do?

Tee creations is a small business that is still new that crafts bead work from scratch, we also customize using beads as per customers request. We do neck, head, wrist pieces and anything requested by customer.

What is your biggest success?

Being able to meet the customers needs. I haven't failed any due date of a client. Made a set of traditional bead wear, that was interesting since it was a first one. Being able to create any piece is a very exciting feeling it's like a step closer to successful events. To me I take or consider my client or customer views more than anything, their opinion matters the most because they are the one that puts bread on my table, so then if they are satisfied then I'm also happy. We are more likely to receive clients towards the end of the year or around June, because many occasions are held around that time for example traditional occasions where a boy comes back from the bush, it's a celebration so everyone wants to look beautiful during those occasions and we are most likely to receive clients and around the heritage month. The neck piece is a mostly demanded piece we get a lot of clients from specifically that piece. We co work very well which makes our working environment very healthy. Thank you.

What has been your biggest hurdle?

Firstly it was very very hard hence I was not familiar working with clients or customers, their behavior and how to handle them. We had ups and downs struggling with admin purposes since we didn't know that we had to take down I mean everything in order not to mix up orders and what stock to buy. Time has been the hardest battle because we sometimes set timeframe and that time sometimes it doesn't finish the piece we creating so we put extra hours and decrease the number of sleeping ours in order to finish and meet the client or customers needs. Dealing with clients behavior has been our biggest challenge hence we meet different people from different background and the customer is always right. Customers changing design every time undecided pattern which delays our work and you have to meet deadline remember not considering the fact of the design changing. Marketing our business is very hard since we are not familiar with the social media platform and have no website so we don't meet the audience that much since we from small town and most people around us are not familiar with the social media platform. Payment procedure, people are making stories to pay as we also offer credit preferences. Competitors, as we a number of candidates or people around our community which are also doing the same business and they are long time in the business have their own clients and we are new people don't know us as they know them that's our biggest challenge. Safety is key but we are not always safe because we are in the location and we are exposed to too much robbery, in the location when ever you are trying something out you are likely exposed to theft or robbery. Thank you.