Vusi Thembekwayo Inc’s Post

Transcript

There was a restaurant in Newtown. They get this up. Let me get this up. There was a restaurant in Newtown called Sophia Town. Some of you watching this, remember the restaurant. And I needed to get a website done. It was a three page website. Now don't watch this and go, why did you have a three page website back then? Like we didn't have like Wicks or a Canva or like WordPress. You couldn't just go and download a word like a website template and put it online. You needed an actual person to build a website for you. And I had this website listen to this. My website was red. So could you imagine that? Could you imagine a red background website? So I had started a like small consulting business and I had a client, a college called CJC Central Johannesburg College. And I've got a contract with them through the SRC. And the head of the SRC was this guy called Tampa. So Tampa was the president of the SRC. I was helping them do some work in the college and I meet this guy who was studying at CJC. Parktown campus called Mafia and he was a designer. Was like dude I need a website. Got a photographer and we went and took some pictures. There's a picture of me. There's a picture of me not allowed to laugh, but there's a picture of me while I'm like holding a shield and I'm like wearing this like pinstriped Gray suit and I'm starting to get my pot belly. Those are the early days, man. But anyway, we went to this restaurant, Sophiatown, and we just, we just like hung up the restaurant and acted like we weren't there. And then when the proprietors of the restaurant weren't looking, we'd like pose a little bit and then like pose a little bit, get some shots. They're going to go to the website. Anyway, the the restaurant owners were brothers. I can't remember there were brothers are twins. I'm going to tell you a little story about both of them in a minute. I think it was tabled. Tubby saw something like this. Jen's forgive me if I've gotten the name wrong, but one of them saw us and then came to us and was like, what are you guys doing? Like no, we're just trying to take some pictures are going to put it up on our website. He was like, I don't like what you guys doing. You must not ask nicely. OK, ask nicely. Anyway, you can take your pictures. So we start taking the pictures. I start posing confidently go to like the bar area, post confidently. You know, that's kind of. Well, everybody, everybody who likes my pictures, what's he doing with his eyebrow? That's where the eyebrow comes from. The eyebrow comes from like those poses I was doing in Sophiatown. This is a true story. Now it says, listen to this. Years later, I was studying at Vitz Business School. I did an advanced management program fits Business School and my classmates was the owner of Sophiatown. Isn't that funny how God works, right? He was my he was my actual classmate. So we take these pictures. We got our website up. I got a speaking agency to represent. And I was already represented then by Stewart Lee Marketing and he, Stewart Lee then changed the name of his agency to famous faces still around today, still one of the top agencies in South Africa. And then I, I also got to join Speakers Inc, which was run by Bronwyn Hesketh. I believe Bronwyn is now living in the, in the US actually. And, and so I was represented by both of these agencies. So now I'm like, I've got some agencies, I'm starting to get some, you know, decent income and public speaking business in a market. Smallest South Africa. Then I thought it was a God Gantian market, but in the market, a smaller South Africa, you know, like if you're doing, if you're early and you're doing one or two engagements a month, you are doing well. You're doing well. And I'll never forget Bronwyn had this event where she invited some of her speakers to come and just meet each other was like a networking event. And I met this guy called Heck Hamutal, unbelievable human being, very, very funny guy, very down. The earth, right? And Hector. So Hector, I'll never forget. Hector is wearing a blue suit, white shirt and like, like a like a yellow goldish tie. And Hector sees me. He's like, I know you. I saw. I saw you on, like, you being interviewed. You like the young guy coming into public speaking. Yeah. Yeah. And. And Hector was just like, he was so gracious with me. He was just like, man, I hope you do well. I hope you do well in the industry. I hope you kill it because it's a tough business. And for those of you who don't know, like public speaking is a brutal business. Every person you meet who's a professional speaker when you ask them, how's business? They go phenomenal and then a month later they're working at a car dealership somewhere. So, and the reason is because this business, if you're not careful, forces you to play a character that's not true, because who wants to listen to a speaker that's struggling?