Lindiwe has gone through a very tough 3 months. A couple of days after the end of your intervention, she was on her way to KwaZulu Natal – the province where she is originally from - to bury family members. Through our conversation with her, we understood that these family duties were terribly hard. She could only get back to Cape Town, to her daughter and her son, a couple of weeks ago.

To compound this difficult personal situation, business has slowed down considerably with the onset of winter in Cape Town. Foot traffic at Guga S’thebe has been very low over the last few weeks. As a result, Lindiwe is facing strong financial pressures. Fortunately, she can count on other sources of income than the shop at Guga S’thebe only.

In these hard times, Lindiwe sees the suggestions and tools developed by her team as a roadmap to increase her sales, and a real beacon of hope.

After returning to Cape Town, she has enthusiastically started implementing some of the team’s suggestions one by one:

• She started reorganising her stand following the team’s suggestions. The new stand should be fully installed by mid-July.
• She is developing a range of new products she wants to post on Instagram soon. Not feeling very comfortable with the social media interface, she will rely on her daughter’s skills after her exams (as you may remember, Lindiwe’s daughter is currently studying coding).
• She has reached out to two markets in Cape Town to present the “pop-up booth” that the team has suggested. At this point, the key challenge is to get a spot
• Due to low traffic at Guga S’thebe over the past weeks, there were few opportunities to work on her story telling skills, but this will change once the winter season is over.

Lindiwe is not losing hope. She is a fighter. Although the impact of the consulting assignment has not yet directly translated in an increase of sales, it is manifesting in Lindiwe’s confidence and self-esteem. We met a very strong woman. Your work, the tools you developed, the deck you shared with us is in good hands. You gave Lindiwe renewed hope for the future.