Gents,
This business model is not going to work.
It boils down to expenditure vs return. After careful analysis with my business consultant, based on what I have researched, and what I have learned from Outfitters on AH and other over the last year, and what I have read about the market, I don't see a return unless I have the right type of finances to start-up and the rellevant experience to handle the industry. One needs money to make money, one also needs a lot more money to gather momentum, strategic marketing is the key in any enterprise and this is most effective but also costly, and I maintain that I will not try and start another internet agency where I try to get Outfitters who I don't know or who I have not hunted with personally, period. I just don't see it as authentic.
The men who make it work properly are the Roo Ellis's and others alike who go out of their way to provide authenticity and sound references by investigating and hunting with the Outfitter before-hand. The other thing these agencies had when they started up that I don't have right now is experience: industry-related or other business. I consulted with Roo Ellis since June last year and he ended our conversations beginning this year as he said we would be competitors and any more information he gave me would not be helping him, this is understandable and quite right and I respect him for being straightforward. He also helped me a lot in the beginning but all the while reminding me that if I start to get going that we would be competitors. Roo Ellis took the time and effort to guide me and was one of two agents out of more than ten that responded to my enquiries about the industry. He trully gave me extensive advice without giving up his own business scheme and took a lot of his own time in answering my lengthly emails in detail and in all ernesty and I appreciate that a lot as he was straight about the pitfalls as well as the benefits ie I never got the feeling he was trying to discourage me, only that he gave me facts. Another agent that repsonded to me and helped me a great deal was Mike Shukis, Russian hunting consultant. Also the same as Roo Ellis, Mike or Mikhail Shukis was extremely helpful and encouraged me without exposing his own business scheme, answered all my naive emails with dedication and direction about the reality of hunting agents and the scene in general. This I appreciate very much and the risk that these two men took in obliging me has not gone unnoticed.
Most importantly I need the experience to handle the pot-holes of the industry. The issue with finance is that any loan company will not grant a loan to an individual like me no matter how sound my business model, because it requires a lot of start-up investment in order to succeed, because of marketing costs and other. And then I am also alone as the sole director, this counts against me as I have no previous business experience, enough collateral, or a management team with the rellevant experience. So, though I can present a sound and commercially viable business model, it is only when the investor believes that the director can execute such that the application will be considered seriously, and as it stands, I have not covered the bases in terms of management teams with experience, or credentials, or collateral, because I cannot do that right now.
I also started this idea with an investor who assured me that I need not apply for loans or go elsewhere for investment. I initially took his dedication to back me with a pinch of salt, but after time I gave in to the allure of hunting big five, double rifles, meeting international hunters, and conversing with Outfitters (as I naturally find any conversation to do with hunting quite interesting). I almost ordered a Merkel in double s/s .416Rigby in the gunshop with him because of how he reassured me, a rifle I never saw as useful for my hunting but for then saw as a 'neccesity'. My lack of experience with bulls****ers manifetsed in true spirit when I believed that he would actually buy the darn thing for me, let alone back me up on an unresearched project of which the overall viability was yet to be determined. Luckily I declined the offer to buy me the double for then as the gunshop said that once the order is through it is paid for, thus I would be obliged to pay the money when the rifle arrived as they had not ordered Merkels yet so this would be a special order, and if I did not pay would face legal consequences. He backed out unexpectedly after I had arranged certain meetings and said certain things to certain people, and done all the work to get a blue print of the idea. Luckily i'm not in any problems with the gunshop about the Merkel as he has since vanished after five years of knowing him: he promised to pay for the rifle but that I just go and order it myself, and had he done so I would be in quite a pickle right now. Also I am sure there would have been a deposit fee but did not find that out, but I think the credit act right now in SA is that there is no more credit system (probably for certain amounts at certain establishments etc), or at least I found this out when I asked a gunsmith about how I can pay for a Herstal .375 yesterday.
Trust is also a major issue. Though I know I am an upstanding man with direction and passion and honesty and some experience(though not enough experience in the international scene), the Outfitter and prospective Client don't have to see it that way as I have no credentials or track record to prove it. Another problem I am realising is that I do not live abroad, the purpose of representation is also to reach a clientele base that is physically out of reach, thus an agent who lives where the market does is the purpose of an Outfitter employing an agent in another country (or one of the main reasons), or why he/she employs as an agent at all. So, though it is not imperative that I live abroad, based on finance and lack of credentials, I cannot risk the expenditure in the hope of a return because hardly anyone will invest in an agent without the credentials or necessary experience. It is how it is and I must face it.
The main word for me is "RISK". It is too risky too start with such little backing in terms of finance, If I had a million dollars I could do it and tweek it when I needed to, but if I were to take the risk now, I could fall into a lot of problems.
Solution is to take the advice given to me by more than one Outfitter, and start as a PH and work forward from there. This will give me experience and credentials. The company is still registered and what to do with the name in the mean time I do not know. I have spoken to David Sutherland of Sutherland Hunting Academy in Limpopo and will be making a booking in this year. They are also starting the first Dangerous Game PH course in August that qualifies one to guide on DG hunts after the course is completed successfully, this can only be attended by PH's who are registered already and don't ask me about the programme or how the notion works, but I think I will take it up after I have done my PH course and If I can afford it. Completing this course does not substitute for practical years of experience and im aware of that.
I have been transparent and honest with all of you from the beginning and kept you up to date as promised without any bias as to the actual status of this idea. There were some instances where I only wanted to hear what I wanted to hear and that I will admit to. But when I posted updates about the legality of the 'hunting agent in SA', I got that information from a PHASA founding member who runs an Outfit in Mpumalanga, the reason I could not use him as a reference in response to a question on this thread about where I was getting my information about this legislation is because he (the informing Outfitter) asked me to rather phone him after I emailed him about what the legislation is so that we can talk instead of email as he dislikes 'paperwork'...based on this I anticipated his response were I to ask him if I could use him as a reference on an internet forum. He is a bit old and doesn't seem keen on 'internet stuff', so I decided to contact PHASA instead, which is what I should have done in the first place, at which they gave me exactly the same response about the legislation behind agents in SA as he did. So, just to make it clear that at no point did I just suck things out of my thumb in the hope that it holds, I did the research then posted my findings.
The reality is that it will not work unless I have the money and experience to do it. I have tried. One must always know how far to push the bill and also when and where to quit so that you can move forward productively without wasting time in denial. Life is too short for that...
Thank you to all for your input.
Special thanks to:
Rupert Ellis
The Hunting Agency | Home
Michael Shukis
Independant Hunting & Shooting Consultant
+7 449 159 2380 (office)
+7 917 563 6654 (cell)
Frederik Cocquyt
www.infinitosafaris.com
Willem Faul
Koedoeberg | Home
Willie Meyer
www.huntingafrica.co.za
And
Jerome of AH for calling me to discuss generally around this idea.
