Businessman pitches a winner at local leg of ENGEN Pitch & Polish

I n the modern age, success in business is all about value first.

Motivational speaker, Justin Cohen would emphasise this point many times during the first leg of ENGEN Pitch & Polish 2018, held at the Pines Wedding and Conference Village on Saturday.

“People invest in you more than the product, and that’s the power of society.”

For local businessman, Riaz Kajee, it was the right combination of concept, knowledge and telling the story which saw him to success twice during the day-long entrepreneurship workshop and competition.

His courier ‘Uber-isation’ concept was well received by the judges.

Riaz first tasted success at ENGEN Pitch & Polish as one of the ‘wild card’ entries, called up to join four other preliminary contestants in the final five of the Newcastle round.

By adapting quickly, his victory was ensured.

Judges Renee Amos of Nedbank, Thandi Ngxongo of Engen Petroleum and Jodi Lynn Karpes of GreenQueen Communications were unanimous in their decision to send Riaz to the national round of ENGEN Pitch & Polish in Johannesburg, and grant him the R6 000 prize as the day’s winner.

“I was excited to see the details on Facebook,” explained Riaz earlier in the day. “This is a good platform to own a pitch and find business. People are battling and the government service is not good.”

For the many others at ENGEN Pitch & Polish, the takeaway was simply gaining knowledge and experience on how to present themselves to potential investors.

Persistence was among the listed keys to success.

Cohen said many gave up at the first rejection, whereas the average number of times a concept or business could be exposed before it was trusted was seven.

“Be willing to fall down; get better, not bitter; failure is complacency.”

The day was interspersed with these pearls of wisdom from Cohen, who himself worked towards a mastery of the concept pitching process.

He said attitude counted in the business sphere too.

“Selling is spiritual; the word comes from the old English word meaning ‘to give’, and it should be enriching.”

In conclusion, Cohen said watching ENGEN Pitch & Polish go countrywide and seeing the entrepreneurial spirit which united South Africans was rewarding in itself.

For guests, it was the first step towards business freedom.

Also remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.