Cape Town – Lynne Scullard never sits still. An entrepreneur to the bone, she believes that mobility - getting to where the action is - is key to creating your own opportunities.
Her mission in life - although she’s much too down-to-earth to describe it that way – is to Get South Africa Moving. In a country where e-commerce is just taking off, and consumers are starting to buy anything from fast food to fashion online, somebody still has to physically deliver the goods to your door.
Which makes the ability to ride a scooter and the possession of a valid licence (which is often the difficult part) a very marketable skill.
Scullard - widely known as Scully – is herself a scooter rider, and knows first hand the freedom it engenders to (quite literally) think outside the box of your own neighbourhood or township. But she also realised that the principles and attitudes that keep you alive on two wheels are the same as those that build a successful business.
THREE BASIC PRINCIPLES
According to Scullard, they come down to three basic principles: 100 percent accountability, no excuses and no accidents.
In the same way that nobody is going to look out for you on the roads, nobody will make your business happen for you. Just as making excuses for riding badly will inevitably put you in harm’s way, making excuses for not doing everything right will put the skids under your job opportunity, or your new business.
Likewise, there are no accidents on the road, only crashes; every time a new enterprise crashes, somebody messed up – and it could have been avoided. And so Scully Scooters was born, as an unlikely combination of riding school and business academy.
Every bit of theoretical training is linked to both riding skill and entrepreneurial savvy, from approaching a traffic circle to approaching a new client or a job interview. By the time you get your scooter licence, you’ll be just as clued-up on workplace skills, whether you’re delivering pizzas or running a mobile photography studio of your own.
NO FREE RIDES
This is not a free ride, Scullard insists. She demands an intimidating level of commitment from the young people her program mentors. Just to get in, you need to pass your learners licence which, for somebody whose family has never had a car, is an achievement in itself. But if you’ve got the right stuff, you’ll wind up with a scooter licence and an interview with a prospective employer, or even the chance to create your own business opportunity.
Scully Scooters started in Gauteng, and is now spreading countrywide. Last week she launched Scully Scooters Cape Town, under the no-nonsense leadership of experienced motorcycle instructor Linlee Solms. Present were representatives of the Community Development Forum Western Cape and Harambee, an employer initiative to employ and retain first-time entrants into the workplace, each of whom will be screening and referring candidates for the Scully Scooters courses.
Also there was Charl van der Walt from McDonalds, who spoke of the need the company has for scooter riders as it rolls out its delivery service countrywide, and thanked Scullard and Solms for the qualified riders Scully Scooters had already sent to him.
Scullard’s mission to Get South Africa Moving is already more than just a slogan.