# Agentcy Grow

> Practical guides for South African small and mid-sized businesses: the operational problems that quietly cost money, and how to fix them.

Every guide below is readable in full at no cost. Each also has a plain-Markdown
version at the same URL with a `.md` suffix, and a downloadable `.skills`
bundle for signed-in readers.

Written by Michael Kidd, Managing Partner & Chief AI Architect, Agentcy. Licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Agentcy builds workflow automation, AI integrations and WhatsApp CRM systems for
South African businesses: https://agentcy.co.za/#book-audit

## Free tools

- [Cost of delay calculator](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/cost-calculator): what unanswered enquiries, quotes that go quiet, late invoices and slow onboarding actually cost you in a year. Runs in the browser, no signup, nothing stored. Every figure is one you type from your own records.

## Guides

- [Are your supplier payment terms costing you money?](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/supplier-payment-terms): Supplier payment terms are negotiable and silent until cash runs short. How to read them, what longer terms are worth, and how to ask for 45 or 60 days.
- [Chasing invoices by hand, and what it does to cash flow](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/manual-invoice-chasing): Chasing invoices by hand is slow, inconsistent and easy to forget. Here is how to measure the real cost, set a chasing schedule and automate it.
- [Discounting that eats your margin, and how to hold a price](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/discounting-that-eats-your-margin): A discount should be a decision with a reason and something given back, not a reflex. Here is how to set a floor price, what to trade instead, and what to say.
- [Handling a complaint that arrives on WhatsApp](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/complaints-handled-on-whatsapp): A WhatsApp thread is a poor place to settle a complaint. Here is why it goes wrong, how to move it somewhere that holds a record, and what to log.
- [How do you build a 13-week cash flow forecast?](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/cash-flow-forecast-in-a-spreadsheet): A 13-week cash forecast shows what you will have in the bank in three months. Here is the spreadsheet structure, the rule that matters, and the Friday ritual.
- [How long is too slow to reply to an enquiry](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/lead-response-time): How slow is too slow to reply to a new enquiry? Here is how to measure your real response time, set a target you can keep, and cover the hours after close.
- [How to choose what to automate first](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/what-to-automate-first): Choosing what to automate first is a scoring exercise, not a guessing game. Here is a five-factor method, a cost-of-delay calculation and what to leave alone.
- [How to document a process so it stays accurate](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/sop-documentation-that-stays-true): A standard operating procedure goes out of date because it has no owner and no review trigger. How to write SOPs that stay accurate in a South African team.
- [Pricing work you cannot time, and the argument at handover](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/pricing-work-you-cannot-time): Charging only by the hour punishes you for every job you are still learning. Here are three pricing models, a fixed-price formula, and the variation rules.
- [The hidden cost of typing the same thing twice](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/rekeying-between-systems): Rekeying — retyping details that already exist somewhere else — quietly eats hours every week. Here is how to find it, price it and cut it out.
- [What does POPIA actually require of a small business?](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/popia-for-small-businesses): POPIA for a small business comes down to four daily duties, a plain-language privacy notice, a retention rule and a way to handle requests. Here is how.
- [What happens when one person is the only one who knows](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/knowledge-trapped-in-people): What happens when one person is the only one who knows how a job gets done, and how to get that knowledge out of their head and into a written system.
- [What happens when your customer list lives in a personal WhatsApp?](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/customer-data-in-whatsapp): A WhatsApp thread holding a customer's name, number and address is personal information. Here are the real risks, the fix, and what to do with a staff phone.
- [When customers go quiet, and how to tell busy from gone](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/customers-who-go-quiet): A customer who stops replying is usually busy, not gone. Here are the signals that tell them apart, the message to send, and the loss reason log.
- [Where work stalls when it moves between people](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/handoffs-between-people): Work stalls at handovers because the brief gets thinner each time a job changes hands. Here is where it breaks, and the written brief that stops it.
- [Who is allowed to buy what, and how to control it](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/supplier-purchase-approvals): If anyone can buy anything, you buy stock you did not need at prices nobody checked. Here is a value ladder, a PO routine and a real register.
- [Why booked appointments get no-showed, and what an empty slot costs](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/appointments-that-no-show): An empty booked slot costs the drive, the hour and the job you could have sold. Here is how to measure it, cut it, and fill the gaps you create.
- [Why onboarding new staff takes weeks instead of days](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/onboarding-takes-weeks): Why does onboarding take four weeks when the job is not complex? A practical South African guide to cutting new-starter time to days, with templates.
- [Why quotes go cold, and how to stop that](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/quote-follow-up): Quotes usually go cold because nobody owns the gap between sending the quote and hearing back. Here is a follow-up schedule, and the messages to send.
- [Why quoting too fast costs more than it saves](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/quoting-too-fast): A quote sent in ten minutes from memory is a list of assumptions nobody wrote down. Here is the site-visit routine and the exclusions list that protect it.
- [Why stock counts and reports take a whole day](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/stock-counts-and-reports): Stock counts and reports swallow a day because both are done twice by hand. Here is how to shorten the count, remove the retyping and automate the reporting.
- [Why the AI tool you paid for is not being used](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/ai-that-nobody-uses): The AI tool you paid for is not being used because it was introduced as software, not as a fix to one job. How to get real adoption in a South African team.
- [Why WhatsApp enquiries get missed, and what it costs](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/missed-whatsapp-enquiries): Most missed WhatsApp enquiries are an after-hours problem, not a demand problem. Here is how to count them, what they cost, and what to change.
- [Why your team quietly avoids the new system](https://grow.agentcy.co.za/a/why-team-avoids-the-new-system): A team avoids a new system for four ordinary reasons, none of which is laziness. Here is how to find which one applies and redesign the step.

## About Agentcy

- Strategy session (free, 30 minutes): https://agentcy.co.za/#book-audit
- WhatsApp: https://wa.me/27837915429
- Email: ai@agentcy.co.za
- Main site: https://agentcy.co.za