#WIB - Q&A With Precious Nala Founder Of NXT Consultancy

1. Can you please tell us more about your business?

NXT Consultancy is a B2ME collective of core business functions for growing South African businesses. We provide resource services in Marketing, Sales, Finance, HR and M&E, so business owners have more capacity to focus on business strategy.

2. When, how and why did you start your business?

Established 2013, NXT Consultancy is a collective of core business functions for growing South African businesses, bridging the gap between business owners and business operations. NXT Consultancy represents the culmination of two decades of expertise in marketing, fundraising, and business strategy. NXT Consultancy champions the progressive philosophy of embracing downscaling, as the charge towards a more purposeful and prosperous tomorrow.

3. What is your role in the business?

I am the founder of the business.

4. Where did you study and what did you study?

I studied at IMM, the Bachelor of Business Administration degree.

5. How did you finance your business?

My business started with no financial injection but on the willingness to knock on doors and ‘sell’ my expertise for a financial return.

6. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.

My day to day role involves ensuring that the daily activities continually contribute to the goals of NXT Consultancy. A check-in with the teams is conducted to ensure we check on our client deliverables. A portion of my day is also dedicated to seeking new business opportunities, partnerships, and collaborations to grow our business offering. Lastly, maintaining good relationships with clients and customers is crucial. Some of my time is spent communicating with key clients, gathering feedback, and ensuring customer satisfaction.

7. How do you balance your home life and your work life?

I have to define specific working hours and communicate them to my team, clients, and family. This helps create a structure and expectations around when I am available for work and when one needs personal time. I have also had to learn to prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance. This has helped me focus on high-priority tasks during work hours, reducing the need to bring work home unnecessarily.

8. What drives you and inspires you?

What drives me is the willingness to take risks and explore new opportunities to embrace innovation and calculated risks in the startup market.

9. Where and when do you have your best ideas?

2am. For someone who battles with sleep, I taught myself how to use the ‘extra’ hours to read, research and play with ideas that could be beneficial to my business.

10. Where and how do you market/advertise your business for sales leads?

Digital marketing (updating website and improving SEO), social media with a strong focus on LinkedIn Ads and word of mouth.

11. What is next for your business?

I have an NGO that I have already started. NXT Pulse Foundation, a registered PBO, is built on the foundation to empower and uplift communities’ members with the right tools. We want to nurture and repair young and old, undervalued individuals and sustain their deserving futures.

12. What advice would you give to female entrepreneurs hoping to start their own business?

Entrepreneurship is a continuous learning journey. Stay curious and be open to acquiring new skills and knowledge. Whether it’s through formal education, workshops, or self-directed learning, always seek to grow. We need to foster a diverse and inclusive work environment as a variety of perspectives and backgrounds can lead to more creativity and innovation within your business. In closing, as you succeed, consider how you can contribute to the success of other women. Mentorship and support for other female entrepreneurs can create a positive cycle of empowerment.

Short bio:

Precious Nala is an entrepreneur and community builder with a passion for marketing and fundraising. From a young age, Nala wanted more from life than a 9-to-5 corporate career which is why, in 2019, she started NXT Marketing, now known as NXT Consultancy – a collective of core business functions for growing South African businesses.

Her resume features names such as YES4Youth, a youth recruitment and work experience agency and Rosebank College, one of the educational brands of the Independent Institute of Education as well as 10X Entrepreneur, A Division of Edge Growth, Rhiza Babuyile and Working on Fire South Africa.

Because of her vision of what marketing should be, namely making a difference in society, Nala joined Afrika Tikkun as its Marketing Manager in 2020 and in 2021 she became Executive of Marketing and Stakeholder Relations. It was an opportunity Nala couldn’t refuse: using her marketing and fundraising skills to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable youth. Helping them excel from early childhood all the way to young adulthood, was something she always wanted to achieve.

“As professionals in our field, we must strive to be and do more with our skills and use them for the greater good, especially in a country like South Africa,” says Nala. “I believe that everyone has a role to play in the change we want to see in this world.”

Nala has completed her Bachelor in Business Administration with IMM and won the Standard Bank Top Women Young Achievers Award in 2022.