One of my great privileges is to select one Entrepreneur each month for their outstanding work and contribution to our town, Gordon's Bay. This month I am so proud to announce that our chosen entrepreneurs for the month of December are André and Margot Paulsen owners of the BP Service Station.
They took over the BP Service Station in Gordon’s Bay in September 2002. It is situated on the fork as you drive into Gordon’s Bay by Beach Road and Faure Marine Drive. After chatting with them here is the story as quoted by Andre and Margot.
''Our motto is to always provide fast, friendly and excellent service and products. We are open 24/7 and do not have a key to the front door. Our main reason why we have this business, is to provide fast, friendly and efficient service to our customers. We aim for our customers to always have a pleasant shopping experience with us. Many customers become our friends and many we see more than once a day.
We often ask people why they are in business. Most of the times the reply is “to make money”. For us that is not so. If your main aim in business is to make money, it will always keep running away from you. Obviously you have to make a profit, but the main aim is to provide a service. If that service you provide is excellent, the money will come by itself.
We obviously sell fuel, oil, do emergency tyre repairs, have a car wash and sell gas, wood, charcoal and briquettes as well as bait. In the shop we sell electricity; cell phone air time. Our ice is the best price anywhere! From time to time we sell bread; milk at cost price (would like to do it the whole year and are busy with negotiations with BP Head office to be able to do that). Our shop has the basic emergency requirements like toothpaste and toothbrush (for those who do not want to drive home late at night), light bulbs, cereal, nappies, dog and cat food and all kinds of other interesting and essential items.
We have a street map in our shop and many people come to us for directions, whether to visit people and often for people doing deliveries. For tourists we also keep a good selection of maps.
We also have personal contact with our customers and often inquire if there are any specific needs and if possible, will order it in and keep it in our shop for them. When we are able to get stock at an excellent price, we supply these bargain priced items to our customers e.g. for the past few months we have been selling Bar Ones at a price you will not find anywhere else!
We bake all our pies, rolls, confectionery on the premises and they are always fresh. Please remember us for your orders as we also bake to order and have a standing order with the Rotary for croissants. We have the best croissants in town – made with real butter. On Friday’s we have “Friday is Pie Day” which has become extremely popular. Because we are open 24 hours, people can order from our bakery for say, 6am and we will bake it for them.
Every month we hand out a newsletter with some nice positive input. As one customer once phoned us and said that our account is the only one she looks forward to receiving as she cannot wait for the newsletter that comes with it!''
Andre and Margot also strive to give back to our community in Gordon's Bay. As education is important to them, Gordon’s Bay Primary school has been their main area who they sponsor. They had a project where they sponsored the school on a Rand to Rand basis for R100 000.00 where they were the first school in the Western Cape to get interactive white boards for their classrooms. Besides this, Andre and Margot also sponsored the spelling marathon and the BP Fun Walk which is held annually round about September/October each year and has been growing every year. Each participant receives a medal for completing the walk. Next year the marathon will be growing more as they would like to expand it to a whale walk as well.
André & Margot are involved with the Gordon’s Bay Business Association where we strive to upgrade our town to bring more visitors and therefore more business to our businesses and in the process more jobs will be created. Please remember to support this wonderful couple in our town, they can be contacted via e-mail bpgordonsbay@gbsec.co.za or per telephone 021 – 856 2813.
We are thankful to them for their contribution in Gordon's Bay and wish them all the success in their business for 2011.
