Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/853981
W EEKLY EDITION JULY 26, 2017 Company Spotlight: Lemon Trees Toilet Hire ...continued The company does long term rentals as well. Although they do not provide janitorial service on these sites, the company takes extra measures to work with their customers to ensure the units are not overused or vandalized. "They want a nice place to use the res troom, just like everyone else. We work together to make that possible," Hanlie says. As many readers of Association Insight are aware, South Africa has some unique sanitation challenges. Though the nation did away with the system of Apartheid more than 2 0 years ago, large numbers of the population still live without sanitary sewers – and "informal settlements" can be seen throughout the country. Indeed, as the ISO/ANSI group working on the International Working Agreement rode throughout the greater Durban area, we saw them along most major highways. Some of the settlements appeared to depend on open pit latrines which contained all manner of human body waste and other sorts of garbage from plastics and wood scraps to old tires. Many, though – like the one pictured here – use portable restrooms. This presents a unique business opportunity for companies like Lemon Trees Toilet Hire. "We provide portable restroom units to many informal settlements," says Hanlie. I asked about how the units are treated in thes e areas, and how the company makes good on their commitment to cleanliness under these challenging conditions. "We make sure the units are in great shape when we place them in the informal settlement. We find that if we trust people to take good care of th em, they generally do that. They want a good place to go, just like everyone else," Pieter observed. Another piece of the puzzle may be the way the Jamnecks staff the crew that looks after the units in the informal settlements. In many cases the company em ploys people who actually live in the informal settlements and are end users of the toilets. These part time people provide service once or twice a week in their communities. The Jamnecks have also tried several marketing strategies to grow their business es. One unique tactic involves having a rectangular shell built over the tanks and hoses on their trucks. To do this, they hire a local shop to build a frame made of sheet metal an d steel. As shown in this photo , the resulting structure provides storage sp ace behind the frame while the truck has a sleek appearance on the road and plenty of flat advertising surface on the sides of the frame. Indeed, Pieter and Hanlie seem to excel at thinking outside the box – and in just seven years they've built their com pany to include 65 employees, of which 45 - 50 are full time and the remainder are part time team members. In 2014 the company restructured to include additional owners Sanjay and Neeta Bhikha and Afzal and Hajira Patel. PAGE 6 CONTINUED ON PAGE 7