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When Raymond Ackerman was fired from his job in 1966, he persuaded a group of friends to loan him the money to buy three small Pick 'n Pay stores, which at the time employed a total of 175 people. On his retirement, 44 years later, he had changed the face of southern African retailing, growing his company to encompass 792 stores in eight countries, employing more than 60 000 people, and generating an annual turnover of around R60 billion. In A Sprat to Catch a Mackerel: Key principles to build your business, Raymond Ackerman shares the basic tenets behind his business philosophy - timeless principles that have guided him through some of South Africa's most turbulent times. Whatever your business background or interest, the practical, accessible advice in this book will help you define and build your vision, and help you reach success and self-actualised growth - not by chasing profit, but by giving expression to a driving passion. Rated by the Financial Times as among the World's Top 100 Most Respected Businessmen, Raymond Ackerman is also the first South African ever to receive the International Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship. In 2009, his company was voted the World's Best Retailer by the National Retail Federation (NRF). Raymond Ackerman is also the author of the best-selling memoir Hearing Grasshoppers Jump, and The Four Legs of the Table, in which he recounts how he built Pick 'n Pay into one of the most respected brands in the world today.