By: Paul Manda Jr.
They
have the drive, the passion, the acumen, the tenacity, the resilience, they possess
these qualities in abundance. Napoleon Hill in his book, ‘Think and Grow Rich’
describes them as ‘ruthless and cold blooded,’ as such they are misunderstood
at most times. Many simply describe them as Crazy. They prefer to
build the corporate ladder for others than climb one. They believe that they
don’t have to always have the right answers as long as they have the right questions.
They are bold enough to face all odds and go it alone in the midst of many that
seek security through jobs, a corporate business name and a title in front of their
name isn’t what holds water. Hundreds of
pages can be written about who and what they are, they are entrepreneurs.
The
Zambian community has not yet come to fully appreciate and support the role of the
entrepreneurs around. The perception around is, going for entrepreneurship
should be the last option after one fails to find a job or that those who are entrepreneurs
are the rejects of the job market. In fact the wrong perception about
entrepreneurs extends beyond Zambian boarders. In the movie the ‘Social
network’, Justine Timberlake playing the role of Sean Parker founder of Napster
is asked by a lady what he does for a living, to which he responds that he is
an entrepreneur. The lady’s reaction to his response is ‘…you are unemployed’. This
perception is so wide spread such that it appears more desirable for one to introduce
himself with a corporate company name and ‘that title’ than as an entrepreneur.
However what is so interesting is that, despite their prominence or lack of it,
financial capacity or lack of it, entrepreneurs do not fall in the same band
wagon of the employed CEOs and MDs. Rather they fall in the category of the
investors, the proprietors, the Lawrence Sikutwa (LSA Group), the Steve
Nyirenda (Muvi TV), Maybin Madiba Mudenda (African Grey Insurance), the Richard
Branson’s (Virgin), the Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) who own the blue chip
companies that employ the more prominent CEOs.
You
may feel it’s absurd to compare the owner of “Chimutengo enterprise” in Zambia
with Mark Zuckerberg, however the point is not the worthy between the two, but
what they have in common, the shared values. The environment and size of the
two businesses could be different but the people behind share the qualities
outlined in the opening paragraph. They both DARE and RISK starting something
and making it grow. Further, unlike employed
CEOs whose core role is to drive the growth of the business within the already
established systems, entrepreneurs have to create the systems and the enabling
environment in which the business has to thrive.
The
life of an entrepreneur is not an easy one given the high levels of challenges
that are associated with building a business. It’s a day to day battle, clients
not paying while bills and salaries are overdue, at home there is a queue of
bills perhaps other numerous financial obligations too and where does one get
some sleep? More challenging is being an entrepreneur and being young. Let’s
take a look at some of the steps that can impact positively to the youth in
order to build entrepreneurs around.
Motivation and mentorship
There
has been quite a development on motivation speaking meant for the youth, among whom
there is a promising bleed of entrepreneurs. However motivation speaking in the
past years has lacked integration with Mentorship and guidance so as to achieve
tangible results. We have seen the youth being convened and being made to run
wild with ideas and it ends there. Helping youths to come up with business ideas
is one thing, getting the ideas or concepts to a profitable and sustainable
business is another thing. ’Power is nothing without control’ so says the slogan
for Perrarri tires. Conceiving an idea is power but that means nothing if there
is no aide to that power to get it to work. In most cases this ends up as misplaced
intelligence that manifests through criminal acts. Like any other services,
motivation speaking should move towards value addition. Motivation speaking should
not end up at igniting and not minding what happens after that. Such an
approach is not in conformity with the principles of service marketing which
emphases on selling the relationship more than the service. In a one off
transaction there is no relationship as the transaction closes there and then.
Things are changing and times are, it’s not wise to go on with the old long
time approach to doing things in these new times. Anything that is alive
experiences change and Motivation
speaking does live.
Sustaining
business ideas and Support
This
is how Richard Branson (the founder Virgin Group) puts it; ‘you never know what
you will find on a sunny beach’, on holiday he found his own airline.
Apparently after having a restful holiday Branson, his wife and others were stuck
on the island. He decided to charter a plane which was his first time for $2000,
he then divided that with the number of people .It came to $39 per head. He borrowed
a black board and wrote on it: VIRGIN AIRWAYS. $39 single flight to Puerto Rico.
That’s how the idea for Virgin Airways was born, right in the middle of the holiday.
Later he called Boeing, the biggest American company that made planes and asked
how much it could cost to rent a jumbo jet for one year. He says they were
surprised but they LISTENED and by the end of the call they had worked out a
good price for him .When he shared the idea with his partners in Virgin Music
they described him as CRAZY. The rest is history.
There
is now Virgin Atlantic that flies to more than 30 destinations around the world.
Virgin blue in Australia, Virgin express in Europe and Virgin Nigeria. Yes,
from the perceived CRAZY idea of one renting a plane not for a specific route
but for one year. Chances are when Richard asked for the cost of renting a
plane with a sales person, he might have been told out rightly “am sorry sir,
that is not possible”, the matter may have probably been settled by a senior
person who might have only given him the price out of his insistence .But then,
that is how entrepreneurs get things done, they don’t just go by the book or
Bureaucracy they rather look at bottom lines, push their way in when they can’t
be understood which is often the case. At the end of the day they make things
happen.
If
you are an established entrepreneur, have you thought about making the most of
a wide array of business ideas that are rooming on the streets? Do just see an
idea on TV, newspaper or any other media and simply describe it as “a brilliant
idea”? Many of them may look too basic or too complicated at first sight, but
if they are looked at with a closer eye one discovers that there is gold in detail.
Take for example, the idea of steel was not new to the Americans when Charles
C. Schwab (the president of the American Steel Corporation until 1930) was help
to meet and present the idea to JPMorgan (the founder of the American Bank JP.
Morgan), however more ways of the application for steel were brought out there
by revolutionising the construction industry to this day.
Schwab
as reported by Napoleon Hill, he suggested that ‘By cheapening the cost of
steel, he argued, an ever-expanding market would be created; more uses for
steel would be devised, and a goodly portion of the world trade could be
captured. Actually, though he did not know it, Schwab was an apostle of modern
mass production.’ After a series of meetings
Schwab’s dream was granted American steel corporation was born and
became one of the richest and most powerful corporations in America, employing
thousands of people, developing new uses for steel, and opening new markets;
thus proving that the $600,000,000 in profit which the Schwab IDEA produced was
earned. Actually it was Schwab’s concept has seen its way in construction of
almost every magnificent structure in the world, not to mention thousands of
jobs that are created in the process. But hey, that hardly happens if Ideas and
start up entrepreneurs are not given the platform. So then if we only watch, how
many multi-million business concepts have dead before inception, simply because
they could not be given a platform?
Surely
a lot can change around if established business institutions can change their
attitude of watching things from a distance and just waiting to jump on when
they have blossomed. Let’s imagine that we had Companies whose business would
be to capture business concepts or ideas, polish them up, buy a stake in them
and get them to a running sustainable business. On one of my work assignments in
Palabana I had a chat with a Mrs. Zulu the coordinator of Palabana Dairy Farming Cooperative for women. What
she shared with me was so heartwarming;
she narrated how Parmalat helped them to restock cattle by giving in a good
word on their behalf to the bank, Zanaco. Through this negotiated financing members
of the cooperative managed to buy dairy cattle from South Africa. Mrs. Zulu
herself got 30 animals first and later a loan for 50 more animals thereby
tripling her milk production and income. Further Parmalat negotiated with
national milling for feed supplies for these women, Zambia sugar for the
morasses for which Parmalat facilitates payments on behalf of farmers through
deductions from milk supplies. The community the women have in turn created
employment for men who work as feeders and milkers. In her words she said ‘it’s
all easy because of Parmalat, we have time to concentrate of our business.’
Such a scenario is what we need to replicated around in different sectors. Established
businesses have an upper hand, they have better network, access to finance
& suppliers and other support elements for a start-up business .They have
the muscle to get a concept to a stable business within a minimum time and with
easy
We
should move to a point where money lenders don’t just wait for businesses to
grow before they can lend them money. Actually there is more need for finance
by businesses in the start-ups, its high time financials lenders work with
business consulting firms for the purpose of polishing up and closing the holes
for ideas that many not out rightly qualify for financing. If established
entities can embrace business start-ups by investing in them and financial
institutions start to make it more possible for start-ups & entrepreneurs to
borrow money, more and numerous possibilities will be created.
With
our current levels of unemployment entrepreneurship support structures and
systems is the way to go. This cause must be supported by both government and
private entities. Let’s joint their world.
