Diaspora Matters

Most new entrepreneurs are enamored with product ideas. “I have a new idea for a product,” “a service,” or increasingly, “an app.”

You hear this at cocktail parties all the time. When someone says they have a new business idea, they are almost always referring to a new product idea.

BUT, those who actually run businesses spend a huge amount of time worrying about things that go beyond on the product.

They worry about…distribution.

This topic came up when I was in Austin, Texas having breakfast with members of my Inner Circle mentorship program.

We were talking about what makes new startups successful. I argued that most new companies severely underestimate the importance of distribution.

Distribution is the method by which you will be able to reach your target customer, communicate with them, and ultimately sell to them.

Once you build and introduce a new product to the world, something terrible happens…

NOTHING

Products do not sell themselves. Target customers do not magically learn about your product.

It is much easier to create a product than it is to build a distribution channel to reach a market segment.

There are two kinds of distribution channels:

Direct vs. Indirect

A “direct” channel is when your company has a direct relationship with your customers.

You know their names. You have their credit cards on file. You have their mailing addresses, phone numbers, or email addresses.

This email that you’re reading is being sent via a direct distribution channel known as an email newsletter.

I have your email address. You’ve given me permission to communicate with you.

From time to time, I send you opportunities to buy products or services that I think would be a good fit for you.

Other forms of direct distribution channels include having your own retail stores, an outbound telemarketing center, eCommerce websites, direct mail catalogs, and television infomercials.

An “indirect” distribution channel is one where you sell your products or services through an intermediary.

For example, I use Amazon.com as an indirect distribution channel for my bookCase Interview Secrets.

When you buy my book from Amazon, Amazon has your contact information. They have your credit card on file. They know your shipping address.

I don’t receive any of that information as a result of that purchase transaction.

Other examples of indirect channels include:

• Selling your product through resellers (such as Coca-Cola selling Coke at Walmart);

• Selling your product with a value-added channel partner (such as Oracle selling software through Accenture IT consultants that offer a systems integration consulting engagement which includes Oracle software);

• Selling your product embedded in somebody else’s (such as Samsung mobile phone displays being sold as a part of an iPhone).

Choosing which category of distribution channel to use and which specific channel within each category is a profoundly strategic decision.

These decisions have major tradeoffs.

Indirect channels usually give you access to large groups of customers you have no means to reach directly.

For example, Amazon reaches far more potential buyers of books than I do through my website. This is a huge advantage.

However, indirect channels have a major tradeoff. While you benefit from market access, you trade off a direct relationship with the buyers.

This makes you highly dependent on the indirect channel and vulnerable if your indirect channel ever wants to bypass you.

For example, Amazon has identified its most popular selling products (manufactured by others that use Amazon as an indirect channel like I do) and has created their own in-house brand of products known as “Amazon Basics.”

As a consumer, I’ve purchased the Amazon Basics brand for iPhone cables, dinner plates, towels, and batteries.

There is no always right or wrong answer as to what distribution channel to use. Every choice you make around channels involves tradeoffs.

The only de-facto decision that’s always wrong is to have no distribution channel what-so-ever.

If you spend 100% of your time creating a great product, you’ve spent 0% of your time choosing or building a distribution channel.

The next time you hear someone (or yourself) talk about a great product idea, ask them what distribution channel they plan to use to get their product to market.

If the only response you get back is silence, that’s a serious problem.

Distribution. It’s important.

Thanks,
-Victor Cheng 

Founder, CaseInterview.com 
www.CaseInterview.com

The nation is going through an important phase of voter registration, a new voters roll is being compiled and it is going to be used in the harmonised elections that will be held next year. A crucial exercise that all citizens should participate in especially young voters. Young voters play a crucial role because they now constitute close to 67% of the population.

The voter registration exercise needs a lot of fun and should be engaging inorder to entice the young voters who traditionally shun politics. ZBIN is therefore inviting innovative young Zimbos who are techno savvy to develop a voter registration app that helps the nation in the following ways:

1. Location of all voter registration centres
2. Times of registration
3. Voter registration requirements
4. Voter registration counter which counts number of days before closure of the registration period
5. Planning schedule to enable users to plan to register
6. Question and Answer Section

So there you are young Zimbos, help your nation with developing an app for voter registration. Lets show the immense talent that exists within Zim. Lets develop a model that can be used by other countries.

It was my first time at the busiest border post in Southern Africa after more than 6 years. I enjoyed the changes of scanners at our border- great move to check on everything entering or exiting our borders!

Area of concern
People can still opt not to use the scanner if they choose! I saw certain bags which did not pass through the scanner with the owners of the bags opting to pay bribes. On the SA side all bags are offloaded and am sure our border control needs to learn from the SA counterparts.

Exit or Entry?
Zimbabwe  has a scanner on the exit side but not entry side
South Africa  has a scanner on the entry side and none on the exit side

Something amiss  here considering that the country’s import bill runs into billions per year! Why do we prefer manual verification of imports? Manual has a lot of inefficiencies plus allows room for smuggling!

Someone deliberately placed the scanner on the wrong side- the exit side! We should place our national scanner on the ‘money side’ where we stand to lose billions of dollars in revenue from taxes.

The South Africans have used common sense by placing a scanner on the entry point, we too can do it and reduce chances of smuggling.

A few weeks ago, ZBIN launched a programme in 5 regional countries and we deliberately excluded Zimbabwe. The reason for doing so was simple-finding whether we can successfully launch a product beyond our borders. The results are that we succeeded –over subscription in neighbouring countries. After the launch we then decided to come back home and what was the response? The response was luke warm and had we initially launched it here then we would have made a big blunder! We definitely would have failed and after failure then conclude that the product was not viable.

So this is the dilemma facing many entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe, if you fail locally then conclude that your project is not viable and discard it. Maybe this helps explain why Tuku launches his albums in South Africa first? It has not made sense for some of his fans why he would launch an album on foreign soil before coming back home, now it makes a lot of sense after what we experienced over the past few weeks. The message is think globally in a local context and unlock a lot of opportunities.

What is coming up?

We formed 3 important groups, the first one is the ZBIN shortages group-its meant to help members know where to find goods and products and not be taken by profiteering retailers. The second group is Dare International-this group helps to connect members from different countries-it is already doing wonders networking locals with neighbouring countries. The best asst in business is networking. Master networking and you will have a lot of benefits when it comes to finance, markets and a lot of other areas. A person who is well networked may not even need collateral for loans, may even get goods supplied on credit! So great group for members to know of regional business trends in Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Lesotho.

Taxation Update: There is exciting debate around tax going on in one of our groups and we expect to summarise the discussions and publish in an article. Interesting stuff on VAT requirements and the importation of goods by locals.

Do look forward to an advert looking for interns to work with ZBIN, we are going to be recruiting 2 or 3 interns to help the forum with finance, human resources and marketing. Great opportunity to work with an innovative forum that thinks beyond Zim.

ZBIN wishes you a blessed new month and new week

We have been carrying out a debate on what is more important when starting a business, is it Capital ($s) or Market? Both are very crucial in business and one cannot do without each other. You need both to succeed in business. Both are part of ZBIN’s objectives, access to markets and access to markets.

We reached out to our  Caribbean followers and we feature their responses below:

Kevin Hosein Starting a business… make sure you have a good capital plus extra savings in case of hard times… and always have determination and dont ever think negative when things bad… doh even think about quitting just keep at it and eventually your clientele will increase week by week… Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Kevin Hosein I started selling bbq in June of this year… its divali time now so sales basically dropped to an all time low… but hopefully things will pick up by christmas time.

Tricia Simone Gaspard I can’t speak for others but for me I always step up to hw the country falls. I am a certified chef decorator and planner I am my own boss as soon as I saw a lot of ppl heading to that same path I went to selling safety gears and some hardware stuff. I am now doing a course in electrical and plumbing reason being everyone is building a house. The road and time is not easy when u are ur own boss but it’s worth it at times I hve built a form of friendship with my clients I try to help them if they can’t meet my price and I also respect them. Hw u treat ur customers in no time they spread the word and u build from nothing to something. I hve never taken out a loan because I started my business by the government grants unfortunately de close it down. So yes a capital is needed and clients. I hope u successfully push forward to become the great person u would like to be.

Ramesh Ramadhar To start a business you need money so capital is the most important

Mdala Wa Rue But if u have no market the capital may not be too useful?

Ramesh Ramadhar The first day I opened my retail business I didn’t sell a pin but you need to advertise properly to attract your clients

Andrew Drax Laing it all depends on the business u plan to start

Ravi Chunilal A product for the type of market you are aiming for and the capital to fund the dream

Manju Gulati If the economy is good and market has the buying power

Divya Maharaj Your market is very important. Can’t open a business you like or want having the money and then no customers/clients. Research the market out there and plan out things before making any purchase. Think about everything possible in and around whatever the business. Many people have the capital to start of businesses whether loaned or self financed and the majority fail eventually. Your marketing strategy should be on point when starting. Capital is vital, you can’t have one without the other, having both capital and knowing/having the market goes together. You can’t want to start a business and leave out any aspect of it. Think and plan thoroughly before starting otherwise you might end up facing problems you never thought of. May not apply to all but it does in many ways

Divya Maharaj Persons would say you need money to make money (profit). For some businesses, you need capital to purchase resources, to advertise, to cover unexpected financial pop ups in the process etc. If you offer a service that gets around through word of mouth and you don’t need any extra resources, then that cuts out your capital for marketing and creating your working environment (e.g. building and infrastructure etc). Depending on your business type, you’ll know what you need to get started, once you acknowledge that money is required to purchase stuff, then you know that a capital is needed. You can get capital either through self, loans from bank, loans from different people, etc. You need to know what your business is, what is required and determine your capital. Another saying is, if you want to make “big” money, you need to invest “big”. Hope I was clear enough.

Mdala Wa Rue Yeah u need a thorough knowledge- the ins and outs of your business! It’s amazing to find a huge no of people who venture into business with very little knowledge of what they will be getting into- result? The result is failure!

Divya Maharaj If you don’t need building/office then focus on advertising for your market. To market yourself you will need money. Example, a teacher wants to teach, maybe open a school but doesn’t have the finances. He starts off by having a small job if he can’t get a job, he uses whatever little he has/ or borrow to advertise his service of private tutoring through media or papers, he then makes money and in time would make more than what was used for advertising (capital) and generates that as a profit. Over time he makes up enough to get a bigger loan to put up infrastructure and building this time for a private school. Understand?

Rajesh Boysie Market is the key to selling products or services . you’ll easily lose your capital without a Market

Paul Newon market…

After our successful tour of Mpumalanga, we headed to Gauteng Province where we stayed in Johannesburg for a day before proceeding to KwaZulu Natal Province where Durban is based.

Our first time to ever visit this beautiful coastal city for tapestry training. The first thing you notice when travelling from Johannesburg to Durban is a noticeable drop in altitude.

The purpose of our tour was a simple one:

Inspire Durbanites to start businesses that sells carpets!

The training has to be one of the best trainings we have ever done. A lot of people came with some coming from the Ministry of Education , NGO representatives, business women and men. Some drove from Eastern Cape and Pietermaritzburg. The top of the range cars should tell you about the seriousness that Durbanites attached to the training.

Our training centred on Tapestry Technical Skills Training, Entrepreneurship Training and a Shopping Mall Access to Markets Tour.

The technical training went on well with our trainer Tracy Mukasa leading the course which was well received. We introduced the entrepreneurship training on the first day and the lady from the Ministry of Education got curious, she asked for permission for her son to attend the session the following day. She did not want her son to miss out on the entrepreneurship message since he had his sights centred on the entrepreneurship journey. The following day we had Vuyani as part of the trainees attending the session.

Results : Technical Training

KwaZulu Province got tapestry training and they did not disappoint.

Results Entrepreneurship Training

Our training starts with promoting businesses by members so that they become networked and share the same vision. Our training output is to have a collective company formed. A company that helps members that cascades tapestry within the province,  a company that sells carpets and help to improve livelihoods of members and the community.

The good news is that plans are underway to form a company by group members, they are getting inspiration from Mpumalanga where a company is already in existence!

We also carried out a business tour at a nearby shopping mall and what are the results?

We managed to visit 4 shops within the shopping mall where everything went well except one shop where we were dismissed. The owner of the computer company was not interested in hearing our carpets story.   The best part of the tour has to be an Indian carpet shop owner who immediately wanted orders, price ranges and photos of complete samples. We were unfortunately not prepared enough as this was a market assessment exercise. The ladies got contact details and followed up with the requested documents. One of the ladies Nunu actually got an order from a Kaizer Chiefs fan!

Vote of Thanks

So we went to Durban and did not disappoint, how did the province react? We were crowned-initially taken aback because this was not expected! We got our first business award as a forum and it came in a traditional way in KwaZulu Natal. We got traditional gear to cap a fine outing for the forum in the coastal city! This was a trip with a difference and we will forever remember this special trip. We therefore would like to thank the wonderful people of Durban and we look forward to them cascading the training to millions of others in the province.

For more information on follow up trainings, do app +263774081808 or email victor@zbinworld.com

Our team has just returned from South Africa and what an interesting journey we had! The purpose of the business tour was to empower South Africans with tapestry and entrepreneurship skills. The purpose was to enable our followers in South Africa to start businesses that sell shaggy rugs or carpets.

Mpumalanga Results

Our first stop was Nelspruit in Mpumalanga where we trained 8 dedicated ladies. Credit goes to Sister Elsie for putting together the training and handling all logistics. The icing on the cake is that the ladies we trained are serious about business and before the end of our tour they had registered a company!

A company that handles all tapestry training programmes in the province of Mpumalanga. They will be cascading the training to all the corners of this beautiful province helping to empower women with carpet making skills and assisting them with access to markets.

Other areas that the Mpumalanga Company will work on includes:

1. Creation of an arts and crafts hubs within the province that empower women
2. Central carpet making and selling areas

Access to Markets Tour

The Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network forum is passionate about markets. Access to markets is one of our big objectives and we include this in all of our trainings. In Nelspruit we went a step further and included a business tour where members would encounter real life experiences in access to markets.

We visited a shopping mall which housed our training venue. The tour only had 30 minutes to showcase to the trainees the skills that they need to access markets, it was also meant to obtain key contacts and possibly orders for carpets.

The experience has to be one of the best for our organisation, we identified potential markets, went into various shops and offices talking about our carpet making project.

The response was awesome as a lot of leads were created, in one travel agent shop-the discussion went for more than the time budgeted! Potential clients wanted more but we were short on time. The smiles on the faces of the trainees will forever be etched on our minds! They witnessed in real time that markets existed, they experienced it, they got to talk to potential clients in their local language and it worked.

It is this magical experience that forced them to quickly go and establish a company. It is the magical 30 minute experience that helped to ignite their interest in the programme, they got feedback-important feedback from locals, their potential market.

For us, we showcased that South Africa has an abundance of opportunities for women. We used the event to network and promote businesses by participants.

For anyone interested in supporting these hardworking women, kindly get in touch with Elsie Zwane on +27 71 184 9263 . You can visit our Facebook Page Southern Africa Tapestry Training.

Next we will cover our bigger training in Durban and more follow up trainings in South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland

Money changers are back in town and they are doing serious business! You may have seen them at Road Port, East Gate or Copacabana-it is serious business for those connected and having access to cash. Money Changers are involved in selling the Bond Cash to those with electronic funds wishing to convert to cash or those with Bond Cash looking for hard cash. It is all good business for these unscrupulous characters who are exacerbating the cash problem in the country. Charges are ranging from 15% up to 35% and this information is public, money is being sold publicly unlike in the past.

Their argument is simple and perhaps understandable-they are simply providing a service which is on high demand! The country is facing hard cash challenges so should one blame them? ZBIN did an informal small survey yesterday and established that it is all good for the men and women with wads of cash. Profits range from $10 up to $300 for the small scale money changers that you find on the streets. Profits should be higher for some in big offices who supply them with cash or ask them to look  for cash. The largest profit officially recorded was that of a commission of up to 15% for $30 million raised from unofficial channels by the corporate sector a few months ago. With the queue of hard funds requests above $600 million at the apex bank, most corporates have resorted to the informal sector in order to fund critical import needs.

More research is needed to find what is exactly happening on the streets where some have an abundance of cash whilst the majority of people are failing to access it from the formal banking systems.

Impact on the Corporate Sector

We are hoping that researchers are going to come with detailed reports of the impact of the current cash situation on the operating environment in the country where prices have started rising fueling an inflation spike. For instance how has this cash situation impacted on the cost of doing business for the established companies and the small to medium scale business sector?

Impact on the rural dweller

About 70% of the population of Zimbabwe resides in rural areas according to the last official census. How has this community been affected by the shortage of cash? Is the situation changing for the better? We did witness people failing to have their maize shelled at a grinding mill because they did not have hard cash. How are rural shops conducting business, how has this affected the rural population?

Auditing Bodies

With most companies resorting to the informal sector to raise funds, what is the impact on internal controls and risk management? We are watching closely to see published financial results of many organisations from this year and critically look at audit reports and the audit opinion. Will organisations or companies accessing cash from the streets have clean audit reports? Here is a minefield for most audit partners-this time the nation will be watching and they should expect possible lawsuits resulting from audit opinions expressed in audit reports for clients.

So many questions and few answers but the point is e Money Changing is back and is not disappearing any time soon- and for some the argument is they are doing the nation a favour by oiling the flow of money in the economy. To the person struggling to get cash from the formal banking system, surely there is no favour from their actions. We await to see more researches and analysis that will inform the next course of action to be taken by responsible authorities. In the meantime, its all good for the money changers where some are earning more than those who are formally employed.

In this video, the CEO Of Moz Group Ms Clara Mapfumo discusses about business opportunities in Mozambique.

One of the most important factor in small businesses is market! Are you able to find a market for your goods and services? If you can find a market then the rest of the problems will be sorted later. Even when you have no capital, if you have a market then you can always find sponsors or partners.

A person with a ready market has peace of mind than someone with capital but no market. Still on markets, the major problem with Zimbabwean Entrepreneurs is restricting thinking to local environment. Few are thinking international when it comes to business and losing a lot of business potential.

When you concentrate on your local market then chances are high that it will be saturated in no time leaving you with little profits or even losses. They say opportunities in Zimbabwe last for 3 months, after 3 months expect the floodgates to be opened and quickly driving down profits.

Selling Vintage Dresses in Cape Town

The selling of vintage dresses is not new in Harare, it has been going on for a while with a popular shop based at Avondale being the torch bearer when it comes t vintage dresses. The formula is simple-buy vintage dresses and skirts from second hand clothing bales sellers and resell them at a premium price. There is huge demand for them especially by the white communities.

Now a member of ZBIN who recently graduated from our tapestry programme has adopted the same formula and buys vintage dresses for sale in Cape Town-all she does is to have contacts in Harare who look for vintage dresses from second hand clothing bales and she buys at a dollar each and sells at 4 to 5 times the price in Cape Town! Business has been brisk and she is not looking backwards.

So the lesson is on thinking regionally, focus more on the region than your local community. This will help to expand your business horizon and unlock new opportunities.