Diaspora Matters

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.

ZBIN is now officially a regional centre of women empowerment! This is not surprising because 60% of the ZBIN board is made up of women. The secretariat of ZBIN is made up of 99% women. Our membership is made up of 60% women and our programme beneficiaries to date are 90% women. It is not therefore surprising that most of our successful projects are designed by women for women!

We would therefore like to share with you some of our women aligned programmes to look forward to and they include:

Existing

Tapestry (Production of carpet rugs)-we introduced the programme in July 2017 and to date we have empowered more than 100 women in Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. We will be launching it in Namibia and South Africa in Mozambique in October. The programme is expected to empower more than 15,000 women by the end of 12 months helping them to form business ventures that makes and sells carp rugs. No better way to empower women than to let them use their intelligence and innovation! The programme is regional in focus and has started on a good note with an initial training of Regional Tapestry Champions being conducted at the Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network Offices in Monavale, Harare. The programme combines technical skills with entrepreneurship skills –there is more emphasis on digital markets so that women can access markets beyond traditional marketing methods. An added bonus of the programme is free training to women in prison which seeks to rehabilitate women leaving prisons in Southern Africa.

Baking and Cooking Classes-The Baking and Cooking Community is the second largest ZBIN community with over a thousand members. Women share cooking and baking information especially baking for commercial purposes. Training workshops are conducted every month by individual group members and has worked well for the group.

Upcoming

Making Smoked Chicken and Sausages– A new programme still in our laboratory, it is meant to unlock business opportunities by empowering women to produce smoked chickens and sausages and also producing ham for sale. The programme is scheduled to start at the end of October and will be cascaded to the region using the same model we used for Tapestry. The programme has a target of 10,000 regional women reached in 12 months.

Detergents and Perfume Making-The programme to be launched in November and seeks to cascade our empowerment initiative to regional countries. There are existing initiatives running in the region but they are not marketed well and in many cases there are no central portals for information dissemination or learning-a key weakness we will be correcting in creating one central place for learning or information dissemination purposes.

So look forward to more exciting women empowerment initiatives in Southern Africa and join one of them. We have other programmes targeting the Christian Communities through business presentations and Youth Entrepreneurs Programme.

Whether you’re the CEO of a company or the CEO of your career, it’s your job to create value for others and to capture some of the value you create.

In the case of running a company, you create a product that customers value.

Customers are so excited to receive the value your product provides that they gladly pay the product’s price.

The product creates value.

The price the customer gladly pays is the value capture mechanism.

When you’re managing your own career, the work you do for your employer is the value you create.

The salary, bonuses, or commissions you receive in exchange is your value capture mechanism.

In terms of growing companies’ revenues or increasing your personal compensation, there are two ways to go about it.

The first is to create more value.

The second is to capture more of the value you create.

Most people focus on the second mechanism… getting customers to spend more money or getting your boss to give you a raise.

The problem with this approach to value capture is that only one person wins.

Here are two examples.

Your product creates $100 of “value” for your customer.

You charge customers $50 for the product.

After subtracting the product’s price, the “net value” the customer receives is $50.

Let’s say you raise your prices from $50 to $75.

In this case, it’s a zero sum game.

For you to get $25 more in price, the customer loses $25 in price.

You win, but your customer loses.

This becomes an adversarial dynamic.

In order for you to win, your customer must lose.

In order for your customer to win, you must lose.

The same idea works between employee and employer.

Let’s say as an employee you create $100,000 in value for your employer each year.

Assuming your salary is $50,000, your employer receives $50,000 in “net value” each year from your work.

If you ask for a $25,000 raise, your employer loses $25,000 in value in order for you to gain $25,000 in value.

You’re proposing you keep $75,000 of the value you create, leaving your employer with $25,000 in value.

Once again, this is a zero sum game. For you to win, your employer must lose (and vice versa).

As you can see, focusing only on value capture has two downsides.

First, the value you capture can never exceed the fixed value you create for others. The amount you’re negotiating over is finite.

Second, the relationship becomes adversarial. Only one of you can win and does so at the expense of the other.

Instead of focusing only on value capture, the far more interesting approach is to focus on creating value first, then value capture.

If you create a new version of your product that delivers $200 in value to the customer instead of $100, they aren’t going to balk if you raise your prices from $50 to $75.

With the product that creates more value, even after subtracting your higher price of $75, they receive $125 of value ($200 price – $75 price = $125 net value received).

This is a much better deal than the original product ($100 of value – $50 price = $50 net value received).

Suddenly the customer is quite happy to pay you more when they, in turn, receiveway more value than what they paid you.

Similarly, let’s say you’re an employee that landed a new account, created a new product or found some cost savings measure such that instead of delivering $100,000 in value to your employer, you deliver $200,000 in value this year.

Suddenly there’s no resistance in asking that your $50,000 salary be increased to $75,000.

Even after giving you this raise, your employer now receives $125,000 in “net” value ($200,000 in value – $75,000 in salary = $125,000 in net value).

This too is a better deal than before your raise, where your employer only received $50,000 in net value ($100,000 in value – $50,000 in salary = $50,000 in net value).

The great thing about the “create value for others first” approach is that the absolute level of your compensation is not finite.

If you create $1 million in value for your employer or client, you can earn $100,000 or more very easily.

(Or you can easily switch to another employer who will gladly take your $1 million in value for your $100,000 in compensation.)

If you create $10 million in value for your employer or client, receiving $1 million in personal compensation is very acceptable in comparison.

When you focus only on value capture, there’s a limit as to how far you can go.

Most people’s income tends to hit a ceiling at some point.

Most people tend to focus on value capture, rather than value creation.

These two observations aren’t a coincidence.

Thanks,
-Victor Cheng 

Founder, CaseInterview.com 
www.CaseInterview.com

The ZBIN forum is now truly regional in focus as we now have business groups and members in Malawi, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Every minute, there is a business discussion going on in our groups with some speaking in Chewa, Njanja, Sesotho, Tswana, Ndebele, Zulu or Swazi…the list of language is endless. We have become truly regional catering for the needs of our members in the various countries that we cover. One of our latest initiative is the formation of special whatsapp business groups that promote businesses from members. Members do not just advertise their products and services but get to promote each other-buying from each other and helping in advertising as well.

One of our focus this morning is South Africa, the land of 50 million people! The richest African nation south of the equator and we cover comments posted on one of our sister forums. A member had asked what sort of business she can do with a capital of R2000.

We emphasize that when it comes to starting businesses, do not start with capital-rather start with markets and then seek capital last. Starting with capital limits your options, it limits your innovation and often leads to  you investing in areas you are not familiar with. So start with what you enjoy doing and then seek markets for it.

Anyway below we feature some of the responses from members. Please note that we are not encouraging you to follow up with the people who posted and conduct business as we have not verified whether what they are saying works nor whether they are selling genuine products or services.

Peegee Khumalo Start a perfumes/Detergents manufacturing business, I can assist you get started. For your R2000 you will get a profit of ±R7000 your first month .

Sisanda Ka Nhanha Solomon join Forever and sell our products for profit

Ranwedzi Forex Trader Calvin Forex trading

Ephy Monna Manyaka Where is your interest if i may asking…?are you interesting in selling unique products or?

Zanele Dlams Be careful though don’t give your money to people for nothing

Tebogo MJ Mpanyane invest in bitcoins

Linda Ndlwana Join TLC with R1000 get 5 teas ,resell them @ R350 each

Portia Saku Sell these perfumes. Whatsup me on 0789650816

Taffy Muza Buying and selling of second hand clothes for kids and ladies. Inbox if interested

MaliwaJr BabakaOlwethu Ma guy, be your Own Bassi for the starters i prefere u make your own chemical manufacturing ngi Owner i Business engalqala ngo R700 only easy followable Steps. No machines needed buy the Raw chemicals and start making ur own Face wash its about to get hot. Majority needs dry skin/ with low fats/ fresh and tender I can give u all the ropes! 😉 i started with a 25L which produced /gave me a return of R5000 I sTILL Do

Reeva Forman REEVA Beauty & Health products . Star as s REEVA condultant and build a sales team. Excellent income obtainable and sustainable.
Love
Reeva Forman
Cell 0832287777
www.reeva.com

Pieter Van Der Merwe I do wholesale pergume 30ml @ R25 can sel them for R60+

Ilona Van Staden Selling ladies accessories is a good start. Women buy a lot and u will make a good profit.

Tuks Tuks buy 50kg of washing powder with 600 then resell with 20ltr

Mandla Biyela With that R2000 I can teach you how to make perfumes. You will get the kit and atleast 30 perfume to start off the business

Lemogang Sebeco Stock Brazilian and Peruvian hair.inbox

Phomelelo LeAmo Mampholo Sell suits..

Nikita Bhanprakash Selling comforter set.contact me on 0783074049

Sheilla Chisi As little as R190,, no limited order, no dead stock, and for all you my friends who would like to buy one or know more about ths, just hit my inbox

Last week there was a special occasion of business graduates in town, they were not ordinary graduates  but extra ordinary graduates with special skills and technical expertise on managing businesses in an increasingly complex environment. They are graduates equipped with skills  to join any company or organisation and excel in their roles. Some are or will be accountants, some business consultants, some journalists, some marketing executives…some practically everything.

We welcome the graduation of the Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) last week especially those that completed the gruelling course to become ACMAs, CGMAs or those that become fellows of the institute FCMA. I remember getting an ACMA, CGMA badge and being told to wear it with pride! We have to give credit to the British for a powerful and relevant business qualification that is in demand the world over! The forum is going to cover some of the top topics that comes from the institute and apply them to the local or regional context.

So Refreshing

We were at another church event this morning and what a refreshing experience. In my case, i was at peace with my soul and thoroughly enjoyed everything that took place, the sermon and of course our action on business presentation. All credit goes to Mr T Mudede who also happens to be my brother in law. He did not know of my role at ZBIN and only got to be shocked when he realised that mukuwasha was representing a popular business forum.

The church is increasingly taking an interest in business and this is encouraging, information on business opportunities is filtering through although we are yet to see any church member who has benefited from government funds such as the Export Funds, Cross Border/Homelink  or Command Mining.

Our objective was of changing the mindset on business, identifying business opportunities that are not visible to others and ensuring that the church is organised and ready for emerging opportunities! We have follow up trainings including train the trainer courses so that churches can communicate and organise entrepreneurship packages for their congregants. The United Methodist Church became the fourth church we have covered this year bringing the tally of congregants we have reached to more than 1,500, not bad in a city with a population of 2 million. We should reach out to at least 10,000 before the end of the year since the launch of the programme in April 2016.

Live from Botswana

Our team was in Gaberone in Botswana and we got off to a good start, do expect more updates on what we are doing that side as we carry with the gospel of entrepreneurship and empowerment. We will be in South Africa next week  where we have a number of trainings line up in at least 4 cities.

Whats Up this Week

1. More local trainings-we have also received an invite from a DRC Delegation that visited out offices on Friday. We will follow up on the invite and ensure that we cover the country in future.
2. Volunteers – They say for capacity building to be effective, it has to be demand driven. You cannot just go to a small business owner and say you would like to train them. There will be no ownership nor commitment the program-instead, let them define what they want and the deliver. This is the approach we will be using with the train the trainers course for local churches.
3. Young Entrepreneurs-We have been asked the question on young entrepreneurs several times. We are slowly building up the momentum on young entrepreneurs and any follower of our church presentations should see that they are designed with youths in mind. We have more exciting programs coming up that we will share with you once the design is complete.
4. Website Page-our website zbinworld.com to be redesigned and include a section on Opportunities. Your chance to showcase opportunities available in the country and the region. If you have a business opportunity then be on the lookout on updates related to this.
5. More Facebook Lives-Expect 2 or 3 Facebook lives during the week.

Wishing you a productive and blessed week

Wa Mdala

Tomorrow the forum will be in Sunningdale in Harare where we will be doing a business presentation at the Methodist Church at 12:00am. A great opportunity for us to help the christian community with business skills especially on identifying opportunities in an increasingly tough environment. Our focus will be on women and youths and we hope to make positive impact that will result in many having a positive attitude to business and starting their own business. This is our fourth church business presentation after presenting at ZAOGA (twice), Holiness Rivival and Salvation Army churches.

We would like to thank StartApp Biz for linking us with the church through Mr Mudede. We share this presentation in advance so that members can follow through our presentation by downloading the presentation in advance.