workshop and little else

Yawn Alert; this blog post is particularly unexciting.  It’s hard to be entertaining when writing about a business plan-writing workshop.  For those of you that power through, thank you.  For those of you that abandon me for this week, no hard feelings and I hope you visit again next week.  

My business plan-writing workshop went well.  There were a few hiccups, but overall I was happy with it.  Things started off with the traditional overhead projector issues, but got on track quickly after that.  There were 54 attendees from Rundu and the surrounding region.  The first morning went well, but when I began leading everybody through the financial discussion in the afternoon, I’m pretty sure I lost a good portion of my audience.  I anticipated this, but there’s really little I could do except to repeatedly stress that they were welcome to come to my office for one-on-one discussion of how the financials of a business plan work and how they would work up their own numbers.  Trying to teach a group of 54 people of varying education levels what a revenue forecast, profit and loss statement, and a cash flow forecast are and how they fit together in a single afternoon is challenging since many of them have never even heard of (much less seen) these things before in their lives.

The workshop participants consisted mostly of aspiring entrepreneurs, though there were some that had already launched businesses.  Some were trained in vocations such as plumbing, welding, electrical, mechanics, and masonry construction.  Others were unskilled and considering starting small vegetable farms, butcher shops, or chicken and cattle farms. 

After I wrapped up the first day, I spoke to many of the attendees outside of the meeting auditorium.  I wanted to gauge their feelings on the workshop.  Some were confused by the financial discussion, but some said that they understood much of it, which was a relief.  Namibian facial expressions don’t give a way much and I guess many of the blank stares I saw in the crowd were not blank stares of confusion.  A group of 6 women were standing on the steps outside of the building and called me over.  They were all smiles and happy with the day’s discussion and excited to work with me on finalizing their business plans.  Two of them agreed to visit me at my office to work through their business plans.  I’ll call them (and every other attendee) next week to encourage them to follow up. 

By far the most frustrating aspect of my workshop was dealing with the common Namibian mindset of “I must be provided money if I have any hope of starting my own business”.  The third day of the workshop started with two guest speakers.  Both were Namibian ministry representatives presenting on grant programs for small businesses. Some of the people in my workshop insisted that they must receive money either through a loan or grant before they could even consider opening a business.  Some, though thankfully not many, clearly had no interest in any other subject, even though they had no business background, no grasp of basic business concepts, and no reason at all to believe they would be able to run a business successfully.  One gentleman only woke up when a bank or ministry was talking about grants or loans.  He would debate the bank or ministry representative passionately about why he needed to be provided money to launch his business, and then he would promptly fall back to sleep when I again took over the floor.  I doubt he will ever visit my office. 

I wrapped the third day of the workshop up with a guest speaker, Rose Mary.  She’s a very successful Namibian businesswoman who started her career by selling handmade jewelry under a tree near a supermarket.  She now owns multiple businesses in Rundu and is regularly hired as a business consultant around the region.  Her message to the group was clear; Don’t sit on your butt waiting for a grant or loan.  Start your business with what you have, educate yourself on how to run a business, and grow your business through your own hard work.  Her message was received, it seemed to me, more positively by the women than by the men.  I was happy to have a Namibian saying exactly what I had been thinking.  She continued to read my mind when she told the group that many of them would have to start their entrepreneurial life by running a different business than they had in mind in order to save up seed cash for their intended business.  A group of aspiring homebuilders in the back of the room reacted to this statement by crossing their arms and shaking their heads as if any other business was out of the question or below them. 

Rose Mary drove her point home by telling the crowd that if you are ashamed of the money, the money will be ashamed of you.  In other words, if you are ashamed to do the type of work you need to do to scrape together an initial investment to start your business, you will never make any money at all.  The construction worker crew was still unimpressed, but the rest of the crowd nodded in approval.  I plan to adopt her message going forward. 

Since the conclusion of my workshop, I’ve been getting a steady stream of visitors and calls.  Some visitors were not even in the workshop, but had heard about it and came seeking advice anyway (which is fine by me).  I’m clear with each person that grants and loans are unlikely and that in order to work with me they have to dedicate themselves to building their business without the help of banks or ministries.  If I find that their particular business or situation puts them in a position to qualify for a grant or loan, I will certainly help them pursue it, but it’ll be the exception.   

 

A problem here in Namibia with new businesses is that often the business owner is doing little else but mimicking what they see others doing.  Many small business owners have no clear understanding of revenue, expenses, profits/losses, product pricing, competitor analysis, marketing, differentiation, or really any of the basic business concepts.  For instance, two men who own a bar in Rundu visited my office today to seek my advice on their plan to expand their business by adding firewood sales.  As I’ve mentioned before, selling firewood is a common business in Namibia as many families do not have electricity and therefore cook their meals over fire.  It can be profitable, but it depends on a lot of factors.  I walked them through the steps they would have to take in order to figure out if they could sell firewood profitably.  I could see that my new bar owner friends had no concept of how to calculate profits and so I asked if they could tell me about some of the other items they sell at their bar and how much they charge for them.  It turned out they sold a number of types of candy.  They told me how much they pay for each type of candy (per box) and how much they sold it for (per piece).  I showed them how I calculated their profit/loss and showed them that they were selling all of their candy at a loss.  How is this possible?  It’s possible because they simply did what they saw other people doing.  Selling gum, for instance, for $0.30/piece.  They went to the store, found the same gum, bought a box, and started selling if for the same amount they saw it sold for by-the-piece in the local markets.  One of the two men now looked concerned, the other, I believe, didn’t quite understand what I was saying. 

I moved on to shrinkage (or losing stock to theft, damage, giving items away free, vendor fraud etc).  I often notice bartenders and restaurant help sipping on beer at work.  I explained to them that based on what they buy their beer for and what they sell it for, that they have to sell 4 bottles of beer to make up for one bottle of beer they lose to shrinkage.  Now both men looked concerned.  I asked if they kept any records at all.  They didn’t.  I’d been with them for over an hour and told them to go back to their business and to write down every type of item they sell, what they buy if for, what they sell it for, and to return to me with the information.  I will try giving them some basic lessons on book keeping and product pricing.  Sometimes you have to start with the very basics, even with people who already own businesses. 

It’s sometimes hard for me to reconcile my responsibilities as a business volunteer with my responsibilities as a health volunteer.  I feel like I’m breaking some unspoken rule by consulting bar owners on how to run their businesses in a country with significant drinking problem.  But I justify it by telling myself that business skills are business skills and that anybody that learns the basics from me can apply them to any number of businesses as well as teach and be an example to other would-be business people.  Also, the fact is that bar ownership is one of the few ways a poor and unskilled Namibian can lift him/herself up from nearly nothing.  

So that’s all I have for now.  I’ll spend this week working out my approach to my next workshop and also trying to make some progress on some other mini projects.  I hope you are all well.  Thanks for reading. 

I’ll leave you with a couple pix from my workshop.   

Me and my Rukwangali translator.

Cracking eggs of wisdom.