BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 Page 2

ALWAYS DO CAREFUL RESEARCH BusinessLink magazine is designed to

educate and provide general information as well as to stimulate readers’ thinking. While every care is taken to ensure that information in this magazine is correct, we advise readers to consult their professional advisors when making business decisions. The magazine is distributed on the understanding that the publisher is not rendering legal or financial advice and readers use the information herein at their own risk.

BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE BusinessLink, the magazine for

growing companies, delivers real solutions for today’s innovative business builders. It gives advice, tools and resources to CEOs and owners of small-to-midsize companies as well as new entrepreneurs that help accelerate their growth.

“Sound strategy starts

with having the right goal.” —Michael

Porter

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BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 Page 4

Contents 2015 is here. Grow or die. .................................................................................................. 6

Business News Updates ..................................................................................................... 7

Zimbabwe lures SA for investments ............................................................................... 7

Choppies engages Zimbabwe SMEs for product supply ................................................. 9

Take responsibility for developing your rural area ........................................................... 11

Business Profile: Ratanje Shoe and Heel Bar: Providing Leather Products Since 1963 .. 13

Cover feature ................................................................................................................... 18

Ten Rules for Growing Your Business Fast in 2015 ....................................................... 18

How to Get Projects Done More Quickly ...................................................................... 28

9 Things Rich People Do Everyday ................................................................................ 30

Doing business in Zimbabwe ............................................................................................ 35

How To Register A Company ........................................................................................ 35

Leadership ....................................................................................................................... 38

Grow by Sharpening your networking skills ................................................................ 38

Managing People ............................................................................................................. 41

Human Resources Challenges for SMEs ....................................................................... 41

Marketing and Selling ...................................................................................................... 44

How To Create The Perfect Social Media Post.............................................................. 45

Why do we resist asking for money? ............................................................................ 48

Finance ............................................................................................................................ 50

5 Financial Mistakes Entrepreneurs Should Avoid ........................................................ 50

Last Page .......................................................................................................................... 54

BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 Page 5

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2015 is here. Grow or die.

Another year is coming to an end. It has been one of the most challenging years for business and

economics that we have experienced ever. Numerous small businesses have closed. Many offices, retail shops and industrial factories are empty. A lot of business owners have fallen by the wayside or downsized. The environment, characterized by tight liquidity and low demand, has been too much of a challenge for a lot of business owners.

For serious entrepreneurs, however, challenge is the name of the game. The race is on and you are in it. If you are not committed to winning, to conquering against all odds, you will be brushed aside and passed over by people and companies more determined to win than you are.

The challenges in business are not unique to Zimbabwe. Some time ago, Harvard University made three predictions that apply to the current economic situation. First, they said, there will be more change in your business in every year ahead than ever before. Second, there will be more competition in your business than ever before. And third, there will be more opportunities in your business than ever before.

To survive, business owners must stay on their toes and think on their feet. It can no longer be business as usual. Old methods of doing business will not keep you in the race. You need to know more and do more. Staying in the same place in a moving environment will see you being left behind.

You need to always be growing. If you don’t grow, you will atrophy. This December issue, our ninth edition of BusinessLink magazine, we focus on growth. We give you advice on how to plan and act in order to grow and keep your business moving fast ahead in the coming year and forward. I hope you will be stimulated and motivated to keep on growing, adapting to the changing environment and making your business proper.

You are the one responsible for the outcomes of your business; not the external environment.

Have refreshing holidays and hit 2015 running! Twitter: #chichonip

Phillip Chichoni- Publisher

Business News Updates Zimbabwe lures SA for

investments By Tawanda Karombo

Reuters File picture: Siphiwe Sibeko Zimbabwe has turned to its

southern neighbour and other external sources for financial support in its bid to secure much needed financing to fund an economic programme that has remained stuck on paper owing to budgetary constraints and

waning appetite by investors. Saddled with a debt running beyond $9 billion (R98bn) and nervy

investors who are unwilling to take additional political, regulatory and operating risks occasioned by an uncertain environment, Zimbabwe’s economy is struggling.

Profitability prospects for businesses and companies have taken a knock while the country’s populace is battling rising unemployment, two major factors that have led to the informalisation of the economy.

Despite being told to fix its regulatory framework and to restore certainty to the operating framework, Zimbabwean government officials are turning to the international community for fresh funding.

Even those source markets previously considered hostile such as Britain are viewed as potential sources for key funding and investment facilities.

Declining confidence in the country’s financial services sector is also hobbling the economy, with the informal sector booming. Most of the locally owned banks are struggling for liquidity while the rate of non-performing loans is spiking.

BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 Page 8

“The productive sector is evidently struggling, with productivity going down. If we are to revive the economy, it starts with having a plan to boost production but the key sector for all this – the financial services sector – is also struggling for liquidity and the banks are not sure if borrowers will be able to pay back,” an executive with a Johannesburg-based investment fund manager said.

Last week, senior Zimbabwe government officials staged a conference in Johannesburg in a bid to lure South African investors to sink money into Zimbabwean projects. Central bank governor John Mangudya and Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa – who both made presentations in Johannesburg – have written to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) seeking new assistance, even though the country has not yet cleared its arrears.

Government sources in Zimbabwe say the government is pushing for cancellation of the debt it owes the IMF. However, this is highly unlikely, with Dominico Fanezzi, who headed an IMF mission to Zimbabwe in September, saying: “Zimbabwe cannot be on the Highly Indebted Poor Countries status” as qualifying countries “have to be very, very poor.”

Some of the international funders that Zimbabwe owes such as the Paris Club and IMF are said to be open to concrete plans for debt rescheduling as Zimbabwe is currently financially crippled.

Chinamasa and Mangudya said in Zimbabwe’s re-engagement letter to the IMF this month that “as part of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation, we also intend to accelerate our re-engagement on debt resolution with all our creditors”, including the international financial institutions.

Chinamasa told the South African conference on that Zimbabwe was trying to fix the uncertainty that was deterring investors willing to invest in Zimbabwe.

“I believe South African investors have a moral and business obligation to invest in Zimbabwe or we will continue bothering you. It’s in your interest,” he said.

He added that Zimbabwe was addressing uncertainty concerns raised by investors regarding the empowerment and indigenisation policy.

In its current format, it requires that all foreign owned firms cede 51 percent majority shares into the hands of black Zimbabwean groups, including community and employee share ownership schemes.

However, the mining sector – in which Anglo Platinum, Aquarius Platinum and Impala Platinum have key operations – will not be affected by the new changes the government is planning, with Chinamasa saying “mining will be treated differently” as the “mineral… belongs to the state”.

-www.iol.co.za

Choppies engages Zimbabwean SMEs for product supply

Picture credit: fastmoving.co.za

By Charity Ruzvidzo BULAWAYO’s dominant retail chain, Choppies Zimbabwe, says it

has engaged small-scale businesses to supply its outlets with certain goods in a move aimed at enhancing growth of indigenous entrepreneurs.

The giant retail firm opened its 15th branch in Pumula East during a brief function attended by the company’s director Siqokoqela Mphoko.

BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 Page 10

The new branch has created 32 jobs for local residents, bringing the workforce for the 15 outlets to 1,304 workers. “We’ve been engaging small-scale companies to sell us their products, which are later branded for us by National Foods. For instance, we’ve peanut butter, rice and kapenta from small businesses. We also have bread from small bakeries that were not recognised like Tripple Fresh and Oceans,” he said.

Mphoko said security at the retain chain’s supermarkets was being provided by indigenous companies like Shield Security, a Bulawayo-based company.

“We’re happy to create employment in the country. This branch will have 32 workers, thereby increasing our workforce to 1,304 workers. We employed people from this suburb so that locals benefit from opening of the new branch,” he said.

Choppies Zimbabwe board chairperson and former Zimbabwe Ambassador to South Africa Phelekezela Mphoko said the retail chain thrives on offering customers real value for their money.

“We’ve managed to grow because we don’t short-change our valued customers by charging high prices. We give our customers the respect they deserve and we value their support,” he said.

Choppies Zimbabwe is also set to open two more branches in Harare next week and early next month.

Choppies has more than 100 supermarkets in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

This article first appeared in the Chronicle newspaper

on 24 November 2014.

IF YOU ARE ALWAYS TRYING TO BE NORMAL, YOU WILL NEVER KNOW HOW AMAZING YOU CAN BE.

- Maya Angelou

Take responsibility for developing your rural area

By Milton Kamwendo

In my work at Innov8 Consultoria I do a lot of work with agricultural-related business and Non-Governmental Organization. I facilitate strategy development workshops, work on capacity building and organisational development interventions. The role of the NGOs in development and raising the standard of living in our rural areas in highly commendable and should

continue. A number of other community actors have also taken the responsibility to make a difference at the grassroots and at household level. I have also met many individuals that have done many commendable things in their rural spaces. Efforts are there but they are not enough. Unless we start seeing the potential of our rural spaces and investing in them proactively, development will be a distant song playing on foreign radios. Should we choose, you and me can do something where we are, with what we have to change the rural development narrative.

What is regrettable and disheartening is that there is a significant

portion of capable and resourced people that have abandoned their rural areas and left them at the mercy of anyone-to-whom-it-may concern and whatever-may-happen there. To use a rural home is just a burial is to abuse a family and national treasure. We can never rise to greatness as developing nations so long as we ignore the rural areas and allow them to be abused for cheap political egos without tangible development. Many people have over the years been playing their part in rural development and it is clear that the new frontier of interest and opportunity is developing rural areas, empowering our people and positively impacting the grassroots. Tooting high sounding verbiage and development rhetoric to small pools of urbanites that are not willing to take personal responsibility while ignoring the great rural majority at the grassroots will hold future generations of our nation hostage to debilitating poverty.

Take responsibility: If not you, who?

In most areas in Africa, even for city denizens your primary identity is the rural home of origin. In the colonial era, the first interview question used to be: "Where do you come from?" You could not be taken seriously is you referred to some urban area as your base. Much has changed since.

In Zimbabwe your rural district is still identified in your national

identity number. For a few senior citizen, even your kraal is identified in your national identity. To drum interest in the rural areas as a ticket into circles of power is to abuse our heritage. We must start taking active responsibility for our rural destinies. It is gross irresponsibility to treat rural homes as places to bury and confine the poor, aged, sick and dying. This change starts with a change in attitude and mindset. To be cloistered within the urban comforts and forget that the rural areas are not another country, but part of who we are is to be self-deceived. Without taking personal responsibility and interest in developing our rural spaces we will forever be a lost people with confused and stinking priorities. We will be known for singing great ideals and emotive choruses but doing nothing worthwhile to transform and uplift our own heritage.

Business Profile: Ratanje Shoe and Heel Bar: Providing Leather Products Since 1963

Ratanje’s Shoe and Heel Bar has been providing quality leather products to Zimbabweans since 1963.

With a vision to become the number one national solution and service provider of leather products, repairers and manufactures of hand bags, footwear, belts, wallets, folders, note covers in Zimbabwe, Ratanje’s is well poised to please its customers.

Over the years Ratanje’s has managed to build and nurture good relationships with international and local players in the leather industry. These include Leather Industries of Kenya, Paul Moeller of South Africa, Fredk Moeller of Germany. Such relationships have enabled the company to benefit from these partners’ research, product development and better understanding of the market.

Among the company’s values are the qualities of, excellent customer service, exceptional products, professionalism, team work, accountability and integrity.

Ratanje’s supplies leather products to individuals as well as institutions like schools, government departments and the police and army. The range of service includes:

Manufacturing and repairing of all uniform shoes

Manufacturing fashion shoes and providing repair services

Manufacturing and repairing leather handbags Manufacturing leather belts, wallets and repairs

Manufacturing and repairing folio covers, and folders

Ratanje Staff busy in the factory

The company also specializes in : Designing of leather products as per customer specifications.

Shoes from uniforms, orthopedic shoes, safety shoes, travel goods, belts in various colours.

Repairing and restoring original shape of leather products using new materials.

Leather products materials, peripherals and accessories.

Storage and Backup service for products

The company’s management has a philosophy of developing their personnel within the organisation, thereby expanding the individual competencies and capabilities, which in turn strengthen RATANJE Shoes intellectual capital. Backed by solid incentive packages, RATANJE Shoes empowers its employees by fortifying their strengths in their respective fields.

Key Personnel Mr Ratilal G. Pitamber (Managing Director) : Who has been

with company since 1967, and has worked previously with various institutions in the country from a tender age. Has got vast knowledge in leather products, repairs and manufacturing. He has also forged strong partnerships with different sectors of the economy.

Mr Stewart Chapeta (Pictured below) (General Manager): Bcom Honours Degree Management Accounting, Diploma in Business Administration (ZIM), Pitman’s Certificate in Cost And Management Accounting, Certificate in Internal Auditing, Taxation in Zimbabwe, SA Host (Customer Service) marketing, basic selling techniques, customer service care, 20 years working experience in Accounting and Financial Administration, General Management, Sales, Marketing and Production.

Mrs Pratibhadevi Pitamber / Darlington Chapeta / More-Blessing Doka / Lovemore Bandera And Munyaradzi J. Chapeta: These key members of staff have received in-house training in customer service, workshop production management, purchasing and stores control, quality control, manufacturing and repairing of leather products.

Finished shoes on display at Ratanje’s Ratanje’s Shoe and Heel is located at 97 Robert Mugabe Road, Harare,

Telephone 04-702620

Cover feature

Ten Rules for Growing Your

Business Fast in 2015

Picture Credit: Ailisgarcia.com

BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 Page 19

Words by Phil Chichoni The moment you stop growing your business, you have stopped

running. It does not matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle, you are just waiting for the inevitable end.

In 1952, a Harvard University team made three predictions that apply to our constantly changing business environment. The predictions were as follows:

1. There will be more change in your business in the year ahead than ever before.

2. There will be more competition in your business than ever before.

3. There will be more opportunities in your business than ever before.

A fourth prediction was added later: Those individuals and organizations that do not quickly adapt to the inevitable and unavoidable changes of today will be in different fields of business within one or two years.

It is no longer business as usual. The business environment is changing faster than ever before. Firms that do not vigorously pursue growth strategies will falter.

Businesses are facing challenges they have never had to face before. Survival is not enough. There are more and more people and businesses who are so determined to win that they will take over market share from complacent snoozers.

The rules for growth detailed in this article come from the research of successful businesses and their leaders both in Zimbabwe and outside the country. Of course it will never be easy to apply all of the rules, but what choice do you have? Nothing significant is ever achieved without hard work.

Rule No.1: Set Clear Business Goals The number one reason for business failure is the inability of the

leader to set and achieve sales, growth and profitability goals. All the strategic and market planning, including what products and

services to supply, the people to hire, productivity, finances and competitive responses are all embraced in the setting and achieving of business goals.

In preparing this article, I asked some business owners I know what their goals were for 201. The majority just gave vague answers. They had no written goals for sales or profit, the most important measures of business growth.

BUSINESSLINK MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2014 Page 20

With no definite goals, how do you know where you are going? How do your people know what they are supposed to achieve?

All strategy begins with deciding exactly what is to be achieved in the long term. You then establish the short- and medium- term objectives that will eventually lead to your overall goals for the company.

Goals set in numbers are easier and more practical to implement. This is because what gets measured gets done. Some examples of quantitative goals are:

1. The levels of sales volume that you want the business to attain during the year.

2. Gross profit margins on sales. 3. Net profit margins on sales. 4. Return on capital invested in your business.

Goals must be clearly communicated to everyone who has a role in meeting them. Get them written down. Review them regularly to ensure you are on track. Take corrective measures whenever you find the business getting off-course. Action can be taken when the goals are clear and measurable.

Rule No.2: Set Priorities and Focus on Key Tasks

In an unpredictable business environment, many owners get bogged down trying to solve one crisis after another. They easily lose focus and are easily overtaken by competitors whilst they are distracted.

Winners set priorities for their business. They deploy the limited resources available, especially people, time and money into those areas that will make the greatest contribution to the success of the business.

List your priorities in terms of the following criteria: a) Critical tasks. These are important and must be done or there

will be serious consequences if not done. b) Mildly important tasks. These have mild consequences and can

be put off while you do A tasks. c) Task with no consequences. These are nice things to do or have

but carry no serious consequences. When allocating resources, be they time, people or money, always

prioritize A tasks. Never do a B when A is not done. And never do a C task when B is not done. The most important things must never be left at the mercy of the less important ones. In this cash tight economy, the most important thing it to generate revenue. Ask yourself whether or not an activity you are considering will add to revenue. Focus on things that will grow your sales fastest.