Disclaimer-
I am not a financial advisor, I recommend that you set up a meeting
with a qualified financial advisor for investments advice and
financial planning. I write this article based on my personal
experiences. I do have an accounting degree and insurance
qualifications. I joined the insurance sector in December 1997 and I
took a six month break last year.
I
like this quote attributed to retired US Navy Admiral, William H.
McRaven, “If you can’t do the little things right, you will never
do the big things right.” I guess this applies to money, if you
can’t manage the little money you have it follows that if you get a
promotion or a windfall and start earning more money, you will still
be broke or worse off broke and ill due to drug abuse, alcoholism, obesity
etc. It is an established fact that some of the biggest lottery
winners go broke in 3 to 5 years, the same with once high earning
sports people, musicians etc. Managing money is a skill that one
acquires over time and through professional help. The average working
person who works about 40 years through their lives, is lucky as
compared to musician or a sports person who only gets most of their
earnings in a few years time and once they make mistakes it is done.
I
can still remember my first salary from a formal job that I got in
October 1996. I was lucky in that I got introduced to managing money
earlier on. In 1989 as I have written in my blog, my mother had a
very big garden at Mbizo police station. She would sell sacks and
sacks of vegetable. A distant relative had given me a pitch black hen
and the chicken project grew very quickly and those black hens
where in such a huge demand as people bought them for ritual purposes. After the death of my father the following year, we moved from the police camp accommodation and started staying in a township after my mother bought a 2 bedroomed house. The government pension was not enough for my mother to sustain herself and 5 children. My mother continued growing a big garden and during the rainy season, she would grow maize and pumpkin on the municipality lands on the outskirts of the township. My job was only to water the garden, everything else my mother did on her own as she wanted me to concentrate on my school work.
By the time I was 15, I would assist my mother to budget the little money we were getting. At times she would rent out two rooms of the house and we would use the other 2. She would keep broiler chicken in the shed outside and I would assist in feeding them. Due to the thefts in the township, we would take the chicken into the 2nd bedroom every night. We would also open a tuckshop from our kitchen window. It was my job to stock the tuckshop and so everyday, I would cycle to the bakeries to buy fresh bread and to the wholesalers to buy more stock. In 1993 when I was waiting for my O'Level results, a gentleman who was running tuckshops and selling bread throughout the townships employed me and I would sell bread in the township from the hoarder bicycle. I would wake up very early around 5:30am and ring the bell selling bread. Around 10am the guy from the state owned dairy company Dairiboard Zimbabwe would start selling milk in the township and I would accompany him with my bread delivery bicycle. In the evening, I would cycle the bike again. My salary was about $100 Zimbabwean dollars per month. It was a humiliating job and some of the girls I knew in the township did not even want to great me whilst I was selling bread. When my O'Level results came out, my employer tried to convince me not to resign. I told him I had to continue with my education and I enrolled for my A'Levels.
In September 1996, I was employed by the government as a temporary teacher teaching secondary school kids. My first salary only came in October 1996 and it was about $4 000 Zimbabwean dollars. I had never seen so much money in my life. As the eldest child, it was now my duty to take care of my mother, my four siblings and my nephew. I went on a shopping spree, bought a radio for the house, the first tv we ever had in our house. By the time I went back to work I was already broke. At that time a senior teacher I was sharing the school house with sold me certificates for a Ponzi scheme. I parted with about $300 for those nice looking certificates and I was supposed to sell those certificates for more money. I never sold them to anyone as that Ponzi scheme immediately collapsed and I learnt a very important lesson. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. I got so broke that I had to close my bank account at Berverly Building Society and get the $300 minimum deposit. My contract was renewed again for two more months and in December 1996, I got paid over $4 800 including my annual bonus. For the first time after my father's death 6 years earlier, I was able to buy everyone new cloths for Christmas and also buy a lot of nice food.
In January 1997, I would get an open ended contract and I got a place at a school nearer to Murehwa Town Centre. I was able to secure accommodation in the town in a room with electricity and this suited me as I was busy studying for stage 1 with the Chartered Institute Management Accounting (UK). In July 1997, I resigned from my teaching job and started working in Harare as an apprentice in the printing industry. As a temporary teacher my salary had been $2 600 and now as an apprentice my salary would be $840 before overtime. I had wanted to be in Harare. In November 1997, the Zimbabwean dollar fell sharply against the US dollar after the government carved in to the demands of the war veterans and awarded each war veterans $50 000 unbudgeted gratuities. It became very expensive for anyone doing a foreign course or degree. I abandoned my studies with CIMA.
In December 1997, I got a job as a trainee underwriter at Eagle insurance company in Harare and I wrote the first insurance course that was available in Zimbabwe in March 1998 and passed. I had to progress with my studies and fortunately the company extended study loans and I was able to complete my Associateship exams in 2003 and my Fellowship exams in 2005 with the Insurance Institute of South Africa. In 2005 my new employer also sponsored my MBA studies with a UK university and I had to abandon the course after completing only one module. The company extended a loan to me for the equivalent 1 100 British Pounds and I invested the money in my business and another fact was that the MBA lessons were being held on alternating weekends and I needed the weekend to attend to my personal business. With the inflation at that time, I was getting more income from my personal business than from my working in my job.
From around 1998, the economic situation in Zimbabwe started to deteriorate as a result of the depreciating currency. One way to survive was to supplement one's income. I started a broiler chicken project back home. I would provide the finance and my mother would manage the project for me. Many people think that to start a business you must first amass a lot of money and that is not so. I would keep about 200 broilers per month. Those days it took about 8 weeks to raise broiler chicken. I would make sure that from my salary, I had enough money to last me a month. The remaining month, I would need more money as the broilers would start consuming more feed. I needed to expand my project and something unexpected happened, I got 200 shares from Old Mutual during their demutualization exercise. That money was god send, I was able to buy many asbestos sheets and build a bigger fowl run and I could now keep 300 birds per month. Up to this day my sister uses those asbestos sheets in her chicken project back home.
I stopped looking forward to pay days as I would have money from previous months. I have worked for over 22 years and I get surprised when people eagerly look forward to pay day and that is not a good sign. On 2 October 2017, I resigned from my job after 10 years at the company. My terminal benefits came at the end of the month and I did not touch the money for over a month. Some recommend that you save at least 3 times your normal monthly salary for emergencies. What will you do if you loose your job, your employer shuts down? This is a reality that many people have come across and they were not prepared. I am that guy who would sell chicken to work mates and collect the money on payday. I had good support as some of my workers would buy over 30 birds per months on behalf of their extended families. When I got married in 2001, I had a bigger market as my wife started selling some of the birds to her friends also. My wife worked for a building society in Zimbabwe in the mortgage department and she taught me the importance of always paying my debts every month especially paying before the interest was calculated. In February 2002 my mother died and I no longer had anyone to manage the chicken project at home and I stopped the project. Around 2001 my sister whom I had sent to school started working for a wholesaler. The country was experiencing shortages of basic products such as soap, cooking oil, sugar, margarine etc. It was during the early stages of the land reform in Zimbabwe. I had been given a piece of land in Mutoko and I was going there every weekend by bus.
My cousin had been running a general dealer store near by. I started buying those scarce commodities from the wholesaler where my sister was working and I would carry the goods using public transport every weekend to Mutoko and then give them to my cousin who was in the shop to sell for me for a profit. I continued doing that for a number of months. I could see that the store owner was not happy about this arrangement. At that time I was working for AIG Zimbabwe and every end of year, the company would extend us a big loan payable in twelve months. I went to get a quotation for a big item of furniture. When the loan was granted, I went back to the wholesaler and then bought stock to open a shop instead of buying the furniture. At the end of 2001, I opened my first shop in Bokwe village in Murehwa closer to Jekwa School. Due to the land reform a lot of white farmers were leaving their farms and very few people were occupying their stores as people were concentrating on farming. I opened my second shop at Paradise (Masvaisvai) farm in Macheke about 5kms from Virginia and I employed a young man by the name Mereka Maruwira whose parents had been working at the farm. I have been with this young man ever since and he is currently managing my piggery project in Zimbabwe. The same economic environment that you complain about everyday, someone is seeing an opportunity to start a business and will learn life changing experiences that are more valuable than any degree.
The stores were about 150km from Harare and I would visit the shops every weekend. From running shops, I acquired a skill of knowing prices of goods very well. When you run a business you do not need to be shy. For example some of the products would be much cheaper in supermarkets than in wholesalers and I would buy as much stock in supermarkets for my shops. In November 2002, I got a job as a junior manager at Zimbabwe Insurance Brokers and that job came with the use of a company car a Mazda 323. Now I had transport to go to the shops. By early 2003 my retail business collapsed. In January 2004, I got a better job at Zimnat Lion Insurance Company as an Underwriting Manager. The job came with a double cab bakkie. I visited my cousin in Mutoko and he told me that the shop next door was vacant. I went to the estate agent in Marlborough, Harare and signed the rental lease.
I started very small. With both our salaries for that month, we bought a few stock that could last a week. A few boxes of cooking oil or soap, a few cartons of flour, sugar, salt etc. Another very important thing is to separate business money from your own money. I was reinvesting the profit back into the business and within a few months, I now had a lot of stock in the shop. I realised that I needed to open a new shop in order to lower my fuel costs. The round trip to Harare was 300km and the petrol I was using was too much for one store. About 30km away in the former commercial farming areas, people were travelling huge distances to go to the shops. I went with my cousin who was working for the other cousin in the shop. Every Saturday, my cousin would close their shop for religious purposes as it was their Sabbath day as per the Marange Apostolic Church practice. My cousin would accompany me to wholesalers to buy stock in Harare, Marondera, Murewa, Mutoko or Rusape. We went to a number of farms and we negotiated with war veterans and we were given some abandoned buildings rent free and I started running my shops. All in all I opened 4 shops in Virginia area of Macheke.
By day, I was working my day job and mid-week, I would drive to the shops with Mereka Maruwira. Because of the number of the stores, I could no longer wait for weekends to stock the shops. During the day, Mereka would go to the wholesalers with the list of the items we had to buy. I would then go during my lunch to pay for the grocery. After work we would collect the goods and deliver to the stores. By early 2005, I was running 10 general dealer shops. The first shop was at Rukanda closer to Mutoko and I would turn right along the Inyanga road. The last shop was at Rufaro Farm store about 10km from Mutare road. I would drive along Mutoko road and come back to Harare along Mutare road and vice versa. When I got to the shops, I would quickly go into the shop to inspect especially the fast moving goods. I would then go back to the car fold my car seat and sleep whilst Mereka was finishing the delivery and would let me know once he was done and we would drive to the next shop. I would arrive back in Harare around 4am and wake up and be in the office in time. There would price control blitz but they were not as vicious as the one that would come in md-2007.
Normally the busiest time would be during Christmas. I remember in December 2004, I once made two trips to deliver more than 90 dozens of bread and all the bread was sold. By December 2005, I was only left with 4 very profitable shops. That year, I had started MBA studied and what I learnt especially on competitive advantage helped me a lot in my business. I now had a cost advantage as compared to neighbouring shops. I sold my stock at prices almost similar to those in towns at first some shop owners started buying from me thinking I would get broke. In 2006 when I started driving to Johannesburg to buy a variety of stock my business really took off. I realised that business education is also very key for the management and growth of one's business.
In December 2005 I wanted to stock the shops but I did not have enough capital so I bought stock from the wholesaler and wrote a cheque and I figured that by the time the banks opened after the long Christmas holiday, I would have deposited the money in my account. For some reason business was very low that Christmas. I got very worried and I could not sleep. I had a solution. When you are running a shop in the rural areas, villagers come to you with requests for example a villager wanted to barter cattle for a solar panel or you could buy something at a low price. During that holiday I was using the company's brand new Mazda single cab pick up. I decided to sell the two cattle I had got from villagers. Another guy who had come from South Africa was selling one cow in order to get money to get back to South Africa. I now had three cattle, we quickly made a steel cage and I took them to the abattoir and sold them and I had enough money to cover for my cheques. I discovered something interesting. The abattoir in Marondera was paying a refund for transport per animal and if you had a truck that could carry say 10 animals you would make so much money just from the transport payment. I got an idea that culminated in me getting an 8 tonne truck.
At my employer it was time to buy a new fleet of cars and the practice was that managers would buy their old cars at book value. I did not actually qualify as I was new and the Managing Director made that clear to me. As luck would have it, a competitor offered me a position of a branch manager in their Bulawayo branch. I had no intention of leaving my job. I then submitted my resignation letter to the MD and he refused to accept it and we started negotiating a counter offer. I ended up buying my old double cab bakkie and I was also given one of the most reliable vehicles that I have ever driven, a Toyota KZTE double cab bakkie. Of course as a middle manager, I did not qualify to be given a 3 litre engine capacity vehicle but these were not normal times. I saw an 8 tonne Bedford truck that was being sold at a construction company nearer to Chisipite and I negotiated with the guy for a few days and he agreed to trade in with my Mazda double cab bakkie and I had to pay $50 million Zimbabwean dollars as a top-up.
I employed a driver and assistants and we started buying cattle. We also started carrying farmers' produce from Mutoko to Harare. Owning a transport business can be hectic, I would be phoned around midnight to attend to tyre, fuel, auto electric and engine problems. I also started carrying cotton for cotton buyers locally. Through owning that truck that is how I ended up going into pig farming http://kanyokad.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-i-no-longer-fear-failure-my-journey.html
In April 2006, I was transferred to Bulawayo as the branch manager for Zimnat Lion Insurance company. I was also in charge of agents in Victoria Falls, Hwange, Plumtree, Gwanda and Beitbridge and I would travel there during the week. I managed to rent a 6 acre plot in Kensington outside Bulawayo and I started growing vegetables and also raising broiler chicken. I would drive to Beitbridge during the weekend with a trailer full of vegetables and I would leave Mereka selling the vegetables whilst I crossed into South Africa to buy stock for my shops in Mutoko and Macheke. At the end of 2006, I grew tobacco for the first time by chance. War veterans and other farmers had applied for tobacco farming contracts and the inputs had been dropped off in Headlands. They hired my truck. I went with my driver to collect the fertilizer and I was signed for the contract. I ended up growing one acre of tobacco. In early 2007, I was lucky as I got a deal to supply sugar beans to a wholesaler in Bulawayo and I bought the sugar beans from my shop in Mutoko. I was able to buy an old Isuzu Bakkie cash after I made so much money. At that time, I also had a minibus that was plying the route Macheke to Virginia area.
Before the price control blitz of mid 2007, I was now buying stock from my shops in Gaborone, Francistown, Musina, Polokwane, Pretoria and Johannesburg. I was selling normal groceries, solar panels, batteries, radios, black and white TVs, shoes, blankets, clothing etc. At that time I was averaging sales of over R20 000 per week. I would drive to and from Bulawayo every week. Even when I had to go to Harare for the monthly management meeting, I did not fly not even once as I would take the opportunity to visit my businesses in Mutoko and Macheke. On the 1st of June 2007, I started serving my three months notice period as it was time to move on. Whilst I was serving my notice, the government launched the price control blitz. My manager was arrested during that time. This happened throughout the country including managing directors of supermarket chains and manufacturing companies. As my manager described to me, the police came to the shop with state security agents and she was accused of trying to bring the government down through price increases and she was taken to court and fined. People lined for a few days buying the stock for a fraction of what we bought the stock for out of the country and I lost a lot of money. The money I got depreciated quickly.
My employer released me from my contract at the end of July. The economic situation in the country deteriorated and inflation became even worse and people started accepting foreign currency. At my shops, for years, I would barter groceries for maize. I had over 10 tonnes of maize and I started carrying it to Chitungwiza and used back roads to avoid police road blocks. At that time maize was a controlled product as everyone was forced to sell maize to the state owned Grain Marketing Board maybe this explains why Zimbabwe always had shortage of maize as there was no motive for individuals to commercially grow maize as the state would dictate the price. If you were ever caught the government would confisticate the maize. When I used to work in Bulawayo, I would carry at least one tonne in my work bakkie and I would crush the few bags on top and the police road blocks, I would show them the crushed bags and they would let me pass.
I would sell a tonne of maize for about R700 in Chitungwiza. On 22 August 2007 after a wait of about 6 weeks, I went to the South African Embassy in Harare in the morning to check on the progress of my work permit application. I opened my passport and I saw I had been granted a 5 year quota work permit. I phoned maNyoni and told her the good news and told her to prepare as we would be going to our home in Bulawayo to collect my certificates and travel to South Africa to look for a job. I then drove to my shops with my driver and my bakkie developed an engine problem. By the time I got back to Harare it was already at night. My wife came to the city centre and we boarded the Swift truck to Bulawayo and arrived in Bulawayo around 4am the next day. I quickly rushed to the plot in Kensington to collect a few suits and my certificates. We arrived in Sunnyside Pretoria at my sister's flat late in the afternoon on 23 August 2007. The easiest job I knew I could get was as a waiter. I applied in the insurance industry and I attended a few interviews the following week. On Friday 31 August 2007, I signed an employment offer to start work on 1 September 2007. My wife was not so fortunate, the only job she got was as a waiter in the restaurants and we decided it was better for her to start studying for her accounting degree.
In South Africa even though I never rose in my career due to a number of challenges such as companies not prioritising qualifications and those well established big companies that recognised qualifications not employing foreigners. South Africa having a more stable economy has more opportunities for an individual to develop themselves. Years later, I realised that it was a blessing in disguise about all the challenges that I experienced. As a foreigner, you do not have the same opportunities like locals. The first estate agent, I dealt with told me that as a foreigner I would be required to pay double deposit because I was more risky, within 3 years we had bought our own home. The fact that your work permit has an expiry date makes you think what will I do when I go back home? We started saving as much as we could. At the end of 2009, I took leave to go back home to build our house nearer to Harare. http://kanyokad.blogspot.com/2018/07/hopefully-we-all-must-get-enlightment.html
I realised being a foreigner changed my way of thinking. As people we normally get complacent as we think we had so much time. I knew how hard it was to get another job and I became more focused and almost every pay cheque I got, we used it wisely. I have a motto, zvirinani kuwomerwa nehupenyu for one year and sort our your life for good. For us to raise the money to build our house in Zimbabwe, we started sharing the house with strangers and we would save R5 000 every month. In early 2010 when my wife and kids went back to Zimbabwe to finish the construction of our house, I moved into the dining room and let out the bedrooms. By so doing most of my salary was going to Zimbabwe. We managed to finish the construction of our 2 bedroom cottage in Zimbabwe at the end of December 2010 and at the same time, the bank approved a 90% home loan for our home in Pretoria. When I got my bonus in December 2010, after paying for the deposit and transfer fees I was so broke. I remember how tough life was for us in January 2011, when I went into the supermarket and saw people pushing trolleys full of groceries, I envied them.
At times you see your career not going anywhere. One has to think of leaving, there is no point is staying where there is no future. As they say, you are not a tree, you can move. I was able to try my luck in ventures that ordinarily I would never have thought of. In 2015, I invested in a piggery project back home in Zimbabwe. In 2016 I grew tobacco for the second time in Mutoko about 1300km away from Pretoria where I was working.
Africa needs more entrepreneurs and I hope many people take the risk to start ventures. Most people who are already employed in corporates are better suited to starting ventures in the process employ the unemployed youths. For one to start a business you need skills and many people get these skills from their current jobs for example a qualified mechanic already have the technical ability to repair cars, he just needs to learn business management and start his own workshop. Also to start a business you need finance. People who are already employed have a regular income and they can get loans from banks and they can use those loans to start a business. A lot of start ups were started by people maxing their credit cards. Small businesses have a high rate of failure, if you go to a bank requesting funding, it makes sense why the bank will not fund you. So start small and sacrifice your own funds and when you work through the business and overcome failure and grow the business into something more sustaining, you can then qualify for funding. One word of caution, being a business owner is a lonely place. Normally when your employees phone you, there is a problem that you are required to solve. With time you become mentally tough and remain optimistic. The better you become at problem solving the more success you become. if you dream of starting your own business start small now and make as many mistakes and learn valuable lessons.
I heard this statement in the 90s on the radio from the late Cephas Msipa who was the Governor of Midlands Province in Zimbabwe where he said, " An investor is a person who see opportunities where others do not see the opportunity". Africa's development is in the hands of small business owners. If you have an idea that you have in mind, please act on it go and ask those in the same business so that you can learn, in my experience people who are passionate in their ventures like to share information. In my spare time, I visit other pig growers in Zimbabwe and in South Africa and I always learn something new.
Maybe the reason why things do not work financially for you is the company that you keep maybe in the new year, think of changing your circle of friends. I remember discussing in the office how people would buy a bottle of whisky on 12 month instalments, Imagine a bottle that you can drown in an hour and now you have to pay for it with interest over the next 12 months! They say in you are in a hole, the most important thing you need to do is to stop digging. Maybe you have a very huge debt, you need to take drastic decisions. Maybe you need to sell that car, you might have to use the train, you might need to move to a cheaper place, rent a small room or share a house or a room. You need to only do this for a limited time maybe for a year or two and put your finances in the right place. Maybe you do not need to buy that expensive lunch every day when your finances are in shambles, you might bring a lunch box to work packed with left overs from last night's dinner. As human beings its normal to worry what other people will think but you need to take decisions that are in your best interest in the long run.
Other important issues you need to look at include. Pay you debts and commitments before you spoil yourself. Imagine going on holiday before you pay your rent for the month. If you own a car make sure you at least buy third party insurance that will cover you in the event of an accident where you damage someone's car and that insurance can be as cheap as R100 per month and it will save you much trouble and potentially a bad credit record believe me. Watch every cent, when you get your credit card, bank and loan statements study them carefully. If you always know how much interest and fees you are being charged you can begin to see what you need to pay off first. I always make a point to look at specials available at shops. During Black Friday, I saw that bath soap was being sold for almost 50% and that was the only thing we bought and we got stock that would last us for a year.
Good luck for 2019, I hope your dreams come true. Whether it is starting a business or saving enough to be able to buy your own home, I wish you success. I would like to hear from you.
God bless!
By the time I was 15, I would assist my mother to budget the little money we were getting. At times she would rent out two rooms of the house and we would use the other 2. She would keep broiler chicken in the shed outside and I would assist in feeding them. Due to the thefts in the township, we would take the chicken into the 2nd bedroom every night. We would also open a tuckshop from our kitchen window. It was my job to stock the tuckshop and so everyday, I would cycle to the bakeries to buy fresh bread and to the wholesalers to buy more stock. In 1993 when I was waiting for my O'Level results, a gentleman who was running tuckshops and selling bread throughout the townships employed me and I would sell bread in the township from the hoarder bicycle. I would wake up very early around 5:30am and ring the bell selling bread. Around 10am the guy from the state owned dairy company Dairiboard Zimbabwe would start selling milk in the township and I would accompany him with my bread delivery bicycle. In the evening, I would cycle the bike again. My salary was about $100 Zimbabwean dollars per month. It was a humiliating job and some of the girls I knew in the township did not even want to great me whilst I was selling bread. When my O'Level results came out, my employer tried to convince me not to resign. I told him I had to continue with my education and I enrolled for my A'Levels.
In September 1996, I was employed by the government as a temporary teacher teaching secondary school kids. My first salary only came in October 1996 and it was about $4 000 Zimbabwean dollars. I had never seen so much money in my life. As the eldest child, it was now my duty to take care of my mother, my four siblings and my nephew. I went on a shopping spree, bought a radio for the house, the first tv we ever had in our house. By the time I went back to work I was already broke. At that time a senior teacher I was sharing the school house with sold me certificates for a Ponzi scheme. I parted with about $300 for those nice looking certificates and I was supposed to sell those certificates for more money. I never sold them to anyone as that Ponzi scheme immediately collapsed and I learnt a very important lesson. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. I got so broke that I had to close my bank account at Berverly Building Society and get the $300 minimum deposit. My contract was renewed again for two more months and in December 1996, I got paid over $4 800 including my annual bonus. For the first time after my father's death 6 years earlier, I was able to buy everyone new cloths for Christmas and also buy a lot of nice food.
In January 1997, I would get an open ended contract and I got a place at a school nearer to Murehwa Town Centre. I was able to secure accommodation in the town in a room with electricity and this suited me as I was busy studying for stage 1 with the Chartered Institute Management Accounting (UK). In July 1997, I resigned from my teaching job and started working in Harare as an apprentice in the printing industry. As a temporary teacher my salary had been $2 600 and now as an apprentice my salary would be $840 before overtime. I had wanted to be in Harare. In November 1997, the Zimbabwean dollar fell sharply against the US dollar after the government carved in to the demands of the war veterans and awarded each war veterans $50 000 unbudgeted gratuities. It became very expensive for anyone doing a foreign course or degree. I abandoned my studies with CIMA.
In December 1997, I got a job as a trainee underwriter at Eagle insurance company in Harare and I wrote the first insurance course that was available in Zimbabwe in March 1998 and passed. I had to progress with my studies and fortunately the company extended study loans and I was able to complete my Associateship exams in 2003 and my Fellowship exams in 2005 with the Insurance Institute of South Africa. In 2005 my new employer also sponsored my MBA studies with a UK university and I had to abandon the course after completing only one module. The company extended a loan to me for the equivalent 1 100 British Pounds and I invested the money in my business and another fact was that the MBA lessons were being held on alternating weekends and I needed the weekend to attend to my personal business. With the inflation at that time, I was getting more income from my personal business than from my working in my job.
From around 1998, the economic situation in Zimbabwe started to deteriorate as a result of the depreciating currency. One way to survive was to supplement one's income. I started a broiler chicken project back home. I would provide the finance and my mother would manage the project for me. Many people think that to start a business you must first amass a lot of money and that is not so. I would keep about 200 broilers per month. Those days it took about 8 weeks to raise broiler chicken. I would make sure that from my salary, I had enough money to last me a month. The remaining month, I would need more money as the broilers would start consuming more feed. I needed to expand my project and something unexpected happened, I got 200 shares from Old Mutual during their demutualization exercise. That money was god send, I was able to buy many asbestos sheets and build a bigger fowl run and I could now keep 300 birds per month. Up to this day my sister uses those asbestos sheets in her chicken project back home.
I stopped looking forward to pay days as I would have money from previous months. I have worked for over 22 years and I get surprised when people eagerly look forward to pay day and that is not a good sign. On 2 October 2017, I resigned from my job after 10 years at the company. My terminal benefits came at the end of the month and I did not touch the money for over a month. Some recommend that you save at least 3 times your normal monthly salary for emergencies. What will you do if you loose your job, your employer shuts down? This is a reality that many people have come across and they were not prepared. I am that guy who would sell chicken to work mates and collect the money on payday. I had good support as some of my workers would buy over 30 birds per months on behalf of their extended families. When I got married in 2001, I had a bigger market as my wife started selling some of the birds to her friends also. My wife worked for a building society in Zimbabwe in the mortgage department and she taught me the importance of always paying my debts every month especially paying before the interest was calculated. In February 2002 my mother died and I no longer had anyone to manage the chicken project at home and I stopped the project. Around 2001 my sister whom I had sent to school started working for a wholesaler. The country was experiencing shortages of basic products such as soap, cooking oil, sugar, margarine etc. It was during the early stages of the land reform in Zimbabwe. I had been given a piece of land in Mutoko and I was going there every weekend by bus.
My cousin had been running a general dealer store near by. I started buying those scarce commodities from the wholesaler where my sister was working and I would carry the goods using public transport every weekend to Mutoko and then give them to my cousin who was in the shop to sell for me for a profit. I continued doing that for a number of months. I could see that the store owner was not happy about this arrangement. At that time I was working for AIG Zimbabwe and every end of year, the company would extend us a big loan payable in twelve months. I went to get a quotation for a big item of furniture. When the loan was granted, I went back to the wholesaler and then bought stock to open a shop instead of buying the furniture. At the end of 2001, I opened my first shop in Bokwe village in Murehwa closer to Jekwa School. Due to the land reform a lot of white farmers were leaving their farms and very few people were occupying their stores as people were concentrating on farming. I opened my second shop at Paradise (Masvaisvai) farm in Macheke about 5kms from Virginia and I employed a young man by the name Mereka Maruwira whose parents had been working at the farm. I have been with this young man ever since and he is currently managing my piggery project in Zimbabwe. The same economic environment that you complain about everyday, someone is seeing an opportunity to start a business and will learn life changing experiences that are more valuable than any degree.
The stores were about 150km from Harare and I would visit the shops every weekend. From running shops, I acquired a skill of knowing prices of goods very well. When you run a business you do not need to be shy. For example some of the products would be much cheaper in supermarkets than in wholesalers and I would buy as much stock in supermarkets for my shops. In November 2002, I got a job as a junior manager at Zimbabwe Insurance Brokers and that job came with the use of a company car a Mazda 323. Now I had transport to go to the shops. By early 2003 my retail business collapsed. In January 2004, I got a better job at Zimnat Lion Insurance Company as an Underwriting Manager. The job came with a double cab bakkie. I visited my cousin in Mutoko and he told me that the shop next door was vacant. I went to the estate agent in Marlborough, Harare and signed the rental lease.
I started very small. With both our salaries for that month, we bought a few stock that could last a week. A few boxes of cooking oil or soap, a few cartons of flour, sugar, salt etc. Another very important thing is to separate business money from your own money. I was reinvesting the profit back into the business and within a few months, I now had a lot of stock in the shop. I realised that I needed to open a new shop in order to lower my fuel costs. The round trip to Harare was 300km and the petrol I was using was too much for one store. About 30km away in the former commercial farming areas, people were travelling huge distances to go to the shops. I went with my cousin who was working for the other cousin in the shop. Every Saturday, my cousin would close their shop for religious purposes as it was their Sabbath day as per the Marange Apostolic Church practice. My cousin would accompany me to wholesalers to buy stock in Harare, Marondera, Murewa, Mutoko or Rusape. We went to a number of farms and we negotiated with war veterans and we were given some abandoned buildings rent free and I started running my shops. All in all I opened 4 shops in Virginia area of Macheke.
By day, I was working my day job and mid-week, I would drive to the shops with Mereka Maruwira. Because of the number of the stores, I could no longer wait for weekends to stock the shops. During the day, Mereka would go to the wholesalers with the list of the items we had to buy. I would then go during my lunch to pay for the grocery. After work we would collect the goods and deliver to the stores. By early 2005, I was running 10 general dealer shops. The first shop was at Rukanda closer to Mutoko and I would turn right along the Inyanga road. The last shop was at Rufaro Farm store about 10km from Mutare road. I would drive along Mutoko road and come back to Harare along Mutare road and vice versa. When I got to the shops, I would quickly go into the shop to inspect especially the fast moving goods. I would then go back to the car fold my car seat and sleep whilst Mereka was finishing the delivery and would let me know once he was done and we would drive to the next shop. I would arrive back in Harare around 4am and wake up and be in the office in time. There would price control blitz but they were not as vicious as the one that would come in md-2007.
Normally the busiest time would be during Christmas. I remember in December 2004, I once made two trips to deliver more than 90 dozens of bread and all the bread was sold. By December 2005, I was only left with 4 very profitable shops. That year, I had started MBA studied and what I learnt especially on competitive advantage helped me a lot in my business. I now had a cost advantage as compared to neighbouring shops. I sold my stock at prices almost similar to those in towns at first some shop owners started buying from me thinking I would get broke. In 2006 when I started driving to Johannesburg to buy a variety of stock my business really took off. I realised that business education is also very key for the management and growth of one's business.
In December 2005 I wanted to stock the shops but I did not have enough capital so I bought stock from the wholesaler and wrote a cheque and I figured that by the time the banks opened after the long Christmas holiday, I would have deposited the money in my account. For some reason business was very low that Christmas. I got very worried and I could not sleep. I had a solution. When you are running a shop in the rural areas, villagers come to you with requests for example a villager wanted to barter cattle for a solar panel or you could buy something at a low price. During that holiday I was using the company's brand new Mazda single cab pick up. I decided to sell the two cattle I had got from villagers. Another guy who had come from South Africa was selling one cow in order to get money to get back to South Africa. I now had three cattle, we quickly made a steel cage and I took them to the abattoir and sold them and I had enough money to cover for my cheques. I discovered something interesting. The abattoir in Marondera was paying a refund for transport per animal and if you had a truck that could carry say 10 animals you would make so much money just from the transport payment. I got an idea that culminated in me getting an 8 tonne truck.
At my employer it was time to buy a new fleet of cars and the practice was that managers would buy their old cars at book value. I did not actually qualify as I was new and the Managing Director made that clear to me. As luck would have it, a competitor offered me a position of a branch manager in their Bulawayo branch. I had no intention of leaving my job. I then submitted my resignation letter to the MD and he refused to accept it and we started negotiating a counter offer. I ended up buying my old double cab bakkie and I was also given one of the most reliable vehicles that I have ever driven, a Toyota KZTE double cab bakkie. Of course as a middle manager, I did not qualify to be given a 3 litre engine capacity vehicle but these were not normal times. I saw an 8 tonne Bedford truck that was being sold at a construction company nearer to Chisipite and I negotiated with the guy for a few days and he agreed to trade in with my Mazda double cab bakkie and I had to pay $50 million Zimbabwean dollars as a top-up.
I employed a driver and assistants and we started buying cattle. We also started carrying farmers' produce from Mutoko to Harare. Owning a transport business can be hectic, I would be phoned around midnight to attend to tyre, fuel, auto electric and engine problems. I also started carrying cotton for cotton buyers locally. Through owning that truck that is how I ended up going into pig farming http://kanyokad.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-i-no-longer-fear-failure-my-journey.html
In April 2006, I was transferred to Bulawayo as the branch manager for Zimnat Lion Insurance company. I was also in charge of agents in Victoria Falls, Hwange, Plumtree, Gwanda and Beitbridge and I would travel there during the week. I managed to rent a 6 acre plot in Kensington outside Bulawayo and I started growing vegetables and also raising broiler chicken. I would drive to Beitbridge during the weekend with a trailer full of vegetables and I would leave Mereka selling the vegetables whilst I crossed into South Africa to buy stock for my shops in Mutoko and Macheke. At the end of 2006, I grew tobacco for the first time by chance. War veterans and other farmers had applied for tobacco farming contracts and the inputs had been dropped off in Headlands. They hired my truck. I went with my driver to collect the fertilizer and I was signed for the contract. I ended up growing one acre of tobacco. In early 2007, I was lucky as I got a deal to supply sugar beans to a wholesaler in Bulawayo and I bought the sugar beans from my shop in Mutoko. I was able to buy an old Isuzu Bakkie cash after I made so much money. At that time, I also had a minibus that was plying the route Macheke to Virginia area.
Before the price control blitz of mid 2007, I was now buying stock from my shops in Gaborone, Francistown, Musina, Polokwane, Pretoria and Johannesburg. I was selling normal groceries, solar panels, batteries, radios, black and white TVs, shoes, blankets, clothing etc. At that time I was averaging sales of over R20 000 per week. I would drive to and from Bulawayo every week. Even when I had to go to Harare for the monthly management meeting, I did not fly not even once as I would take the opportunity to visit my businesses in Mutoko and Macheke. On the 1st of June 2007, I started serving my three months notice period as it was time to move on. Whilst I was serving my notice, the government launched the price control blitz. My manager was arrested during that time. This happened throughout the country including managing directors of supermarket chains and manufacturing companies. As my manager described to me, the police came to the shop with state security agents and she was accused of trying to bring the government down through price increases and she was taken to court and fined. People lined for a few days buying the stock for a fraction of what we bought the stock for out of the country and I lost a lot of money. The money I got depreciated quickly.
My employer released me from my contract at the end of July. The economic situation in the country deteriorated and inflation became even worse and people started accepting foreign currency. At my shops, for years, I would barter groceries for maize. I had over 10 tonnes of maize and I started carrying it to Chitungwiza and used back roads to avoid police road blocks. At that time maize was a controlled product as everyone was forced to sell maize to the state owned Grain Marketing Board maybe this explains why Zimbabwe always had shortage of maize as there was no motive for individuals to commercially grow maize as the state would dictate the price. If you were ever caught the government would confisticate the maize. When I used to work in Bulawayo, I would carry at least one tonne in my work bakkie and I would crush the few bags on top and the police road blocks, I would show them the crushed bags and they would let me pass.
I would sell a tonne of maize for about R700 in Chitungwiza. On 22 August 2007 after a wait of about 6 weeks, I went to the South African Embassy in Harare in the morning to check on the progress of my work permit application. I opened my passport and I saw I had been granted a 5 year quota work permit. I phoned maNyoni and told her the good news and told her to prepare as we would be going to our home in Bulawayo to collect my certificates and travel to South Africa to look for a job. I then drove to my shops with my driver and my bakkie developed an engine problem. By the time I got back to Harare it was already at night. My wife came to the city centre and we boarded the Swift truck to Bulawayo and arrived in Bulawayo around 4am the next day. I quickly rushed to the plot in Kensington to collect a few suits and my certificates. We arrived in Sunnyside Pretoria at my sister's flat late in the afternoon on 23 August 2007. The easiest job I knew I could get was as a waiter. I applied in the insurance industry and I attended a few interviews the following week. On Friday 31 August 2007, I signed an employment offer to start work on 1 September 2007. My wife was not so fortunate, the only job she got was as a waiter in the restaurants and we decided it was better for her to start studying for her accounting degree.
In South Africa even though I never rose in my career due to a number of challenges such as companies not prioritising qualifications and those well established big companies that recognised qualifications not employing foreigners. South Africa having a more stable economy has more opportunities for an individual to develop themselves. Years later, I realised that it was a blessing in disguise about all the challenges that I experienced. As a foreigner, you do not have the same opportunities like locals. The first estate agent, I dealt with told me that as a foreigner I would be required to pay double deposit because I was more risky, within 3 years we had bought our own home. The fact that your work permit has an expiry date makes you think what will I do when I go back home? We started saving as much as we could. At the end of 2009, I took leave to go back home to build our house nearer to Harare. http://kanyokad.blogspot.com/2018/07/hopefully-we-all-must-get-enlightment.html
I realised being a foreigner changed my way of thinking. As people we normally get complacent as we think we had so much time. I knew how hard it was to get another job and I became more focused and almost every pay cheque I got, we used it wisely. I have a motto, zvirinani kuwomerwa nehupenyu for one year and sort our your life for good. For us to raise the money to build our house in Zimbabwe, we started sharing the house with strangers and we would save R5 000 every month. In early 2010 when my wife and kids went back to Zimbabwe to finish the construction of our house, I moved into the dining room and let out the bedrooms. By so doing most of my salary was going to Zimbabwe. We managed to finish the construction of our 2 bedroom cottage in Zimbabwe at the end of December 2010 and at the same time, the bank approved a 90% home loan for our home in Pretoria. When I got my bonus in December 2010, after paying for the deposit and transfer fees I was so broke. I remember how tough life was for us in January 2011, when I went into the supermarket and saw people pushing trolleys full of groceries, I envied them.
At times you see your career not going anywhere. One has to think of leaving, there is no point is staying where there is no future. As they say, you are not a tree, you can move. I was able to try my luck in ventures that ordinarily I would never have thought of. In 2015, I invested in a piggery project back home in Zimbabwe. In 2016 I grew tobacco for the second time in Mutoko about 1300km away from Pretoria where I was working.
Africa needs more entrepreneurs and I hope many people take the risk to start ventures. Most people who are already employed in corporates are better suited to starting ventures in the process employ the unemployed youths. For one to start a business you need skills and many people get these skills from their current jobs for example a qualified mechanic already have the technical ability to repair cars, he just needs to learn business management and start his own workshop. Also to start a business you need finance. People who are already employed have a regular income and they can get loans from banks and they can use those loans to start a business. A lot of start ups were started by people maxing their credit cards. Small businesses have a high rate of failure, if you go to a bank requesting funding, it makes sense why the bank will not fund you. So start small and sacrifice your own funds and when you work through the business and overcome failure and grow the business into something more sustaining, you can then qualify for funding. One word of caution, being a business owner is a lonely place. Normally when your employees phone you, there is a problem that you are required to solve. With time you become mentally tough and remain optimistic. The better you become at problem solving the more success you become. if you dream of starting your own business start small now and make as many mistakes and learn valuable lessons.
I heard this statement in the 90s on the radio from the late Cephas Msipa who was the Governor of Midlands Province in Zimbabwe where he said, " An investor is a person who see opportunities where others do not see the opportunity". Africa's development is in the hands of small business owners. If you have an idea that you have in mind, please act on it go and ask those in the same business so that you can learn, in my experience people who are passionate in their ventures like to share information. In my spare time, I visit other pig growers in Zimbabwe and in South Africa and I always learn something new.
Maybe the reason why things do not work financially for you is the company that you keep maybe in the new year, think of changing your circle of friends. I remember discussing in the office how people would buy a bottle of whisky on 12 month instalments, Imagine a bottle that you can drown in an hour and now you have to pay for it with interest over the next 12 months! They say in you are in a hole, the most important thing you need to do is to stop digging. Maybe you have a very huge debt, you need to take drastic decisions. Maybe you need to sell that car, you might have to use the train, you might need to move to a cheaper place, rent a small room or share a house or a room. You need to only do this for a limited time maybe for a year or two and put your finances in the right place. Maybe you do not need to buy that expensive lunch every day when your finances are in shambles, you might bring a lunch box to work packed with left overs from last night's dinner. As human beings its normal to worry what other people will think but you need to take decisions that are in your best interest in the long run.
Other important issues you need to look at include. Pay you debts and commitments before you spoil yourself. Imagine going on holiday before you pay your rent for the month. If you own a car make sure you at least buy third party insurance that will cover you in the event of an accident where you damage someone's car and that insurance can be as cheap as R100 per month and it will save you much trouble and potentially a bad credit record believe me. Watch every cent, when you get your credit card, bank and loan statements study them carefully. If you always know how much interest and fees you are being charged you can begin to see what you need to pay off first. I always make a point to look at specials available at shops. During Black Friday, I saw that bath soap was being sold for almost 50% and that was the only thing we bought and we got stock that would last us for a year.
Good luck for 2019, I hope your dreams come true. Whether it is starting a business or saving enough to be able to buy your own home, I wish you success. I would like to hear from you.
God bless!
