Solomon Masango knows what it takes to be a successful farmer. Over the years he discovered that money is not everything, yet a business cannot flourish and be profitable without it. Lindiwe Sithole, host of African Farming Season 2, travels to Carolina in Mpumalanga to soak up some of the wisdom Masango has gathered over the years.

When a farmer goes to a bank to apply for a loan, he or she might wonder what exactly happens when a credit analysis is done. According to Keneilwe Nailana, Manager: Agribusiness at Standard Bank Group, banks use “the five Cs of credit” when performing a credit analysis. “We usually review a farmer’s situation by looking at things like capacity, capital, conditions, character and collateral,” she explains. 

Nailana describes the five Cs as follows: 

• Capacity – he bank must be sure that the farmer has the ability to repay the loan based on the proposed amount and terms. They look at cash flow, expected income and current debt to determine whether a farmer will be able to pay back the loan. “It is all about whether the farmer has enough capacity in his or her budget to pay for the loan. After all, a business should be able to pay back the loan,” she says. 

• Capital – the bank wants to know what the capital level of the business is when determining creditworthiness. Personal investment into the business, retained earnings and other assets controlled by the business owner are applicable here. “We prefer a farmer to put some of his or her capital in the business, because that means they have some skin in the game.”

• Conditions – The bank will look at the reasons why the farmer wants to borrow money. They are analysed for their need in taking on debt. Reasons differ from one application to the other. 

• Character – “Character refers to the farmer’s reputation,” she explains. In the eyes of the bank, past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour. “We look at a farmer’s credit history and how they manage their business to help us with this.” 

• Collateral – this refers to the personal assets a farmer pledges as security for a loan. “The collateral offered will serve as security. Liquidating assets is a last resort for us. Security is one of the instruments used to mitigate the risk.

by Robyn Keet

A topic that has been controversial in creative circles for years. When asking this question to any creative doing paid work — “Do you do work for exposure?” – you will likely be met with a flurry of different answers. Some negative and some positive. 

Here are some examples of what you can expect.

Negative:

• Exposure doesn’t pay the rent

• Free work leads to more free work

• Exposure is a con for cheap business owners to get things for free

Positive:

• I started my career and my business by doing free work, I still do it occasionally… it gives so many awesome recommendations

• You can do free/accessible work, grow your portfolio, and move on

• Need to be used wisely, paired with consistency it’s a great combo to generate good results

I’ve had mixed results from doing free work. I have been burnt badly, and I have been fortunate to do free work that has led to growing a new product. I suspect it all has to do with why you are really going to do this work in the first place. To dive deeper into this topic of free exchange, I headed to our Creative Connection core group for some answers. We started by defining what a free exchange is. Simply put, the free exchange is developing a mutually benefiting partnership for all parties involved. Free doesn’t need to be a curse, it can be a blessing. In some cases, it can help you level up.

Reflecting on my own experience, I realized that I didn’t set up the boundaries, expectations, and scope for what I was offering for exposure. I simply, assumed that I would get the same value if not more for all my hard work. Boy, was I wrong! A single tweet to an audience that won’t ever buy from me normally, wasn’t a fair exchange. Sadly, I didn’t know that at the time.

Is doing free work for exposure a good strategy? There is no definitive yes or no to this question. Frankly, it all depends on Creative. But, there is a way that you can determine if doing work for exposure is a good idea for you.

Firstly ask yourself, am I doing this as a gift or do I want something in return? If you answered with the latter, the next four qualifying questions can help you decide if exposure is worth it. Approach as you would a paid client.

Question 1: Is this work aligned to my core business?

Your time is valuable and therefore what you invest in free work should align with what you do in your business. We recommend that approaching free work as you would a paid one. Understand all the components of what the work would entitle and write up a project plan. This can be a one-pager. At a later stage, you can use this project to attract potential paying customers to your business.

Question 2: Am I doing this work for my ideal customer or someone who can reach my ideal customers?

Doing work that matters is important for all big heart creatives especially for people that will appreciate the craftsmanship it took to create it. When looking at doing free work, make sure that you are doing it for your ideal customers. This work can be used as a research tool to get more information about your ideal customers. What they like or dislike, what they will pay for or not pay for, and most importantly, are you making the impact you intended to?

Question 3: Will the cost of marketing my work through this partnership give me the return of investment that I would not get if I did this myself?

Exposure is another name for marketing. Like all marketing, you need to weigh up the cost and the potential return of doing that activity. What is your reach and what will the potential engagement look like? What processes or strategies can I put in place to convert interested social scroller to paying customers? If you can reach more of your ideal customer from doing this work then you would in marketing it yourself — organically or paid. Then it’s a win.

Question 4: What is the exposure distribution strategy?

Expanding from question 3, before you start working you need to know what their exposure distribution strategy is. Understand what platforms will be used, when and by whom. Does this client have the right numbers of followers to engaged users? Can they show you proof of previous successes from using a free exchange — work for exposure? This question will help you quantify the value you will receive when doing this exchange.

Doing work for exposure or a free exchange needs to be a strategic decision. Your business needs you to advocate for its survival and therefore requires you to take the time it needs to make a decision that will not put it in jeopardy but rather help it grow.

Now I would love to know from you — Is doing work for exposure a good strategy?

by Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

Think what you like about him and his choice of design for his spaceship, or even his use of words on landing back on earth, but Jeff Bezos certainly had this right when he said: 

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” 

There is absolutely no doubt that in this he was totally correct. If you can get past the irony packed into that first sentence we should not forget that as far as ‘Brand Amazon’ is concerned, he and a few other titans of the business world have taken the word ‘brand’ to a whole new level. Is there anyone left in the western world who has not at some point in their lives bought something on Amazon, happily trusting the brand to deliver? And deliver they do, time and time again. 

Of course a great product, fabulous and friendly staff, taking complaints seriously, and a massive potential market on your doorstep are the basics for a great business and to build a brand. But Trust, plus a bit of secret sauce that we shall come to later, is what drives your brand higher, turbo charging it to great heights. However, this takes time…

But what if you are a ‘newbie’ wanting to disrupt a comfy industry, is a Brand important? Surely being young, nimble, cheeky and cool is enough? The answer it seems depends on what industry you are trying to disrupt…

In the paper from INSEAD entitled: ‘Diseconomies of Time Compression’ by Karel Cool, Ingemar Dierickx and Luis Almeida Costa (see here), they look at this from the aspect of time vs energy in the form of investment in time, money and a load of other things that go into a business and most importantly, into disrupting or shoving off the top step a comfy incumbent. 

They open this paper by stating that:

“Most resources are the cumulative result of a series of investments over a period of time. For example, a firm’s reputation for quality is the result of a consistent set of policies on production and quality control, a consistent investment in communication with customers, etc.”

Please note the highlighted parts – 

“consistent”, 

“consistent” 

and 

“over a period of time”

Ok, so no one said this was easy – but is that also not the basis of Trust? Consistency over a period of time.

The rest of the paper is highly technical with charts that should in our minds only appear in a deep scientific journal and should never have hit our desk. But the crux of what they had to say (and we can feel Cool, Dierickx and Costa squirming in fear as we switch into our over-simplification mode) is that no matter how much money you spend, no matter how much energy you put into overtaking the comfy incumbent, there is a huge advantage that this current occupier has. Huge. To such an extent that try as hard as you might, most disruptors will simply feel that all they are doing is pushing on a piece of string. 

Sorry to all those out there who believe that simply by announcing they are going to disrupt an industry this makes it happen! Agreed we hear almost daily that “legacy companies are all doomed to fail unless they double down on the latest digital innovations, and disruptors are ordained to take over the world. Digital innovation is the answer to everything.” But as Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer, former big-company executive, and startup founder (so he’s serious in both the theory and the practical), Robert Siegel in his book, ‘The Brains and Brawn Company: How leading organizations blend the best of digital and physical’ (here), argues, “Incumbents are not doomed and disruptors are not ordained.” (listen to a great a16z podcast with him here)

Freek Vermeulen (professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at London Business School) in his article for the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘Stop Comparing Management to Sports’ (here) citing Dierickx and Cool, illustrates this as follows in a conversation between an English Lord and his American visitor:

“How come you got such a gorgeous lawn?” asks the American.

“Well, the quality of the soil, is, I dare say, of the utmost importance,” replies the lord.

“No problem.”

“Furthermore, one does need the finest quality seed and fertilizers.”

“Big deal.”

“Of course, daily watering and weekly mowing are jolly important.”

“No sweat, just leave it to me.”

“That’s it.”

“No kidding?! That’s it?!”

“Oh absolutely. There is nothing to it, old boy, just keep it up for five centuries.”

…and to think that we ever wondered why our parents read us the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare!

Of course that is not to say we can’t disrupt old industries – it is happening all the time. Indeed many of our inspirational Lionesses are doing just that, with one fabulous launch recently from our Legal Lionesses, the inspirational Claire and Sinal of pop.law who launched life.file. Alongside this they have been writing great articles opening wide the secret world of law and simplifying it for us mere mortals. Free information written with great humour in a simple style, draws us automatically to their business which in turn offers great value, legal assistance for all. Cutting out the ‘per hour’ costing, you get a straight up, clear as a bell, upfront stated fee. This for the legal industry is almost as shocking as a Magician revealing the tricks of his trade! We would strongly recommend all to have a look at the great articles they have written for their community of Lionesses (here), so you understand disruption if done well can work – but it ain’t easy, as the Magician will find out once he gets that call from the Magic Circle!

But how to work out if your disruption will work. Wake up one morning and decide to disrupt the construction industry by using Cardboard rather than globe-destroying-not-green-in-any-sense-of-the-word, Concrete, for bridge building? You may start to realize why the Ancient Romans insisted that the Chief Engineer of any huge archway would have to stand under it as the last stone was placed (possibly folklore – but makes a great deal of sense!) – this being the most important last wedged shaped stone (called ‘voussoirs’) from which all outward forces would hold the entire structure through an even distribution of weight. For example, the Roman built Alcántara bridge, still standing today, has huge voussoirs weighing up to eight tons each (see here) – so yes, you’d have to be pretty sure that this was going to work!

What Cool, Dierickx and Costa recognised was that if tasks within the industry have to be done in some form of sequence, then expect to invest far more in time and energy to disrupt or overtake the industry leader.

As they say: “This need to carry out activities in a particular order gives rise to time compression diseconomies: doubling the efforts over a particular period of time does not yield the same level of resources (success) as maintaining an effort of half the intensity over a period which is twice as long.” – as Freek Vermeulen explains – think of a child learning an instrument – 3 hours of practice on one day out of 6 is not nearly as productive as 30 minutes each day for 6 days. Given our own attention span, we would have to agree!

So if you have an industry with nothing in sequence, go for it!

Have an industry in sequence? You have to somehow beat that “early mover’s competitive advantage.” What is this secret sauce in addition to the extra money and effort you will have to put in? Because it is not just all about money and effort!

Turning once more to Freek Vermeulen in his HBR article ‘Stop Comparing Management to Sports’, (here), he points out that: 

“At the end of the day, organizations are collections of people; this means that superior organizations need more effective ways for them to cooperate and work toward a common goal. As the famous management professor Henry Mintzberg noted: “Think of the organizations you most admire. I’ll bet that front and center is a powerful sense of community.” 

Research backs this up. Several studies have examined the characteristics of resources that, over time (sorry, there it is again!), lead to superior performance. The conclusion of this stream of research is that these resources are usually intangible and community based, such as relationships, trust, culture, identity, or knowledge sharing. That is because, ultimately, competitive advantage comes from people, rather than products or patents.” 

Just take a time to repeat those powerful words: 

relationships, 

trust, 

culture, 

identity,  

knowledge sharing

– we believe these are all absolutely central to any community, but especially yours, The Lionesses of Africa.

This sense of community is important, indeed central to building a real brand, one that is instantly recognised and always respected. So start building your community now. Ask your employees and customers what they think of your company and what it stands for. Do not be afraid of the answers, bring them inside the tent with you, work with them to discover their thoughts, desires and needs. Show them your purpose in life, show them that you are true to yourself. Show them that you are consistent time and time again in what you do and what you say. This is how to build trust and this is how you build your community, which in turn builds your power to really build your brand.

Whether you are disrupting an industry that has nothing in sequence, or one that is always in sequence or even if you are just trundling along, not disrupting, but building a Brand — it is within your community, your community of employees, of customers, of shareholders, indeed, of your other 1.3 million Lionesses within this fabulous pan-African Community of yours that you will find your power to turbo charge your Brand and push aside all ahead of you. It is a super-power that all can grasp. 

Please do not ignore this great opportunity.

Stay safe.

Tell us a little about your team

GBRI has a team of 31 permanent employees and the company gets between 50 to 150 casual workers daily depending on the volumes of production.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

My mother has been doing small businesses. While growing up I always had thoughts of studying and engaging in business believing that was the perfect route for me to be able to sustain my needs. I went to St Augustine University, and I studied a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounts. I would say seeing my mother doing business and the education gave me a great push to what I am doing today.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

As much as GBRI has been able to export to European countries, still the company is planning to tap into the Middle East market. The company is operating in four Tanzanian regions but in the near future we are looking forward to establish our presence in all cities. Dealing with horticultural produce which is highly perishable pushes the company to increase its investment in cold storage and transportation infrastructures.