Business 101 - Malawi Style

How do you conduct basic business training to a group of Malawi women, babes at breast and all?
You start with worship music. The singing goes until someone stops leading out the next song. With over twenty women (and a few men) in attendance that means likely twenty songs later. Who in this video does not seem to belong?  Well, that would be the really white guy, who has come to do the training. Notice the "throne" behind him. What you cannot see is the fan pointed at the throne because the white man has trouble handling the heat.

I was astounded at the complete lack of business knowledge. For example, it took quite a bit of time to develop the concept of a target market or a customer. It took even longer to explain the difference between revenue, cost and profit. When Richard asked for common reasons why business fail, the answer was that they "run out of capital". After digging further it became apparent that "the capital" refers to whatever assets are associated with the business, and the reason it "runs out" is because it is spent to cover personal needs.

There is a real need for some basic business coaches who would be able to walk people through a simple business plan and to help them hurdle the occasional problems (such as the case of one couple who bought bags and bags of maize hoping to sell them at a small profit, only to have the government flood the market with supply of cheaper maize).

Many people start business without any forethought. They just open up a stand at a market, or they start sowing things and before long the business runs out of money.
However, the ideas are plentiful and the understanding that one must do something to survive is very evident. There are very few jobs, and those are for the educated few. Most Malawian have to forge their own path and find a way to make enough money for this day and if lucky, for this week.

Richard did an amazing job working through a translator. He explained that "the business is your boss" and the boss pays you a salary, but you cannot mix your personal money with your boss's money.
Afterwards even the most sophisticated people in attendance, those with education and business experience expressed gratitude and amazement at what they learned.
Richard has appointments next week with several people to work through their specific business ideas to see if they are viable and to give some pointers.

The session was scheduled to go for 3 hours. We started around 9:30am and when it was nearly 3pm (with no break in the session) I knew that lunch must be happening soon as five women in the front row began to breast-feed very freely. One was going double-barrels, as she has twins. That particular woman is 40 years old, her girls are her 7th and 8th child and she is also a grandmother. There was another young woman in attendance, 18 years old, with three children and no husband (he left her for another woman) to care for them.

Afterwards we distributed some of the many Canadian bras. These were also met with great enthusiasm and tried on quite freely.