TransformHer Living Lab delegates gain valuable skills and lessons on resilience, perseverance, flexibility, building self-confidence, overcoming self-doubt and redefining personal and financial success. During the skills workshop facilitators also shared valuable lessons on Managing Cash Flow During Growth, value based budgeting and planning, financial literacy and behavioural bias and building sustainable businesses.
Speaking on staying power and the personal traits behind women who build sustainable businesses, Prof Natanya Meyer, Chair: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor South Africa; SARCHi Entrepreneurship Education University of Johannesburg, South Africa – (Left) highlighted that what keeps the woman persistent is the intention to remain in business and not just the intention to start a business although they don’t stay in business as much as men do due to the fear of failure. She added that as noted in the GEM report; women businesses do not survive past the 3-year mark due to their fear of failure and self-doubt.
She added that networking was found to be higher for men than women and suggested that since the main finding is that internal motivation linked to eagerness to make a difference in their families and communities is the strongest predictor of a woman’s intention to stay in business, cultivating it deliberately through peer and role model networks, reframing support around growth not just survival coupled with early exposure and naming the confidence gap directly through training that explicitly targets self-belief and fear of failure to addresses the real gap because women want to make a difference.
Sharing on their biggest lessons in their entrepreneurship journey; Ms Eileen de Kock, Associate Partner at MOSAIC advised delegates to build a business that will evolve with the ever-changing world.
“The biggest lessons that we’ve learned is that you don’t just build something for today; you have to build it for where the world is going.” She stated.
Similarly, Mr Theko Litsoane, Associate Partner of Ubambano (Right) expressed that skills without mentorship produce competence without confidence, and confidence is often the actual bottleneck that we have in society, not competence itself. He further added entrepreneurship training without digital and AI literacy produces a business built for an economy that no longer exists. Emphasising the importance of empowering women he said, “A woman who owns a manufacturing line is not a beneficiary of an economy; she is a participant in shaping it; she employs, she procures, she exports, she pays tax that funds the next intervention for the next generation of girls.”
Speaking on Value based budgeting and planning and also drawing from their lessons Professor Nadia Gulko and Dr Kelebogile Kenalemang shared that reflecting on their struggles, failures, rejections, and the breakthrough that built their confidence and led to their growth helped them to realise that their growth enables us now to create opportunities for others.
They also encouraged delegates to find a mentor who can be honest with them early in their entrepreneurial journey.
They urged delegates to redefine success in their own way and emphasised that success does not always look the same, “For someone, it could just be completing your degree…… and for most of you in the room, it could be starting and growing and scaling your business, and also just simply choosing yourself is also success.”
During skills workshops, delegates were taken through practical and engaging case study exercises to aid them identify the do’s and don’ts for scaling up and building a sustainable business. Professor Liz Warren, Head of International, Faculty Executive Team at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK spoke to the importance of managing cashflow during growth and telling stories about failed businesses as it helps to learn from those stories.
She took attendees through a practical and engaging cashflow case study exercise she termed the psychology of finance where she shared guidelines on how start-ups can approach the growth phase to avoid common pitfalls such as overtrading due to undertaking a large number of contracts with limited resources to fulfil the operations of those contracts and also defined and differentiated between cashflow, revenue and profit.
Professor Erica Derbyshire also took delegates through an engaging practical case study workshop, emphasising the psychology of financial success. She guided delegates on distinguishing between financial literacy and financial success. She urged delegates to live within their means and focus less on aesthetics by prioritising spend on assets and investments in addition to self-discipline, increasing income potential, limiting debt exposure and high interest rate facilities and having an emergency plan among other factors.
“You can’t change who you are but you can change your habits, the speed of your success is limited by your dedication an what you are willing to sacrifice.” She reiterated
Dr Kelebogile Kenalemang also urged delegates to avoid focusing on aesthetics when building their business, she presented a case study of two entrepreneurs with different approaches entrepreneurs employ when developing their businesses, she further said value-based budgeting starts with a different mindset and channelling your budget to create value and impact in your business.