Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts

Monday, March 28, 2011

Learning to Do Business as a Woman

I attended a wonderful program last week for female entrepreneurs. It was especially fortuitous for me because my sister and I recently took over a family-owned bookshop and just the week before I had wished out loud that there was a program somewhere that could give us some guidance on this whole ‘managing a business thing.’

Then, Viola! It happened.

The Corporate Governance & Leadership Training was organized by Women in Management and Business (WIMBIZ) and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) and delivered all it promised to be and more.

Going in, I wasn’t quite sure what ‘corporate governance’ meant exactly, but figured that based on the course outline provide, the program would help us with some of the foundations of running a business.

The 3-day training sought to help small businesses and organizations build their capacity for successful growth by covering areas such as Institutional Frameworks; Leadership; Internal Control and Audit; Business Image Building and Ethics; Information Technology for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); Human Resource Management; and Accounting and Financial Management.

Aside from the amazing facilitators, it was an amazing opportunity to meet other women who run their own businesses (some of them also family-owned) and explore opportunities for partnership.

Some key things that I learnt were:
- Pay yourself first: Many business owners don’t do this and pay their staff, while failing to make themselves priority as they should - because if there was no you, there would be no business to start with). In addition, by not paying themselves, they under-estimating the true expenses of the business.
- Give your self a job description: Again, many (not all) entrepreneurs write out expectations for their staff, but fail to do the same for themselves.
- Know your business: For some women, their business is something to do, to pass time, to make a pretence of having a career. And these motivations come through in the way they manage their companies i.e. they are mostly absent and when they are there, they do not ask questions about the performance of the business, sales, customer trends and revenue earned. Even among women for who this business is their source of livelihood, they might not know their products or the ins and out of their operation as well as they should and so do not know the right questions to ask.
- Having good staff starts with recruiting right: This means knowing what type of person with what type of skills you need. Very often we focus more on the skills and the brilliant CV and less on the personality that might be best suited for the position we are recruiting for.

I learnt so much more and I am willing to share for a small fee. Alternatively, I recommend that you attend the next iteration.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

FATE Foundation Programme for Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs

FYI for budding business women.

*************

Fate Foundation in partnership with Citi Foundation presents to you the 2nd batch of the women's programme titled The Leading Female Entrepreneur coming up on the 9th and 10th of August 2010. This program is targeted at aspiring and budding Nigerian women between the ages of 18 -45 that are posed for leadership and entrepreneurship achievement.

The programme will take place in Fate Foundations Lagos office and would run for 2
days. The programme would involve successful and prominent Nigerian entrepreneurs
facilitating, budding and equipping entrepreneurs with the skills, tools, techniques
and necessary networking methods required to maintain successful businesses in the
Nigerian business environment.

Registration for the programme is on and ends on the 4th of August 2010. Registration
fee cost N5000 only. Breakfast, lunch, materials for the program and certificates will be provided.

Interested participants are to download and fill the application form, pay the
registration fee into our Guaranty Trust Bank Account number 201/110752/3/110. The
filled application form attached with a copy of bank teller MUST be sent in hard copy
to our office 1st floor, Lagos State Water Corporation Building, Ijora Lagos or in soft
copy to mojieleso@fatefoundation.com. Please note that any application recieved after the 4th of August will not be considered.

For further inquiries please call Moji on 01-8797074 or send me a mail via
mojieleso@fatefoundation.com. Please endeavor to register promptly as we have limited seats for the programme.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Moji
Coordinator, Short Entrepreneurial Courses
Fate Foundation
+234.1.879.7074

Monday, May 17, 2010

Program for Technology-Enabled Business Women

A new six-month programme, FEMTECH, is being launched to provide business support services to women who wish to establish and grow their own technology-enabled businesses. The programme is being funded by the Embassy of Finland, South Africa and is being executed in collaboration with the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

This programme is aimed at those who are:
- Existing woman business owners with demonstrated entrepreneurial skills and who are preferably running technology-enabled businesses and wish to grow the business substantially, or who
- Want to introduce an innovative product or service (at least at the concept stage) into an existing business, or who
- Plan to spin out a business from a corporate environment.

Training will take place between July and October and will consist of group-centered learning as well as individual mentoring and coaching.

Twenty applicants will be chosen for the programme. Shortlisted applicants should expect to be interviewed and will be required to present their concepts at the end of June 2010. The Selection Panel’s decision is final and no further communication or correspondence will be entered into.

Deadline for submission: 31 May 2010

Contact Jill Sawers on jlsawers@gmail.com
or +27 082 214-5915 or Tina James on +27 82 460-7915 for more information.