By Shephard Kembo
There is a quiet truth that escapes many until it is too late, everything under the sun is business, and everyone, knowingly or not, is an entrepreneur. There has been a debate that not everyone is an entrepreneur and that not everyone should be an entrepreneur or a business person. This week’s installment looks at why everyone should understand business.
From the moment you wake up and switch on the light, you are already spending. The water you bathe with, the breakfast you eat, the transport you take, it all incurs a cost, and yet, by the end of the day, you hope to have earned something in return. Maybe it is a salary, maybe it is a deal closed, maybe it is an investment made. Either way, it is income versus expenses, inflow versus outflow.
That is business. That is life and life is a Ledger.
In the heart of Zimbabwe, in every township and city suburb, in every rural growth point, families and individuals are unknowingly balancing ledgers. A mother budgeting school fees, a vendor deciding how much stock to buy, a student applying for a grant, a builder negotiating rates, they are all conducting business.
Whether you are a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in Borrowdale Zimbabwe or Sandton in South Africa, a miner in Hwange, or a hustler at Mbare Musika, you are in the business of life. Understanding that your entire existence operates on a commercial balance is the first step towards mastering your reality. When your expenses outweigh your income, the result is a loss. When you earn more than you spend, you profit not just financially, but emotionally and mentally.
The universal economy, micro to macro
This principle does not stop with individuals. Households, communities, organisations, and even entire nations operate on the same logic. National budgets are essentially income statements. Government debt is a cash flow issue. Development programmes are investments that must yield a return. Even churches that are relying on freewill offerings and tithes have inflow and outflow and profit or loss (deficiet), they are business systems from mathematics and or credit and debit aspect. Put differently even churches books and or ledgers need to balance!
The art of selling
Once you accept that everything is business, you realise that life is also about sales. You are always pitching. You pitch to your partner to gain trust. You pitch to your boss to earn a raise. You pitch to your child to teach discipline. You pitch to a bank, an investor, or a customer to grow your vision. Your first product is you. Your mindset, your character, your work ethic, and your value proposition. Before anyone buys your idea, they buy into you. This is the hard truth many refuse to confront, charisma sells, credibility sells, competence sells. If you are not selling yourself, someone else is outselling you.
Entrepreneurship is not a choice, it is a condition, in Zimbabwe, where economic volatility is a constant and formal employment is scarce, entrepreneurship is not a trend, it is an instinct. But whether in Harare, Soweto, Lagos, or New York, every individual must develop a commercial mindset. The world is capitalistic. That means value is exchanged, not given. To survive and thrive, you must see through the lens of commerce. Understand margins. Track your inflows, control your outflows, price your time, package your skills and pitch with conviction.
A call to wake up
If you are reading this and thinking, “But I am not in business,” think again. Every decision you make has a cost and a potential return. Every relationship, every job, every hustle is part of a broader enterprise, your life enterprise. Start keeping your personal income statement. Audit your relationships for value. Cut emotional expenses. Invest in knowledge. Maximise your Return on investment (ROI) on time and energy, because in this life, the most successful people are not always the most educated or most connected, they are the most financially and commercially literate.
Master your money. Sell your value. Own your enterprise, because everything, yes, everything is business.
CONCLUSION
The next time when we think and talk about business and entrepreneurship, we should not avoid the subject matter, we all should know that life is about inflows and outflows, debits and credits, profit and losses as well as return on investment.
Shephard Kembo (Managing Partner for Globavel International (PVT) LTD)
