Skip to main content

To Risk or Not to Risk? Risk Management Tips for Women Entrepreneurs Doing Business in Africa

Entrepreneurship involves risk, no matter what your gender, and women entrepreneurs doing business in Africa must necessarily take chances. Certainly, when women entrepreneurs do take risks, their businesses often benefit. But which risks are worth taking and which are not? Below, I join with successful women entrepreneurs in and from Africa in sharing risk management tips.

Assess the realities—and not only in terms of money: “Money is the first risk most people see,” writes Amy Rosen at Entrepreneur.co.za. “But entrepreneurial risk is deeper and more nuanced.” She recommends being clear and objective about the various risks of acting on an opportunity: “Sit down and write them out,” she advises, taking into account financial risks as well as those of reputation, time, stress, and intellectual capital.

When you have your list of risks, you can look at them more objectively. How will they balance out? You might gain money if your risk pays off, but what will be the emotional or resource-related costs? If your risk doesn’t pay off, what will you learn? Will the experience tarnish you or further your knowledge? Assessing the risks this way will help you to make a more balanced decision.

Get advice and feedback—and test, if you can: Amy Rosen also advises getting help from mentors who “can give early insight and analyze risk.” This is especially helpful if you are just starting out in business. However, more seasoned entrepreneurs might research investment ideas by questioning their clients or customers. If you are looking to invest in a new website, for instance, ask your clients for their opinions of your current site. If their feedback is negative, it may be that not investing in the site is a risk you can’t afford to take. Similarly, if you’re considering hiring a freelancer to blog for you every week, you might ask them to write one post and gauge its impact when you share it on social media. If the hit rate is high, and you get positive feedback, your investment will feel less risky. As the  African Entrepreneurship Award advises, “You can take the risk on your business idea once you know if it is plausible through customers’ eyes.”

Use your intuition: “As creative and innovative entrepreneurs,” write the Lionesses of Africa, “we should trust in our own intuition to know when something just feels right—after all, that intuition is probably what leads most of us to take the plunge and start up our own businesses in the first place.” Of course, your intuition might take you in a direction you don’t expect. Are you prepared to follow it anyway and learn from whatever comes of it? If so, you are well-prepared, and will surely gain wisdom. That said, backing up your intuition with other research is important, too. “Support [your] intuitive decision by using the information flow around you to back it up,” say the Lionesses of Africa.

When your risks don’t pay off, hold onto the bigger picture: Entrepreneurship is inevitably risky, and accepting that is important. You will always learn something, even when you feel you’ve missed out. But many women entrepreneurs in Africa also reference how their passion and enthusiasm for a cause helps them when their risks don’t seem to pay off. “Be passionate about something that’s beyond the money and the egotistical side of business,” writes Aisha Pandor, co-founder and CEO of SweepSouth. When things become really hard, Pandor adds, having “a vision and a mission that’s meaningful” will help to keep you going.

--Chimuka Moore
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media in Africa for Women Entrepreneurs

Accessibility to social networks may be limited in Africa, but a reported nine percent of the population who do use social media often view it as important and empowering. Given that access to cell phones is widespread in the continent, use of social networks and messaging apps is increasing by the year among businesses, customers, schools, and students . In fact, the 2014 “Emerging Nations Embrace Internet, Mobile Technology” report from the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project (as quoted in ventureafrica.com ) reports that about 78 percent of Africa’s internet usage is for social media. No wonder female entrepreneurs doing business in Africa are using social networks to support each other. In the first of this series of posts for women entrepreneurs looking to use social media in Africa, we’ll review some of the main social networks, as well as how women entrepreneurs are using them.   Social Networks Popular in Africa Facebook long dominated social networking in A...
Post a Comment
Read more

Comments from Social Media Experts (3): Dorie Clark on Creating and Sharing Your Own Content

Recently, I have been reading more and more about the importance of creating your own content. “It’s useful and powerful to be a curator of other people’s good stuff,” explains Dorie Clark at Buffer , “but if you really want to establish an expert reputation, the fast ticket to do that is creating your own content.” It seems that popular ways of creating your own content can include starting your own blog, publishing original posts on a social media platform (like LinkedIn), or having those posts featured on the blogs of others. Clark, author of the popular business book Stand Out , says that by sharing your own thoughts, your customers and clients will start to recognize that you are an expert in your field. Here are three of Clark’s tips to keep in mind when creating and sharing your own content: Live out your brand through your content: “If you want to stand out and get noticed as, for instance, an innovative and connected fashion entrepreneur,” writes Clark at Entrepren...
1 comment
Read more

Miyanda Maimbo Kitawa on Facing Challenges (Wisdom from Africa’s Successful Women Entrepreneurs)

Although gender equality is on the rise in Africa, there are more potential challenges for women entrepreneurs than there are for men. However, it isn’t unusual for successful women in business to attribute their successes to the challenges that they’ve faced. In this post, I share the wisdom of Miyanda Maimbo Kitawa , who set up the first human resources company in Zambia at a time when HR businesses didn’t exist there. As you’ll see, her story contains many lessons for women who are facing the challenges of entrepreneurship, especially those who are just starting out. A tough start doesn’t mean you won’t succeed: When Miyanda Maimbo Katiwa drove to Zambia to start her human resources company, she had only a little money to split between her living expenses and what was needed to launch her venture. Having quit her job and been told by her boss that it was impossible for someone without prior experience to succeed in such a business, she knew she was taking a huge risk. “T...
2 comments
Read more