BAKE’S INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE OF THE YEAR By Robert Bake Tumuhaise Inspired friends! Every year I always get a time to share with Authors’ Forum members and everyone else in my network the most inspiring lesson I’ve learnt that year. And here is one for this 20Fortune (2014). It is drawn from my own 7 years of experience in business and it follows a common saying that cheap things are sometimes expensive. First, I will tell you about internet usage. Somehow, for some foolish reason that I can’t figure out, I had always assumed that modem internet is cheap because I could load 5,000 shillings, 10,000 shillings, 20,000 shillings or even 500 shillings on a bad day and have work done. Because I could access the service with very little money, I confused that for being cheap. I assumed that the other giant internet connections would rob me of millions of money per month if I dared connect to them. So for seven years we were using modems. As my number of staff increased, the pinch of expenditure started to reach my bone marrow. We would basically use not less than 20,000 shillings on each of our 2 modems on a daily basis, sometimes even loading each twice. By the time I woke up to this realisation, I was spending about 40,000 shillings per day which came to over 1.2 million shillings per month. Despite being that expensive, we could suffer sharing the 2 modems since each modem could be used by one person at a time. Just so you now, I was at first using MTN and later changed to Orange and there was no difference (so my issue here is not with a single brand but rather modem internet generally). Then someone marketed to me Smile that uses a router to supply internet to a high number of computers at ago. I bought the idea. The initial cost of buying the equipment was 410,000 shillings, but it came with 10GBs of data. We connected all our computers and each staff started using internet full time (we sometimes work up to 9pm) and for 2 weeks the data is still there. I have a feeling that it might even take us a full month. Those 10GB that they gave us freely cost 140,000 shillings. That means that even after it runs out we shall be renewing at that rate and use it for all this time. Imagine spending 140,000 shillings for the same service you used to spend over 1m, yet more effective than what you were using before! It’s not only internet that has taught me that cheap things are sometimes expensive. Capacity building for my company has taught me the same lesson. When I joined business I had the impression that because I am not a rich guy who had a lot of capital I could not afford professional labour. So I would look out for jobless people, fresh graduates that have no hoped of getting a job soon or any other people I thought would accept the little payment I could afford. In the end, I would spend my little money on them, but no results. I had forgotten that money earns money and that only fertile ground can yield a good harvest. One time, in 2013, while I was looking for some staff I had a chat with my friend Atuheire Davis, author of the book ‘THOUGHTS OF A FEW’. When I told him to help me identify some good unemployed people whom I could employ, he asked me, “Bake, why do you want those who are not working? Why don’t you look for professionals and bring them no matter the cost, if you want results?” I took his advice seriously and started looking for professionals, starting with an Accountant. Results started showing immediately. This accountant, Nnalubega Justine, has even gone beyond helping me organize the company finances to helping me organize my own finances and pushing fellow staff to bring results. After testing what well qualified and experienced staff can do, I also brought in another professional staff, Crystal Rutangye, one of the best editors I’ve known in Uganda. She had been working with a big international publishing house but I negotiated with her, showed her my company’s vision and she joined us. Now I no longer have sleepless nights over the publications department for I know that there’s someone there more knowledgeable than myself in that area. That coincided with the time I discovered the amazing writings of a Zimbabwean billionaire, Strive Masiyiwa. I read that when he was starting he convinced a bank manager to resign from his job and join him. It pushed me to make a decision of bringing on board another staff, Zungu Annet, who was working as Operations Manager for a bank. She is now the Operations Manager at WORLD OF INSPIRATION. She’s been with us for only 2 weeks, but the results are fascinating. I now completely agree with the wisdom of my mentor Patrick Bitature when he says that he can only employ people who are smarter than him, who can do what he can’t do. The experience of these professional staff has showed me that expensive things are not necessarily expensive and that cheap things are not necessarily always that cheap. You bring in skilled and experienced professionals in your organization, you will have to pay them highly, but you equally get high results. They are not parasites; they eat from the fruits they’ve grown for you. You opt for cheap labour, they dry the little resources you have and bring no results; they are parasites. A parasite is anything that eats its host up. I need no parasite in my network. Having made my point, allow me tell you how you can become a member of the Authors’ Forum, which is possibly the most life-changing network of inspired Ugandans. So many people keep asking me (by phone-calls, email, sms, e.t.c) how they can get to learn from me and also the people who mentor me such as Patrick Bitature. Let me now answer that – being part of the Authors’ Forum is the answer. The Authors’ Forum is an inspirational event that WORLD OF INSPIRATION organises at the National Theatre once a month (on the evening of every first Wednesday of the month). The intention is to network, learn from each other, share opportunities, inspire each other and grow in the areas of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. To become a member of this forum you pay an annual subscription fee of 250,000 UGX (this takes you for 12 months). As a result you will get a membership card that allows you entrance to the to the Authors’ Forum event throughout the subscription period; you get a free inspirational DVD of your choice every month; you get half sponsorship for all courses, seminars, workshops or any other programs that WORLD OF INSPIRATION organizes; you will be entitled to free one-on-one consultation with me or any other WORLD OF INSPIRATION consultant on any issue related to career, creativity or business, whenever you need it; you will be entitled to our periodic inspirational tours of prominent businesses in Uganda; and you will have free entrance to our resource centre where you will find all sorts of inspirational and other informative materials gathered from all over Africa (books in print, E-books, magazines, journals, DVDs, CDs, art gallery, music, movies, series, e.t.c). I must remind us that spending resources on developing ourselves is always cheap no matter how expensive it sounds because the benefits will always outweigh the investment. So if you want to give subscription a thought, simply call me on 0704666851 / 0712868424 or email me on [email protected] and I will personally meet you or send someone else to wherever you are and we talk about it. I cannot end without hinting on what we have in store for you at the next Authors’ Forum slated for 4th June, as usual 5:30pm, at the national Theatre. The theme is ‘TURNING PASSION INTO BUSINESS’. If there is anything you love doing, you can earn from it and use it to pursue success. We have a line-up of guests ready to make this episode more impacting than what we had last time. I will disclose some of them in my next email and will leave others as surprise guests. If you are not a subscribed member, what you must do now is to visit WORLD OF INSPIRATION, at MM Plaza T33 or call 0414691595 / 070487768 / 0774107287 and book your entry ticket at 40,000 UGX before they run out. Stay blessed and inspired.
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 08:15:20 +0000