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‘The community does not understand this,” I once overheard Bab’ Dube tell an elderly gentleman. “We’re here to serve the community. We want to lie down like good carpets and let the people walk all over us.”
Mr Dube was a successful businessman in KwaThema. He owned a supermarket. Our standards were higher then. A spaza shop was not considered a real shop and, like the true meaning of the word, it was a fake shop, the great pretender, something not to be aspired to.
We were better then because we allowed our children to dream bigger. We gave them the freedom to dream of being doctors and not DJs, of being lawyers and not con men. Those who wanted to be musicians wrote music and performed it. They did not bastardise the creations of others and peddled them as remixes. We were poor, but we were proud.
Sadly, Bab’ Dube’s business died with him. Many of our other businesses suffered a similar fate. We have a simple and unscientific explanation for that.
We usually say the founder ubethwele, which means he possessed umuthi.
We also like to say he probably owned an army of tokoloshes that did the backbreaking work for him all night. There is no such thing.
This trend continues. Even spaza shops have been lost to better-skilled traders such as Somalis and Pakistanis, which tends to lead to xenophobic violence.
Family business is tricky even under normal circumstances. It becomes a rough business when the children get involved and warfare when the sons-in-law get involved. Children feel their surname entitles them to the benefits of the business, but shields them from its demands.
So if you want to build a business that will last for generations, introduce your children to it very early. Let them start at the bottom so they will get to know the business well. No one will cheat them.
More than teaching them about the rands and cents of the business, teach them about life. They are a part of the community. They must know their neighbours. They must attend their funerals and weddings without asking for any special treatment.
Families fail or succeed based on their level of discipline. Often the founder gets to work early, but the children are allowed to slack off and get there a little later and leave earlier. The founder must be strictest with his own children.
They must open the business early in the morning and close it late in the day. This shouldn’t stop until it has become second nature to them. If a job is considered too low for a family member, then it is too low for the business.
Parents tend to protect their children. This denies them the opportunity to learn to be courageous. As a founder of the business, you definitely have courage, so teach your children, who are your natural successors, to also have courage.
Businesses run by cowards soon die. When management is too afraid to adapt to the changing times, their business gets left behind.
Family members of successful businesses expect the community to respect and fear them. These businesses do not last. But the opposite is true. Family members must respect the community because they are the sources of their wealth.
Respect is in the small things, like greeting your customers and shaking their hand. In short, it is about making your consumers feel exceptionally welcome and being a part of your family.
You can’t preserve your wealth by keeping it in the bank, so family members must be given new projects and find new markets to ensure future revenue. They must be held to higher and stricter standards than ordinary employees. Leaders of family businesses must understand that their job is one of custodianship, to take care of the interests of future generations and not to gobble up everything.
Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive,an advertising agency
