15 Oct 2013

Youth entrepreneurs have been urged to develop a culture of saving from their business earnings regardless of how little they may have made.

Barclays Bank official, Mr Montlatsi Marumo said this during the recent entrepreneurship training for Molepolole North and South constituencies.

While enlightening the participants about financial literacy, Mr Marumo said saving the little business earnings demonstrated self discipline, determination and a passion in what they were doing. He stated that, these characteristics made up a dedicated entrepreneur.

Mr Marumo noted that most entrepreneurs failed in their businesses because they used the little daily earnings and did not realise that this eventually led to the collapse of the businesses. He added that the youth should guard against such practices before they considered starting their own businesses.

He further disclosed that the culture of saving would later be an advantage should the entrepreneur plan to grow the business, adding that if there was a record of business cash flow or bank statement, finance entities in most cases would be comfortable with funding such projects.

He also said that even the business owners would be in a position to analyse their handling of money and therefore, correct their inadequacies. Mr Marumo noted that an entrepreneur who could not handle a personal account tended to fail in the business account.  

He therefore urged the participants to nurture a self discipline mentality towards money matters as well as opening business accounts in banks.

Mr Marumo discouraged youth entrepreneurs from including their friends in their businesses. “By all means avoid friends because they can cause chaos, conflicts and all sorts of misunderstandings which will eventually lead to the collapse of your business”.

Mr Marumo also pointed out that in all the failed youth businesses, including the issue of saving, friends would always have had a role in such failures. Moreover, Mr Marumo noted that being more sensitive and self disciplined in money matters was vital because a simple mistake with the finances could spell doom for a business. Ends