You must do business with them while small
By Victor Angula
One of the most disappointing things in the Namibian economy is the unwillingness of big companies to do business with small businesses.
Everyone keeps saying that young people must not be job seekers but be job creators. Yet when young people start their own businesses nobody wants to do business with them.
This attitude must change. It’s nonsensical to say you will have to wait for small businesses to grow before you can do business with them.
Of course, doing business is not a charitable activity; it’s a law of business that you do business where you expect value in return. You put a dollar where you expect to get two dollars in return.
But there is a need for us to think long term. No business can grow if nobody has done business with it. Small businesses will not grow if nobody is doing business with them.
It is for you to do business with them while they are small and struggling, so that they may get up on a strong footing. Small businesses will grow the economy if they are growing. The benefits which will come out after they have grown are immense.
Thus this is a clarion call to all big businesses which are not doing anything to support small entrepreneurs.
I will not accept the nonsense of saying you want to see them grow first before you may do business with them.
Do business with them first, and then come back months later and say you have done business with so and so but they have failed to grow, so that you can now stop doing business with them because you are just wasting your time and your money.
That is what we must hear.
People must be given the chance to prove themselves.
