Meditations of an African Woman

I haven’t written a note in a while, as you guys know I’ve been a bit busy building empires, leading revolutions and all that jazz… (“,)

But I was asked by a Facebook friend to write about ‘the biggest lessons learned from setting up your new venture.’ And I thought, this has been the most intense, focused, joyous, stressful and confidence boosting period of my life, I’ve learnt bag loads in weeks and months and I have to share that with you guys. So share I am.

In the course of setting up Songhai Creative you would think the biggest lessons I’ve learnt so far would be business ones, such as:

• Keep costs down, and stay focused on sales & marketing.
• Do not grab every opportunity to make a sale that comes your way, if you cannot handle a job it is better to let it go than have a dissatisfied customer (statistics show a dissatisfied customer is more likely to talk about their experiences than a happy one. So one unhappy customer can do more damage than three happy ones may be able to fix).
• Be clear on what your sales and marketing strategy is. Monitor the steps in your sales pipeline and examine any regular point you seem to loose customers – you might need to change procedure/strategy. Measure the ROI on different sales channels.
• It is vital to establish clear-cut, formalised relationships with your partners and team members, where individual responsibilities and requirements are clearly understood.
• Do not give away parts of your business for the sake of incorporating friends, being fun-loving and/or ‘nice’. People should match your skills/resource needs before you engage them in the business. And remember, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
• Trust is important. Nothing aids trust more than uncompromising honesty and openness … supported by written and signed agreements.
• Opportunity is faster than the Road Runner. You have to act quick, lose sleep, (even empty your bank account sometimes) to catch hold of her. And when you do, loose yourself in the moment and make it count.
• Nothing is more important in achieving business success than having a vision. Your vision is the glue that will hold you together when things get really hard and low.

You might have thought these would be my biggest lessons, but you’d be wrong.

My greatest lessons, have been those of the heart, those of character:

• The motivation to slave over your work comes easier when it’s work you love. Be passionate about your products/services, about the people you have to work with, the customers you have to serve. Life will get real hard, real fast otherwise.
• Finding a great team, with complementary skills sets can mean achieving more, faster with a great business idea. But young or old, personality clashes will bring a good team crashing down faster than you can dial 911 (speaking from experience on that one!) Have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and systems for reporting and decision-making, on paper before you begin. Most of all choose partners wisely, they should be mature, responsible, and have reasonably functional personal lives.
• Emotional maturity is a key requirement for success regardless of the direction of your working life. Life comes with ups and downs, and frankly, usually more downs than ups! So you can’t be blown over every time a down hits. Even if it’s a fucking tornado. The trick – and this is one you’ll thank me for for a while – is to focus on improving your response times. Simply cut down on how long you spend off track when an obstacle knocks you off course, and soon you’ll impress yourself. Don’t focus on NOT wanting things to happen that will distract you - that will only attract them faster into your experience. You want to take strength from knowing no matter WHAT the heck happens, no matter how bad it gets, YOU [insert full name] from [insert home town] as long as you are living, WILL ARRIVE at your divine destination, and right on time too. Nothing shaking.
• Business by its very nature involves and requires competition. The bigger the market you wish to compete successfully in, the more necessary a well thought out competitive strategy becomes. Here’s the rub. Competitiveness in a personal context is a negative thing, whereas in a business context, competitiveness is key for survival. The problem comes when, as most do, one decides to enter a business relationship with friends or family. Can you sack your brother if his performance is undermining the competitive position of your shared business? Can you remove a founding member whose contribution was key to the creation of a now thriving business, because his vision for the company’s future clashes with yours? Could you do it if s/he was your best friend?

Depending on your business, the economic climate, and your financial goals, you may or may not have to develop a very strong stomach for being, and being seen as, The Bad Guy. But my advice – for most businesses, every economic climate (obviously more so during a downturn), and anyone who would like to avoid bankruptcy – develop an iron strong stomach for competition. You will have to face it, whether politely, stoically, loudly, firmly, aggressively, slyly, or even hesitantly … you will have to face it. And when the success of your business, your livelihood, perhaps the livelihood of others rests on the decisions YOU make, sitting on the fence, hedging your bets or avoiding confrontation is Just Not Good Enough.


Those are my greatest lessons thus far along this journey. Thank you for praying for me and rooting for me. My success is yours, as much as yours is mine. Let us rise above mere survival and live the best lives that we can envision for ourselves, individually and as a collective.


My prayers are with you,

Davinia Douglas,
Managing Director
Songhai Creative (www.Songhai-Creative.com)