Jan 13, 2010 Mark Hemsworth
Mark Hemsworth was our guest speaker tonight. Mark's no stranger to our club. He was here last year informing us of his honey farming project in Zimbabwe. There are now 6000 farmers in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana farming honey. Mark worked on a management team of 4 people. Last year production was 240 tonnes of honey. Production has now spiked up to 600 tonnes.
This project is basically completed for Mark. Their next step since production is high, is infrastructure. They are wanting to connect with a NGO for funds for infrastructure. Mark was happy to inform us the average farmer doubled their income from 40 cents/day. Continue reading to learn about his current project.
The project that Mark is busy with now is called Rent-To-Own.
Mark keeps a blog. I've copied some information from his blog because it sounds so much better in his own words. http://markhemsworth.blogspot.com/
The rent-to-own project has come quite far in the past 2 months.I wanted to take the time and explain two major steps forward.Next month I'll get into the business plans and the actual payment collection stories.
First Step - hiring an agent
I knew I wasn't going to be based in rural Zambia 365 days a year, so I needed someone to collect payments.As well, there are a thousand little bits of local knowledge that would come in useful for choosing entrepreneurs (and being politically correct) that I wouldn't manage on my own.So I spoke for hours and hours to Chiko, who is now my agent, about the perceptions people would have of rent-to-own and how we could maximize the likelihood that people will make their payments.We negotiated and he agrees that getting 15% of the asset value as a commission will work, and he only gets paid after all 115% is in the bank.
A couple key things I learned.First, was that people had to see everything as a business.In fact, similar initiatives have existed in the past and were done by the government, but they didn't repay partly because the government didn't try hard to collect, but also because people knew they could get away with it.Another big lesson was that we had to visit the local police and courts and the head chief so they all knew what was going on and how it works.This accomplished two things, first it gets us in their 'good books', and next to ensure to our entrepreneurs that the 10% they gave upfront wasn't just part of a scam where I disappear and they've lost their money.
Next Step - choosing entrepreneurs
Chiko and I decided to create a questionnaire for when we interviewed entrepreneurs.It's a funny thing when you get in the field, because if you have more than one thing to do, chances are you'll get back home and realize you forgot to accomplish part of your job.So we created this questionnaire that helps with a lot of different things.First, it's to bring out the basics of the persons business, next its to see how they think (are they entrepreneurial) and lastly, its to drive home the idea that the equipment is for rent, and that its not a loan.Rent-to-Own is not a business idea generator, we simply want to take already existing ideas and allow them to become a reality.This is another key point that I had to have clear with Chiko because its really tempting to start making suggestions which may or may not work.And if they don't work, the blame is on us for having the idea.
Follow Mark on his blog and if you have any questions or would like to be a part of this project please contact him at markhemsworth@ewb.ca
Check out Engineers Without Borders www.ewb.ca
Thank you Mark for sharing with us tonight. You should be proud of what you've accomplished. You are helping to create opportunities in areas where it seems there are few. Looking forward to catching up with you the next time you are in Canada.