Tariro Makina: Billing per hour doesn’t work in Africa
Virtual reality is the world we’re living in. Tariro Makina knows this, that’s why she set up Twenty47 Virtual Assistant, a business that provides social media strategy and email management, among other services to clients. SLA contributor Glenda Makumbe caught up with Tariro in Harare, where they talked about starting a business in Zimbabwe while remaining grounded, the challenges of charging by the hour in Africa and the perks of being a virtual assistant. Tari tell me a little bit about yourself and Twenty47 Virtual Assistant. I am a 30 year old IT geek who is passionate about helping small business owners manage their businesses better. Twenty47 VA had always been an idea in my head until the end of 2013 when I actually gave birth to it. I had fallen out of love with my job and I did not want it anymore. So I just woke up one day, wrote a business plan and registered the business in early 2014. Soon after, I quit my job. I wanted more and I wanted to build on my passion. Currently, most of my clients are based here in Zimbabwe but I also have clients in South Africa, Zambia and the US. My main clients are in the services industry – forming a mix that is spread across various sectors. These include business consultants, event organisers, educators, technology and logistics companies and non-profit organisations. Why Twenty47 Virtual Assistant as a name I chose the name Twenty47 Virtual Assistant because I had a vision to create a global business that served clients in all time zones. I have no problem working evenings (sometimes) so it makes it easier for me to accommodate clients in different countries around the world. However, this has often been construed to mean I am available for every client 24 hours a day and 7 days a week **sighs** this is why you should be careful when choosing a name. What does your business entail? Twenty47 Virtual Assistant started as a one woman business and had been until 2015 when I was joined by one other person. I am involved in the general management of a client’s business online and this is usually the little things like administrative tasks that are considered not entirely important, brand awareness, customer service through various marketing and client engagement channels. Many small businesses shun investing in these areas as they are afraid it may be wasting money, time or both. Yet, they can have a huge impact on the success or failure of a business. I also take care of certain functions of a business or project for those focused business owners or professionals who understand that they cannot do it all by themselves and wish to take advantage of delegation. This way they have an opportunity to focus on what they do best whilst entrusting me to do the rest. I especially specialise in social media strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring and reporting. I do email management as well. Keeping up-to-date with the current industry trends and information plays a major role in social media so as to stay relevant to your audience. This requires a lot of research as well. So I do not have a structure of how a typical day in the life of a VA would look like, but, in a nutshell, it involves planning, lots of it, and staying on top of things. Is there anything in your educational background that helps you in managing your business? I have a Computer Science degree from Midlands State University here in Zimbabwe and that has been a great foundation for me. I have had to learn new things on the job like web and graphic design as my previous roles had nothing to do with design. I found there was a demand for this kind of work and it has helped increase my service offering. How have people received this type of business in Zimbabwe? Selling the idea of what I do to people is not hard, it’s the billing part that was initially hard. So I found that people received the idea of having virtual assistance as something really useful. I came with my approach of billing per hour based on research I had done in other markets. Little did I know that some approaches don’t work in Africa! And I say this with much respect for the continent – one size does not fit all. Because some clients were not time conscious, I still billed them for my time that they would have wasted. This would sometimes anger some clients and it was one of the things that would have made me give up on my business. The moment I changed approaches – put up value proposition packages – things improved. A value proposition package is in a sense packaging my services such that the benefits are clear. For each benefit I present, there is an associated value based on comparable market elements. A prospect can therefore be able to evaluate whether the value proposed versus the cost is something they would be interested in investing into. Many find it easier and clear to make that investment decision compared to when you just say “My services are $20 an hour”. This was a learning curve for me as I learnt that you have to be flexible in business, understand your market and model your business approaches to suit the environment you are in if need be. How do you keep fun in your business? If you spend time with me you are going to laugh. The nature of my work requires me to know my clients’ true personalities. I have to show up and be as authentic and original, as I require them to be. Why did you decide to stay in Zimbabwe? I have faith in the continent and in Zimbabwe. Whilst everyone is looking for a chance to run away, I want to stay and make my business work here. If I can make a business successful in