I inherited a failing business from my father & I am turning it around

Overview

Deborah is 24 years of age and based in Soroti. She operates a boutique and a tailoring business. She has been in this business from the time she finished her certificate course in tailoring and thereafter took over the father’s clothes business. Like many family businesses in Uganda, her father’s business began to struggle when he started weakening due to old age. This compelled Deborah to take a tailoring course so as to better support her father in his already failing business at that time. Once she graduated, the father gladly handed over the business to her to run it. Although she had acquired tailoring skills, she knew nothing about running a business more so one that was already struggling.

she says; -“I learnt about Kyusa from the church announcement during a Sunday service. Also, I heard about this from Timothy when he passed by the shop inviting me to attend the training.”

In her own words…

“I have been operating the business according to the way Dad used to buy clothes that they majorly used to take to the village market which ends up staying for long at the shop without being bought because of the purchasing choice. From the training, I learnt how to run a business, how to manage the business, how to bring in more customers (attain), how to maintain customers, and creating awareness of the business by using social media, and banners among others. Through the training, I have been able to make good purchasing decisions based on my customers, the business revenue has multiplied and also grown in stock compared to where it had been and it has benefited me a lot. The best I learnt from the training was; knowing customers‘ profiles and needs, and managing customer expectations. So far, I have registered quite a big number of new customers coming in since I implemented the knowledge from the training. I also got some suppliers to supply material which has increased my capital.“

Conclusion

Many family businesses in Ugandan never stand the test of time. Many die when the proprietor of the business dies or gets too old to run the business. Empowering youth like Deborah who is taking on failing family businesses strengthens the culture of building strong generational family businesses. This begins with equipping the leaders so they can keep passing on what they have learnt to future business managers. We create a ripple effect of youth empowering fellow youth to thrive in business.