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By Claire Nombika, Founder and MD of Lusapho Professional Services

Female entrepreneurship in South Africa is growing, as the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (MIWE) shows. According to this list, SA is ranked second after Botswana in Africa, when it comes to the proportion of women-owned businesses and formal support available to female entrepreneurs.

But while the numbers may be increasing, they are still low. Just 41% of South African women are described as economically active, and according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), early-stage entrepreneurial activity for South African women is poor, at 16%.

Starting a business in a difficult economic climate is challenging, and for women, there are often additional burdens as they have to keep households going while earning less than their male counterparts in the same job.

Starting a business in a country that is consistently ranked among the most unequal in the world takes a certain amount of courage. It also requires a healthy dose of business acumen, industry experience, funding, personal support, vision, and perseverance. But perhaps the one element that is needed above all is confidence.

Taking my own experience as an example, it was only after enrolling in a business programme that I finally believed that I would be able to start my own business. Even though it had been a lifelong dream, something had held me back until then: self-doubt.

I’d enrolled to further my business and financial expertise, but it was the personal development and leadership journey it took me on that really opened my eyes to a whole new world of spiritual and psychological benefits and gave me the impetus not only to start my business but to keep going when times were hard.

I had always thought of myself as confident before, but this was real confidence, coming from an understanding of who I was and what I could really do, which areas I could actually work on and improve, and where I needed to look to others for support. It was life-changing, so much so that I am still studying at the school because I just keep on learning more about myself and my leadership style, which is hugely beneficial for how I run my business.

As the Dean of Henley Business School Africa, Jon Foster-Pedley says, “Confidence is vital in business, and it can only be attained through actually successfully overcoming challenges and becoming honestly familiar with your strengths and weaknesses, not just by hearing words of encouragement.”

Real confidence gives us the ability to counteract self-doubt, which researchers have found to be a major force affecting women professionally. An article published by Harvard Business Review based on studies at two leading US universities shows that self-doubt can be a paralysing factor that affects women more than men.

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This links to another survey that shows that 98% of female employees and business owners struggled with self-doubt, compared to 85% of male employees. Interestingly, men react to this with over-compensating behaviour like becoming confrontational or aggressive, while women become more anxious or perfectionistic as a result.

Best-selling author and professor Brené Brown says, “Fear is not the greatest barrier to daring leadership. The biggest barrier to daring leadership is our armour – how we self-protect when we’re in fear, uncertainty, and discomfort.”

One solution for dealing with self-doubt is to practise building courage. American researchers who looked at how some high-achieving women managed to achieve their successes identified that by building courage, these female leaders were able to negate their self-doubt. Some experts claim that courage is almost like a muscle that can be strengthened by starting with small acts – so if you want to start your own business, one small act of courage would be to register the name of your business, for instance. Or discuss ideas for funding for a friend. This will encourage you to think bigger and be bolder.

And to succeed, you need to be both realistic and bold. I started my business right after the pandemic, using the family’s life savings. There was no salary for me for the first few months, and as the money started coming in, this had to be saved for business cash flow.

My business is also in the traditionally white and male-dominated world of mining. A 2021 PWC report revealed that only 13% of executive directors in the mining sector were women, and the number of black women is even lower. This creates challenges of its own. In one incident, a potential client who happened to be white and male told me to my face that he would not work with a black woman.

There were other challenges as well. I looked for financial assistance, and while potential investors showed up, they wanted a majority shareholding in my company.  Yet none of these incidents threw me. I had confidence in myself and my business, so I kept moving forward, and I have opened a branch in the UK!

While the rate of failure for small to medium businesses in South Africa is high – between 70 and 80% – it is possible to show our women and especially our younger women and girls that you can succeed in any industry in South Africa and to run your own business. There are many resources and support structures out there to help and assist, but you have to start by believing in yourself.

 Claire Nombika, Founder and MD of Lusapho Professional Services

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