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Hope for new business
JEAN LOWRIE-CHIN
Monday, February 23, 2009
At the Kingston Money Expo last Thursday, we saw the brave and smiling faces showing little of the apprehension they must be feeling as the BOJ governor and the minister of finance play bat-and-ball with our emotions.
JEAN LOWRIE-CHIN
The governor defends his high-yield bonds, explaining that it is the only way to attract investors and the minister of finance recites his mantra of "low interest rate". We lowly lay people wish that these maestros of the economy were singing in greater harmony.
In spite of our challenges, a friend visiting from Florida, admittedly before the signing of the stimulus bill, said she was seeing more opportunities here than there. I was encouraged by a conversation with Deanna McFarlane and Bob Kerr of the Private Sector Development Programme (PSDP)/Jamaica Trade and Invest (JTI). Folks who have received redundancy packages may be happy to know that if they have a good business idea, they could get a professionally done business plan from PSDP for the subsidised cost of $5,000.
Deanna, who is PSDP corporate finance manager, suggests getting into niche markets such as natural foods and natural remedies. She said we should look at all the products we import and work on locally produced substitutes. Bob says that as corporate finance broker he helps to source funding. Over 500 small business enterprises (SMEs) have been nurtured by the PDSP which has arranged a total of over $300 million in loans for various projects.
The PSDP excutives say Jamaican entrepreneurs are not napping. In fact, PSDP is handling between 30 and 40 clients at a time. They advise interested persons to get all their papers together, including valuations on properties to be used as collateral, so that they can assist in a timely manner.
Walking through the Money Expo, I chatted with Venice Chin-See Parchment at BPM Financial, Dennis Hickey at Money Masters and the enthusiastic trio of Anne Marie Orgill, Doreen Francis and Jerome Francis at GSB Credit Union. Venice and Dennis were both optimistic about the year ahead and had good reports on their companies' growth in 2008. GSB Credit Union representatives said they had been advising their clients to brace themselves by conserving on spending.
In an interesting account of the history of credit unions produced by the Marketing and Communications Department of the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League, we learn about the start of the credit union movement in Jamaica. In 1941, Father John Peter Sullivan, an American Jesuit priest and teacher at St George's College, encouraged the Catholic Young Men's Sodality movement to pool together their resources "totalling US$1.87 giving birth to Jamaica's first credit union, the Sodality Credit Union. This credit union operated under the motto, "Not for charity, not for profit but for service". The late Archbishop Samuel Carter and our dear George Carter were members of that group.
For decades before (and since), Jamaicans have been forming "partner" schemes and the credit union was a formalisation of this custom. I have no doubt that Jamaica's credit union movement has played a huge role in seeing the upward mobility of some of our humblest Jamaicans. Even during the unstable 90s, our credit unions were unscathed as they stuck to their modest goal of serving need, not succumbing to greed. Clearly, there is a lesson here.
Speaking of lessons, I have learnt many in our own small business. My friend Gerry McDaniel invited me to address his "Entrepreneurial Skills in the Communication Industry" class at CARIMAC last week. It is always energising to be with our keen, expectant students. I shared with them the humbling episode nearly 20 years ago, when my sister Frances Beard, an organisational development expert, accepted my invitation to conduct a retreat for our team. Her research, through anonymous questionnaires with team members, threw up an unflattering opinion of my leadership style. It was a bitter pill, but I had to swallow it and put in the systems for learning, sharing and proper assessments, that have helped us to achieve our recent 30th anniversary milestone.
And so last week, I reminded the entrepreneurial hopefuls at CARIMAC that the five qualities which we need to survive in business are: professionalism, integrity, knowledge, diligence and accountability.
There is poetry in enterprise, I promised them. For what could be more creative than to use one's talents and knowledge to build an organisation that will provide a livelihood for others? I also mentioned that it was through voluntary work that some of our clients appreciated our capabilities. I advised them that if they could not find immediate employment, they should not sit idly at home, but volunteer, contributing to the development of self and community.
We also discussed the importance of supporting each other and respecting our competitors in these trying times. Our political culture has ingrained in us this self-defeating belief that "I can only succeed if you fail". It is simply not so. The more winners we have, the more prosperity we generate - we should be celebrating, not denigrating the achievements of others.
Our old-time "partner' saving scheme taught us a valuable lesson - economic strength comes out of unity and trustworthiness. PSDP /JTI and various private and community groups are there to assist us. With their support and "a righteous wind at our back", we can weather this economic storm.
lowriechin@aim.com
www.lowrie-chin.blogspot.com
JEAN LOWRIE-CHIN
Monday, February 23, 2009
At the Kingston Money Expo last Thursday, we saw the brave and smiling faces showing little of the apprehension they must be feeling as the BOJ governor and the minister of finance play bat-and-ball with our emotions.
JEAN LOWRIE-CHIN
The governor defends his high-yield bonds, explaining that it is the only way to attract investors and the minister of finance recites his mantra of "low interest rate". We lowly lay people wish that these maestros of the economy were singing in greater harmony.
In spite of our challenges, a friend visiting from Florida, admittedly before the signing of the stimulus bill, said she was seeing more opportunities here than there. I was encouraged by a conversation with Deanna McFarlane and Bob Kerr of the Private Sector Development Programme (PSDP)/Jamaica Trade and Invest (JTI). Folks who have received redundancy packages may be happy to know that if they have a good business idea, they could get a professionally done business plan from PSDP for the subsidised cost of $5,000.
Deanna, who is PSDP corporate finance manager, suggests getting into niche markets such as natural foods and natural remedies. She said we should look at all the products we import and work on locally produced substitutes. Bob says that as corporate finance broker he helps to source funding. Over 500 small business enterprises (SMEs) have been nurtured by the PDSP which has arranged a total of over $300 million in loans for various projects.
The PSDP excutives say Jamaican entrepreneurs are not napping. In fact, PSDP is handling between 30 and 40 clients at a time. They advise interested persons to get all their papers together, including valuations on properties to be used as collateral, so that they can assist in a timely manner.
Walking through the Money Expo, I chatted with Venice Chin-See Parchment at BPM Financial, Dennis Hickey at Money Masters and the enthusiastic trio of Anne Marie Orgill, Doreen Francis and Jerome Francis at GSB Credit Union. Venice and Dennis were both optimistic about the year ahead and had good reports on their companies' growth in 2008. GSB Credit Union representatives said they had been advising their clients to brace themselves by conserving on spending.
In an interesting account of the history of credit unions produced by the Marketing and Communications Department of the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League, we learn about the start of the credit union movement in Jamaica. In 1941, Father John Peter Sullivan, an American Jesuit priest and teacher at St George's College, encouraged the Catholic Young Men's Sodality movement to pool together their resources "totalling US$1.87 giving birth to Jamaica's first credit union, the Sodality Credit Union. This credit union operated under the motto, "Not for charity, not for profit but for service". The late Archbishop Samuel Carter and our dear George Carter were members of that group.
For decades before (and since), Jamaicans have been forming "partner" schemes and the credit union was a formalisation of this custom. I have no doubt that Jamaica's credit union movement has played a huge role in seeing the upward mobility of some of our humblest Jamaicans. Even during the unstable 90s, our credit unions were unscathed as they stuck to their modest goal of serving need, not succumbing to greed. Clearly, there is a lesson here.
Speaking of lessons, I have learnt many in our own small business. My friend Gerry McDaniel invited me to address his "Entrepreneurial Skills in the Communication Industry" class at CARIMAC last week. It is always energising to be with our keen, expectant students. I shared with them the humbling episode nearly 20 years ago, when my sister Frances Beard, an organisational development expert, accepted my invitation to conduct a retreat for our team. Her research, through anonymous questionnaires with team members, threw up an unflattering opinion of my leadership style. It was a bitter pill, but I had to swallow it and put in the systems for learning, sharing and proper assessments, that have helped us to achieve our recent 30th anniversary milestone.
And so last week, I reminded the entrepreneurial hopefuls at CARIMAC that the five qualities which we need to survive in business are: professionalism, integrity, knowledge, diligence and accountability.
There is poetry in enterprise, I promised them. For what could be more creative than to use one's talents and knowledge to build an organisation that will provide a livelihood for others? I also mentioned that it was through voluntary work that some of our clients appreciated our capabilities. I advised them that if they could not find immediate employment, they should not sit idly at home, but volunteer, contributing to the development of self and community.
We also discussed the importance of supporting each other and respecting our competitors in these trying times. Our political culture has ingrained in us this self-defeating belief that "I can only succeed if you fail". It is simply not so. The more winners we have, the more prosperity we generate - we should be celebrating, not denigrating the achievements of others.
Our old-time "partner' saving scheme taught us a valuable lesson - economic strength comes out of unity and trustworthiness. PSDP /JTI and various private and community groups are there to assist us. With their support and "a righteous wind at our back", we can weather this economic storm.
lowriechin@aim.com
www.lowrie-chin.blogspot.com