In 2008, I took a decision to drop out of university. At the time I was enrolled with University of the North West famously known as UNIBO. I will tell you next time why I dropped out, today is about #business. In 2009, I registered with Tshwane University of Technology where I studied a diploma In Web Applications and Development & no I didn’t drop out I graduated 🎓
My family used to send me R 500 per month, with this amount I had to pay rent R350 and the remaining R 150 was for food, cosmetics and everything else I needed. You probably wondering what you can buy with R150 these days, it’s not enough to buy much but I had to make it work.
One Friday, after class as I was walking to my room, a guy driving a grey MEGANE stopped me and offered to take me out for dinner, it was around 5:30 pm at the time, I quickly thought of what I had in my grocery cardboard and it was half white bread 🥪 , morvite, potatoes 🥔 , and minestrone soup. Can you guess what I did? Well, I went to the date and ordered steak and chips. I cleaned the plate knowing that eish back in my room there’s no much food, fast forward, he gave me R100; I was so excited, thinking of what I can do with it. Monday, I’m in class with my friend, lunch time I tell him all about the Friday date. He asked me this “Do you know this person? What’s his intention?” it didn’t matter at the time; we bought “KOTA’s” with that money. Only later I wondered? So next time this guy will give me R200, then I can be able to buy myself a pair of jeans 👖 at Mr. Price and more stuff I needed. Mmmh could this work? What will he want in return? Is it worth it? Question after Question.
I remembered that I dropped out, my old friends have graduated and I am still working on my diploma, in our language we used to say #REJA COURSE “meaning, we working towards passing”
I started doing promotions, sold Avon products, with the commission I made I would buy myself cosmetics from Avon and have few rands to buy bread and 6 dozen of eggs. In the library, I would put the Avon plastic in front of me and leave my card for people to contact me later, lunchtime or breaks I got in between, I’d knock at every resident in campus and sell the products. Some days were good, some bad but I kept working on it and finding strategies to make people buy.
I became a sales representative and started earning R 1000 per month when I reach my targets. If I can manage to be a student and sales lady at the same time, what could stop me from doing business? NOTHING AT ALL! There you have it, Nthabi Mokgosi started somewhere and she’s going far.
I am the brains behind iLDESIGNS, Entrepreneur Puzzle & Realtalkwithnthabi Foundation
ooooh by the way you are not worth a plate of steak 🥩 and chips 🍟
You deserve the best & that starts by knowing your worth.
www.ildesigns.co.za
www.entrepreneurpuzzle.co.za
www.realtalkwithnthabi.com
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Written by : RealTalkWithNthabi
