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Ideas needed more than money

Charles Ngobeni is a man constantly on the move and that has been the trend throughout his life. He is an ordained pastor, an author and a businessman, as well as a self-confessed taxi boss – a controversial position and one he seems to be handling well.

City Press met up with the former teacher who has managed to turn a lot of challenges on their heads and earned a small fortune along the way.

Born into a polygamous and religious family of thirteen siblings, in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, Ngobeni did not have a lot of options of prosperity amid the limited resources.

“At one stage, we were six at tertiary institutions and, with salaries of two teachers at home, it was not easy so we had to fend for ourselves earlier,” said Ngobeni who, among a number of qualifications, holds a Master of Business Administration from Wits Business School.

Growing up in a household in which all siblings did work around the house, Ngobeni’s initial career ambition was to be an electrical engineer. “When I grew up, my dad taught us how to use our hands very well, including carpentry, plumbing and everything else around our home. I personally electrified my father’s house with him,” he said, adding that, at the time, he did not even know anyone who was a qualified electrical engineer.

However, as life would have it, the lack of finances saw him enrolling him for a teaching diploma at the now defunct Technikon Northern Transvaal (TNT) in Soshanguve, Gauteng, after which he started his teaching career in 1984 at Risinga High School in Giyani, Limpopo.

Reminiscing on his student days at TNT, Ngobeni said that he managed to get a job at a local dry cleaner and even back then had to be creative to get it.

“I went to the owner and asked him for a job and when he said he didn’t have one for me, I asked him to let me create my own job within his business, and I did just that,” he said. He convinced the owner of the business to allow him to collect clothes from clients’ homes and wash them after hours himself when ordinary staff had knocked off, and make an income from it.

As a teacher, he always managed to initiate ground-breaking projects, including a science centre wherein he introduced electronics as a school subject, a model since adopted by government.

The same trend of initiating followed him when he relocated to Gauteng seven years later to work at Alexandra Secondary School and there again he got involved in a lot of initiatives until he called time on his 12-year teaching career, after he was overlooked for a promotion.

While a teacher in Alexandra, he started a taxi business and reckons it was only because it was an easy business to start for him at the time.

“I didn’t have to have even a cent to have a taxi business. All I needed was a pay slip and my ID,” he said, elaborating on how he bought his first taxi and sealed what was a tricky transaction after a trip to the dealership with a friend to buy spare parts.

“My friend traded in his car for R14 000 and from that he took R10 000, deposited a new kombi for me in his name and the remaining R4 000 was used as a deposit on the car he had just traded in, in order to buy it back. So we went to the garage with one car which was debt-free and returned with two which owed,” he said, pointing out that similar creative transacting has followed him in a number of businesses. He now owns eight taxis and is the chairperson of the Giyani Town Taxi Operators.

“I don’t understand what people mean when they say they don’t have money to start a business, because what we lack is creative ideas, not money,” he said.

Among the most important lessons he has learnt during his business career is the delegation of duties, and it is something that has seen him with fingers in a lot of pies.

Ngobeni owns seven Wimpy outlets, including in the busiest parts of the Joburg CBD, a number of fuel stations, a coal mining company and a cosmetics manufacturing business, among his many interests.

He said he opted not to consolidate his interests under a group because, as stand-alone businesses, they carried less risks, and ease of transacting.

“If it’s bundled, in most cases you just break even because they cross-subsidise each other,” he said, adding that the structure also allows for convenience when partnering and in joint ventures.

Speaking on his parallel life as a pastor, Ngobeni is blunt.

“In every s***ty situation, there’s manure and you must use that manure to grow out of it,” he said, adding that he learnt to seek spiritual guidance after burying himself in work and studies did not solve his problems.

After attending the Rhema Bible School and ordination in 2010, he became a travelling minister and that, together with his television programme on religious channel TBN, called Marketplace with Charles Ngobeni, has made his a strong voice on navigating religion and business issues.

“The love of money, not money, is the root of all evil. Most people must understand that,” he said.

With the wealth of diverse experience gained, he put pen to paper and authored Footprints Of A Legend as well as his latest book, Unlocking The Success Code.

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