Imagine flowers, tea, pretty dresses, bling, foot massage and image transformation all in one place for your convenience!
That’s what women of the barracks were all about this past weekend, during this year’s annual High Tea event held at the SSKB Officer’s Mess.
The Botswana Defence Force Women’s Club (BDFWC)’s High Tea event for this year was themed “Developing a personal brand” and saw the likes of Nomahlubi Simamane, a South African entrepreneur and CEO of Zanusi Brand Solutions, deliberating during the day, Yarona FM’s Tumie Ramsden as Director of Ceremonies and a lump sum of sponsorship from South Africa Tourism
Nothando Mathe, the Country manager, was also in attendance.
Giving an address on personal branding, Simamane told the BDFWC members that high profiled people aren’t the only ones who need personal branding and advised that, for the women to achieve their own brand, they have to change how they do things and be expert in something.
She highlighted that the assembled women had already been developing their own brands through how they carried themselves and how they lived their lives.
Simamane is founding member of Zanusi Brand Solutions and was named Top Businesswoman of the Year at the 2009 National Business Awards.
The accolade was in recognition of her leadership, which has seen Zanusi Brand Solutions (established in 2001 and is a 100 percent- black-owned enterprise) register an annual compounded average revenue growth in excess of 30 percent over the past five years.
She revealed that this was achieved through brand building strategies and activating plans for a variety of blue chip companies and state-owned entities (including the likes of the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), Liberty Life Properties, the Film and Publication Board, and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund).
The dynamic business woman and renowned branding guru had the audience eating from the palm of her hand as she engaged them in branding talk and cracked jokes throughout her presentation.
She effectively used personal experience from her humble beginnings with her now budding business, Zanusi Brand Solutions, to instill confidence and vision among the army wives and members present.
In her closing remarks, Nothando Mathe, of South Africa Tourism, noted that South Africa is willing to invest a lot in Botswana as they have realized Botswana to be a big player in the global market.
She told The Telegraph during an exclusive interview that Batswana have been vacationing in South Africa and spending in core markets in South Africa for minus or plus 10 years.
She said that during the World Cup alone, VISA records showed that Botswana was among the top 15 spenders in the world.
Mathe said that being part of the high tea event was a privileged opportunity for SA Tourism as it was another step in growing partnerships in Botswana.
“The event was organized by Batswana and is proudly Botswana,” said Mathe. “The approach was inclusive and it was a way of rethinking strategy.”
She also said she would “love to see growth”, where SA Tourism and BDFWC were concerned.
Asked if they could consider sponsoring any organizations in Botswana, Mathe said they were open to other initiatives.
SA Tourism sponsored the event to the tune of about P20 000.
Other sponsors for the event included Five Roses and Woolworths.
