So, I got to spend the whole Monday (6th March) morning in Johannesburg and Pretoria with one of South Africa’s dynamic sales, logistics and marketing company’s founder and executive head Trevor Mumba or as his over 70, 000 followers (on twitter) call him, the “Self Styled King” (@selfstyledking) and boy oh wasn’t it an enlightening experience.
Trevor is a Zambian national who came to South Africa fifteen years ago and established what is now known as one of the ‘go to’ logistics companies that serves large corporates and individuals from Zambia to South Africa and beyond.
During our candid four-hour, business founder to business founder conversation whilst driving and chatting “car-pool-karaoke” style, the unapologetic executive shared with me a number of insights into what it has taken for him to build a business from the ground up.
The road to creating what is now known as a respected and trusted logistics brand did not come easy. But Trevor was open and honest (which is a rare trait he admits about some business founders in our region) about some of the aspects of his personality and business acumen that has allowed him to be so successful.
“It’s all about trust Mwelwa” he repeated several times during our drive. The trust factor has allowed him to build his business to where it is today and has enabled him open a number of other outfits that also include a digital Radio Station aptly named Rovert Radio.
Having being born in Zambia, he knew at early age that his dreams needed the environment that would allow them to flourish. Making the decision to leave Zambia to purse those dreams was an inevitable decision as within 3 years since his departure he created “Trevor spelt backwards” – ROVERT Marketing.
The company is a sales and marketing company at heart which is something he is very passionate about. However, what many people don’t see is that it’s a solutions-based company.
Trevor has been able to carefully select an inspiring group of young people whom even before recruitment had bought into the vision and mission of the company. “The success of my company has been because of the people I work with. Carefully selecting them is very important”.
Each of his team members have bought into his “can be done” doctrine. He believes it is the responsibility of his team to ensure they find the best solution for the customer without the hectic details that usually surrounds the logistics business.
Achieving buy in of his employees has required him to be a caring leader. His “Papa Bear” approach to leadership means that from the time they are recruited, they have a business leader who is concerned about their wellbeing from day one. He uses this to develop the psychological key performance indicators with his staffers that has ensured that even the Labor office of South Africa has no single record of complaint by current and former employees.
“I believe that would the right attitude to the job, having a student mentality that ensures you are continuously learning and the hustler mentality is what it takes to work for Rovert!”.
Trevor agreed to feature on Financial Insights new Television Show on his next trip to Zambia. This will be explosive.
