As we inch closer to October, and getting everything released. Life seems to be moving at record speed each week.
And as Friday morning arrived, which is when I normally start writing these newsletters, I had a blank canvas with nothing written.
And still the same Saturday lunchtime.
So although I don’t have a massive financial deep dive for you today, I still wanted to touch base and tell you a story.
I was asked for my opinion this week on the unemployment in South Africa, and how it would feel like to be a young graduate in SA right now.
And although the landscape is the worst it’s ever been locally and abroad, I’ve been a distressed graduate who sent out hundreds of CVs and made several applications and got nowhere. But, I also wanted to provide some hope.
When I graduated in the UK in 2010, it was a tough time to be a finance graduate off the back of the global financial crisis, and even more so as a foreigner.
After 2 years of trying and failing I moved back to Johannesburg to try and get on the corporate ladder in SA, and it wasn’t easy here too.
So I applied for a sales job in Woodmead, and after two days, they hadn’t gotten back to me. I called the HR team and spoke to a lady by the name of Thandeka, who she said “don’t worry, we have a 72-hour turnaround time. We’ll get back to you.”
After 72 hours, nobody got back to me, so I called again, and Thandeka says, “you again? Ok what’s your name? Mooonia? Numa? Muma?”
Spell it for me please!
She scrolls her emails, looking for my application and eventually says, “Ok I got it. We’ll get back to you.”
Two days after that, she still hadn’t got back to me, so I called again, and she says, “You really want this job don’t you?
Come for an interview tomorrow morning.”
I borrowed my sister’s car the next day, and I stopped at the BP on Rivonia Road along the way to get a red bull and calm my nerves before heading to my interview in Woodmead.
The rest is history; I got the job and worked there for a few months whilst I looked for a job in financial services.
About a year ago I got a call from my client’s assistant in Johannesburg, and this client wanted to see me.
So I said, no worries, let’s do Teams this week, and she said, “No. He wants to see you in person.”
Now I wasn’t surprised. Given the client’s profile, he’s never liked talking or texting on the phone at all. So what more for Teams?
So I booked a flight to Johannesburg, and the day of the meeting I was told, we’ll send you location of where to meet the morning of. It may be at his office or at home.
I get sent a location that morning to meet at his house where I’ve never been before and as I made my way, I stopped at the same BP in Rivonia and bought a red bull because these meetings with this gentleman are never easy.
And I couldn’t help but remember being there 12 years earlier when I came back from Manchester, scrambling for employment, my way to interview which may not have aligned with what I ultimately wanted, but a stepping stone.
And here I was, 12 years later on my way to a high-profile showdown for exactly what I’d always wanted.
My Uber dropped me outside the residence and there was a security guy outside, well dressed, jeans and a smart shirt, with a pistol in his jeans you couldn’t miss.
I tell him my name, and who I’m there to see, and this guy is all business. Doesn’t acknowledge anything I’ve said. He grabs his mic, looks at me head to toe and calls for someone in the house to come and get me.
I’m standing there for a while, feeling a little uncomfortable at the way this guy who’s armed is looking at me, so I think let me break the ice.
“So how long you been in private security sir?” And he says:
“I’m an ex-soldier and I used to be in the military.” Now. Normally in this kind of conversation, the obvious follow up would be.
‘Oh nice, how long for?’
But to be honest, I’d heard enough, so I kept quiet and fortunately someone else who was also visibly armed came to get me.
I got into the house and waited on the patio for my client, beautiful house, amazing garden, and when he eventually came out, there was no small talk, he just sat down, looked me square in the eyes and said very calmly.
“Munya, what the **** is happening with my money?”
And you know, I should have known this was coming. There’s always a surprise with this guy, something I wasn’t expecting. I thought it was the ex-military guy outside, but nope, this was it.
Now, some back story to this, when I started working with this guy in 2018, when I first got to his office, the meeting lasted 2 minutes. I got the meeting through a cold call, pitched my services and he said yes.
When we eventually sat down, I start my long pitch introducing him to who I was and my licenses, he says, “Don’t bother my team already checked you out. We know who you are and where you live. Let’s get to business and tell me about my portfolio.
The only thing was, I didn’t come with his portfolio beforehand. I wasn’t given consent. So he signed the form and told me to come back when I was prepared and walked out.
Long story short, when we eventually met again, his portfolio was the usual stuff. Extortionate fees and low performance for decades. Nothing new. Same old South African story.
We went through a thorough exercise detailing what was wrong and what to do about it. These aren’t the exact numbers, but just so that you get an idea. He’d gotten a 2% return for 20 years with one RA and had two brokers.
One who dealt with insurance and another with investments, and I was suggesting I take over everything because diversification clearly hadn’t worked for him in 20 years.
For the sake of conversation, let’s say he had R2.4M. But if he’d gotten an 11% return over the same period, it would have been R5.7M, and R20M by 65.
But instead, he was on track for R5M.
He’s a smart guy, he understood it, he agreed to switch, and we started working together.
Anyway, so now, I’m sitting across him, and he’s just asked, “what the **** is happening with my money?” And I’m a little surprised because since that meeting in 2018, he’s averaging 12% with his retirement portfolio, plus about 18.5% with the investment money.
So, either he doesn’t know this, or he does, and it’s a test.
So, I respond and I say, “I think you’re asking the wrong guy, because that’s the question you should have asked your old broker 20 years ago, because last time I checked your portfolio, the only mistake I’ve made was not meeting you earlier.”
His poker face drops, he starts laughing, and he tells me he wants to invest more money. We had lunch, caught up, put a plan together, shook hands and I left. The Uber drove past the BP again on my way back to my hotel to get my stuff and fly back to Cape Town.
A place that has become symbolic for me because at that time I was lost, hopeful, heartbroken and hungry. I was reading the news everyday about how bad it was for graduates, but 12 years later I’d just walked out of a deal which required one meeting and handshake.
When I drove past that BP again thinking about grabbing that Red Bull on my way to see Thandeka, if you’d told me that 12 years earlier what I’d just experienced that afternoon would have been possible, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Now, a few days ago, I got a DM on Instagram and noticed the name. It was him. Private burner account with 50 followers, and he said, “I’m proud of you Munya and I love your stuff!”
With our history and how we began, it meant a lot, coming from him. Mainly because he didn’t make it easy. It’s never been easy, which is why it meant so much.
When I first met him and he chased me out the office telling me to be more prepared. Even though I was an experienced financial advisor, it was a humbling experience, and for a moment after being threatened that he had my address, I had half a mind not to go back!
But that experience, as well as the many others before that were necessary parts of my development.
Learning that following up when you’ve sent a CV isn’t enough. Accepting they’ll get back to you and they don’t, doesn’t mean rejection and being kicked out of an office because you’re not ready, isn’t the end either.
And I’m not trying to minimise the challenges that face graduates today, but what I do believe is that those who choose to face each challenge with their shoulders up and their chests out, can still win.
Even today.
