Business is big business. Read that again. While many people easily understand the magnitude of business to customer (B2C) businesses, business to business (B2B) business is often side-lined. However, it has many merits of its own. Today we talk to a B2B business called New Dimentions Adventures which offers various services for businesses that include conferencing, team building and training. I caught with Lindiwe Chipaike who is the founder and works in a hands-on role as a team-building facilitator.
What does your business do?
New Dimentions Adventures is a company that specialises in offering Team Building Services, Conferencing facilities, Team Building Venues as well as Team Building Packages. We use different outdoor and indoor activities that work as an aid to Team Building eg Rock Climbing, Abseiling, Hiking, Raft Building, Dynamic Activities etc. These activities are metaphors that represent day to day life back at the office or home. The challenges that are faced daily in the office are represented by these activities, so after each activity, we hold a debrief session that brings out the learning points from the participants. The participants have time to talk about the challenges they encounter and also come up with solutions.
Our packages are designed to help with interpersonal relations, leadership development, effective communication, working together, conflict resolution etc, these packages are also designed for companies, schools, church groups, soccer teams, NGOs and so on.
How big is New Dimentions Adventures?
We have a team of 4 permanent team building facilitators and the rest we outsource depending on the numbers that we will be working with. We have worked with quite a number of both schools and companies.
How long have you been operating and how is the environment?
We opened our doors on the 2nd of January 2020 with no capital, a friend who believed in the vision and the dream gave us office space in his offices and we started operating from there. At that time Lindiwe Chipaike the New Dimentions founder was doing everything on her own from door to door marketing to social media. She managed to get 3 schools between the period of the end of January to March, worked with those schools training their prefects in Leadership and they were impressed by the service, professionalism and passion, then Covid 19 happened, which was a huge blow on NDA and myself, almost had a heart attack(had heart palpitations all the time, literally. When lockdown started it felt like I had worked for nothing and almost gave up. After lockdown, I started marketing, this time it was more challenging as most of us were paranoid about covid 19, so it required aggressive marketing.
Why did you start this business?
The Team Building sector in Zimbabwe is dominated by men, I wanted women to know and understand that women can do what men can.
I want to create employment for those people who are truly passionate about Team Building, who are passionate about the outdoors and I also want to help someone be the best they can be through the use of team-building activities.
How receptive have Zimbabweans been to your business?
They have been quite receptive, even outside Zimbabwe through social media marketing; we have received a few inquiries.
Challenges you’ve faced and face in running and growing your business thus far?
Like every other organisation that is starting we faced doubt, we faced people who don’t believe in us, they want people or organisations that have a 5-year track record or more, Big organisations do not want to take a risk on small organisations like us.
Zimbabwean businesses and organisations are tackling many problems on different fronts. How does your business help?
New Dimentions Adventures helps businesses and organisations by bringing business and people together. We help by increasing employee motivation, nurturing successful company culture e.g when a group of employees complete a team-building activity, it creates momentum, it increases their confidence, they feel appreciated and it shows them that the organisation is willing to invest in its employees. After every team-building, there is increased collaboration, improved productivity, positive reinforcement, improved communication and a lot more.
Any words you would like me to add for others who aspire to be like you.
Write your vision down and act on it now, be consistent, pray, even if it feels like there is no progress, workup, dress up and show up every day.
What are your plans for the future of this business in 5 -10 years?
We are looking at having a proper team building facility complete with high ropes activities, orienteering, abseiling etc in the next 5 years. We want to work on activities that would move people out of their comfort zones, activities that would make people realise their true potential.
You can find out more about this exciting business and what they do on their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages.
