By Noko Mashilo
Lydia Amuge is a seasoned business coach renowned for her expertise in empowering entrepreneurs and businesses to achieve sustainable growth. With a strong focus on practical business principles, she helps SMMEs navigate challenges by fostering strategic planning, operational efficiency and leadership development. Her approach to coaching emphasises clarity, discipline and accountability, equipping clients with the tools they need to optimise their business models and achieve long-term success.
Through workshops, one-on-one coaching and tailored business solutions, Amuge continues to inspire individuals and organisations to unlock their full potential. When asked by Vutivi News about the most critical business principle every SMME should understand to succeed, she highlighted the importance of the separation principle, which enabled businesses to grow and scale more effectively. “This principle involves allocating a percentage of business inflows to separate accounts, such as a profit account, operations account, salary account, business investment account, suppliers account and tax account,” said Amuge.
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She is also a passionpreneur, who is an entrepreneur who experiences strong positive emotions when their business activities align with their identity, speaker, author and a passion to profit coach. She further explained that implementing the separation principle allowed business owners to run profitable enterprises from the outset while facilitating strategic growth. “The specific percentage allocations can be determined by business owners based on their understanding of their operations,” said the 36-year-old business coach from Kampala, Uganda.
Amuge shared key financial management and budgeting strategies for small businesses, emphasising the need for financial discipline. “SMMEs should separate personal and business accounts, pay themselves a salary to prevent excessive withdrawals, track all business expenditures — no matter how small — invest in affordable accounting software such as QuickBooks for better record-keeping, create and implement quarterly budgets to avoid unnecessary spending, review financial plans to make informed decisions and seek professional advice from accountants or business mentors.”
Amuge, who is the founder of Delamak Group in Uganda, noted that a well-defined strategy distinguished thriving businesses from those that struggled. “Unfortunately, many small business owners view strategy as something only large corporations require, which is why few of them establish clear and comprehensive business strategies. They often focus solely on making sales,” she explained. Amuge also pointed out that one of the most common mistakes small business owners made when implementing strategies was failing to align them with their vision, mission and values. “This weakens the business’s brand identity,” she added.
She emphasised the importance of customer feedback and market research, stating that these factors not only help businesses develop products and services that resonated with clients, but also enabled them to craft stronger marketing messages that attracted the right audience. Amuge’s upcoming event, Upgrade 2025, aims to provide a solid foundation for entrepreneurs and business owners looking to grow and advance this year. Themed “Elevate Your Income, Impact and Influence”, the event will take place on 11 January at the Fairway Hotel in Kampala, Uganda.
An online option is to be also available for participants from other countries. In addition to Amuge, Francis Aremo, a sales expert from the UK, will discuss strategies for driving sales in 2025. Amuge believes the event will equip business owners and entrepreneurs with practical strategies to accelerate their growth. “Anyone feeling stuck and uncertain about how to scale their business should attend,” she said. She firmly believes that understanding core business principles enables entrepreneurs to build enterprises that stand the test of time. “These principles can be passed down to future generations of entrepreneurs,” she proudly said.
