realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

Wants and Needs

by

It is all too easy for enterprise professionals (especially the planners and strategists) to see what a comunity ‘needs’ if it is to become more enterprising.  More incubators, more managed work-spaces, more training, better supply chains and so on.

However it is much harder to establish what a community ‘wants’.  Those things that its members will choose to engage with and use.  The wants are often more psychological than material – we want hope, someone to believe in us, someone who can help to make things happen, someone we can believe in.

And as every economic development professional knows – if you give a community what you think it needs – but not what the people who live there want you are heading for trouble.

Enterprise as the Process of Becoming – From A to B

by

I spent a really enjoyable hour or two yesterday working with a group of enterprise champions from FE colleges across Yorkshire.

They had spent much of the morning talking about the usual stuff – enterprise shows, RDA projects to promote enterprise and entrepreneurship to young people etc.

In my rant I took a slightly different approach and talked about enterprise as being the process of becoming a person.

About a set of strategies and skills that help you to move from A to B, which often includes helping to establish that there is a B – there is a better life – and that they can do things to achieve it.  (it is interesting to note that many people who we consider ‘enteprising’ are actually using enterprise to stay at ‘A’).

This led me to talk about the importance of working with students in 3 areas:

  1. Reason – the logic and practice of enterprise and entrepreneurship, goal setting, planning, managing and all that good technical stuff
  2. Purpose – clarifying why – what do we want to HAVE, what are we prepared to DO in order to get it, and perhaps most importantly, what kind of person do we want to BE – and does this fit with what we are prepared to DO and what we want to HAVE.  (This ‘HAVE, DO, BE’ feels important to me – it should help us to work in more person centred ways, helping people to become what they want to be rather than manipulating them into the policy makers tick boxes).
  3. Self esteem – making sure that students really believe that they deserve better, that they can achieve more, that they can succeed – but that it is down to them – the hard work HAS to be theirs.

This approach helps us to position enterprise as close to the core purpose of FE – the education of young people.  It also helps us to broaden our focus from the nuts and bolts of enterprise (the domain of REASON) onto the more motivating domains of Purpose and Self Esteem.  And I am sure this might help us to engage more FE staff in really exploring the importance of enterprise in delivering their mission.

Management Skills in the Music Business

by

I have recently had the pleasure of working with an extremely talented vocal coach, Dane Chalfin at the Leeds College of Music.

Dane wanted to improve his effectiveness in giving feedback to his students so that he could more powerfully influence the development of their vocal talents.

In my first session I taught Dane a basic feedback model which aims to:

  1. identify the specific behaviours that need to be reinforced or avoided
  2. describe precisely the impact of these behaviours on the vocal performance, on the long term health of the voice, and on the likelihood of the student having a successful long term singing career!
  3. asks the student what they think they could do differently (assuming we are trying to minimise a behaviour) or just asking them to keep it up – if it is a behaviour that we are trying to encourage.

Unlike many managers, Dane had no problem experimenting with what I taught him, and within days was reporting wonderful results!  He especially loved the way that now students were thinking about what they could change (posture, phrasing, breathe control – so many variables!) and learning to manage their own vocal performance – rather than relying on him to diagnose the problem and prescribe a solution.  Teaching students this ability to coach themselves is the hall mark of an outstanding manager and I am sure will stand Dane and his students in great stead.

Today I got to do a follow up session with Dane watching him work with students and it was a remarkable experience.  I was able to watch Dane work with a couple of talented young vocalists helping them to improve their vocal performance significantly in a matter of minutes.  In the space of a few minutes students would present the piece they were working on.  Dale would listen, observe and then coach them into trying new approaches and styles – which initially took the students well out of their comfort zones (‘this feels wrong’, ‘its really weird’).  However by using  feedback to help the students to recognise the impact of these new habits on their vocal performance and they were soon able to recognise the benefits of the new behaviours and pledge to practice them until they become habits.

It was a real privilege to see the process unfold and great to see some management techniques being used so effectively in the music business.

Marketing Enterprise 5th December, London

by

A one day workshop looking at strategies and techniques for marketing enterprise projects.

Using both the Change Cycle of Prochaska and DiClemente and the Enterprise Coaching Model this one day workshop will help you to develop ways of marketing enterprise programmes.

The day will focus on marketing enterprise in communities with lower than usual levels of enterprise.

  • Developing Collateral (that might just work)
  • Working with Gatekeepers
  • Building Word of Mouth Strategies

Workshop costs £299 plus VAT.

Super output areas and other ‘deprived’ communities are dominated by a psychology of poverty.

  • Poverty of aspiration
  • Poverty of belief and
  • Poverty of opportunity.

Only by understanding the psychology of the groups and individuals with whom we want to work and by developing focused social marketing strategies are we likely to receive an invitation to do our work.

Marketing in poor communities is different.

It needs a different approach.

You Will Learn:

  • What is Social Marketing and Why it Matters to Enterprise Professionals
  • Developing Marketing Collateral that Might Just Work
  • Learning from Current Practice
  • Developing Market Segments that Work
  • Strangers, Prospects and Customers
  • How to Build a Word of Mouth Strategy
  • Using Gatekeepers to Reach the Market

Who Should Attend?

  • Enterprise coaches, advisers and other enterprise professionals seeking to work with ‘hard to reach’ communities
  • Marketeers and PR professionals charged with promoting enterprise services and project
  • Anyone who is seeking to ‘engage’ a community in enterprise

Segmenting the Enterprise Market

by

I am often horrified at just how poor many enterprise professionals are at segmenting the market for their services.  It is as if they believe that the ‘enterprise’ segment is already sufficiently well defined to enable them to engage efficiently and effectively.

In my experience there are great returnsto be had from spending some time in developing more effective ways of segmenting the  market. 

One of my favourites, and one of the most powerful models, segments the market place according to ‘Technical Competence’ and ‘Psychological Competence’.  Technical Competence refers to the degree to which the client has the technical skills that they need to develop their enterprise idea.  Psychological Competence refers to the degree of commitment, motivation, self confidence and self belief of the client.

In this segmentation clients may have a high or low degree of Technical Competence and a high or low degree of Psychological Competence.  This gives us four different market segments for our services:

  1. Low Technical Competence – Low Psychological Competence – Lets call this Type E1
  2. Low Technical Competence – High Psychological Competence – Lets call this Type E2
  3. High Technical Competence – Low Psychological Competence – Lets call this Type E3
  4. High Technical Competence – High Psychological Competence – Lets call this Type E4

The E1 client lacks both the psychological and the technical skills to realise their enterprise ideas.   Engaging E1 clients takes care and patience as it can be hard for them to take the risk of trying to make progress.  They need a lot of support with the technical aspects of developing their enterprise ideas and the work needs to be broken down into achievable steps.

The E2 client may be madly enthusiastic and quick to act – but lacking technical skills are prone to making all sorts of mistakes.  They need lots of technical assistance and a lot of emotional support too if the mistakes are not to undermine their commitment and motivation transforming them into an E1 client.  The E2 client may have been motivated to consider enterprise through clever marketing (my guess is that Enterprise Week will have flushed out a good few E2ers), they love the ‘Dragons Den’ type competitions. E2 clients require a lot of careful support over a long time period if they are to succeed.  They are likely to require frequent (if short) meetings with enterprise professionalsto keep them on track and to support them while they go on a very steep and sometimes challenging learning curve.  Their ideal enterprise professional will have both good technical skills and a good grasp of human growth psychology and its application.

The E3 client is a frequently overlooked market segment. They have good technical skills in enterprise – but they are not particularly motivated or committed. They may have been in business for decades, having started off as E2 or even E4, but never making much money in return for hours of hard work they no longer believe that enterprise is going to help them realise their dreams.  It has become just another piece of drudgery.  These clients are everywhere – but they don’t respond well to the ‘Have you got a brilliant business idea’ or ‘Dragon’s Den’ type marketing stunts so beloved of enterprise organisations and policy makers.  I believe this market segment could make a significant contribution to economic development in most communities – if only we could find a way to engage them and help them to get back in touch with their inspiration.  Community based enterprise projects that build a reputation over a number of years can start to engagethis kind of E3 client and produce remarkable results.

E4 clients are in some ways the holy grail.  Much of the effective enterprise professionals work is about helping clients move towards this E4 position.  Although high in both technical and psychological competence these clients still require help and support. They maybe ideal for referral to a good mentor or may benefit from access to a business support service on an ‘on demand’ basis.

Using this type of market segmentation can really help you to think through both your marketing/engagement strategy, the way you design your services and how you train your enterprise professionals.