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Marketing Enterprise 5th December, London

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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

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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.

Nourishing Enterprise

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Britain is facing a “new kind of poverty” with many parents unable to nourish their own families – not through lack of money but lack of knowledge, according to Jamie Oliver.

“This isn’t about fresh trainers or mobile phones or Sky dishes or plasma TV screens – they’ve got all that. It is a poverty of being able to nourish their family, in any class.”

So what is Mr Oliver saying?  This is not a crisis of material need; people have ways of getting these met?  Most of us have learned the skills of achieving material possessions.  But I don’t believe that the problem lies in a lack of culinary skill – I think this is a symptom of a deeper psychological need rather than a root cause of this new kind of poverty.

It is about a poverty of psychological need and ambition. 

It is about poverty of self-esteem. 

It is about poverty of belief.

And once enterprise professionals recognise the power of enterprise to nourish these very human qualities we will have a powerful antidote to this ‘new form’ of poverty.

However it will require policy makers and funders to recognise that enterprise is not all about start rates and VAT registrations, but is about developing an enterprising psychology driving enterprising behaviours.

Is ‘Social Enterprise’ A Stealth Tax?

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Where does a social enterprise get its start up capital from?

Ultimately? 

I understand that they may get it from a wide range of sources – but in essence where is that value created before it is made available to a social enterprise?

If I am right then it comes from:

  • involuntary or voluntary taxation on ‘for profits’ (which may or may not themselves already be providing positive social outcomes)  
  • gifts or
  • other forms of voluntary taxation such as the national lottery, foundations etc

But ultimately the source of nearly all of this cash is the ‘for profit’ sector*.  In essence money is taken from, or given by, those who have created profits to invest in ‘social enterprise’, including public services, that have little realistic potential for generating sufficient profit to make the risk of private investment worthwhile.

The extent of the ‘stealth’ in the ‘taxation’ varies widely in different contexts.  For example if I buy fairtrade chocolate I know that I am paying a premium to provide a social good.  The chocolate bar is clearly labelled and I can easily find out more about how my premium is used to derive social gain. 

However if I rent an office in a managed workspace provided by a ‘Community Interest Company’ am I equally clear on the premium that I will be paying to enable them to generate a profit in order to re-invest back into the community? 

Is the product clearly labelled in the same way that my fairtrade chocolate bar is? 

Are the mechanisms for re-investing my taxation clear and transparent? 

I can see lots of salaries that need to be covered from my rental.  I can see additional overheads (atria, gyms, cafes, sexy furniture, light fittings etc) that need to be paid for before any profit is created for re-investment.  And I can see prices that are significantly higher then the local market rate.   I can’t clearly see how my premium will be used to benefit the local community.  It feels like a stealth tax!

Even if the labelling is transparent and the mechanisms for re-investment are clear then I still have a problem with this model.  While both service provider and service user are engaged in a fair exchange from which both gain, I am not sure about what drives excellence in the service provider in the long term.  It feels a little like any other subsidised public service – and these have been notoriously difficult to manage efficiently and effectively.   As much energy goes into maintaining the subsidy as into generating value.  The ‘taxation’ gets locked in.

So is social enterprise just another stealth tax?  Well that would explain the massive extent of political interest.  But social enterprise can and must be so much more than this.  It can be the genuine organisation of a community around the concept of using enterprise to create social value.  It is this vision of a genuinely ‘social’ approach to enterprise that I believe we are at risk of losing. 

*I believe that there is a tiny venture capital movement developing to invest in social enterprise – but I am not sure what the return on investment is that these venture capitalists seek.  If it is a true VC model then it will be a substantial profit on their risk capital.  If they just want to see social good then it is not venture capitalism as I understand it – but just another form of giving.