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Facilitating The Power of Faith and Belief

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Imagine a client who is about to commit him/herself to a significant investment in a new business.  The market does not seem to be there.  The finance is not yet in place.  The business (from any logical rational perspective) looks like a money pit.

Yet they know they can make it work.  They can see the business in its final form.  They know that they will find a way.  They just need to commit to it.  So they make the investment.  They burn their bridges.  There is no going back.  They have to find a way.

Enterprise Based on Faith or a Plan?
Enterprise Based on Faith or a Plan?

You ask them why they are so sure that the business will work.  They answer,

“I just know it will work – I can feel it in my bones”

or perhaps

“God told me to do this – he will find a way”

or

“I know it is a risk – but it is a risk that I comfortable to take”.

Now just suppose they are the Head of Sony on the brink of launching the Walkman – even though all the business anlaysts were screaming – DON’T DO IT.  Or imagine your client is Rupert Murdoch, about to launch Sky Sports – even though the market research says that overwhelmingly people will not pay to watch football matches on satellite TV.

Now imagine it is a local person about to launch into their first enterprise – no financial reserves to fall back on.

  • How would you handle the situation?
  • What would you say?
  • What would you do?
  • Who else might you involve?

If you manage a support service – how would you want your advisers and coaches to handle it?

Provision of Neighbourhood Enterprise Talent Scouts and Neighbourhood-based Business Advisors

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Another invitation to tender appeared today.  This time a council looking for the provision of Neighbourhood Enterprise Talent Scouts and Neighbourhood-based Business Advisors to work closely together in stimulating enterprise.

Talent and Business.  Business and Talent.  Is this REALLY what it is all about?  Or is it about frustration, unfulfilled potential, anger and possibility?

One thing I do know; If you set up a system to find people with a ‘talent for business’ you will find the same people that every other agency has already found.

Set up a system to find and help  people who are angry, frustrated and wasting their potential and you will find people with the potential to do something remarkable.

However their trust is not easily won.  More than likely they gave up trying to work with the agencies a long time ago. Set yourself up as a talent scout and they will stay well clear (they have probably spent years being told they are ‘a waste of space who won’t amount to much’ and the last thing they need is another Simon Cowell type rejection).

Set yourself up as a business advisor and likewise they are likely to avoid you like the plague – images of men and women in suits talking a foreign language of equity and turnover, profit and unit costs.

Instead just provide a service  with an unremitting focus on helping people to make progress in their lives – in whatever form that takes.  Build relationships, win trust and get busy.  It won’t be long before you are working with some really interesting people on some really enterprising ideas.

Oh, and by the way, don’t try to collect reams and reams of MIS data for the funders.  Ask for an NI number or for them to fill in an equal opps monitoring survey and they are likely to drop you like a hot potato.

Reflecting for Effective Practice?

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  1. What percentage of your clients come back to you for further support?
  2. What percentage do you just see once?
  3. What percentage of your clients go on to open a business?
  4. What percentage decide that enterprise is not for them?
  5. What percentage decide that they want to run their own business – but decide that they can’t make THIS business idea work.
  6. What percentage open a business – but don’t make it through the first/second/third year?
  7. How many different clients do you meet in a month/year?
  8. How many 121 sessions do you run in a month/year with clients?
  9. What is your average percentage occupancy? ie how much of your capacity is being used (by the people that you are meant to be supporting)?
  10. Are you really contributing to the development of an enterprise culture?
  11. What is your reputation with:
  • clients and their friends and families
  • funders
  • partners
  • other regeneration and community development professionals in the community?

Enterprise Evangelist or Enterprise Coach?

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Enterprise Evangelist Enterprise Coach
Entrepreneurship is a good thing – you should try it. Entrepreneurship is neither good not bad.  For some people it is a wonderful life affirming experience.  For others an unmitigated disaster.
We can turn your ideas and dreams into reality. You can make progress in getting the kind of life that you want.  My sole purpose is to offer you the help and support that you need on your journey.
We need to increase the start up rate if we are to change the enterprise culture in this community. We need to help more people believe that they can take action to make things better -in whatever ways matter to them.
We encourage people to start business quickly.  That helps us to keep up with our contract outputs – and anyway you don’t really learn about business until you are in it – do you? We help clients start business slowly, if at all.  We make sure that they have done as much planning, research and training as possible before they start and got a strong management team in place to reduce the risks of failure.  If they have an alternative to starting a small business we encourage them to consider it – SERIOUSLY!  We understand just how hard small business can be.
We spend a lot of money on publicity and events to attract large numbers (we wish!) to use the service. We spend almost nothing on publicity.  Instead we focus on building a great reputation (we know how to do this) and then encourage word of mouth strategies, referrals and clients telling their stories to gradually build interest.
We usually start with a bang – but numbers quickly tail off – unless we keep the marketing spend up.  We refer clients into mainstream business support or other sources of support as soon as we can.  Our job is just to get them engaged. We start slowly and build exponentially as our reputation spreads.  Within 12 months we would expect top be seeing 200 people a year with about 10% of them going on to start a new business.  Because of our reputation we also get some existing business wanting to talk with us – but that is ok because we know how to help them too!
We do all we can to keep people engaged with our service.  We pay bus fares, pick them up in our cars, provide child care and food to make it easy. We do little to keep people using the service – other than help them build their confidence and self belief in what they can achieve when they work with us.
We don’t mention business failure rates.  If we start enough – surely some of them will survive? We monitor survival rates more closely than start up rates.  We understand that it is business failures that establish a fear of enterprise and do most to damage an enterprise culture.
We design and deliver our services and interventions to deliver policy goals for number of interventions and start-ups We design and deliver our services with the client needs at the centre of things.  Our service is free of charge, competent, compassionate and easy to access.
We believe that primarily our clients need help to develop their ideas from a technical point of view.  It is all about the business plan.  The sooner we can refer them onto a technical expert – such as a business adviser the better. We believe that the idea and the business plan is one small aspect of our work.  More important is helping the client to develop their skills and their passion and commitment towards making real progress in their lives.  Understanding psychology is just as important as understanding business.  We develop the people – so that if they want they can develop their business ideas.
I don’t need to build a strong relationship – I just need to find people and refer them to mainstream business advisers. It is the quality of my relationship with you that dictates how useful it is.

Paths to Prosperity

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The Monitor Group is an international consulting firm founded by Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School.

They have just released an interesting report on entrepreneurship based on research conducted in 22 countries.

The report explores the different dimensions, including attitudes and policies, to encourage entrepreneurship.

I recommend a read – and please do share your thoughts!  Some of the highlights….

  • An entrepreneurial mindset matters – recovering quickly from failure – recognising entrepreneurship as a legitimate career choice – valuing individualism
  • Incubators are less important than they are made out to be…(sorry if you have just invested in them)
  • Teaching entrepreneurial skills (from primary schools to universities) works

You cna get the full report here.