realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

Word of Mouth – Marketing that Works

by

There are at least three major challenges in marketing our enterprise services:

  1. More than 90% of the population does not see what we do as relevant to them – when it comes to enterprise they are pre-contemplators
  2. Getting our messages through – what are our key messages and how to we get them where they can be heard – by the people that matter?
  3. Giving people the confidence, conviction and commitment to act on the messages – to give us a call, to come to a workshop, to make an appointment, to have a conversation

Now the default setting for the VAST majority of enterprise projects are these:

We won’t worry about the pre-contemplators – we will target those who already have ideas they want to act on or already have the belief and the conviction that they can make progress.  This makes it easier for us to hit our numbers.

Our core messages will be:

1.  we can help turn your dreams into reality (if you don’t have dreams don’t call us)

2.  We can turn your business ideas into reality (ignore the fact that the ‘Dragons’ mash up and humiliate most of the poor saps that go to them – with our help you can’t fail)

3. It is quick – and relatively easy – (if you haven’t got the skills we can teach them to you) – you can be up and running in just weeks or months.  10 000 hours to master a field – forget it – who is Malcolm Gladwell anyway? 3 half day workshops and a bit of one to one on the business plan will “see you ‘reet”. (Glad no-one is measuring survival rates on our projects!)

4.  To get people to take action we will lure them in by hinting at the availability of money, childcare, bouncy castles and food.  We will even pay them the bus fare (yes, it costs a lot to administer but – what are we to do…?)

5.  We will spend a lot of money on marketing collateral, leaflets, web sites and e-mail marketing campaigns (digital exclusion! – you mean some poor people don’t have e-mail accounts – never mind they could never become proper business people anyway – they are not our target group).

6. We will attend every possible event and push our services hard – just like those guys who sell SKY TV and Credit Cards in the Merrion Centre – “You mean we shouldn’t be selling enterprise like any other commodity?  Why not?”

We know that these approaches:

  • are expensive
  • have very low hit rates
  • attract a whole load of people who just want to get the money without putting in the work
  • attract people easily seduced by the idea of a quick fix – rather than composing a life and a livelihood
  • elicit more suspicion, frustration and cynicism than enthusiasm and engagement
  • provide us with very high customer acquisition costs.  (interesting that most entrepreneurs are very interested in this number – yet most projects funded to support entrepreneurs don’t worry about their own cost per customer acquisition at all – ‘We are below targets – lets throw some more money at marketing then!’).

What about looking at marketing approaches that work.

Word of mouth.

Reputation building, seeking referrals and recommendations – based on the fact that we are bloody good!  That we do inspire, transform, care and coach.  That we are more than interested in people and their passions.  That we are with them for the long haul.

Worrying more about what every customer says about us to their mates, in the pub, in the clubs and on the streets, rather than some abstract and easily manipulated percentage that represents ‘customer satisfaction’ – YUK!

Being the kind of people and the type of service that our customers can’t wait to recommend to their friends.

Once we start to spend time and money on developing marketing and enagement strategies  based on:

  • reputation management
  • referrals
  • introductions
  • social networking
  • gatekeepers, and
  • the needs, interests, cultures and values of the communities we serve (rather than policy goals and outcomes)

we would start to see the basics of our own businesses transformed.

  • 10% of customers influence the purchasing decisions of the other 90%
  • 91% of customers are “likely” to buy off of a recommendation
  • 92% of customers “prefer” a word of mouth recommendation

Reflecting for Effective Practice?

by

  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?

by

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.

Evaluating Enterprise in ‘Deprived’ Communities

by

One of the most comprehensive pieces of evaluation work done on a wide range of projects designed to stimulate enterprise in deprived communities was the Evaluation of the Phoenix Development Fund – a piece of work that was completed by Peter Ramsden in July 2005.

The Phoenix Fund was a flagship £189 million fund administered by the Small Business Service running from 2000 to 2008 developed in response to Policy Action Team 3 paper on ‘Enterprise and Social Exclusion’. 

The terms of reference for the evaluation set out five key questions that the evaluation would address:

  1. Did the PDF encourage fresh thinking?
  2. How effective have specific project type approaches been?
  3. To what extent have projects to help particular sections of the community been successful?
  4. To what extent has the Fund helped to engage mainstream providers?
  5. Has funding helped to build capacity?

Overall the conclusion of the evaluation was that the fund had been a success. Using a reflective action-oriented approach the PDF contributed greatly to the growth of knowledge and experience of business support to encourage inclusive enterprise. There is now a considerable body of documented knowledge of inclusive approaches to business support. This compares to the situation in 2000 when it was reported by SBS that there was ‘too little knowledge in this field’.

If you are involved in an enterprise project aimed at working in disadvantaged areas I would commend the evaluation and the lessons learned reports highly!

Just to whet your appetite:

Models of delivery – critical success factors:

  • Regardless of type of programme envisaged, the needs of individuals must be central; be prepared to flex from the original programme specification if needs be.
  • An inclusive and holistic approach to developing the skills and confidence required for individuals to move ‘forward’ really works, as does the use of coaching, specialist sector advisers, peer or other supportive networks etc.
  • The above takes ‘longer than usual’ amounts of time and investment in relationship and trust building; be realistic about what can be achieved in a very limited life programme.
  • This can also be more costly but needs to be weighed against the longer-term benefits of clients/users coming off benefits (for instance).
  • Investing time in building positive relationships with mainstream business support agencies is crucial and can lead to a change in mainstream culture and provision, leading to potentially more productive partnerships and win-wins.
  • Well-designed and holistic enterprise support can also add significant value by providing optional routes into employment and further learning for individuals who feel enterprise is not for them at the present time.

You can find more here.