Podcast: 47. Uyen Pham - Art and Mental Health Recovery
Uyen Pham is the Executive Director at Artbeat studios, a mental health recovery non-profit in Winnipeg. They host artists for their Artists In Residence program to help them with their journeys of mental health recovery. Once they have completed the program, their work is shown in the gallery and they are invited to contribute work to the Upbeat Artworks, a social enterprise that sells alumni artwork.
When a sale is made at Upbeat Artworks, the artist retains a majority of the earnings, and donate a portion back to the parent organization to support future artists' recovery and to help grow Upbeat Artworks.
Podcast: 46. Design Systems - Marketing Social Enterprise
The systems that we use to design our products, services, and programs influence their final versions. In this episode of Marketing Social Enterprise, Matthew Rempel will take you through three systems of understanding how you can design products and services to better serve your customers and social beneficiaries.
1. Human-Centred Design
2. Lean Startup principles
3. Nudge theory
Podcast: 45. Risks in Social Enterprise - Social Enterprise Mindset
What kind of risks exist within your social enterprise? What risks are you willing to take, and what risks are you taking by avoiding decisive action?
In social enterprise, we make things more difficult when compared to business as usual because of our social goals. Adding social goals makes things more complicated, and complications usually cost more money. Knowing when to add more impact and when to focus on business fundamentals is essential when developing a social enterprise.
Finding Your Value - Social Enterprise Mindset
When running any business, you need to know how the business creates value. In a social enterprise, it becomes even more important to understand where the value comes out of the operation because we’re trying to make value beyond the sale. The first part of finding your value is producing a solution that you’re confident will work.
Podcast: 43. Charles Enns, Siloam Mission and Reducing Non-Profit Costs with Social Enterprise
Siloam Mission has turned a large expense into a social enterprise opportunity.Charles Enns is the Building Futures program manager at Siloam Mission in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Part of his duties involve managing a small commercial grade laundry social enterprise that is currently serving the internal needs of the Siloam shelter.The Siloam Laundry shifted approximately $150,000 in laundry expenses from an external provider, into an internal opportunity for their community members to build up employable skills. Siloam is also considering how they might be able to take this laundry facility that they've created and start serving other businesses, social enterprises and non-profits within their neighborhood.
Podcast: 42. You Should Be Marketing
Marketing sometimes gets a bad reputation. It can be seen as a necessary evil of being in business. A dirty part of earning revenue.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Marketing is just the practice of being clear about the value you can offer to potential customers, and presenting it to them in a way that matches your company’s brand.
If you truly believe in the products and services that your social enterprise is producing, and you want to continue making the social change related to your business, you need to be marketing.
Outcomes and Momentum
Social Enterprise Marketing Campaigns Part 3
So far, we’ve covered goals, as well as results and measurement. Now we’ll move on to the desired outcomes of your marketing campaign.
Outcomes differ from results in their scale. If you were thinking about a marketing campaign like a bike trip to grandma’s house, the goal would be the destination. The results and measurement is the total distance travelled. The outcomes would be every 100 meters, or each block you bike.
Outcomes are small.
If we thought of results as a full scientific peer reviewed study, then outcomes are individual pieces of data, or an anecdote. You can’t get results without outcomes, but you can’t call a single outcome a trend.
Podcast: 41. Why Clear Business Models are Important
If you don’t have a clear business model you can’t grow or market effectively
If you have a clearly defined business model, you can check any future opportunities, partnerships, activities, etc against whether it helps your business model. Successful companies are able to explain their business models as quickly as their elevator pitch. Where the elevator pitch should be able to explain what you do to potential customers, your business model should be able to explain how your business works to potential partners, suppliers, etc.
Podcast: 40. Connection and Messaging with Ian Rountree
Ian Rountree is the project manager in charge of Buy Social Praries. Buy Social Praries is a project of LITE, and is a part of the wider network in Buy Social Canada.
Ian and I talk about the importance of explaining what your social enterprise is about, and how to tailor that message to specific audiences. We also talk about the importance of networking as an industry to attempt to hit the scale needed to provide products and services for the large purchasing needs of businesses and governments.
If you are a social enterprise that needs certification, or are interested in purchasing products from social enterprises, please contact Ian to learn more.
Defining Results and How to Measure Them
Social Enterprise Marketing Campaigns Part 2
Now that we’ve determined what our goals are and how our branding directs our goals, how will we know when we’ve achieved our goals? If you don’t have an immediate way of answering it, then you need to define what measurements you are going to use, and what results will indicate a completed goal.
So, how do you determine what counts as positive results? This will depend on what kind of goals you set for yourself. If you selected an unlimited goal, then you’ll want to set up measurements that test your efficiency, or your recurring impact. If you have a bounded goal, then you will want to set up measurements that allow you to measure progress towards the desired endpoint the goal describes.
Podcast: 38. Amanda Bernardo with Little Voice Books
Amanda Bernardo is half of Little Voice Books, an independent children's book publishing company. She is the author behind Little Voice and The Lighthouse. Along with her illustrator Samantha, they have built up the company around these two books.
We talk about the challenges of marketing books and growing a business with small roots. We also talk about how to organize a company to be able to have the capacity to grow into new areas.
Podcast: 37. The Networks of Anne Kresta
Anne Kresta is the President and CEO of Level IT Up, a social enterprise that helps people with autism with job training, while providing quality IT workers for Winnipeg tech companies.
Throughout our conversation, Anne would always mention how what they're doing would not be possible without the support of various groups of people. From her board, to the network of similar organizations, to the autism community. Networks are powerful for social enterprise, and it's important to be connected to both other social impact organizations, as well as the customers you hope to serve.
Podcast: 35. Diversified Impact with Kalen Taylor
Kalen Taylor stepped into the role of Executive Director at Purpose Construction and Purpose Pest Management in 2018. Since they started, they have been working at re-branding and separating out the two areas of their expertise, residential retrofits and pest management.
As a part of this process, Kalen has been leading Purpose to expand their offerings to better serve their community, and their staff.
Podcast: 33. The Relationships of Social Enterprise with Kristy Muckosky
Kristy Muckosky uses the relationships with volunteers at the Thrive Thrift Shop to help them build their confidence and grow to see new possibilities. She does this by providing them with a space where they can take chances, learn how to keep trying after failures, and do so in a non-judgemental environment.
The Thrive Thrift Shop is a community based thrift shop offering household goods from diapers to bedsheets to the north end community of Winnipeg. They also provide training to volunteers to help them learn how to handle customers and retail customer service.
Disclosure: At the time of recording I am serving a term on the board of Thrive Community Support Circle.
Building a Brand, and Goal Setting
Social Enterprise Marketing Campaigns Part 1
As you start out with your marketing, you need to have a good grasp of what your brand is. You probably have an idea of what your brand is, whether it is written down or not. Having an explicitly written brand is essential. By having written brand values and characteristics all of your marketing and communications efforts will be connected.
If you don’t know what your brand is, think about your brand as a person. One individual. What is their personality? How do they present themselves? Who would they spend time with? Do they speak like a California surfer dude, or like a kindergarten teacher? What does this person value?
Ride your bike
Or: Values, Alignment, and Customer Questions
Marketing is about aligning your product or service with the values of your customers, then helping them overcome the objections they might have about purchasing the product or service.
I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while now. As of right now, I’m convinced it’s one of the most important intersections between marketing and sales. I’m going to break it down in a couple different ways. First off, aligning the product or service with values. Second, aligning those values with the right customers. Third, overcoming the objections between first contact with your brand, and the point of purchase.
Podcast: 31. Social Procurement and Work Integration with Art Ladd
Art Ladd is the Executive Director of BUILD - Building Urban Industries for Local Development. The majority of his work is centered around helping people who have barriers to employment. BUILD helps them by providing paid training and work placements so they can apply to other companies with experience and a reference.
Art also explains how aspiring social entrepreneurs can look for social problems that can be solved while also solving an economic problem.
Overcoming Objections
Or: Values, Alignment, and Customer Questions
Marketing is about aligning your product or service with the values of your customers, then helping them overcome the objections they might have about purchasing the product or service.
I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while now. As of right now, I’m convinced it’s one of the most important intersections between marketing and sales. I’m going to break it down in a couple different ways. First off, aligning the product or service with values. Second, aligning those values with the right customers. Third, overcoming the objections between first contact with your brand, and the point of purchase.
Podcast: 30. Marty Donkervoort with Business Skills and Social Values
Marty Donkervoort is a Manitoba based social entrepreneur and educator. He's founded multiple worker co-ops and social enterprises, done consulting and teaches courses on social enterprise and sustainability.
Marty suggests that social enterprises cannot thrive without the business skills to compete in the marketplace. He also explains his story of transitioning from being an executive in a multinational corporation to working in the social sector.
Compete With Products And With Branding.
Or: Direct, Indirect, And Replacement Competition
Who is your competition?
In some areas of life, there is an easy answer. If you play on a football team, clearly the other teams are your competition. If you are a football league commissioner, then it’s a little more complicated. You could see other team sports as your competition, from rugby to soccer to baseball. Beyond even that, if you’re a coach of a community team for 15-year olds, you’re trying to compete for the attention and focus of your players. You’re competing with school, music teachers, video games, and raging teenage hormones.
Competition is not as clear cut as we might like it to be. The same applies to marketing.