How much can I earn from selling to corporates?

It may be a question you’ve never asked yourself before but I think it’s a really important one to consider.

How much could you actually earn each year from selling to corporates? And would doing so enable you to deepen or increase the social impact you deliver?

The obvious answer, to how much can you earn, is based on a) how much you charge for the service you’re selling and b) how many times you sell that service within a year, minus the cost of actually delivering the service of course because there’s no point doing it if it doesn’t generate the profit you need to scale your impact.*

In my first social enterprise we’ve been able to consistently earn in excess of £70k per annum, for the past 7 years. This is selling a £12k programme which is delivered annually and most of our clients sign up for 3 years (e.g. approximately £36k each over 3 years).

My clients have secured up to £90k in a single pitch though.

Other clients have developed and sold offers from £500 to £4000. A couple of these a month adds a significant amount of income (and profit) to their business without doing too much extra work.

The truth is there really isn’t any limit though to how much you could generate.

It could become the main source of income, or simply diversify your income streams and add some much needed cash to invest in your business.

For most of my clients, the profit from these sales (which is a significant proportion of what they earn) provides the income they need to either pay themselves a decent wage OR invest back in to their social enterprise and the social impact they want to deliver.

* There is one exception to this, if you are delivering your social impact through working with corporates, for example if providing the service actually creates the change you want to see, such as increasing diversity within the workforce; supporting people in to work who wouldn’t ordinarily have access; or if you’re selling products which for example have a positive environmental impact.