The biggest risk to your social enterprise surviving...
The biggest risk to your social enterprise surviving is a lack of income / turnover / revenue / cash.
AKA not having enough MONEY.
As the Founder / CEO / Business Owner it is your responsibility to bring that money in to the business (unless of course you have a Business Development Manager or Sales Manager).
I know as Social Entrepreneurs we struggle with the need to focus on the money, we say things like...
....money isn’t the reason I got in to this game
....we don’t need a lot of money, we’re doing ok, we get the work done
....the money will come when people see the amazing work we’re doing
But these are all untruths and unhelpful beliefs.
Money may not have been the main/first reason why you set up your social enterprise, but I bet you didn’t set up your social enterprise with the intention of not paying yourself for the first 12 months, or paying yourself well below minimum wage. Am I right?
You may be doing perfectly well right now on the bit of grant funding you’ve received or the few sales you have made but what’s next? What’s the big vision? Are you really where you want to be? Income aka money enables you to get where you want to be faster whether that’s having a premises, employing your first team member, paying yourself a wage, investing in the technology you need and much more.
People are not miraculously going to see the great work you do unless you get in front of them and communicate it in a way that connects to their interests, need, or desire. “People” whether they be funders, investors or customers are all distracted with their own organisation and objectives or whatever they’ve got going on right now. They’re not going to just stumble across you unless you’re actually doing the work to get in front of them (in the right way) on social media, print media, podcasts, webinars, adverts, etc (note I’m not saying you have to do all of these things).
So if you’re starting to realise it may be the stories or messages you’re telling yourself that’s stopping you from actually generating income in your social enterprise, or the things you’re not doing I want to invite you to join me live next week (12th -14th October) for my free 3 day training: PRICING FOR PROFIT (inside my Facebook Group - The Impact Entrepreneurs Club).
It’s not just about how to set your prices so they reflect your true worth and make you a profit (to reinvest back in to your business), we’re also covering the unhelpful beliefs we have and hear time and time again across the social enterprise sector when it comes to why there’s not enough money available.
The key...we don’t truly believe it’s possible; we don’t act as if it’s possible; we don’t invest time in understanding how to make it possible; and we hold on to the crazy belief that someone will wave a magic wand and the money tree will appear.
Friend, for all our sakes (whether you come to my training or not) please start focusing on how you can start generating consistent sustainable income in your business.
Otherwise the world will stay the same as it has always been.
