What could I sell to corporates as a social entrepreneur?

If you'd like to sell to corporates but you're wondering "...what would they want to buy from me? What do I have that's sellable?" I want to share some ideas....as these are common questions I get asked by my clients, and something I feel I have some what of a superpower in helping social entrepreneurs discover their unique offer for corporates.

For example, one client who has an education programme which she needed funding for but didn't want to just ask corporates for sponsorship, asked what could she sell. She wanted to create an offer of value that they would gain benefit from and be willing to pay for. She wanted to operate as a social enterprise, with a trading income, selling services that enabled her to deliver good in the world.

So we went back to basics, I told her to forget about her core programme for a moment and asked her to think about all her skills, experience, expertise and knowledge - which parts of this would be really interesting or useful to corporate businesses?

From this coaching session we discovered something unique that I was convinced some businesses would love to learn and listen about in a Lunch & Learn session; workshop; or webinar.

Something she could sell at a premium price to help fund her core programme activities and wouldn’t distract her from this core work.

Note, it's not just about the things you're already offering or doing that could be attractive to corporates, it could be something that uses your knowledge and expertise in a slightly different way.

There's basically not a one-size-fits-all approach but I bet there is something you could uniquely offer, which no-one else could.

At Solutions for the Planet (the social enterprise I set up back in 2013 with my best friend Jen) we sold our education programme to corporates but we didn't focus on the benefits to the children (although this was an obvious impact when selling to schools and of notable interest to the companies) we focused on how their involvement would benefit them as a business, employer and employees.

We listened to their needs and matched what we delivered using language they understood (important lesson number two - don’t just create an offer around what you want, create something that responds to a need / desire they have).

They were interested in building relationships across teams in their huge business; developing their talent pipeline; being seen as a positive local employer; providing volunteering and development opportunities for their employees. And yes they were interested in working with, supporting and influencing the next generation of scientists, mathematicians, engineers and change-makers but if we'd only focused on this in our sales approach we probably wouldn't have got them on board.

There's SOOO many ways you could be working with corporates though, selling your services in a way that generates you significantly more income.

Here's some questions to help inspire some ideas about what you could sell:

• Do you have a programme a corporate could get involved in, support or enable in other ways than just giving money? What would be the benefits for them and their staff?

• Do you have knowledge, expertise or a unique experience you could share as a guest speaker, workshop host, or expert running a Lunch & Learn session?

• Do you have skills or services which could be helpful to them e.g. consultancy, coaching or other mechanism?

• Do you have products they could use, that align better with their values, their commitment to #buysocial (e.g. from social enterprises) or reduce waste at events?

• Do you create change in an area they'd also like to create impact in e.g. social mobility, environmental sustainability, reducing waste, women in tech, feminine leadership, employee well-being (or other areas these are just examples of what my clients have connected with them on)

If you'd like to sell to corporates but are unsure on what you could actually offer then email me, telling me a little about what you do and I'll reply with some ideas specific to you (like I said it’s a superpower I feel I have and I LOVE helping social entrepreneurs discover their corporate offer and generate additional (or core) income so they can create more social impact.

Like my client Jo, who after recognising the true value she offered her clients and increasing her prices, started getting multiple requests for her services & expertise all around the world - including from the UN!

YOU too can generate income from selling to corporates.

If you'd like to learn more about HOW, I've just opened up my brand new 6 week course: Sell to Corporates for Social Entrepreneurs, where I share the exact system my clients and I have used to attract thousands of pounds of additional income to our social enterprises even when we were just starting out and without any experience in corporate.