Scaling Up Your Social Business Model

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fgRWK–E5Q

One of the powerful advantages that social businesses have over non-profit NGOs and also over governments, is that social entrepreneurship can scale up their model, and they can scale it up quickly and effectively.

Scale Up What Works From Smaller Projects

Scaling up means the ability to have a smaller project, testing it and seeing if it works, and then when it does work (based on the criteria that you have set usually based on the financial return on investment and social return on investment), social businesses have the capacity then to duplicate that model. And they can duplicate that model indefinitely, or to the extent of the limits of its own circumstances and factors that surround it.

Celebrate Success But Also Write Down the Details

For social businesses to duplicate such a model though, it’s very important for social entrepreneurs …

5 Ways to Be Persuasive

Guy Kawasaki, who has his own blog entitled ‘How to Change the World‘, has written 5 ways to be persuasive.

Now this is really important for social entrepreneurs, and people wanting to influence others through new business ideas.

Guy lists the 5 ways as:

Be the first to give. Don’t offer too many choices. Argue against self-interest. Losses are more persuasive than gains. Make people feel as if they’ve already made progress toward a goal.

If you want to read more about his tips on persuasion, check out his article here.

Giving First

Out of the 5 tips, I would particularly emphasise point one: “Be the first one to give when it comes to new business ideas.” I like to think of this point as meaning that you must give more value than the other person could expect. It works very closely with …

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Help the People Inside Your Own Social Business

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoESt-0eR0I

In running a social business, we think of the triple-bottom-line (people, planet, profit – PPP). When we think of ‘people’, sometimes we think of the outside people – the beneficiaries, the community in which we work with and which we have a social impact. For the ‘planet’, we think of the external environment around us, and for ‘profit’ we think of the financial sustainability and financial growth of the social company. Part of this is social networking for business ideas and support.

So in all three, we tend to think of external factors to judge the success of a social business.

‘Helping People’ Means Helping Those in Your Team Too

I’d like to point out, though, that ‘people’ – that first P – can often mean the people within your own social business, the people who make a part of your …

Harmonizing the ‘Social’ & ‘Business’ in Social Business

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeoYJcLvqnI

One of the major challenges for social businesses and social entrepreneurship is that juxtaposition even with the word “social” and “business.”

Some say that there is a conflict between the social aspect and the business aspect.

Recognize the Conflict between FROI and SROI in Social Business

But really it can work and many social enterprises out there have shown that it can work. As a social entrepreneur, though, it’s very important to continually consider that ongoingly there will be that conflict between the financial return on investment and the social return on investment (the FROI and the SROI).

It’s always good to remember that there will be that conflict but always look back at your own values, and the values of the company – of the social business.

In fact, although profit and financial sustainability is important for the growth …

What is Impact Investing?

Social entrepreneurship is a field that is based on the notion of “capitalism with a cause”, “compassionate capitalism”, “social responsibility” and even “capitalism with a human face.”

Social entrepreneurs and social businesses work with a social mission, and they manipulate the workings of the capitalist system to help make a positive social or environmental difference.

Creating enterprises is one way for you, as a social entrepreneur to make an impact.

Another great method is to engage in socially responsible investing – and this can be part of your own personal finance initiatives day-to-day, rather than starting up your own social enterprise.

Impact Investing: One Type of Socially Responsible Investing

Even if you don’t run your own social enterprise, you can be personally involved in socially responsible investing using a portion (even a small amount) of your regular income and savings.

Paul Sullivan wrote a …

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