Hello, wannabe business owners! Welcome back as we continue the journey through the Business Start-up Bootcamp at the University of Suffolk. From digging into the depths of a social enterprise supporting women, to the most intensive marketing exercise that I have ever managed to attempt to date, this blog post will surely pack a punch more than all of the other writeups that I've managed to do so far!
If you haven't yet read my story on the first three days of this amazing event, please check it out here: Days 1 to 3
Day 4: Diving into the world of social enterprises
It was almost 9:30am when I arrived into the Atrium building, waiting to go in to the Bootcamp session. Random chatter and more participants turning up along the way, and we're off on the journey, and after going through the introductions to our business ideas, the session started off by explaining the basic social entrepreneurship principles, before going on to do an interactive exercise where we had to guess the three most basic social principles of people, profit and planet (fun fact - I was not allowed to answer that question!).
And after talking about the need to have two of those aforementioned characteristics to make the business idea a social enterprise, and other sustainability tidbits, Simon decided to spice things up and introduce a guest speaker from one of the social enterprises in the Ipswich area.
After going through the presenter's story of their personal journey to the idea, it wasn't long before the tide really began to turn, when the presenter got to go to the Eastern Enterprise Hub to take part in a social enterprise workshop. The participants of that social enterprise bootcamp were throwing all those fascinating social enterprise ideas (pun intended!), and eventually, their experience led to the establishment of a course where mums had the opportunity to rediscover who they once were and try to rebuild their lives around that.
At the time the presenter started setting up their social enterprise, the roots of that course began to morph into the More than Mum project, a project that supported mums who were experiencing issues with domestic abuse, mental health, drugs and alcohol, as well as those living in deprived areas to be able to access the support that they needed in the workshops.
Moving on through the chain of events, the presenter went on to set up a media-focused community group targeted at 12 to 19 year old girls, creating a diverse range of outcomes, such as enabling the workshop participants to go to Suffolk New College to create a TV show and tasty poetry, and even managing to collaborate with Volunteering Matters to run the Hack Conference on youth violence that was hosted at the Ipswich Town football stadium, the event creating an impact that managed to make it all the way to Parliament.
With the youth violence advocacy out of the way, it was on to discuss the project that resonated the most with me, as she went on to create a podcast project aimed at supporting migrant and asylum-seeking women to create a positive impression of their community in Ipswich - a project which managed to make huge airwaves on the local BBC radio stations, gained community exposure through the putting on of three live shows at St Stephen's Church in Ipswich, as well as partnerships with St Elizabeth Hospice that revolved around cultural perspectives on end-of-life care.
And the journey through setting up all the programs got even more interesting, with the creation of a health and wellbeing service primarily targeted at cervical screening with fun activities in between, and a roadshow, which has managed to run seven workshops that revolve around confidence, nutrition and self-care.
But on the other hand, as I have previously seen with Zoe's BikeWorks, the challenges around funding always linger around, as many of their projects are heavily grant funded - More than Mum used to get a lot of funding before the pandemic, but funding for projects around the More than Mum scope began to evaporate since then, while funding opportunities suddenly increased for one of the other projects. And the biggest takeaway from all of this is Don't. Chase. Funding. That. Is. Different. To. Your. Mission. Statement.
And the funding fun doesn't stop there, as uncovered by some of the questions that were asked by the participants - the presenter wasn't able to get enough funding to pay themselves for the first eight months and had to start off as a freelancer, invoicing work to the society, and of course, battling the misconceptions that you won't get funding if you don't hit the 80/20 rule within the first two years of getting your social enterprise up and running. And yes, from her experiences, charities are not as open in terms of the mobility to set them up as other social enterprises do.
With the questions taken and the presenter suddenly departing the University campus, it was time to go back through the Business Model Canvas exercise, but this time, exploring it from the angle of whether it is socially viable and not just talking about it from a commercial perspective. One of the participants ideas about wanting to set up a travel and tourism social enterprise for PTSD in the Scottish Highlands, with one of the outcomes being to address the lack of professional biking services in the area - an idea which went down pretty well with the audience, as it was addressing a current lack of demand in the area, and most of the other ideas also receiving similarly warm reactions in terms of social value. But as the coercive control social enterprise participant found out, you also have to be careful not to get relationships mixed up with your communication channels.
And while I did not get the chance to discuss my Business Model Canvas due to the time constraints, having discussed the issue from a social perspective with one of the fellow Bootcampers on the lunch break, it looked like my idea would have received a lot of praise had Simon managed to get round to discussing it with me.
After returning from the lunch break, we then managed to get round to legal structures (remember that social enterpise is a concept, not a structure!), going through a galaxy of CICs, LLPs and charities and broadly highlighting where these might come in handy, and then reaching the theory of change, which describes the steps that will be taken to address the main needs for a social enterprise, as well as the things that are needed to make the idea possible.
So to finish the day off, we decided to have a go at creating some social objectives for our business ideas. It was a lot more watered down compared to when I did the theory of change workshop two years ago (the old format also featured the outcomes framework), but the theory of change triangle still managed to get the job done.
With the theory of change elements complete, the session began to wind down at 3:30pm, and it was time to head home. Overall, it was a pretty decent day, as I went back home feeling very energetic and proud of what I had achieved that day.
Day 5: Marketing essentials with Jordan Bambridge
After tearing my way through the world of How to Train your Dragon in 4DX on Wednesday, it was time to go to another Bootcamp session. After some random chats about the politics of the benefits system with one of the other participants in the blazing heat, it wasn't long before we went up to the seminar room, and after going through the basic introductions, we were up and running - firstly, we were talking about our own interpretations of brands, and then Jordan interspersing the debate with some quotes from Marty Neumeier.
Then, we went on to have a brief discussion about what the best brand image could be - to which the colours of burgers on the McDonald's packaging and the Google identity ended up springing into mind. This fed through to the McDonald's marketing video, which I must say that it was very fun to watch, with the presenter of the advert asking random members of the public about the brand in multiple languages - a very powerful marketing tool, given that the McDonald's brand is something that is ultimately represented by symbols and emotions.
The Golden Circle came afterwards, which revolved on the principle of the why, the how, and the what. For instance, Apple creates phones and computers, beautifully designed to challenge the status quo of technology. Chocolomoly creates cheap bars that reinvents the supply chains, and strives to be 100% slave free. Audi on the other hand, makes fast luxury cars that are designed to make the world of luxury more affordable. And you get the idea with Go Cojoy.
We were then presented with the FURI framework that the presenter's organisation had invented - Foundation, Uniqueness, Relevance and Identity. As we've seen in the scenario with Yep Kitchen, at first this framework sounds really interesting - Yep created a palette to attract customers during Christmas (Hot-Hot-Hot), developed a sound understanding of their competitors' marketing campaigns, such as those of Poons and Chili Chan, and a persona that revolved around the foodie culture, along with the need to create something for a special occasion.
With the Sichuan food fun out of the way, it was then time to actually apply the model to our own business ideas, and then test out our ideas with others after the lunch break. The action was extremely intense, stressful and overwhelming to begin with, however once I had gotten Jordan to help out with the initial marketing goals, things started to move along, and eventually, once he had started to slow down the action to make sure that everyone was able to complete the task - everything else started coming together eventually.
But anyways, here is a basic overview of how I have managed to get on with the task, starting with the marketing goals...
...and finally getting around to the personas and positioning.
With the overwhelmingness all behind us, we moved on to exploring the different marketing channels, and of course the euphemism of "All channels suck, but all channels work" had to be brought in here. And then we got round to watching some more TikTok videos, with Duolingo hosting an April Fools joke about a show called "Love Language" on Peacock, and the RSPB making a "bird of the week" video about the Grey Herons, which to me, felt a bit more like a meme than something that you would typically expect from a professional wildlife society. And it got even better - the Economist putting out adverts on rooftops of London buses so office workers can access their products.
Once the fun of marketing identities was done and dusted, we got around to exploring different marketing archetypes - in other words, applying specific kinds of personality to your brand. Again, soft, sweet and simple - BBC is all about knowledge, Disney is about magic, and Harley Davidson's brand evoking a sense of rebellion.
The archetypes then became marketing characteristics. From behavioural marketing (you can target the same interests but two very different people), to seasonal and in-the moment marketing - an example that was explained very well when KFC ran out of chicken - and finding the right pain point and channel to communicate your message, the messaging really packed a punch here. All in the goal of creating the right channel to engage the right people at the right moment of the journey. Or as one participant put it, right person, right dose, right time, right place.
To finish the session off, we went through some presentations on the customer engagement process - but with a bit of a twist. Now in previous marketing sessions, we would be presented with presentations on paid, earned and direct media. This time. Let's just. Fuhgetaboutit. Instead, it was time to get to the marketing funnel, starting with raising awareness and getting customers noticed - whether it is influencer marketing, organic content or top-of-funnel SEO.
Then we got to exploring considerative channels - websites, testimonials, mid-funnel SEOs and the like. The conversion part came after that - making the marketing campaigns sell clearly to the people that you are targeting, before focusing on loyalty and upselling the customer base. And then the funnel finished on the advocacy element - existing customers encouraging others to take up the offer of your services.
And then it was time to get to an example of how the funnel worked - a customer who had cash underneath their mattress and wanted to spend that money to advertise sexy-themed his/hers toothbrushes. Raising awareness? Easy. Explore the social media platforms and try getting together a PR piece. Now where to send traffic - online platforms such as Shopify and blog content, as well as testimonials, such as a Toothbrush Association endorsement (woo). Next, use the money generated from the PR campaigns in the awareness stage to drive conversion leads and get some much-needed traction, before working to keep them on the platform by creating some enticing toothbrush offers!
But at the same time, some of the discussions that followed on from the funnel demonstration also highlighted the technical complexities that are associated with using marketing platforms for different purposes, such as creating a complex chain of cascading emails, using the right header tags to create all sorts of pages (including an About Us page), as well as downloading theme templates and loading them onto different content management platforms.
Eventually, after breezing way through some final marketing tips, the day came to an end, and I began to make my way home, at one point feeling a sense of relief and pleasure that I had managed to put together a decent marketing plan and learn a few interesting things out of the workshop, but also reeling from the intense stress of the marketing exercise.
Conclusions from Days 4 and 5
After comparing my experience in Days 4 and 5 to the first three days, I have to say that the Make a Difference Boot Camp continues to provide a positive experience in terms of helping people to create their own business ideas. The social enterprise workshop was very sharp and down to the point in terms of the content (although the legal structure material shouldn't be a legal advice substitute), and the choice of guest speaker was absolutely incredible, with a very vivid story of unbreakable spirit that led them to create their social enterprise and managing to get together a wonderful community of women from a wide fabric of cultures, and those who have been through all sorts of difficult life experiences, so that they get to enjoy the positive moments of life.
Moving on to day 5, the marketing session was without a doubt one of the most authoritative sessions that you could get in terms of marketing, with some of the most raw examples of a marketing proposal that I have seen with the example from Yep Kitchen, along with some very good uses of video content to discuss basic marketing concepts (the RSPB TikTok video particularly making me laugh so much). The only downside from the session was that doing the marketing exercise all at once in 30 minutes didn't do much good in terms of making people overwhelmed, and so if I were to do the whole marketing exercise again, I think it would have worked better to go through the framework one-by-one to make the exercise feel less of an insurmountable task.
Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed my write up of my experiences of this week's Bootcamp events. In the next blog post, we will be diving into another completely new topic, as we will be taught how to use AI to power up our business ideas (the programme schedule suggesting all sorts of things I've never heard about).
Signing off with much love,
Jakub
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