From Struggling Social Enterprise, to Thriving Social Business.
About:
Graduate Planet is a Social Enterprise recruitment consultancy that reinvests 100% of profits into educating the next generation on how to protect the planet.
The Situation:
The Founder of Graduate Planet, Kate Evans, was struggling with a variety of areas within her business when she began working with Daniella. The business was heavily reliant on funding and operationally, almost entirely reliant on Kate. Consequently, she was overworked and overwhelmed. Graduate Planet lacked the structure to scale and Kate lacked direction for how to move the business forward.
The Process
A 3 year vision was mapped out along with 3year goals and a 12 month action plan. A range of strategies were developed to help commercialise the social aspects of the business.
Kate had previously been running the business very much on a day to day basis. There was no clear strategy, structure or vision in place. Once this was developed, it had a profound motivational impact on Kate who realised the potential of the business. She felt that having the clear step by step plan focused her mind and gave her clarity on key areas of prioritisation. We were able to identify key areas which she should be focusing on to generate revenues and reduce the reliance on restricted funds.
Self Sufficiency – Kate was overworked and frazzled. There were no internal systems for any area of the business and she was doing everything manually with no internal manual or process maps. I was able to impress upon her the importance of automating repetitive tasks, utilising systems, mapping processes and documenting elements of the business. Once she began this process, she recognised that she would be able to now hire staff. She had previously been very worried about doing this as she felt it would be too much of a drain on her time. She subsequently hired two new staff members.
Marketing & Sales – We did a lot of work around marketing and sales as similar to the other areas of the business, there was no documented strategy in place. A marketing plan was developed with key methods for engaging her target clients and beneficiaries. Several creative marketing tactics were recommended and a systematic sales process was created. A full review of the market place was conducted with key products & services aligned with key target segments
A process for creating and testing the feasibility of new ideas, was developed and led to the creation of several new programmes and service ideas.
The Outcome:
The programme has been a superb catalyst for the business, making it grow and aspire to much greater heights than before. It has removed barriers and enabled the business to start to map it’s processes much more efficiently. It has had a profound effect on me personally, helping me to imagine the bigger and longer term future of the business, enabling me to be brave about our aspirations and provided a set of goals to reach for, that I would not have dared to imagine otherwise.
As we are now gradually following that path and expanding to take on new employees the process mapping concept has come into it’s own, reducing stress levels and supporting the business to become more efficient and streamlined in terms of time and training. Daniella is a very motivating and inspirational teacher, she has a no nonsense approach that galvanises you into action and makes anything seem possible. She is incredibly knowledgeable and confident in her delivery style which encouraged me to just get on with things without worrying too much. She is also very efficient in her note taking, report writing and recommendations which means that everything flows well providing the learner with a detailed and useful structure to follow.
Thank you very much for all you wonderful advice, patience and support. You have, by far, been the most effective mentor I have had and I have had several including 2 from PwC. Your approach is determined and inspirational which has really inspired me to think big and not be afraid to follow my dreams. Really appreciate your help!!!
Results:
- Reduction in the businesses reliance on Kate
- The business has introduced several new projects and is developing several new products.
- Increase in turnover
- Two new staff members hired
- Reduction in reliance on funding and an increase in commercial revenues
- The business has been supported in identifying the required finance for growth and a plan for generating this finance organically has been created.
- The company now has an understanding of the importance of IP protection and also has begun considering how the IP can be exploited for commercial purposes.