0 Building Social Business

Muhammad Yunus is best known as founder of the Grameen Bank.  In his book “Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs”, Yunus introduces a new idea, the social business.

What is a social business?  The idea is a business as close as possible to conventional business, with one exception.  Investors can draw from the business only the amount of money they first invested in it.  So, if you invest £1000, you can draw only £1000 from the business.

The idea is social business challenges business owners’ motivation.  They are seeking not personal enrichment but effective ways of supporting the poor.  Yunus argues most social enterprises allow personal profit from investment.  Where profits are possible, owners may have conflicting aims.

Yunus first published this book in 2010 and it would be interesting to find out how the idea developed over the last five or so years.  The book has a rather distant tone and it took me a while to feel the enthusiasm but it does seem to be effective.  Yunus genuinely believes this approach could abolish world poverty in a few decades.  Whilst I’m somewhat sceptical, I can see social business is likely to make a big difference.

Two aspects of social business interest me:

Capitalism Misrepresents Human Nature

Yunus writes in his introduction on page xv:

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.  In the present interpretation of capitalism, human beings engaged in business are portrayed as one-dimensional beings whose only mission is to maximise profit.  Humans supposedly pursue this economic goal in a single-minded fashion.

Both right and left hold this belief.  The left believes the priority is to oppose capitalism.  Sometimes they give little consideration to the size or local nature of business.  Others distinguish between local businesses and corporations who extract finance from local economies.  I suppose that is where I stand.

Politicians on the right, take profit maximisation as self-evident, a good thing and worth supporting in legislation.  Economists developed this one-dimensional model and they never intended it to be anything else.  Their assumption simplifies reality to enable modelling of the way the economy works.  The results of using this assumption to model the economy may be more or less accurate but it will always be approximate because human beings do not behave as this model predicts.

Corporations Invest in Social Business

Yunus provides several examples of corporations investing time and money in social businesses, where they expect to see social change and not to make a profit from their investment.  Yunus anticipates a parallel economy where social businesses grow the portion belonging to the poor and conventional businesses grow the portion belonging to the rich.

Whilst I welcome the very wealthy business people prepared to invest in social businesses, I don’t think Yunus appreciates fully the consequences of growing their portion.

Problems start where personal wealth outstrips business owners’ ability to spend their wealth.  This effectively removes wealth from local economies and concentrates it in financial markets.  The problem is in inequality, as the gap between rich and poor widens, the gap itself is the problem.

Social business may make the poor richer and to some degree close the gap but it does not tackle the systemic problem of inequality.  Immense wealth increases power and the temptation is always to use power to personal advantage.  When corporations take on government contracts, they usually lack transparency and become unavailable to democratic influence.

Whilst social business appears to be an effective way to tackle poverty, it cannot possibly address world poverty as a whole whilst corporations run things outside of democratic control.

Starting Locally

Yunus describes several social business projects and the inspiring thing about them is his approach to development.  Having a good idea is one thing, working out how to market it is another.  For example, arsenic poisons a lot of water in Bangladesh.  The effects are cumulative and take several decades to show up.

One village piloted a social business providing clean water.  The results were disappointing.  First, people were unused to paying for water, even though they set the price within range of the poorest families.  Also, the most vulnerable are women and children.  The men usually eat out and buy far more expensive bottled water and so do not need the clean water.  This alongside perceiving arsenic poisoning as a long-term problem, made take-up disappointing.

This shows the power of Yunus’ approach.  By starting in a single village he was able to find out the barriers to marketing the water.  The next step is to find ways around the barriers.  How do you market clean water under these circumstances?  Depending on the product, this period of testing can result in changes to the product, its packaging (especially size), its cost and maybe its mode of delivery.

Packaging for Different Markets

Sometimes different communities need the same product in different packages.  Urban and rural communities, for example.  The aim of piloting is to enable the offer of the same product in other communities with its marketing approach integral to the product.

This is an important insight.  Many good products fail because they are not marketed properly and usually the reason for this is the market is not understood.  No-one is going to argue that cheap clean water is a bad idea.  How do you sell it to a poor community and generate sufficient income to cover costs and expand the business?

This is a question any business has to answer. Yunus argues social businesses enable solutions to be entertained that benefit the poor because the pressure to enrich shareholders is absent.  The aim is to provide clean water to the poor and not generate profit for the rich.

Conclusion

Social businesses are a powerful tool and could be adapted for use in the West.  They encourage business people to invest in effective approaches to tackling poverty and many of them are willing to do so. I doubt they are likely to be effective on their own in tackling poverty because they do not address inequality.

I suspect Yunus is trying to present a model to corporations that enables them to make an effective contribution to tackling poverty.  To that extent what he says constrains him.  The effects of inequality on local economies and democracy are such that I doubt social business alone can have much impact.  As part of a wider democratic social movement they could be very effective indeed.

What do you think?  Do social businesses have a place in local economies in the UK?  Have you examples of experiments with social businesses anywhere in the world?

0 The Stories and Heritage of Local Places

This is the final post in a sequence where I’ve drawn on my community development experience to consider six categories of community assets.  It focuses on the stories and heritage of local places. You can find the full list of categories towards the end of my post, What Are Community Assets?  stories and heritage

Of all the six types of local assets I’ve considered, this one most directly addresses my underlying theme of spirituality. It’s not that stories and heritage are more spiritual than the other types of asset, so much as we tend to associate stories with spirituality more than we do hillsides or buildings.

Stories

I have discussed the value of stories in earlier posts and so it should be no surprise that just as businesses benefit from a story they use for their branding, so neighbourhoods benefit from the stories its residents and those nearby tell about it.

Pitsmoor

I live in a neighbourhood with two names. People who live in Pitsmoor use its original name, although it has a poor reputation. No-one wants to live in Pitsmoor because it is a place where there is crime, mostly related to drugs. Not so long ago South Yorkshire police had four armed response vehicles and assigned one to be deployed solely in Pitsmoor.

A few years ago the city’s newspaper had a front page headline that said the police has advised a potential house buyer not to live in Pitsmoor. It turned out it was a lay receptionist who had said this and arguably the vendors did more damage than the people who pulled out of the sale, by going to the paper.

But the residents of Pitsmoor tell a different story. It is a community that welcomes immigrants and refugees. This means part of the population constantly turns over but many people commit to the area for life and positively love living here.

Burngreave

Burngreave on the other hand is a well-to-do place and this can be seen in the many town houses that used to be owned by owners of the steel industries that surround the area. There is an air of faded gentility about the place.

Burngreave is the name of the ward and residents are sometimes chided for not respecting the area by calling it by its proper name. When the national government decided to spend £50 million on the area, it went to Burngreave and not Pitsmoor, even though the money did not go to all the Burngreave Ward but pretty much solely to Pitsmoor.

Stories Matter

I don’t expect you to follow all this. The point is every neighbourhood tells its own story. The story of Pitsmoor is further complicated by the many migrant communities. Some are new and others have been there for generations. Each brought their own stories into the area and has a story to tell about their experience of life in the area.

All these stories matter. They have a direct impact on the area. When the local paper tells people not to live in Pitsmoor it makes a difference. Whether that is a positive or negative difference is hard to tell.

The Wicker Arches, Sheffield’s Brandenburg Gates!

Note there is a difference between the stories told from outside the area and those told by local residents. The Wicker Arches are sometimes called Sheffield’s Brandenburg Gates, separating wealthy from poor Sheffield. I remember standing with my mother in the town centre, when I was very young, pointing towards the arches and asking “what’s down there?” “Nothing”, she answered.

That nothing is where I live now and pretty much everything to me.

Heritage

Heritage is the stories we tell about our neighbourhoods’ histories. Buildings and the spaces where buildings used to be, the routes of the roads; all embody the heritage of their place. The Roman Ridge, is a Roman thoroughfare that passes through Pitsmoor from the city centre to Greasborough in Rotherham.

Heritage is in the rivers and the associated industry. Thus Pitsmoor is a steel community and there are many clues in the buildings to its past glories. Some people remember a lot of this and others have memories imported into the area. Memories of persecution or of other cultures, other places with their own memories or heritage.

Heritage is the shared identity, an identity that belongs to everyone who lives here. Of course it is possible to live here and not be aware of its heritage. It is possible to shuffle past the buildings and never look above the thresholds of the shops and wonder when and why they were built.

Compare Sheffield with Scunthorpe. Scunthorpe is small-scale. It looks as if the town centre is a temporary place, where any day the population will up sticks and move on. Sheffield feels as if it has put down deep roots. Its city centre dwarfs Scunthorpe’s in every way.

But compare Sheffield with Manchester. The size and opulence of Manchester’s Centre makes Sheffield feel like a minor place.

Neither comparison is a value judgement. The differences originate from the histories of these three places. It is possible to prefer any of the three over the other two. But they are different and it is these differences that contribute to their identity.

History Matters

Sheffield’s history matters. The Hallam constituency, entirely within the city boundaries, is one of the wealthiest in the country. Why? Originally it was the captains of the steel companies and perhaps now the university and teaching hospital contribute. Does this wealthy area bring new industry to the city?

These massive contrasts of wealth and poverty across the city contribute to its local economies. Their influence  cannot be denied.

They are part of our heritage and form the stories we tell of our city and its neighbourhoods. Telling compelling stories about our neighbourhoods allows them an identity, drawing interest from businesses and customers.  It is important we tell the right stories that draw and don’t repel.

Can you tell stories of your place? How do they impact upon the local economy?

0 What You Don’t Do

When is it a good idea to explain what you don’t do? Usually it is not a good idea to dwell on what you don’t do. After all you are marketing a positive and going on at great length about your lack of capacity may leave the impression that your services are inadequate.

However, there are times when some awareness of your limitations can be beneficial. If you are aware of them, they can inform your copy in positive ways.

Beneficial Limitations

Sometimes limitations can be beneficial to the client. Indeed, it may be you will choose limitations to attract a type of client. You may be capable of doing X but it is better for your client that you don’t.

For example, Done With You (DWY) website design and construction aims to teach the client the basics so they can grow and develop their site on their own.

You may be capable of a Done For You (DFY) approach but it is an approach that has its own limitations. It is the right solution for some clients. DFY can save time and heartache but for the client who has limited resources, they need to know when it is the best approach for them.

Offer DFY when:

And so on …

You will see this list manages expectations in a positive way. Anyone seeking a DFY approach will know your service is not for them.

However, some may want to combine the advantages of a DFY and a DWY service. This is possible and so you might have a second package that combines these approaches and introduces a different set of limitations.

You will note that what you don’t offer may vary from package to package. Your limitations are not always deficiencies in your skill set so much as strategic decisions necessary for the packages you offer.

Working in Partnership

A third area where limitations are important is where you are working in partnership. Here the issue will be delineating the boundaries between each partner’s role. If there are grey areas, where it isn’t clear whose role applies, we need to discuss where the boundaries lie.

It may be easier where partners have very distinct areas of work. So, a health package might include an expert in nutrition and an expert in physical exercise. Whilst there may be some overlap, it will normally be obvious when one encroaches on the other’s work. Of course they will need to discuss a client’s needs and agree a plan but once agreed they will work in their own domain.

It may be less clear with, say, a partnership between a web consultant and a web developer. There may be many details where they must agree about issues on the boundaries. Their skill in this case may be to say to the client, “look, we’ve shown you 2 ways to do this, it’s your decision which you follow”. This may turn the overlap to advantage but it is important to beware of confusing the client.

This post concludes the sequence about the second element of the circuit questionnaire, products services and causes.

0 Your Online Marketing Hub

Last Friday I discussed your local marketing hub and today it is the turn of your online marketing hub.  Local marketing offers a choice of hub, although circumstances are likely to limit the choice.  However, for online marketing there is no choice, only one online marketing hub.

If you are marketing locally, your online marketing can be your marketing hub.  However, it is more likely that it will support an in-person hub.  Why?  Because being able to market in-person is a big advantage and so most businesses will support their marketing using online methods but not wish to make them their main approach.

So, what is your online marketing hub?  It is, of course, your website.  Whether it is a massive online shop, with loads of details about your products or services or a single landing page (not an approach I would always recommend) it is your marketing hub.  Why?  Because things feed into it and it has outputs.

Inputs

You want to drive the right visitors to your site.  The right visitors are people who are interested in your business or cause.  The website will then convert them into supporters (of various kinds) or customers.  So, here are a few ways of getting traffic (visitors) to your website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

This is the first thing people think about when planning how to get traffic to their website.  It is really important if you are marketing nationally or globally.  For local marketing it is less important because there are other methods that are equally if not more effective.

I keep seo ticking over but do not put a great deal of effort into it.  I want to be able to use seo in the future if I need to and so I pay some attention to it now with expecting it to make any significant difference to my business.

Social Media

I include under this heading the major social media platforms, eg Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Google, YouTube as well as any side effects where a contact online might recommend my site or one of my blog posts to friends.  It’s all social and all media.

The main thing to remember here is with the platforms, use them to drive visitors to your website.  Do not rely solely on your followers, friends, etc.  There are lots of reasons for this.  The main one is that people who sign up on your site are likely to do so because they are interested in your offer.  On social media there are often other factors at play.

In the early days people started to build business empires on social media and then there would be a rule change and they lost everything.  This is perhaps less likely to happen these days but it is still the case that these platforms don’t belong to you and so a rule change could jeopardise your business or cause.  This does not prevent you from using things like Facebook Ads to promote your offers, but use them to get people to visit your site.

Direct Entry

This is where someone copies your url into their browser.  They will have your url from your in-person marketing.  This may seem somewhat old-school but it can be the most effective way to grow your lists online.

These days this approach can be surprisingly high-tech!  Now it is possible for people to reach your website and join your list from their mobile.  So, you can stand over them while they do it, although it may be best to give them some space.

Outputs

When visitors arrive on your site you want them to effect a conversion.  Broadly there are two main outputs.

Email Lists

If someone signs up to your email list, they can receive reminders to return to your site.  So, you could add email lists to the “Inputs” list, I suppose.  They are the most effective way to keep in touch with your supporters.

Some people think email lists are out of date and prefer to use social media.  Don’t.  Email is far from out of date and is the most effective way of maintaining contact with hopefully large numbers of contacts.

There are loads to say on this topic because it is really important not to be too irritating but this is enough for now.

Sales

Yes you can actually sell things through your website!  If you do make sure you add the customer to your email list.

Don’t forget sales do not always imply exchange of cash.  A sale may be a signature on a petition, an email to their MP or a commitment to attend a meeting or demonstration.  Whatever it is be sure to offer clear instructions about how to do it!

This is a brief overview to show how your online marketing hub can work.  I’m always happy to write at greater length.  Ask if there is anything.  Or comment on your favourite input or output approach, especially if I’ve missed anything!

0 Economic Resources of Local Places

I’m drawing on my experience of community development to consider six categories of community assets, and the fifth is economic resources of local places. You can find the full list towards the end of my post, What Are Community Assets?

“Economic resources” is gloriously vague and so it’s worth asking what do we mean by the economic resources of local places?

Community development workers in England have not shown much interest in economic regeneration. Community audits rarely acknowledge the local economy. When people mention it, the focus is usually on community initiatives such as social enterprises.

Perhaps the radical 60s and 70s account for the origins of community development. Activists viewed the economy as a source of injustice. The economy certainly is a source of injustice, more so today than in the 60s and 70s. Perhaps things would be better today had we paid more attention to the economy in the past.

So, let’s take a look at some local economic resources, many perhaps peripheral to our understanding of our neighbourhoods.

Natural resources

Some places benefit from local natural resources, most notably perhaps in the coal communities that until recently were dependent on coal for most local income. They fought for a decent income from work in difficult and dangerous conditions over decades and in the UK coal imports wiped out most of these communities.

Steel communities grew from nearby reserves of wood, iron ore and water to power the earlier mills. These industries too were wiped out by cheaper imports.

Farming communities benefit from proximity to a variety of sources of income and so they are perhaps more robust. They are however similarly vulnerable to cheap imports. Older readers may remember Guernsey tomatoes being advertised. Today, if you travel around Guernsey you see empty greenhouses, their tomato industry is no more.

Perhaps ports and other centres of communications are beneficiaries of natural resources. Liverpool for example used to be wealthy through imports and is now not so wealthy as imports have declined.

Recent history suggests international trade is not always good news for communities. This is one reason many economists worry about the decline of manufacturing, which means there is less to export.

Parks, woodlands and other tourist attractions can also be seen as natural resources. They bring trade into an area.

Local Businesses

Large-scale industry is another source of local wealth. Billingham was for many years a relatively wealthy town, when ICI was the dominant industry. ICI is no longer there, although replaced by several smaller chemical factories. This has resulted in long-term unemployment in the area.

Note this started as a local business that combined with others to form ICI and so decision-making left the area. For several decades the economy in Billingham was pretty much dependent on ICI and the decline of the chemicals industry was a disaster.

The problem with many larger businesses is their locality becomes dependent on them and suffers when they are withdrawn. A more diverse local economy is likely to be more stable.

The success of small and medium-sized industry will depend upon the extent to which businesses can support one another. This is another reason a more diverse economy can be beneficial. Remember, smaller businesses are likely to have a shorter lifespan and so there will be a higher turnover.

Traders

Traders are often the first to spring to mind when we think about the local economy because they are visible businesses. People do not leave their homes to visit business parks but they may enjoy shopping in local centres where they meet friends and relax. Traders are just as dependent on industry as everyone else of course. Mass unemployment in a small areas is likely to put many retail businesses out of business as people spend less.

Traders are the backbone of any community. Other activities gravitate to the shopping centre so that residents can attend to other aspects of their lives in the same place. This has been the purpose of the marketplace for centuries and why large-scale out-of-town shopping centres seem so dead. Where shopping is the sole activity, there is little sense of community life. These centres draw people from all over, so it is less likely they bump into someone they know. They draw custom out of local centres and so put local traders out of business. This reduces the activity in local marketplaces so that many neighbourhoods seem dead.

Freelancers

Freelancers are often not noticed because they are not visible. Shops can be found in shopping centres, businesses in business areas and parks but freelancers often work from home and have little local presence.

If they are doing well and spend some of their income locally, they will have an impact on the local economy. Furthermore, if they seek out and support other local businesses, they may have an economic impact on the area beyond their apparent size.

The thing is freelancers are experimenting with new ideas. Many will not succeed but it is from small beginnings that significant businesses can grow.

Trade Associations

Associations of businesses are important because they are opportunities for businesses to meet that would otherwise never find one another. There are several kinds of association and I shall mention two.

Referral marketing associations are where smaller businesses can support each other. They are open to any business although there are associations specifically for larger businesses.

These are usually national organisations so that businesses can build relationships locally through meetings and nationally through online contact.

Local associations are where traders (usually) in a single centre meet to support each other’s businesses. Hunters Bar, for example, has an established traders association that does what it can to support small enterprises in the area.  Also freelancers who produce saleable products can sell them through the local shops.

Local associations may have a role to play in wider neighbourhoods. Hunters Bar’s community organisation, with the traders, organises a quarterly street market. The community association has their own agenda but recognise the contribution traders make to their neighbourhood.

Is it possible for community and business organisation to become natural allies? Share in the comments interesting examples you know about.

0 Quiet Times for Your Business

Here are two ways to approach quiet times and both view them as opportunities.

Special Promotions

For some businesses, quiet times are opportunities for special promotions. My business goes quieter over Christmas and the summer. It may be worth considering some sort of special offer for those times.

However, there are two reasons why I most likely won’t.

• Most of my packages run over 3 – 6 months and so the chances are they will run across these quiet periods. I may not take on new clients over these times but I may still be working with existing clients.
• I am likely to want to take the second approach to quiet times.

Take a Break!

Quiet times are an opportunity to take a break. Breaks are important, especially for the self-employed who are always in danger of working continuously over very long periods.

A break is also an opportunity to review your business, write, revise your website and carry out other administration to which you never get around when you’re busy.

Use the first approach if you are a larger business with plenty of staff and especially if cash flow is critical. Use the second if you are smaller and need a break!

Watch Your Cash Flow

However, it is important to be aware of cash flow cycles, particularly if you offer a service.  What happens is you put effort into finding customers when things are slow.  As you find customers your income increases and so does the work.  So, you stop looking for customers while you work with the ones you have.  Then you find cash flow declines because you have not been marketing your business.  This is the reason many small service businesses fail.

So, whilst there may be quiet times and they may be welcome breaks, you must have a marketing strategy that is effective during the more active times of the year!  If you can organise things so that you market during the busy times and provide your service during the quieter times, so much the better.

How do you use quiet times to support and refresh your business or enterprise?

This is part of a post sequence about the second element of the circuit questionnaire, products services and causes.

0 Your Local Marketing Hub

Your local marketing hub, is the core activity around which your marketing activities circulate.  It is the main thing you do well that other marketing activities feed into.

It is true national or global marketers can make choices about their marketing strategies.  However, alternatives to using the Internet, such as advertising through television or hoardings, conferences, etc can be very expensive.  So, in practice the small non-local marketer has online approaches available and little else.  Online marketing’s dynamic is different and so I will cover online marketing hubs in a future post.

There are many approaches available to local marketers and they can easily fall into two mistakes.  One is to take on too much, to attempt several approaches to marketing and not specialise in one.  The other is to be unaware of the possibilities and so overlook the best focus for their marketing strategy.

Choosing Your Hub

Usually organisations choose one main marketing activity as their hub.  They are likely to have secondary activities that feeds into the hub.  For local marketing, online activities usually take on this secondary role.

It is worth being aware of these possibilities because marketing strategies evolve.  Some activities naturally grow out of other activities and so awareness of the possibilities allows movement to new strategies as the older ones open new possibilities.

The first step is to name your local marketing hub. Below I list some possibilities, which will help identifying existing methods and possibilities.  It is likely I’ve missed some.  People have been marketing locally from long before the Internet.  Most traditional methods still work, when applied appropriately.  Some benefit from online support.

Sometimes local businesses and organisations make the mistake of dashing for a website as a fix for their marketing issues.  They do not look at their marketing hub and ask whether there is any value in

Identifying your hub does not commit you to it forever.  It tells you what your present primary focus is and from there you can develop a marketing strategy.  Your strategy may include improving your performance using your current hub or it may include development into a new hub.

Shops and Market Stalls

For traders one of these is likely to be your marketing hub.  Traditional approaches such as window dressing, special offers, etc, to draw people into your shop may be all you need.  I know one shop in the city centre that employs a barker, an activity usually associated with market stalls!

Online support for a shop might build an email list for customers.  Occasional emails detailing special offers or new lines may be beneficial.

Community Buildings

It depends on their use.  Some community buildings simply hire out rooms.  They will advertise locally but perhaps mainly promote their offers through people who use the building.

Some community projects put on events and these can be a sound basis for marketing.  There may be plenty of opportunities to promote other events when someone books or attends an event.

Another use, which can work in shops, is an unstructured meeting place.  A coffee shop, for example, could publicise other activities or products through notice boards or table-top leaflets.  In less formal environments, make announcements or use stalls to promote offers.

Local Media

This is unlikely to be the hub of your marketing campaign because getting into local media at all, let alone regularly, is not easy.  Local media may in its search for copy, approach a business.  The problem is a good article will appear in one edition and then it needs to be read, remembered and stored for reference if someone is likely to use it.

Some businesses such as restaurants display reviews in their windows and so can benefit from a positive review for some time.  Some papers put articles on their website and you can link to them from your website.  But these are minor ways to gain some extra support from a fortuitous piece of good publicity.

Advertising is another possibility but it is likely to be expensive.

Flyers, Business Cards, Etc

These may be effective and certainly many organisations use them.  They can be left on your premises, so that people take them as an aide memoire or to give to friends.  They can be handed out on the street or put through letter boxes.  You may be able to enhance their effectiveness with a link to a good website and so they can be used to grow your email list.

Referral Marketing

Informally, this is sometimes called networking.  It is particularly effective for business to business (B2B) marketing.  Networking is only one part of the approach.  To do it properly you need to bring together several techniques, eg an elevator pitch and one-to-one meetings.  The idea is businesses agree to refer potential customers to one another.

Look at it this way.  You enter a room where there are 10 business people.  Whilst none of them may be interested in your offer, they will each know perhaps 300 people.  This means there are potentially 3000 people in the room!

Also, if you can meet regularly with those 10 people, they will understand your business and so act as unpaid marketers for you.  In your elevator pitch you need to be clear about who your market is and what you offer them.

Presentations

Here you present an interesting topic to a group of people who are likely to be in your market and encourage them to talk with you if they are interested.  You must not use the presentation to directly promote your business.  It is an opportunity to prove your command of your subject and enthuse your audience.

The hardest part of this approach is finding audiences prepared to hear your talk.    So, this may be an approach to combine with referral marketing.  It might start as a secondary marketing activity and as your reputation grows and you find more opportunities, it could become your main activity.

Other Local Approaches

There are other specialist approaches suited to some businesses.  Many can grow out of building alliances with other businesses and then working together to promote offers.

Online Approaches

I shall consider these in a future post.

Are you aware of any local marketing approaches I’ve missed?  If so, leave them in a comment.  I’d be happy to research any approach and write a post about it – just let me know what interests you.

0 Physical Resources and Ecology

I’m drawing on my experience of community development to consider six categories of community assets, and the fourth is physical resources and ecology. You can find the full list towards the end of my post, What Are Community Assets?

Of course, physical resources include buildings and I wrote about buildings as assets in the first of this sequence. So, I will not explore them further here. Let’s turn instead to …

Geomorphology

Land

This includes the shape of the land; its hillsides and plains. If you don’t believe this is important, consider the plight of those who are experiencing repeated flooding. Flooding is to do with the shape of the land and land use.  This may have an impact on other areas. So, poor land use in one neighbourhood might lead to flooding in another.

The shape of the land determines its use.  Its shape determines routes through the land and the positions of buildings.  On hillsides, the larger houses will often face across the valley whilst poorer housing faces other houses along the hillside.  The well-to-do get better views, often at one time over the industry they own in the valley below.

Parks and views enhance neighbourhood identity and attracts visitors. Good walks can bring people into an area and local businesses benefit from their presence.  Sheffielders will tell you their city is built on seven hills.  I’m not sure how many hills there are but certainly walking the city, there are always interesting views across the valleys.

Rivers and other waterways can often form a focal point for an area. Canals always have a bridal path alongside and rivers are often associated with walks. These are good for pedestrians and can link neighbourhoods together. Waterways are usually closely related to the industrial history and heritage of an area and I’ll look at this in more detail in a later post.  Trying to track the course of a river and its tributaries can make for an interesting few hours, often leading into unfamiliar places at the back of the familiar.

Climate

Prevailing winds also decide the positions of housing.  Industry is often found downwind of better housing.

Land use is central to so much of our experience of a neighbourhood. The layout of the roads may help movement around the neighbourhood. Impassable multi-lane roads can break up a neighbourhood or cut it off from other neighbourhoods.

Urban Environment

It may be worth looking at the significant buildings in your area. If significant buildings are close together maybe they form a focal area for your neighbourhood. Are there ways in which that area can be made more attractive to new enterprises or businesses?

Industrial areas can be a blessing and a blight. Older industrial areas can be a fascinating resource of vernacular architecture. Buildings erected before prefabrication often display ornate brick and stonework under the grime. But more recent business estates can be, well, boring.

Example of street art by Phlegm, by the River Don.

Street art, not to be confused with graffiti, enhances many disused buildings. Street art is often practised inside disused buildings and what we see from the streets is usually there by arrangement with the owners. Perhaps the most famous street artist is Bristol’s Banksy but in Sheffield we enjoy the works of artists including Phlegm, Kid Acne and Faunagraphic. Whilst most people don’t travel to view street art, it enhances appearance and so adds to that sense of community identity.

The second part of Julian Dobson’s book, “How to Save Our Town Centres”, looks in some detail at the various types of land use that can make up a healthy town centre. Much the same applies to any neighbourhood.

Ecology

Pollution

Another issue in industrial areas is pollution. Perhaps we think of pollution as immediate and indeed it can be quickly distributed by waterways or in the air. However, polluted land can be most pernicious. In effect it restricts possible uses of the land. Polluted ex-industrial areas cannot be used for housing and so where there were large-scale factory areas, there is little that can be done to return them to residential use.

A challenge many communities face is the uses they can make of the spaces between. Polluted land limits these uses and land ownership can be a real headache. However, it is possible for communities to do a great deal with determination and otherwise limited resources. A good example is Todmorden’s Incredible Edibles, where local people grow food in any spaces they can find.

Trees and Plants

Indeed with guerrilla gardening, it is possible to find fruit trees and the like springing up in unexpected places. Cuts to local government services means local authorities sometimes need unofficial help to maintain flowerbeds. Whether they appreciate it is another matter.

Another great amenity is wayside trees and in Sheffield at present there is a massive struggle between the local authority and residents determined to save Sheffield’s trees. Wayside trees have a massive impact on the health of residents, their value is not just in their appearance. Sheffield is one of the most tree-lined cities in the country. Unfortunately, the Council has entered into a PFI contract with a company that cuts down mature trees, replacing them with small trees that won’t get in the way of their equipment. Currently residents are contemplating challenging the Council in the courts.

Deregulation

The problem here, as with so many corporate activities, is they subscribe to a narrow understanding of economics. The narrow view seeks to maximise profit to shareholders by making activities as economic for the company as possible. You would think the Council’s role would be to represent the interests of all who have an economic interest in the area and not only the interests of a single company.

Whilst it seems many people agree that there should be less red tape and theoretically believe regulation is a bad thing. When confronted with specific examples of what regulation protects, they often see the value of it. The assets of any neighbourhood do not lie solely in the activities of businesses. Maintaining and supporting land use that may seem unproductive can bring other benefits in the long-term. It may be easier to argue for areas such as ancient woodland but the same is true of oases of green in primarily urban and industrial areas.

If the bureaucrats win the argument and cut down most of Sheffield’s trees for reasons of economic efficiency, they will have changed the character of the city forever. They close off possibilities for the future so that they can save a few pounds now. Indeed we don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.

If you keep your eyes open, you will find many examples in your place of good and bad management of local physical resources and ecology.  Why not share them here?

1 Trustmarks

Trustmarks are images or logos that endorse your business by reference to a third-party company or business.

There are two types of Trustmark:

Endorsement Trustmarks

These show other companies or organisations trust your product or service. Sometimes funding bodies, for example, ask you to display their logo when they reward a grant. This may be an advantage because the fact you received a grant shows a third-party recognises your work.

Other possibilities might be

Of course, you should always get their permission before you display their trustmark.

They are an at-a-glance equivalent of testimonials.  Some websites display them together, perhaps as a band above the footer.  If you have a testimonial, you could display the trustmark with it.

Safety Trustmarks

The second type of trustmark are logos that reassure the visitor to your site that it is safe. So, if you are taking payments through the site, for example, you might display the PayPal logo to reassure visitors making payments.  This does not mean PayPal endorses your site’s content from but it reassures because a third-party records the payment.

This type of Trustmark is usually displayed close to where it is relevant.  So you will display the PayPal logo where you request the payment.  If your site sells a lot of things you might show it in your header, so the visitor can see it applies to the whole site.

Conclusion

If you can display trustmarks, it may be an advantage but many websites manage without them and it is probably not worth chasing such endorsements. If you have them, use them and if not don’t worry about them!

This is part of a post sequence about the second element of the circuit questionnaire, products services and causes.

1 The Art and Science of Selling

Older readers will remember the adverts that began with a doorbell: “Ding Dong” and will immediately respond: “Avon calling”.  The point of the advert was to soften up the viewers for the “Avon Lady”, when she called.  How many have even noticed that practitioners of the art and science of selling on the doorstep have disappeared?  Very few people these days sell from door to door.

It seems doorstep selling began with the Fuller Brush Company in the United States.  They were the origin of the term “foot-in-the-door”.  Many companies, including Avon Cosmetics, copied the Fuller Brush Company and it seems a good salesperson was often a welcome visitor, building long-term relationships with their customers.  However, the current image is of the brash salesperson who will not take no for an answer.  Where have they gone?

It seems it’s the Internet what’s done for them!  Whether this is a blessing or a curse probably depends on whether you believe Internet sales are better or worse than doorstep sales!

Daniel Pink in his book “To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading Convincing and Influencing Others” (subtitle from 2014 edition) charts the decline of doorstep selling and the surprising rise of selling in general.  His point is not that Internet sales have usurped the place of doorstep sales but that we are all salespeople now.  Or most of us!

His argument is other changes apart from the rise of the Internet mean we are all practitioners of the art and science of selling now.  He highlights three trends that have led to this change.  The archetypal doorstep salesperson has given way to the professional who incorporates selling into their daily work and perhaps is not aware they are doing so.  I suppose it depends on how you think about your work.  I’ll mention his three main trends here and comment on how they relate to the local economy.

Entrepreneurs

Every local business is dependent on selling its product service or cause.  This is most obvious with retailers perhaps but there are plenty of self-employed freelancers who must learn how to sell.

The self-employed, who abandon employment to sell their skills and knowledge, are sometimes called the precariat.  Many are not very good at sales and barely cover their costs.  Many are not successful and either change their practice until they find something that works or go under.

The problem for many entrepreneurs is believing what they offer has real social value.  It is hard to sell something you don’t believe in.  Their failure to believe in their own offer does not necessarily correlate with what they offer.  For every brash salesperson selling something over-hyped there is the too timid entrepreneur who never quite convinces about something that is really rather good!

Successful businesses usually find a business community who offer support and bolster confidence to sell.  Whilst some businesses could benefit from a healthy dose of brashness, perhaps it is quiet confidence in a good product or service that ultimately wins out.  And perhaps many businesses would benefit from other businesses singing their praises!

Selling in the Community

Community and voluntary organisations are often in a similar place to local businesses.  They may be selling a cause and so they are not necessarily seeking finance but they are still engaged in sales.  Perhaps the main difference between these organisations and local businesses is that usually, they are not dependent on the success of their enterprise.  People promoting a local cause will often do so in their spare time, whilst remaining in employment.

Leaving aside possible clashes with their employers over the cause they promote, the primary difference may be lack of experience.  Many will think of their selling as promoting a cause or campaigning and do not associate it with the marketing local businesses do.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of common ground and perhaps mutual recognition and sympathy would lead to more collaboration.  Businesses may be able to help organisations with marketing, whilst some community organisations may have valuable local knowledge.

Elastic Businesses

Entrepreneurs can find they are marketing alongside representatives from more established businesses.  These are not from the sales department because many larger businesses have done away with their sales departments, flattened hierarchies and declared that everyone is responsible for sales.  Many workers find their role stretches to cover far more than they would in the past and everyone has some role in promoting their company.

Selling through your role in your business is increasingly your responsibility.  If in promoting your role, you bring more customers to the business it is all to the good.

Many workers are waking up to the fact that they belong to a community.  It may be local, perhaps a city or region or it may be online.  They are part of a community, customers and collaborators who may bring customers to the company.  The challenge is to navigate the sea of people who seem to be creative on a shoestring.  Building relationships with entrepreneurs, third sector and in business, can bring greater benefits to larger companies.

Education and Medicine

Pink’s point here is that not all selling involves money.  The aim is to persuade others to take a course of action for their own benefit.  So, a teacher needs to sell learning to their pupils or students.  A doctor needs to persuade patients to change their diet to help them return to health.

By extension just about any activity needs a sales approach.  Community and voluntary organisations often find they are marketing a cause.   They may want donations or time or members or signatures or letters to MPs.  How do they move people to support their cause?

Sample Cases

After he makes the case that selling is a natural part of being human, Pink goes on to show how it can be done.  This is the best part of the book, as Pink describes the characteristics of a good salesperson and suggests practical exercises to improve their approach to sales.

Sample Cases follow each chapter, practical things anyone can take up and use.  So, this is essentially a practical book packed with simple tools anyone can use.  I suspect it is something I shall return to many times.

If you are active in local marketing you will find this book a useful practical guide to the art of selling.

Are you comfortable with being a salesperson?  If you are in any business or profession, you are almost certainly expected to sell things.  How do you go about it?