Strategy Made Simple

Uyen Pham is the Executive Director at Artbeat studios, a mental health recovery non-profit in Winnipeg. They host artists for their Artists In Residence program to help them with their journeys of mental health recovery. Once they have completed the program, their work is shown in the gallery and they are invited to contribute work to the Upbeat Artworks, a social enterprise that sells alumni art...

The systems that we use to design our products, services, and programs influence their final versions. In this episode of Marketing Social Enterprise, Matthew Rempel will take you through three systems of understanding how you can design products and services to better serve your customers and social beneficiaries. 1. Human-Centred Design 2. Lean Startup principles 3. Nudge theory --- Marketing So...

What kind of risks exist within your social enterprise? What risks are you willing to take, and what risks are you taking by avoiding decisive action? In social enterprise, we make things more difficult when compared to business as usual because of our social goals. Adding social goals makes things more complicated, and complications usually cost more money. Knowing when to add more impact and whe...

How do you think of value? How do you value what you produce? What have you subconsciously tied to the price or value of what you sell? Value is subjective. Understanding how the people you will be interacting with see value is key to building a successful business, and a successful social enterprise. To make the most of this concept: Take 10 minutes and write out the main point of value for your...

Siloam Mission has turned a large expense into a social enterprise opportunity. Charles Enns is the Building Futures program manager at Siloam Mission in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Part of his duties involve managing a small commercial grade laundry social enterprise that is currently serving the internal needs of the Siloam shelter. The Siloam Laundry shifted approximately $150,000 in laundry expenses f...

  Marketing sometimes gets a bad reputation. It can be seen as a necessary evil of being in business. A dirty part of earning revenue. But it doesn't have to be. Marketing is just the practice of being clear about the value you can offer to potential customers, and presenting it to them in a way that matches your company's brand. If you truly believe in the products and services that your social e...

If you don't have a clear business model you can't grow or market effectively. That is why you must know the 4 key elements of a business model: What you do What you sell Who you sell to How you get paid By being able to clearly define these four elements, you will be able to tell if an opportunity will strengthen or weaken your social enterprise. --- Does trying to grow and market your social ent...

Ian Rountree is the project manager in charge of Buy Social Praries . Buy Social Praries is a project of LITE , and is a part of the wider network in Buy Social Canada . Ian and I talk about the importance of explaining what your social enterprise is about, and how to tailor that message to specific audiences. We also talk about the importance of networking as an industry to attempt to hit the sca...

How do you communicate as a social enterprise? There are three styles of communication that we explore in this episode of the Strategy Made Simple podcast. Informational - sharing information Transactional - requesting action Interactional - building relationships The mix of styles that you use in communicating with your customers, clients, partners and suppliers will change the way your brand is...

Amanda Bernardo is half of Little Voice Books , an independent children's book publishing company. She is the author behind Little Voice and The Lighthouse. Along with her illustrator Samantha, they have built up the company around these two books. We talk about the challenges of marketing books and growing a business with small roots. We also talk about how to organize a company to be able to hav...

Anne Kresta is the President and CEO of Level IT Up , a social enterprise that helps people with autism with job training, while providing quality IT workers for Winnipeg tech companies. Throughout our conversation, Anne would always mention how what they're doing would not be possible without the support of various groups of people. From her board, to the network of similar organizations, to the...

This episode is available in blog format as well. You can Listen to/Read it on StrategyMadeSimple.ca --- How Small Can A Product Be? One of the biggest parts of business is providing a product or service. Once you've decided what problem you would like to try to solve, the next step is developing the solution. Whether your solution is delivered as a product or a service, there will come a point wh...

Kalen Taylor stepped into the role of Executive Director at Purpose Construction and Purpose Pest Management in 2018. Since they started, the team at Purpose has been working at re-branding and separating out the two areas of their expertise, residential retrofits and pest management. As a part of this process, Kalen has been leading Purpose to expand their offerings to better serve their communit...

This episode is available in blog format as well. You can Listen to/Read it on StrategyMadeSimple.ca --- Who is your competition? In some areas of life, there is an easy answer. If you play on a football team, clearly the other teams are your competition. If you are a football league commissioner, then it's a little more complicated. You could see other team sports as your competition, from rugby...

Kristy Muckosky uses the relationships with volunteers at the Thrive Thrift Shop to help them build their confidence and grow to see new possibilities. She does this by providing them with a space where they can take chances, learn how to keep trying after failures, and do so in a non-judgemental environment. The Thrive Thrift Shop is a community based thrift shop offering household goods from dia...

Alternate title: Values, Alignment, and Customer Questions Marketing is about aligning your product or service with the values of your customers, then helping them overcome the objections they might have about purchasing the product or service. There are three steps to start overcoming your potential customers' objections: Align your product or service with values Align those values with the right...

Art Ladd is the Executive Director of BUILD - Building Urban Industries for Local Development. The majority of his work is centered around helping people who have barriers to employment. BUILD helps them by providing paid training and work placements so they can apply to other companies with experience and a reference. Art also explains how aspiring social entrepreneurs can look for social problem...

Marty Donkervoort is a Manitoba based social entrepreneur and educator. He's founded multiple worker co-ops and social enterprises, done consulting, and teaches courses on social enterprise and sustainability. Marty suggests that social enterprises cannot thrive without the business skills to compete in the marketplace. He also explains his story of transitioning from being an executive in a multi...

When you're starting out as a new business, many of the decisions you make will affect how you can do marketing in the future. Your choices as you're starting up will form the associations that people will have with your brand based on what you make, how it's priced, where they can buy it and how you will let people know about your product or service. These components make up what is traditionally...

Shaun Loney is a Manitoba based social enterprise developer. He has started several social enterprises, and has been an advisor for many more. He has also written three books on the subject. Shaun urges us to examine the systems within which we live and work. He has encouraged me and many others to try to work towards finding solutions for the problems that are caused by our systems. Shaun's Books...

The process of going through a regular check in with your social enterprise is essential for ensuring that you are continuing to work towards achieving your mission. This check in process will guide you through looking at your mission and values, identifying important statistics within your business and creating a plan to improve your business. Newsletter signup - Get the Check In Worksheet --- Do...

What do our stories say about us? How do we show our values through our stories? How can we change the way we feel about ourselves by changing how we talk about ourselves? These are all things that Cate and I talk about in this episode of the Strategy Made Simple podcast. Find out how you can tell better stories about your social enterprise.   Cate Friesen is the person behind The Story Source . S...

Kathryn Kimbley is pursuing a PhD studying nascent social entrepreneurs, in addition to running her own animal assisted therapy social enterprise called HumAnimaCIC . She is based in the Midlands in the United Kingdom. She spoke about her personal story of getting into social enterprise, what it looks like for people to participate in animal assisted therapy, and how social enterprises might be ab...

Mike Toye is the Executive Director of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCED-Net). Through his work, he attempts to bring together diverse perspectives on Community Economic Development and share successful innovations across the national community. I got a chance to speak with him while attending the CCED-Net Manitoba Gathering, a national conference where CED academics and pr...

Community Based Social Marketing (CBMS) is a system for promoting ideas and advocating within groups of people. It has been used by advocacy agencies to understand where their efforts are most likely to produce the results they are looking for, and whether people are likely to respond positively towards their initiatives. Teresa Prokopanko is the Composting Coordinator for Green Action Centre in W...