Non-profit groups who pitch their business ideas to the Social Enterprise Dragons often walk away with more than they expected. Or something completely different.
?I thought we needed help with marketing our services,? said Brian Postlewait of Mission Possible, a social enterprise that hires people with barriers to employment. Mission Possible was one of the winners of the 2010 Dragons pitch event, modelled after the popular Dragon?s Den CBC program.
?We thought we needed a unique and easy way for our employees to market our services while they were on the job,? he said.
The Dragons disagreed.
Social Enterprise Dragons is an annual event in which non-profit organizations pitch their business ideas to a panel of successful business leaders for a share of $40,000 in cash and consulting services. The event was founded four years ago by Vancity Community Foundation and business consulting firm JDQ Systems.
?We thought of flyering and working on a model like some landscape companies do where they do an assessment and leave a quote,? said Postlewait.
Mission Possible got its start with a grant from the City of Vancouver to start a graffiti removal company before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, but they soon learned the business was not sustainable and were trying to expand into building maintenance and cleaning.
?What the Dragons knew was that we needed to get our costing and our customer service sorted out,? he said. ?A key part of the consulting we received was that if we were able to deliver on our jobs that we would get more jobs.?
The Dragons saw potential in Mission Possible?s plan and awarded the group 100 hours of business mentoring and consulting services from JDQ Systems.
?We are really passionate about people, but the Dragons said you need to get passionate about cleaning and about making money, then you can help people,? said Postlewait. ?It sounds harsh, but it gave us clarity.?
MP Maintenance has since expanded from four casual employees to four full-time and eight casual employees, and boasts an annual gross of $300,000 and a modest operating profit.
?A lot of organizations think the answer is going to be marketing,? Jon Morris, president of JDQ Systems, a co-sponsor and founder of the Dragons event.
?They think that if only more people knew what they were doing they would have more business,? he said.
But it takes more than a website to maintain a business over the long term.
?We listen to the pitch and then use our experience to decide what would be the best way for this organization to be successful,? Morris said. ?They often aren?t thinking ahead to what happens when they get the business, how do they keep the customer.?
The consulting package gives them the systems help and focus on customer satisfaction that successful businesses run on.
?And they usually get a little money too,? said Morris.
Vancity Community Foundation and JDQ Systems were both pursuing charitable work independently, the former granting cash and the latter services, when they decided to combine their efforts to create a more powerful synergy for the people they were trying to help, Morris said.
Tags: business ideas
Source: http://superrichdad.com/business-ideas-non-profit-entrepreneurs-pitch-to-the-dragons-with-video/
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