the impact of a pandemic on the impact we create

Some of you reading this will be aware that for the last 15 years, I've annually published an 'impact report' on my activities as a sole trader/freelancer - and each time I do, I try and pause to reflect here on some aspect of it that's particularly struck me.

Most businesses, charities, and social enterprises who are currently talking about the impact they've created through the pandemic, successive lock-downs, and the disruption to communities and people's lives over the last year, seem to be largely focussing on what they've done over this last year. Which is fine and proper, but it doesn't help us fully understand the wider, longer-term impacts of the pandemic on how we try and achieve our respective missions - only what our immediate responses to it have been.

But I've been using a consistent framework and measures in how I monitor, report, and reflect on, my impact for over a decade. That means that this year's impact report has allowed me to better explore just how far the disruption to how we work, think, and feel, has truly had on my practices - and as such, I'm better able to consider what changes I might need to introduce as we emerge into our brave new vaccinated world (and which I can politely pass on).

Spoiler alert: it seems the pandemic has had little (or as expected) effect on the metrics I use to capture the impacts I create across different themes.

But what I do find of particular note is:

tax paid: it's been already shown by others that in being self-employed, I already pay proportionately more tax on my income than my counterparts both on payrolls, and those taking their earnings as company Directors. But this year, the amount of tax I've paid has significantly increased - and tracking this back into the data shows that it's because I was fortunate to be eligible for some of the government's coronavirus business support schemes: but that support I received to help me sustain my business (and family) was always going to be subject to being taxed - so although it may have initially seemed I could have breathed a sign of relief when HMRC said I was eligible to apply for SEISS, I always knew that there'd be at least one painful sting in the tail associated with it...

grace: in my last impact report, I'd started to capture and monetise my 'grace': the amount of lost earnings I'd suffered due to people either forgetting that we had arranged to speak/meet, or cancelling training sessions with only a days' notice (with no recourse for me to claim any late cancellation fee). Perhaps the most distressing part of this year's impact report is not that this figure hasn't changed, it's that if anything, its actually increased. Which means that the respect we're showing each other in making sure we turn up (or phone in/log on) when we've agreed to, or at the very least, sending apologies in good time if we know we can't, is on the wane...

But there's lots of other things in this years report. It now runs to 11 pages, with 12 indicators, 3 charts, 3 tables, and a slew of summary case studies and testimonials - in the first year I created it, covering the year 2006-7, it only had 3 numbers and was a footnote in my corporate CV!

And you can view it in all it's glorious technicolour and images, here.

Therefore, please do take a look through it - I'd be keen to hear what strikes you about it as being of particular interest in help me better understand it myself, and to therefore continue to create as much positive impact as I can into the future.

an awkward question about how we're making sense of the pandemic...

As some people may know, I was quite active during the national lock-down earlier this year - supporting a range of colleges, businesses, social enterprise support bodies, and others to consider, plan, and then enact their respective responses to the first wave of the pandemic.

And as part of my own practice of 'professional reflection', rather than another 'pithy blog' or twitter snippets about what I'd done and thought about during this time, I thought I'd do something a little more in-depth, and draft a white paper. This paper is still available on-line (just share and confirm your email and it should automatically get sent to you). And I was surprised at not just how many people downloaded it within the first week of it going out but also the sheer variety of roles and sectors they represented.

Many who read it also kindly offered some thoughts as to how the paper had prompted them to think further on their own respective responses and current thinking about the coming 6 months. And in the spirit of trying to openly keep encouraging conversation and discussion, I elected to share the themes of these comments in a Facebook Live.

The Facebook live also served another purpose - to act as an addendum to the white paper: after all, a lot can happen in a few weeks during a pandemic, and more data is coming out all the time about how different communities and ways of working are being affected.

And just as the original white paper has attracted more interest than a dared to hope, the Facebook Live had more people watching the broadcast as it happened than I thought might have , and continues to be shared by others and the watch count keeps going up...! (If you missed it, here's the link to catch it again).

Now don't worry - there is a point to my regurgitating this precis of my new life as a one-man policy think-tank.

And it's this - based on how people engaged with the white paper, and the comments and ongoing interest to my Facebook Live, it seems to suggest that we're not satisfied in seeking answers from within our own usual circles. We're starting to realise the benefit of going 'outside' our own marketplaces, industries, and sectors in seeking perspectives and understandings. And when we do, what we find seems to generally help assure and better inform us about the ways in which we're now making decisions about the future.

So my closing challenge to you, dear reader, is this - who can you talk with, or what can you read, that is outside of your usual daily work or life in offering you a fresh perspective in helping you make your own sense of the ever-changing world we now find ourselves (trying to) live and work in?  

becoming deaf, dumb, and blind, during the lock-down

Nearly all of us are currently subject to a national 'lock-down' during an unprecedented pandemic.

And all of us are responding in different ways to the challenges that this 'new world' we now find ourselves living and working in present.

After the initial panic, patterns seem to be starting to stabilise: we're getting used to having to que for an hour (or longer) to get into the supermarket, and then once we're inside for it to take 2-3 times as long to get around as we used to be able to do our shop in, in order to practice social distancing and limiting contact with fellow shoppers and store staff.

But for many, the revelation that they can now work from home using video conferencing and remote access, and which people seem to already be developing habits around, seems to suggest that many will struggle to want to go back to the drudgery of commuting once we're out of the other side of this (whenever that may be).

But there's something about working from home, and also the wider implications of how as enterprises and business we fumble our way forwards through this, that no-one really wants to seem to talk about:

1) what it your internet connection goes down? I've heard of several people and small businesses who have been essentially excluded from the world completely after routine line installs and upgrades fell foul of 'human error', leaving them deaf, dumb, and blind to the world...

2) and what it your tech dies? My laptop's hard drive failed at the start of this week - and it's unlikely that I'll be able to get it anywhere for repair for months, so in the face of having already had nearly all my earning work cancelled by clients already, and an uncertain wait to find out if I'll be able to access the self-employed income support scheme, I've had to pay out several hundreds of pounds unexpectedly to order to buy a new one, and hope that it can be delivered sometime in the next 2 weeks... (in the meantime, my girlfriend has very kindly offered me the use of hers, from which I'm typing this).

3) Gurus and experts all seem to be extolling the virtues of 'pivoting' our business models - but encouraging us to do so in ways that assume that it's only our current market place or customers that are being disrupted - this is nothing like any of us have lived through before, and nothing that was ever conceived of by the academics and speakers who developed these models and frameworks. So for us businesses and enterprises already facing an immediate uncertain future because of cash shortfalls, our longer term planning is also compromised by the models we're being presented with to reinvent ourselves through having been developed for different times...

4) And finally, what happens after the summer for education bodies?

Universities and Colleges quickly moved to continue to offer teaching and classes using on-line platforms, and replace exams with assignments. But within a few months, these will become the norm for many students, who must surely then begin to wonder why they need to raise the money to live on or near a campus to be able to engage with their further and higher education in the future, when they can access it equally from wherever they find themselves living now?

Like many, I can't see that we're ever going to fully return to living and working as we were at the start of 2020, but I wonder how many waves of shock, panic, and fear this pandemic will successively unleash on us before we can all feel its over - and what these will do in turn to our work, learning, and relationships as societies, communities, and economies.

Hopefully the time that the lockdown offers us to start to carefully think about these things will mean that we don't emerge from the pandemic only to fall into the next global panic... 

are community businesses starting to fail, or are we simply becoming more honest about the true nature of them..?

A few years ago, there was a jamboree around 'community businesses' - enterprises that are led by the community they're based in; operate and trade to meet the (social and health) needs of those local areas; and generally make that area a better place for everyone to live and work in it.

This was precipitated by the formation of Power to Change - a charitable trust whose remit is to nurture, encourage, and support the growth and impact of this sector of businesses.

Over the last 5 years since it's creation, Power to Change has initiated a range of programmes and support, which have, in turn (and to me at least), seemed to also catalyse a range of other good things starting to happen through other support bodies to the sector.

However, one of the things about Power to Change that's impressed me most, is its commitment to research, data, and openly sharing it's findings. I've drawn on some of these published findings in previous blog posts, in exploring what they can add to other researches and data from other bodies in seeking to better understand specific themes, but this time thought I'd look at their own data on the community businesses they exist to support, from a longitudinal perspective.

I've always thought that having more than a "this year vs. last year findings" is important in any context as it means you can better start to identify trends, blips, and other happenstance events (last time I did this it was on complaints received by the CIC Regulators against individual Community Interest Companies, the findings of which still cause shock amongst people I share it with...)

And when I look at the 4 years worth of 'State of the Community Business Market' reports that have been collated and published to date, I can't help but wonder if we shouldn't be making more noise about the general state of community businesses, and in particular, how the sector appears to be worsening...

As some who've read previous blogs of mine may recall, I don't claim that analyses like these are based on sophisticated or technical regression techniques and other sensitivity analyses in data sets, but merely what a regular lay-person might find if they were to apply some basic maths to the headline figures reported.

In this instance, I took the figures from the last 4 years of reports, and worked out the average (mean) figures of what a typical community business looks like from the headline figures in each - the charts highlight the story, but in summary:

1) there seems to be a general overall increase in the numbers of community businesses (up 2,000 over the last 4 years), but...

2) the average income of community businesses has fallen by nearly £20,000 (roughly 10%) over the same period;

3) the average value of assets they hold each has fallen by over £150,000 (roughly 60%);

4) they're employing 20% less people, and, before anyone points out that that's because they're making greater use of volunteers - the number of volunteers has also fallen too (by around 50%)...
5) they're also becoming more reliant upon grants over trading to help sustain themselves, and continue their activities into the future

Now, it may be that this is all easily explainable: in the reports themselves, Power to Change are very clear and open that each year the methodologies used to research and generate the data are changing - so there's a strong argument to debunk the above on the basis that I'm not comparing like-for-like. Except... for the figure about the overall number of community businesses which seems to be on an upward trend - if anything, this would suggest that the methodologies are actually getting more effective and precise in identifying and profiling community businesses. 

And if this is the case, then that surely means that a combination of things may be going on:

1) the strength and scope of community businesses, upon which national policy and investment programmes have been based, have been over-estimated, which means that the support now available isn't actually what's most needed...

2) Power to Change has been 'too successful' in inspiring a faster than historic growth in the sector of new community business start-ups, whose financial and operational standings will be far more immature (weaker) than their more established counterparts, and this is skewing the overall averages - although the age of community businesses isn't something that's closely monitored in these reports, parallel mapping by Social Enterprise UK highlights that most of the wider social enterprise sector (of which community businesses form a part), are disproportionately 'young' in comparison with private businesses).

So - all in all, a false alarm for community businesses after all?

Maybe, but as I pointed out earlier, I've done this rough analysis on the basis of how someone taking the headline figures from these annual reports might look at them (and perhaps be unwitting misled?)

And given that other national support initiatives, investment, support, and funding programmes usually take a year or two to 'roll out', in light of them being potentially based on flawed assumptions and data, will this mean that they 'miss their mark', unless they regularly pause to reflect on findings such as these about the wider sector that they're working in, and respond accordingly..?

what I did in 2018 that got me noticed (in trouble?) the most...

It's that time of the year when a lot of people are starting to share their retrospectives of the last 12 months - greatest hits type profiles of their biggest 'wins', most exciting adventure, and such like.

And it struck me that although I'm now entering my 14th year of being self-employed, I've never actually done one on myself. So, in the spirit of the season, and in keeping with the adage of "try everything once apart from morriss dancing* and incest", here goes:

As this is my first one, I thought I'd try and start with something relatively straightforward and simple - what did I write/post about over the year that caught people's interest and imagination the most?

As some may know, I don't place much stock in social media analytics, so don't have fancy dashboards that track my activity across all my social media channels (and there's rather a lot of it!). So what I've done in the 'keep in simple and quick/easy to start' philosophy is to use the dashboards that are built into my blog site, and on twitter, to try and spot which post on each got the most impressions (people coming across it and reading it), as this seems to me to be the 'right' count for the sake of consistency and continuity? 

But enough already, you cry! What's the result - what did I post about this year that got the most people talking, thinking, and otherwise pausing for a brief moment because it chimed with what they're thinking about or trying to work on more (cue drum roll...):

On my blog - it was my post reflecting on my latest social impact report on myself, and how I'm now aligning it to the UN's Global Development Goals:

https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-social-impact-reports-sometimes.html

On twitter - it was celebrating my being named as the most innovative in the UK in developing new csr models: 

https://twitter.com/AdrianAshton2/status/1032656981620867078/photo/1 

At first glance, this might seem a bit narcissistic (something it's been suggested I am in the past by Liam Black), but I'd like to think there's something more encouraging to be taken from this - because to me, what ties both of these posts together is something about being a responsible business: not just in a 'tick box', "we'll help raise some money for a local charity" kind of way, but something deeper about how people are wanting businesses to keep stepping up to the mark and do the right thing by everyone (not just their owners).

This idea also fits with recent national surveys highlighting that public trust in businesses is at an all-time high, while it's at an all-time low in charities, and I'd rather not go into how people are feeling about the government...

So, 2018 - the year that businesses not only heard the rallying call to be the leaders and supporters of society and local communities that we the people are needing, but have also started to try and figure out how they best answer it..?

* sadly I recently came across a photo my mum took of me as a young child dressed in morris dancing attire, but I'm determined to never do a 'luke skywalker'...

Todmorden time capsules

I've always been a strong advocate of story telling as a great means to help share ideas and learning, and also of local networking - local businesses supporting each other. So the recent meeting of the Todmorden Business Network was doubly exciting for me, as a range of businesses based in and around Todmorden came together to share their stories of what they've learned in running their businesses that they wish they could go back and tell their younger selves about.

The Futuro House in Todmorden, 1971

I thought it would be useful to capture these as a snapshot of the wisdom of the local business community I'm part of. Sharing it here hopefully means that others will be encouraged and supported, but it's also something that the Network can revisit in future years to see if the lessons we're learning are changing, or if despite the new management theories that always seem to be coming out form some university or other, the way we do business together, and the issues we face remains consistent.

So - our advice to our younger selves:

• listen to your gut more - be bold!
• you don't need a business plan (I've always argued this one too) - it's OK to make it up as you go along
• it's a roller coaster (and will make you feel sick at times...) - dare to be brave!
• don't be afraid to ask for advice - don't let your pride get in the way of letting other people help you
• you'll have more bosses that you did before in the form of all your customers
• don't be too cheap - don't undervalue yourself, and recognise the full extent of the time you're spending on making your products and running your business
• don't waste your money on consultants - pick and choose who to spend your money on, and what's important to you (rather than them)
• understanding basic bookkeeping and accounting is far more important that you realise
• just because you have a passion for it doesn't automatically mean other people will pay for it
• your friends won't tell you the truth - they're there to encourage you, not to be your customers
• always be kind - compromising isn't a sign of weakness
• success doesn't come overnight
• don't believe what letting agents and landlords tell you - if you're taking on retail premises, check the local footfall for yourself

And what we'd tell our younger selves to avoid doing at all costs:

 - Don't pay for (online) advertising; use networking, social media, and PR instead

 - Don't try and work from home: there are far too many distractions

 - Don't waste time trying to get government funded support: the best advice you'll get is from other businesses

 - Don't be afraid to stand your ground with larger customers who want to start to change agreed terms

 - Don't try and do it all yourself

 - Don't go anywhere without a spare pair of trousers/skirt (that one's mine...)

 - Don't work with family or friends

 - Don't put off having tough conversations with people

The Network currently meets the first Tuesday of every month from 6pm at the Fielden Centre in Todmorden, and thanks to sponsorship from others has no charge for membership or attending its events - 

http://todmordenbusiness.net/

https://www.facebook.com/TodmordenBusinessNetwork/

https://twitter.com/Tod_Biz

why your business should try and pay more suppliers by cheque

I'm aware that this blog's title is likely to make most people think that I've definitely lost the plot when it comes to business sense, but bear with me and I'll see if I can suggest a few ideas that will make you at least pause to reconsider...

As with some of my other posts here that I'm inspired to write, this one started with something that someone else posted on their blog about why as businesses we should all stop paying by cheque. When I questioned them on twitter, they threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to come up with why we should, in fact, stick with this old fashioned payment mechanism.

So, Ed Goodman, here are the reasons why I always try and continue to pay my suppliers by cheque. I've offered them as response to each of your arguments on your blog, so our readers can follow our debates more easily:

1 - it can hurt cashflow

Ed's right to say that if we pay by cheque we've no control over when/if the supplier will cash it, and that might mean our cashflow hits some very tight moments if cheques aren't paid in quickly. 

However... if we're on top of our business' finances, we should always have at least a rough idea of what our available bank balance is (which would include any uncashed payments), what we're owed, what we owe other people. 

As such, we should have some idea of any suppliers who don't seem to have drawn on our payment which can offer us an excuse to ring them up. And such a conversation would surely rekindle and strengthen our relationship with them - after all, how many of your customers do you know who take an interest in your financial health?

2 - it still costs money to pay

Again, Ed's on the money with this point. Most business bank accounts charge for you to write a cheque and stamps aren't getting any cheaper.

However, any business should always be striving for a good, close relationship with their bank, so you can likely 'renegotiate' (haggle) some of the charges that your bank would otherwise be applying to your account.

As for the price of a stamp - everyone would agree that the royal mail is a vital part of our local communities and home lives, so why should we try and avoid using it to help maintain the service for the wider good of all through making sure posties wages can be paid and sorting offices kept open?

3 - think of your supplier

Receiving a cheque means a trip to the bank to pay it in. It's an excuse to visit the high street, offer some passing trade to fellow local enterprises while we're there, and to help make sure that our local bank branches stay open by keeping them in use.

However, just as it's important to try and engage with customers on their preferred terms, we also need to try and maintain good relationships with our suppliers. To that end, I always ask them how they'd like to be paid, rather than make assumptions about them.

and one more thing (maybe two)...

And my reason number 4 as to why I like to keep writing cheques - it's an elegant tradition, like the meeting for coffee or introducing contacts to each other at networking events. In an increasingly ever changing world, it seems to offer some familiarity and custom that we can all agree on, and traditions are important to maintain as part of our shared identify and values.

Finally... when was the last time you got an envelope through the post that wasn't a bill? It's always a little exciting to get a cheque with our name of it!

Ultimately, this will come down to personal choice for everyone running their own business as to how they choose to manage and administer it. People like Ed and I can offer our views and ideas, drawing upon our own experiences and insights, but ultimately it's your business, not ours. What I try and hope to do through posts like this is to help offer some debate and alternative perspective to help you make better informed decisions.

accidentally becoming a 'specialist masseur'...

Over the last few weeks, I've been slowly moving bits of furniture, crates of files, and boxes of books by hand across Todmorden's town centre - not (just) for the exercise, but because I've recently taken on an 'office suite'!

My "working office" is now not only 2 rooms, but also a corridor and exclusive toilet (up to now, I was renting a single room on a 3rd floor with no lift and shared everything...). 

So why the move and commitment to additional costs at a time when according to various surveys business confidence is low, owners are looking to cut costs, and the general scene is gloomy for most small businesses - especially in my home town where many enterprises are still struggling to recover from the floods that hit us 10 months ago?

Well, there's a few reasons I thought it was important to invest in larger premises at this time:

1 - the room I was renting was getting a 'bit full'...

2 - if other businesses are struggling its because people aren't spending money. And people aren't spending money because they see other businesses struggling... by making a public show of 'moving up', I can hopefully help instil a little more confidence in the wider business community

3 - the premises had been vacant since the start of the year. In being based in the middle of the town, empty properties make for unappealing vistas for people and visitors, which makes it a less enjoyable place to live, work, and visit (see point 2)

4 - it's an excuse to hold an office warming party (invites going out soon...): a reason for some impromptu networking and unashamed self-publicity

5 - I have an idea that these particular offices also enhance my brand of being "not your typical consultant": the previous tenants used the rooms to offer specialist massage therapies, and the windows are largely still signed to reflect this... there was something about being named as one the of the UK's top enterprise advisors and apparently working out of a massage parlour that seemed too good an opportunity not to pass on...

There's also a 6th reason, which I suspect only some of you will get if you can spot the reference from what my 'new address' is... 

spending money locally probably won’t save local economies…

'buy local' and the Totally Locally campaign is based on a very compelling and emotive idea – if we value our local shops, facilities (and therefore our local economy in which these things exist and operate), then we should support them by using them: “buy local”, and spend with local retailers rather than distant online stores such as amazon… after all, money makes the world go round, so the more we can keep locally, the more our local community can keep things going around for the benefit of us all?

But there’s a small wrinkle in this idea which means that ‘buy local’ may never really have the transformative effect on our local communities we dream of: scale.

The Totally Locally campaign is focussed on getting us as consumers to make choices about where we buy our stuff from. That’s the retail element of the economy. And collectively we spend about £378bn a year buying stuff in it. Sounds a lot, but the UK government spends about £754bn a year. There are also the various service and manufacturing and construction industries, agriculture, and so on – all of whom are also spending money that has implications for our local economy… implications like:

• if/how people are employed, and so able to have money to spend
• who owns the properties that shops rent, and we live in, (usually landlords aren’t locally based)
• the extent to which we have options about where we bank, sign up to phone contracts, access health care and other services…

So you see, I’m not convinced that getting more of us to buy locally as consumers will have the transformative effect we all dream of, as there’s lots of ways in which money gets spent that we can’t keep local, and the spending decisions being made by others that dwarf the impact we can create by choosing to do so…

HOWEVER… what if the idea of Totally Locally started to target businesses in the same way is does to us as consumers? What if as well as encouraging us as individuals to buy local, we started to encourage each other to buy local when it comes to purchasing decisions in our various places of work as well - using the local stationary store instead of placing an order with Viking; going to a local insurance broker on the high street instead of using a price comparison website for our employer liability insurances? We could lever so much more money into our local economies, making them even stronger and more resilient…

But how to create such encouragement and celebrate it? Well, Totally Locally already makes various awards of recognition, but what if it started an award to businesses who manage to source the most of their purchases from other local businesses? As a local enterprise, I’ve been tracking the extent to which I’m able to procure goods and services for my businesses from with the local economy (which I count as being a 10-mile radius around where I live in Todmorden) – over the last 10 years, this has been 29% of all my spending(which given I travel throughout the UK to deliver my services to clients seems pretty good). 

Anyone able to top that?