THE MAGIC OF THINKING MICRO: The Future of Enterprise Learning and Support in the UK?

Now you see it, now you don't: Another Government Backed Enterprise Support Website  

These last weeks I've taken quite a lot of stick from the enterprise support community. First there was the launch of Start Up Britain http://www.startupbritain.org/  criticised for being a sales pitch for the large corporates, and now they seem generally unhappy with the government backed mentorsme http://www.mentorsme.co.uk website and programme.

Mentorsme has been put together by the big five banks, on behalf of the British Bankers Association. It has been fully supported by most of the UK business mentor providers, including the IoEE in which I declare an interest. It is eventually hoped that the programme will provide 40,000 volunteer mentors to help start ups and growing small businesses.

It isn't my programme.  However, most people know I'm a strong advocate of paid and volunteer mentors as part of the local enterprise learning and support community available to start ups. I'm also an advocate of private and social enterprise sector solutions, learning and support for those starting private sector and social enterprise sector enterprises. Where someone cannot afford the start up learning and support, then like any other career, government and charities should fund it.

I believe that everyone preparing for or starting a business in the UK should, as a right, have access to such support. This support will include start up mentors. I'm also grateful to the British Bankers Association for the initiative and funding to do something about creating a UK network of these volunteer mentors. Like the StartUpBritain website this is just a beginning and everything can be improved. Listen to what micro enterprise owners say and act upon it. It is needed.

Dealing from the bottom of the deck: Yet integrated learning and support for start up owners is vital for their survival and growth

Government don't value fee paid and volunteer enterprise support practitioners as highly as they should. That's because they put them and fund them from the 'business support' budget. However, nine tenths of the learning of the skills and know how needed to survive and thrive in your own enterprise takes place at pre start, start up and in the first twelve to eighteen months of trading. It is learning by doing and is totally practical in the context of the business being started. 

Mentors, coaches, business advisers and other enterprise support professionals, including the adviser of choice - independent accountants - are the enablers of this learning. Often they signpost to someone else in the community - online or offline - that can meet the learning need. Adult learning and Employer learning for all careers are still heavily funded by government. All careers apart from that which one in seven of the adult workforce choose to do, which is to start and run your own enterprise.

So, 500,000 start ups a year should have the opportunity to have low cost or subsidised, part government funded learning through their enterprise support community. They haven't the time or the money to go to college or private sector training providers and even if they did it would be out of context and therefore useless.    

The mentor relationship should continue for at least the first twelve months of trading of the new business. Get this right, alongside high quality, professional business advice and coaching, with free access to problem solving websites, and I can guarantee that over 80% of new starts will still be trading in 3 years time and 6%, we don't know which are the 6% at start up, will become very substantial businesses and employers.    

Aces High: Size Really Matters to Government and Banks but it shouldn't

The choice of name for the programme 'mentorsme' isn't endearing to the majority of small business owners. It is, unfortunately, probably accurate in that Government and the Banks would rather have as clients the larger Small and Medium Enterprises rather than the 4.5 million micro enterprise owners with less than ten employees. Nearly three quarters  of all businesses have no employees at all and they certainly don't seem to be interested in them.

Train to Gain and other Skills and Employment policies over the last five years have been examples of £billions of government money going to employers with over ten employees and diddly squat going to the 97% of all businesses that have between 0 and 9 employees.  Bank lending to 'SMEs' is measured in tens of thousands whereas there are 500,000 start ups a year and 4.5 million micro enterprise owners. From a micro enterprise owner, like me, viewpoint this is pretty disgraceful. 

Naturally, I understand that banks need to make profits and government needs to minimise public spending and maximise taxation. Both are very good at their chosen revenue earners. It must be very difficult for them to understand the world of the self employed and micro enterprise owners. We are very serious about the way we earn our living but they look at our average income and lifestyle and find this hard to believe - far easier to put us in a box called 'SMEs' or 'Lifestyle' or 'Home Businesses' or 'SOHOs'.

Some of the bonuses paid to individual bankers are the equivalent of hundreds of micro enterprise owners' average annual earnings.  i can understand the reasons they look for 'serious entrepreneurs', 'high growth businesses', 'sector leaders', 'key employers' and 'SMEs' as customers. They relegate the majority of us, not in the above categories, to our boxes with labels on that indirectly suggest that we have a lack of 'ambition', 'capacity', 'education' and 'capability'. It is a mistake. 

Shuffle the pack: Diversity is Good. Discrimination is Bad. (and for the economy and employment too).

I hate any discrimination even if it is under the pretext of market segmentation of customers. Discrimination against the majority of start ups and micro enterprise owners is wrong. Developing products, services and policies based on the size of the business is bad for the economy, bad for human endeavour, bad for employment (including self employment), bad for communities, bad for creativity and innovation and does not reflect how life in Enterprise Britain has changed from twenty years ago.

Many of the biggest entrepreneurs that the world will ever see are starting their business today. They are starting from home with very, very little resource. It's called 'boot strapping'. In government and management speak, like most successful enterprise owners, these brand new enterprise owners  are 'under the radar' at start up. No-one can pick winners at start up. Yet, in ten years time these start ups of today will have very large income producing businesses. They come from all backgrounds - education, faith, wealth, training, age, community, area and so forth. The great thing about being a successful enterprise owner is that it doesn't make a scrap of difference where you live or where you you were 'educated', unlike just about every other career. 

Water into wine: Micro Enterprise is Our Beautiful British Future

One in twenty of the start ups today will go on to provide most of the new jobs in the country from nice premises in towns and cities. However, most start ups will remain micro enterprise owners. Micro enterprise owners fill stadiums around the world. Micro enterprise owners, like one of my co-owners of my businesses, invest in commercial property and regeneration.  Micro enterprise owners change the world through their designs and inventions. Micro enterprise owners have franchisees in many different countries. Micro enterprise owners give us the most influential global technologies or global online networks and global online marketplaces. Micro enterprise owners are often the keynote speakers at large business conferences inspiring  government and large company executives in motivation, leadership and entrepreneurship.

So, many of the next generation of celebrity entrepreneurs will not be major employers but will still be working from home and will have less than ten employees. They will remain micro enterprise owners, but they'll provide work to thousands of other micro enterprise owners and freelancers. 

These are the people that government and banks want as customers and tax payers.  The majority of us just want to earn our living from running our own micro enterprise and do not aspire to these dizzy heights. We all are successful in our own way and deserve an equality of support at start up - a universal start up policy for the UK (remember that - good idea). Then everyone; government, banks and micro enterprise owners will achieve their aims.

No-one will achieve their aims if our universal start up policy is as cheap and cheerful as we now have it. It seems to many that we'll have three nice websites. We get a volunteer mentor from mentorsme, a discount on products and services to help us start up from StartUpBritain and some excellent problem solving, regulation understanding information from the BusinessLink website. This certainly isn't the private sector/public sector/third sector enterprise support partnership, to assist all start ups, that we'd hoped for. 

It is a start though. I'm sure that the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has many plans to supplement their mentoring programme started by the BBA mentorsme portal.

For 12 years now small and micro enterprise owners, like me, have been urging government to 'go with the grain'. 

'Going with the grain' translates to: 'Please don't launch new eye catching online and offline schemes to support start ups. Instead, enable local enterprise communities, including the private sector, and the people who are already trusted by prospective and existing enterprise owners to do more. Use the adult and employer learning budgets, use the premises, technology and personnel resource that government has to enable the existing networks and eco system to reach more people with a better learning and support service.

Business networks, accountants, community groups, charities, enterprise agencies, private sector start up workshops, libraries, advisers, coaches, mentors, existing start up help websites and hundreds of thousands of micro enterprise owners that do contriibute to their communities are all in this mix. Government can be an effective local enabler and facilitator of improved enterprise learning and support for all. it is not and never will be a credible national promoter of enterprise. It is a lousy inventor of new enterprise skills and support schemes and it should never have got involved in delivery in the first place.'

Hypnotic trance: 'I'm Not An SME!'  (#NotAnSME)

As we know small and micro enterprise owners don't like being referred to as SMEs (worse when pronounced 'Smeese'). Robert Craven's recent article about this was read by over 10,000, here on Business Zone, in a matter of a few days. The vast majority agree with him that 'SME' is used patronisingly by Large Company executives, government officials and academics. As a piece of business segmentation it's a bit of a nonsense too as it really means NEARLY ALL (99.9%) BUSINESS in the UK.  There are only 6000 Large companies.  Many regions and towns only have SMEs. 

Most small and micro business owners and the self employed have nothing in common with 'Medium' (50 to 249 employees) enterprises which have functional managers, formal governance structures, corporate HR procedures, salary and benefits packages akin to Large Organisations, rigid protocols, systems and processes, and, usually, a fair amount of bureaucracy too.

Loaded dice: Mistaken Assumptions by Corporate Executives and Government Officials?

Reading the launch press releases from government and the banks for mentorsme and then looking at government backed websites made me suspect that they may have made four classic, and patronising, mistakes in assuming that small and micro enterprise owners:  1) will be more successful if they learn from corporate managers, as mentors, the knowledge they possess  2) need more ambition to be injected from a mentor from a larger organisation so that they start and grow quickly and employ a lot more staff c) think that their start up or small business will benefit from some of the good practices of corporates - scaled down versions of large company type measurements, plans, procedures, processes and systems. 4) see themselves as part of a homogeneous group of SMEs and so a one size fit all mentors service for SMEs will meet their needs

Owner led Small and Micro Enterprises aren't boiled down versions of Large and Medium Enterprises. Indeed, you need a very different skill and know how set, than corporate managers have, in order to successfully start and run your own enterprise.

Back in the day, I was Managing Director of a 150 staff £35 million company - a Medium Enterprise. I was highly qualified and by that time had also received the best management and leadership training in the world, courtesy of two US multinational employers. Unfortunately, when Clare, who had a similar corporate management background, and I decided to start and run our own business there was nothing we'd learned from our management jobs that was of any use to us. The world of enterprise is about doing everything yourself: great selling, winning deals, innovation, flexibility, risk taking and gaining incredible value for money for anything you buy - if you can't get it free.

Sleight of Hand: Where did our share go? 

I hate 'SME' with a passion because of how Large Organisations and Government deliberately mislead the press and public with its use. The term SME is used very trickily by them. For example, when they explain to the press how they are 'helping SMEs' such as with lending or support or regulations the press often use a headline which translates the 'SMEs' to mean 'Small Businesses'.

This is just the impression that Government and Large Organisations want to give whereas the reality is, as I've previously stated, they are not interested in helping the three quarters of all  businesses which have no employees or the 97% of all businesses that have less than ten employees. The 3% of all businesses with ten or more employees get 95% of the attention, support and public funding.

It does seem rather disingenuous to claim that these volunteer mentors, including bank managers, will do as good a job helping start ups as 1500, and I believe nearer 5000, publicly funded, accredited business advisers did. Government is broke, when it comes to helping micro business rather than large business, and mentorsme is primarily a no cost replacement for what we've had to help start ups over the last ten years.  

Mind over matter: Banks and Government do need to learn, preferably from the Enterprise Rockers, what is Micro Enterprise Friendly before pushing their schemes on us

Thankfully there are a few Large Organisations and Government Agencies that are micro enterprise owner friendly.  One of the great ideas behind the Enterprise Rockers charity http://EnterpriseRockers.co.uk is that we will very positively recognise those that do treat micro enterprise owners fairly and helpfully in the hope that others will want to raise their game to be recognised by us too.

We use the tag  #NotAnSME on our e-mails and tweets and we nominate, vote and recognise Large Organisations and Government bodies that do treat us properly, are aware of our business needs, pay our invoices on time and so forth. These are the organisations that help us to #GetEnterpriseRocking.

By publicising heavily those that are #MicroEnterpriseFriendly we can inform, educate and improve the UK enterprise culture. We'll make a lot of positive noise. After all there's 4.5 million of us, which is a lot of customers and voters.  
Jokers wild: Should mentors have the Enterprise T shirt themselves?

As you've read I'm not surprised that the Banks and Government called the mentors scheme <em>mentorsme </em> but it was the first thing that outraged many of the small business owners that have contacted me to say 'what are you going to do about it?'. 

What upset them far more than the volunteer mentor scheme's aims or the name of it was that Mark Prisk MP, the Enterprise Minister, has always said he wanted volunteer mentors that 'had the T shirt' and yet here he was announcing that retired bank managers would be amongst these volunteer mentors.

I can understand the concern.  It took me back 15 years to the reason we founded SFEDI. Retired bank managers and senior executives of Medium and Large companies were doing a hopeless job providing poor and often dangerous guidance to start ups. In fact the job seemed to be to get the prospective business owner to laboriously produce a business plan  This process certainly helped them turn people off the idea of starting a business. These plans were works of fiction.  I've interviewed hundreds of start ups that have had a bad experience with these well meaning corporate folk giving bad guidance. 

So, you'll understand why I've always wanted the SFEDI standards, assessment  and accreditation to only be applied to people that have started and run their own business. The Federation of Small Businesses have always agreed with this position but they are the only other major national business support organisation that do. Using only people with the Enterprise T shirt will always be a too expensive option for directly or indirectly (e.g. Enterprise Agencies, A4e, Inbiz etc) government (or charity) funded enterprise support organisations.  

The SFEDI standards have greatly improved the quality of support from enterprise mentors, advisers, coaches and information staff in the UK and the SFEDI team will do a good job of training these Bank Managers in mentoring too. It is more of a problem for them that, however well trained they are, most micro enterprise owners, like me, will not use them. They just do not have the credibility without the 'Enterprise T shirt'.

Pick a card, any card: Will a website mentor matching service work?

The next problem with the mentoring scheme I was asked to fix was prospective and existing enterprise owners saying that they will not buy these volunteer mentors like a dating service from a computer website. I think they're probably right but against that there are some people that do buy support for their business from websites. Indeed, many micro enterprise owners as freelancers gain clients from these matching and quotes directories. One of the great success stories that proves this is FreelancerGB http://freelancer.co.uk This site has 2.6 million freelancers, 125,000 UK users and has already done over £60,000,000 worth of projects.

The SFEDI Directory of Business Support Professionals http://www.sfedi.co.uk/sfedi-directory is very popular as is Speed Mentor Central  http://www.speedmentorcentral.co.uk/. Against this, most micro enterprise owners buy a mentor, adviser or coach (even if there is no cost) through word of mouth recommendation.  They may then use a website to locate and check out the person they have been recommended.

Revelation: Volunteer Mentors work best as an integral part of a local Enterprise Support Community

The success of the Business Volunteer Mentors Association that we had in England about six or seven years ago was due to the 1500 or so volunteer mentors, trained to the SFEDI standards, working alongside the private sector (e.g. fee paid accountants, coaches, specialist consultants and small business advisers)  and the enterprise support community (e.g. Enterprise Agencies, Prince's Trust, PRIME, Inbiz). So it was the professionals that were matching their start up client to a volunteer mentor.

These volunteer mentors were successful because they were in a supportive community, always able to signpost their client to the appropriate person within that community. People became volunteer mentors to learn new skills which led to improvements in their business or, for some, fee paying business opportunities as a mentor, coach or adviser. For others it gave the skills that would be useful for freelancing. For others it satisfied their addiction and curiosity to learning from other small business owners. For others, it led to new business ideas and some actually get involved in the business they were mentoring through angel type investment. Some were happy just to put something back into their communities.

Most really enjoyed being a part of a vibrant enterprise support community of private sector, public sector and third sector advisers, mentors, coaches, accountants, lawyers, information professionals and so forth. All of them had their expenses paid. In order to recruit 40,000 volunteer mentors, particularly those with experience of starting and running their own small business, all of the above incentives need to be present. Small and Micro Business owners are money and time poor. They earn far less, usually at least 50% less than middle managers in large organisations, and in order to earn their living they work nearly all the time. We like it - it's better than having a job with a boss. If we want to attract small and micro enterprise owners into mentoring others, which I think we do, then it needs to pass the 'What's In It For Me' test.   

Big prediction: Volunteer Mentoring Can Work Really Well To Make Britain Great Through Micro Enterprise

Volunteer mentoring, alongside professional business advisers and/or coaches can work very well to assist start ups.  It requires more than a volunteer mentor to help a start up with test trading and this is the point of having a professional business adviser or coach that is experienced at starting and running micro enterprises.  I will restate that if the right support is given, including test trading, then 80% of start ups will survive more than 3 years and 6% will become substantial employing businesses. This is proven.

We can't pick winners so it is best to give everyone these favourable odds of success. My view is that in order to achieve this a volunteer mentor is only one part of the enterprise support that the new start up deserves.

SFEDI has well researched standards, assessment strategies and training media and a highly qualified team managed by real small business owners and advised by all the major private sector and publicly funded business support organisations in the UK. <em>Mentorsme</em> hasn't had a good start but it is just a start. SFEDI can  help the Banks and Government to improve the whole programme greatly over the coming months.

I doubt if I'll ever be a fan but then again it doesn't need me as a fan.      

http://TonyRobinsonOBE.com       @TonyRobinsonOBE   @EnterpriseRocks