The Sacrifices Women Have Made

In this Random Thoughts post, we look at the sacrifices women have made throughout history to achieve equality in this world. My cofounder Kem Ellis and I have been discussing this hard-fought battle recently as a result of watching American Lives, the Ken Burns documentary from 2001.

Since we quit television five years ago, we have enjoyed our Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions. We saw recently where Amazon Prime had made American Lives available to watch and we jumped at the chance.

We were not disappointed.

 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

The first two episodes of American Lives are titled Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. It’s a powerful story of their 50-year relationship as suffragettes working to get women the right to vote in the United States. Suffrage is a unique word coming from the Latin and French, and it means the right to vote in political elections. This is a right that women did not enjoy until 1920 in the U.S. with passage of the 19th Amendment.

One fact we did not know was that from 1878 to 1920, Stanton and Anthony arranged for an amendment to be presented to the United States Congress every year calling for the right of women to vote. For 42 years, this amendment was not even allowed out of committee for a vote. That is, until 1920, some fourteen years after the death of Anthony and eighteen years after the death of Stanton.

How sad these two suffragettes and social justice champions were not able to see their dream and vision realized in their lifetime.

The persistence of these extraordinary women in the face of incredible adversity reminds me of entrepreneurial women and men who refuse to give up on their dreams despite the negativity of people and society around them. Of course, it’s hard to imagine or quantify the real price or cost one must pay to create change or move the needle on a difficult social, economic, or environmental problem. For truly dedicated change agents and leaders like Eizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, these women were willing to dedicate their whole selves.

But they were not the only ones who sacrificed. Watch this short YouTube video titled Suffragists: The Fight to Vote. This video will help you to understand the sacrifices women have made to achieve some measure of equality.

Kem and I recommend purchasing Not for Ourselves Alone and learning more about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. This powerful story is available on iTunes and YouTube for $4.99 USD.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia about Susan B. Anthony that we should all reflect on as we continue their work to advance gender equality and equal rights:

Part of the revolution, in Anthony’s view, was in ways of thinking. In a speech in 1889, she noted that women had always been taught that their purpose was to serve men, but “Now, after 40 years of agitation, the idea is beginning to prevail that women were created for themselves, for their own happiness, and for the welfare of the world.” Anthony was sure that women’s suffrage would be achieved, but she also feared that people would forget how difficult it was to achieve it, as they were already forgetting the ordeals of the recent past:

“We shall someday be heeded, and when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everybody will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people think that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses always were hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon today has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”

Quick Start Action Plan

Use the BIA Quick Start Action Plan to get started quickly and effectively with Module One of Business Impact Accelerator©.

The first step of this Action Plan is optional. It asks you to set up a project dashboard and tracking process found in the Change Accelerator© platform. This platform is referenced in Accelerate Business Impact, which is Module Five of Business Impact Accelerator. Look for the second activity titled “Increase Change Management Capability” and the “Change Accelerator Project Dashboard” deliverable. Note: you will need to purchase a subscription to Change Accelerator© in order to access and use the Project Dashboard.

If you have any questions, please contact Mark Livingston (President of The Social Impact Foundation and creator/author of the WIIN learning platform).

BIA Quick Start Action PlanDownload

Implementation Resources

As you begin to implement Business Impact Accelerator©, members of your leadership or management team will be asked to assume different leadership roles. These roles focus on leading discussions about change, facilitating strategy review sessions, or spearheading execution of initiatives from the One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

Here are resources to assist you and your team to lead organizational change, process improvement, and business transformation:

In addition:

Two Critical Questions

In this Random Thoughts post, I’d like to examine two critical questions women and HeForShe investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners need to ask in order to make impact investments count. These two questions are the Why and So What Questions.

The importance of having a clear answer to these questions was made apparent to me as a pro bono evaluation judge in the annual Social Impact Exchange Business Plan Competition held for five years from 2010–2014. Twice per year–in January and April–I would receive 3–4 business plans from nonprofit social enterprises seeking growth capital to scale the positive impact of their organizations. As an evaluator, I was asked to assess and rate each of the 40-50+ page plans on a number of criteria, make a recommendation if the enterprise should proceed to the next phase of competition, and explain why the enterprise should advance (or not).

In my five years of service to this competition, I found only 20% of plans were able to answer these two critical questions in a clear and compelling manner. This is the reason why I could not provide a positive recommendation for advancement in the competition. This outcome replicated what I had experienced during my forty year career as a Certified Management Consultant™, coach, trainer, and course/learning program developer. That is, I found an estimated 80% of the 1,000+ strategic, business, and investment plans I reviewed could not clearly articulate the “why” and “so what” of the enterprises and the ultimate impact these organizations were trying to generate in the world.

I refer to the Why and So What questions as “focus-related” questions. They serve to sharpen the lens you and your team at work or home are using to achieve something important or worthwhile in the world (e.g., close the gender wealth gaps, build a sustainable and high-impact enterprise, build financial security and wealth, etc.). These two questions serve to orient key stakeholders and ensure they are on the same page. This alignment of focus and intention is critical for making any investment of time, money, and energy count.

In my consulting and coaching work over the years, I used the Why Question to help teams identify the real root cause for the problem they were attempting to solve for customers or for their enterprises. I used the So What Question to help leadership or strategic planning teams identify the higher purpose for their organization’s purpose or mission (sometimes called the raison d’etre or reason for being). Both processes require asking the Why and So What Question five or more times to get to the heart of the matter.

There is one other reason these questions are important. This reason focuses on the requirement to “wake up” brains of people and capture the attention of these brains long enough in order to provide the context and focus for what you are asking them to consider and/or to do. To facilitate this awakening, I’ve used the AIDA Model to help leaders communicate a clear and concise story about their organization as well as help investors evaluate whether an enterprise is capable of delivering sustainable growth and impact over a multi-year investment period.

Here’s a short video on the AIDA Model courtesy of Mr. Stefan Kojouharov. His succinct presentation will help you see how AIDA can assist in awakening brains and help answer the two critical questions of Why and So What?

As an example of an entrepreneurial leader who successfully communicated the Why and So What of her enterprise within the context of the AIDA Model, I asked Ms. Jenny Gore, Executive Director of Reading Connections, for a copy of the presentation she used to “make the case” to community stakeholders during two recent fundraising events. Reading Connections is located in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Here is a portion of her remarks, which represented only a small part of the overall fundraising event and giving experience:

“So what does success look like for our community? At Reading Connections we say it’s 100% literacy for Guilford County. And what would that look like?

It would look like the most skilled, most competitive workforce in the state, the highest rates for school readiness, the highest voter turnout, the lowest school dropout.

This year we served over 900 students, which is a fantastic achievement – but there are so many more waiting. And in Guilford County there are more than 75,000 adults who struggle with those basic skills.  And, the sad thing to me is – we know how to teach someone to read. We just don’t have the resources. It takes about $1000 a year to teach one person to read and that opens up a lifetime of opportunity.

So what is needed? Frankly we need to develop the capacity to serve more adults. And be able to serve in more Title I elementary schools through family literacy – our program that is so successful teaching parents how to have their children school ready. We’d like to serve women in the detention centers and return to the High Point detention center to help paint the picture for a different path for students there to follow.

We’re going to need more volunteers to tutor, staff to conduct outreach and instruction, financial resources for materials and supplies. It’s going to take everyone pulling together. It’s not an impossible vision and I see us growing closer to this vision each and every day that another student moves forward or we are asked to serve in another elementary school.

I recently read a study from the University of Rochester which found – people aren’t any happier when they’re more wealthy, more famous, or more powerful. In fact, they may be LESS happy! What makes people happy is relationships, health, and being involved in their community. So today we have a simple message.

Success is about how many lives you have touched and how you have made your world a better place. Success is about helping others realize their dreams and achieve their own success, however it’s defined. And I challenge each of you, that in Guilford County, our measure of success is that every one of us can read.”

The impact of Ms. Gore’s message? Well, Reading Connections exceeded the previous year’s fundraising total by 124%! Not a bad outcome for spending time to answer the Two Critical Questions and create a positive experience resulting in a higher level of stakeholder attention, awareness, interest, desire, and action (giving).

Job well done Jenny and the team at Reading Connections!

Fund Business Impact

Module Six Description

In this sixth Module of Business Impact Accelerator©, your impact-driven enterprise will complete two levels of due diligence review and finish all preparations for launch of a 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign on a crowdfund investment platform.

You and your team will complete four Activities …

  1. Raise Investor Trust and Confidence
  2. Protect Investors and Stakeholders
  3. Promote 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer
  4. Confirm Investment Readiness

… and produce eight Deliverables:

  • Verified Check Report
  • Financial Statements Review or Audit
  • Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan Review
  • Governance Documents Review
  • 3X-in-10™ Offer Review
  • SEC Form C Review
  • Investor Pitch Deck and Profile Review
  • Investment Readiness Check

These Deliverables will enable your enterprise to accelerate the launch of a 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign by advertising it to women and HeForShe investors on your crowdfund investing platform.

For each Deliverable, we provide step-by-step instructions and coaching tips for completion. We also feature a Certified B Corporation to benchmark and offer a list of resources to help you understand requirements for raising capital on a crowdfund investment platform. If you have any questions, please contact us directly through this website.

Raise Investor Trust and Confidence

In this Activity, you and your team will raise investor trust and confidence by completing the first three requirements of the Investment Readiness Checklist. You’ll do this by obtaining a Verified Check Report from CrowdCheck and an independent review or audit of your financial statements. You’ll also conduct a final review of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

Raising investor trust and confidence is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, women and HeForShe investors have not had a positive experience with our biased and broken system of finance and investment. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to assure investors of your honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness.

By meeting these due diligence requirements, your enterprise will ensure readiness to raise flexible revenue-based growth capital and deliver sustainable results during a ten-year investment period.

Verified Check Report

Required Materials:

To obtain a Verified Check Report, you will need to contact info@crowdcheck.com and arrange for assistance from their team of due diligence professionals.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Visit the website of CrowdCheck and review the Verified Check Report issued by this due diligence and disclosure firm.
  2. Contact info@crowdcheck.com and discuss the documentation that CrowdCheck will need to prepare a Verified Check Report.
  3. Identify key principals of your organization to participate in the background checking and due diligence process.
  4. Coordinate your accountant’s review or audit of financial statements with the Verified Check due diligence process and obtain a final report from CrowdCheck.
  5. Provide the link to your final Verified Check Report to Mark Livingston at TSIF for the Investment Readiness Check.

Coaching Tips:

Women and HeForShe investors will have many questions when they start reviewing your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer and Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan. The first two questions will be:

  1. Are the officers, management team, and principals of this enterprise to be trusted?
  2. How do I know this enterprise and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer is legitimate?

In order to answer these and other questions, The Social Impact Foundation in fall 2017 contacted a due diligence and disclosure firm by the name of CrowdCheck. We made this decision because of CrowdCheck’s integrity and high-quality approach to background checking and due diligence review. For example:

  • CrowdCheck uses an in-depth and comprehensive process that goes beyond what databases provide in order to ensure investment opportunities are valid and legally binding.
  • CrowdCheck provides a robust and efficient due diligence solution to include helping enterprises prepare and submit compliant offering documents to the SEC.
  • CrowdCheck is staffed with experienced due diligence analysts and securities lawyers providing customized assistance at a very affordable price.

We recommend visiting the CrowdCheck website to learn about the Verified Check Report and due diligence process. Look for the Services section on the main navigation menu and then click on Entrepreneurs. CrowdCheck provides three types of checks, including the Compliance Check and Foundation Check. We recommend the Verified Check because its high level of disclosure and transparency will raise the trust and confidence of women and HeForShe investors on your investment platform-of-choice.

Be sure to read Our Story in the About Us section of the CrowdCheck website. There, you’ll find a letter from Sara Hanks, Managing Partner of CrowdCheck and CrowdCheck Law, LLP. In this compelling letter, she explains the “so what” and “why” of their unique woman-owned organization.

You will see there’s a wealth of information on this site about the legal requirements for raising capital using the Regulation CF exemption. The website has a glossary of terms to help you understand key concepts in raising capital on a crowdfund investment platform. You’ll find this Glossary in the Resources/Education/Lexicon section of the website.

After reviewing, contact info@crowdcheck.com to start the process for obtaining a Verified Check Report. One of the initial tasks the CrowdCheck due diligence team will ask you to do is identify all of the principals, key officers, or other key individuals associated with your enterprise. This is a legal term with a very specific definition. To help you and your team become familiar with the term, we recommend reading: “What Are the Responsibilities of the Principal in a Company?”

The SEC Point of View

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) looks at this question of “key individual” from a compliance point-of-view because of their mandate to protect investors from fraud. They use the term “bad actor” to make sure you’ve disclosed the backgrounds of all key principals, officers, or individuals associated with your enterprise.

CrowdCheck addresses this issue with a section on their website titled Bad Actor Report (look on the far right side of the main navigation bar). Be sure to read all six Learn More boxes to become familiar with the SEC’s expectations regarding “bad actor checks.” The CrowdCheck team will advise on who should be included in the background checking process, but be prepared to disclose any and all individuals who might fall into this role.

Verified Check Report

We require a Verified Check Report from CrowdCheck as a prerequisite to advertising your Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors in the 10X Impact Community Forum (if you choose to do this)

We made this decision because of the depth, breadth, and quality of information provided in the Verified Check Report. We believe your prospective revenue-sharing investors (including possibly The Social Impact Foundation) will appreciate this level of transparency and integrity.

Completing the Verified Check process does not happen in a couple of hours (more like 4–6 weeks). Plus, you will need to coordinate this due diligence review with the required financial statements review or audit (note that CrowdCheck does not conduct the review or audit of financial statements).

However, it’s a small price to pay if your enterprise is aiming to attract the right crowdfund investors with the right growth capital to scale your enterprises’ positive impact. In order to complete the CrowdCheck due diligence review, your enterprise will need to generate and/or produce the following documents (among others):

  • Governance documents (incorporation papers, by-laws, etc.)
  • Revenue Sharing Offering documents (3X-in-10™ or otherwise)
  • Background and Bad Actor checks for all officers, directors, and principals of the firm
  • Employment and educational backgrounds of key principals
  • Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan
  • Key operating documents, including important contracts, leases, patents, and insurance policies (among other verification documents)
  • Reviewed or audited financial statements for the previous two years
  • Copies of tax filings for the previous two years
  • And, as part of the Verified Check due diligence process, CrowdCheck will help draft the required SEC Form C disclosure

You can review an example of CrowdCheck’s final product and the quality of their due diligence by requesting a sample Foundation Report (reference the section on their website titled CrowdCheck Reports). The Verified Check Report we require builds on this Foundation Report.

The Verified Check service includes one-on-one assistance from the CrowdCheck professionals who will help your enterprise prepare a valid and legal Form C that meets SEC disclosure requirements. This alone will reduce the legal fees related to raising growth capital on your own. We think the level of quality and integrity provided by CrowdCheck’s Verified Check Report is worth every penny of the $5,000 cost (as of fall 2018) and will be recognized and appreciated by your prospective revenue-based investors.

Once the Verified Check Report is obtained, you will need to provide Mark Livingston at The Social Impact Foundation (TSIF) with a link to the report. Mark will be checking it as part of his review into your investment readiness. You will also need to make the final Verified Check Report available to prospective investors on your crowdfund investment platform-of-choice.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we honestly answer all questions required in the Verified Check due diligence review?
  2. Is there anything else we can do to raise investor trust and confidence?
  3. How will we make the Verified Check Report accessible to prospective women and HeForShe investors on our Investment Platform Profile?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 4–6 weeks to obtain a Verified Check Report (completed simultaneously with the review or audit of financial statements by an independent accountant).

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Conscious Company Magazine

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about the SEC’s expectations for raising capital using the Regulation Crowdfunding exemption, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Financial Statements Review or Audit

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Financial Statements Review or Audit

Required Materials:

To obtain a review or audit of your financial statements, you will need the services of an independent and qualified public accountant. You will also need to review an article from the CrowdCheck Blog to learn more about this regulatory requirement.

To Do List:

There are six actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review SEC guidelines on the Regulation Crowdfunding exemption, including requirement for review or audit of financial statements by an independent public accountant.
  2. Obtain the services of an independent and qualified public accountant licensed to do business in your state.
  3. Provide financial statements and documents for the review or audit.
  4. Review the accountant’s report and implement any changes to internal controls.
  5. Forward the report to the CrowdCheck due diligence team for review and inclusion in the final Verified Check Report.
  6. Be ready to discuss the results of your financial statements review or audit with Mark Livingston during the Investment Readiness Check.

Coaching Tips:

The independent review or audit of your financial statements prior to launching a crowdfund investment campaign assures investors, securities regulators, and other stakeholders that your enterprise is honest, trustworthy, and transparent. It’s one of the key documents the team at CrowdCheck will be reviewing and discussing in their Verified Check Report. It is also one of the key requirements of the TSIF Investment Readiness Checklist.

The SEC has established requirements for “issuers” of securities seeking to use the Regulation CF exemption. One of the requirements under the Reg CF exemption is a review or audit of financial statements by an independent and qualified public accountant. Review pages 3–4 in the SEC document titled “Regulation Crowdfunding: A Small Entity Compliance Guide for Issuers.” This Guide is written in “plain English” with disclosure requirements clearly outlined for the review or audit of financial statements. Note the SEC requirements for different offering levels on page 3.

A well-written review of Regulation Crowdfunding requirements and financial statement disclosures can be found in this blog post titled Regulation Crowdfunding Rules. It’s written by Sara Hanks, Managing Partner of CrowdCheck, who you were introduced to in the previous section. In a separate blog post from the CrowdCheck website, Andrew Stephenson (Vice-President of Product Management and Strategy at CrowdCheck) discusses the requirement for accountant independence.

If you and your team are not clear about the difference between a financial statements review or audit, we recommend reading Guide to Financial Statement Services: Compilation, Review, and Audit from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

External Assistance Required

You will need to obtain the services of an independent public accountant to perform the financial statements review or audit. We recommend an accountant licensed in your state familiar with the Reg CF requirements. You will need to find an accountant that not only can provide this one-time service, but will be available for ongoing review or auditing in the future (keep in mind the independence standard however). If there is any question about the independence of your accountant, ask the team at CrowdCheck.

Although the SEC does not require ongoing reviews or audits, we recommend an annual review of your financial statements. This voluntary disclosure will assure women and HeForShe investors that your reporting of top-line revenue and quarterly revenue-sharing payments is accurate, honest, and transparent. It will also enable your enterprise to meet one of the provisions in the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note template regarding “verification of revenue” (reference Revenue Sharing Templates in the BIA Library).

The cost of obtaining review or audit services from an independent public accountant will vary. Reviews may cost your enterprise anywhere from $2,500–$4,000+ depending on geographic location and quality of financial records and statements. Audits might cost twice this amount. You can reduce these costs by providing the accountant or accounting firm with well-organized records and documentation. Read these two articles regarding the importance of following Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and getting ready for a financial review or audit:

In the Recommended Resources section, we have two publications from the American Institute of CPAs regarding standards the accountant will need to follow. The second document describes the limitations of what an accountant provides in her or his “conclusions.” Do not make the mistake of thinking their review (or audit) takes you “off the hook.” This goes for the due diligence review process at CrowdCheck. You and your team are 100% responsible for ensuring accuracy and truthfulness of all reported information, disclosures, and “forward-looking statements.”

Take Action to Improve Controls

We also recommend you consider an initial audit of your financial statements. Yes, an audit will cost more, but we think this level of quality assurance will help your enterprise attract the patient investors and flexible capital needed to take your business or social enterprise to the next level.

In addition, you will get feedback about the strength of your internal control systems. These recommendations will enable you to develop a more robust accounting and financial system capable of bearing the weight of 5–10% (or more) annual revenue growth over a ten-year investment period.

Remember, you have an option of including CrowdCheck due diligence review and accounting review or audit services as line items in your growth capital budget and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer (reference Module 3, Establish Scaling Plans).

Be sure to review the formal report issued from your accountant with all team members and principals of your enterprise, including board members (as appropriate). Immediately implement any action plans to increase the strength and improve the integrity of your accounting and internal financial control systems.

Save a copy of the formal report issued by your accountant. You will need to send a copy of this report along with reviewed or audited financial statements to the due diligence team at CrowdCheck. Examine the sample Report from their website to see how they discuss and reference your financial statements in the final Verified Check Report. We’ll be intently reviewing this part of the report in the TSIF Investment Readiness Check.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we obtain the services of an independent public accountant licensed to conduct business in our state and was independence verified by the CrowdCheck team?
  2. Is everyone on the team clear about SEC requirements for Regulation Crowdfunding financial disclosure?
  3. What did we learn about our internal financial and accounting controls? What do we need to improve?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–4 weeks for an independent public accountant to review or audit your financial statements (depending on the quality of your records and their schedule availability). This work will need to be coordinated with the due diligence process of CrowdCheck.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Silver Chef

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about Regulation Crowdfunding requirements for review or audit of financial statements, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan Review

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Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan Review

Required Materials:

To conduct a final review of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, you will need to obtain a copy of the most recent version of your five-year scaling and growth plan and schedule a review meeting with your team.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Generate a copy of the most recent version of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.
  2. Review this five-year business plan (including pro forma financial statements) and make any changes to wording that may be inappropriate for conducting a securities offering with a 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.
  3. Identify questions you think prospective investors will ask about your five-year plan and incorporate these questions into your Investor Pitch Deck and Investment Platform Profile.
  4. Provide a copy of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan to the due diligence team at CrowdCheck and to Mark Livingston at TSIF for the Investment Readiness Check.

Coaching Tips:

This activity focuses on reviewing the quality and integrity of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan one final time before the launch of your 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign on a crowdfund investment platform.

To start, ensure you and your team have a copy of the most recent five-year business plan, including pro forma financial statements or projections. Be sure everyone has access to the Business Plan Checklist to verify all items of a high-quality impact-driven business plan have been adequately addressed.

Ask your team to spend individual study time to read the business plan one more time and conduct a “quality assurance” check. Ask them to look for words, phrases, or terms that might be misconstrued by investors as “promises” or “guarantees.” Yes, there will be disclosures (warning statements) in your offering documents and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and 3X-in-10™ Note Subscription Agreement about “forward-looking statements”, but you bear the responsibility for making sure all claims are truthful.

Then, moderate a meeting of the entire team to discuss results of this final quality assurance review. Apply the same standard you used to identify the average annual revenue growth rate in your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer: “under-promise and over-deliver.” Stay focused on using the terms “potential” or “forward-looking.” If there’s any doubt, highlight the statements in question and ask the CrowdCheck team for guidance.

During the second half of this meeting, ask team members for the “top 10” questions investors might ask about the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, including pro forma financial projections. Note that you are extremely limited in what you can say about the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer outside of your investment platform-of-choice, but you can describe the future scaling and sustainable growth plans of your enterprise in offline Investor Pitches or meetings.

In all cases, you must direct prospective investors looking for “more information” to your Investment Platform Profile where you can answer questions regarding the terms and conditions of your Revenue Sharing Offer. Per crowdfund investing laws, your funding portal-of-choice will have established a way for investors to communicate with you and ask questions about the terms of your offering, business plan, or pro forma financial statements. You will need to identify a point of contact to respond to these questions and clearly communicate the role of this individual in your organization. Your funding portal-of-choice will walk you through their system for communicating with prospective investors.

After you make any final changes to the five-year plan, be sure to provide a copy to the due diligence team at CrowdCheck. You will also need to provide a copy for Mark Livingston at The Social Impact Foundation. By assuring the quality and integrity of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan (along with the Verified Check Report from CrowdCheck and your Revenue Sharing Offer), your enterprise will make a very strong “case for investment” to women and HeForShe investors (as well as TSIF).

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we find opportunities to improve the quality and integrity of our plans and financial projections?
  2. Did we find and change any terminology or wording that securities regulators might find objectionable?
  3. Did we identify questions prospective investors might have for us? Do we know how we’re going to respond to these questions?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to review the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and prepare for “next steps” in your 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Participate

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about the do’s and don’t of making “forward-looking statements”, we recommend the following articles and examples:

Next Step

Protect Investors and Stakeholders

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will protect the interests of investors and stakeholders by obtaining a due diligence review of your governance documents and 3X-in-10™ Offer. You will also create and file a Form C with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Protecting the interests of investors and stakeholders is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, many women and HeForShe investors are new to crowdfund investing. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to assure these investors your legal affairs are in order and your offering documents comply with securities regulations.

Together, these Deliverables will help your enterprise to complete our Investment Readiness Check and advertise your high-quality Revenue Sharing Offer and 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign to women and HeForShe investors.

Governance Documents Review

Required Materials:

To obtain a due diligence review of your governance documents, you will need to forward your corporate constitutive documents, company resolutions, and other necessary documentation to the due diligence team at CrowdCheck.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review the charter and governance documents of your business or social enterprise with owners, officers, and directors or members of your corporation or LLC.
  2. Make any improvements as needed to ensure the stability and continuity of your enterprise and forward a copy of these documents to CrowdCheck for due diligence review.
  3. Implement any changes to these agreements in response to issues identified by CrowdCheck and include the final Verified Check Report on your Investment Platform Profile.
  4. Forward a link to your final Verified Check Report to Mark Livingston at TSIF for the Investment Readiness Check.

Coaching Tips:

An essential requirement for protecting the interests of investors and stakeholders is a due diligence review of your governance documents. Women and HeForShe investors will want to know if your enterprise is legitimate and if your legal affairs are in order. Some of the questions these investors will have include:

  • Are your governance documents accurate, complete, and valid?
  • Have you adequately protected intellectual property or trade secrets?
  • Is there a succession plan to ensure business continuity in case of death, divorce, or partners who leave during the ten-year investment period?

If you doubt the seriousness of these issues, read The Importance of Understanding By-laws and Operating Agreements by the Apex Law Group in Seattle, Washington. Over the years, we’ve seen too many ownership teams face significant hardship because difficult issues were not addressed and resolved amicably (e.g., partnership dissolution).

In particular, note these comments from the Apex Law Group:

“It’s one of those things that largely go unnoticed until there is a company dispute or one member/shareholder wants to disassociate. Only then, when something goes wrong, are these documents pulled out and examined to determine how the dispute resolution process will work. Frequently there is no procedure (and if there is any guidance it’s just a standard jurisdiction and venue clause directing you to the courts) and the method of untangling the adverse parties becomes burdensome and costly to everyone involved. Many companies that do not hire legal counsel to help put these initial documents together, wind up hiring lawyers later on to help litigate the disputes that arise from inadequacies and inconsistencies in these documents. Hiring counsel to draft these documents is much less expensive than protracted civil litigation.

A lot of grief and unnecessary legal hassle can be avoided by taking the time to tailor and understand your operating agreement or bylaws from the outset. For instance, what happens in the case of a deadlocked vote? What if a majority owner becomes incapacitated or, heaven forbid, is killed? If they’re married, will their spouse inherit the interest in the LLC or Corporation? Do you want to be in partnership with someone’s spouse? All these questions and more can be answered through operating agreements and bylaws.”

To start the due diligence review, find the articles of incorporation or certificate of formation for your corporation or LLC (as appropriate for your state or province). These are your chartering documents. Also, locate your internal governance documents (corporate bylaws or LLC operating agreement). Take the time to review these documents with the principal stakeholders of your enterprise (e.g., owners, members, officers, and directors). Ask these individuals the three questions listed earlier. Commit to having “tough conversations” if necessary. You owe it to your prospective investors as well as the stakeholders of your business or social enterprise (as well as yourself).

External Assistance Required

After this internal review, make changes as appropriate and forward these documents to the CrowdCheck due diligence team. This is a required step in their background checking process and they will include a summary of their governance documents review in the final Verified Check Report.

Review the example Report from their website to see how CrowdCheck addresses this critical due diligence check. If the CrowdCheck team identifies any weak links in your governance documents, quickly resolve these issues prior to the launch of your crowdfund investment campaign.

Mark Livingston at The Social Impact Foundation will be reviewing this part of the Verified Check Report very closely. We do this because your business or social enterprise is planning to offer investors a ten-year revenue sharing investment offer. It’s incumbent on you and your team to assure women and HeForShe investors (and us) that your enterprise is built on a solid legal foundation and structured correctly to withstand major shocks and disruptions during the investment period.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did the due diligence team at CrowdCheck uncover any weak links in our governance documents?
  2. Have we considered future scenarios of ownership change in the years ahead?
  3. Do we have adequate succession and business continuity plans in place?

Estimated Time:

It will take 4–6 weeks to obtain a Verified Check Report from CrowdCheck. This process includes due diligence review of your governance documents.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Happy Family Brands

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about succession and business continuity planning, we recommend:

We also suggest:

Next Step

3X-in-10™ Offer Review

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3X-in-10™ Offer Review

Required Materials:

To obtain a due diligence review of your 3X-in-10™ Offer, you will need to forward a copy of your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and 3X-in-10™ Note Subscription Agreement to the CrowdCheck team.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and 3X-in-10™ Note Subscription Agreement one more time with team members, as well as owners, officers, or members of your corporation or LLC, including directors (as applicable).
  2. Forward a copy of your Revenue Sharing Offering documents to CrowdCheck for due diligence review and inclusion in the Verified Check Report.
  3. Implement any changes to the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and 3X-in-10™ Note Subscription Agreement as recommended by the CrowdCheck team (if required).
  4. Include these Revenue Sharing Offering documents in your Form C submittal package to the SEC (see next section of this Activity).
  5. Forward links to your final Verified Check Report and Investment Platform Profile to Mark Livingston at TSIF for the Investment Readiness Check.

Coaching Tips:

In this part of Module 6, we focus on the Revenue Sharing Offering documents you will be advertising to women and HeForShe investors. In order to comply with securities regulations, you must ensure these Revenue Sharing Offering documents are legal and valid. Plus, you will need to include these legal documents in your SEC Form C submittal package and on your Investment Platform Profile. These documents  must be able to withstand legal scrutiny if you’re going to raise flexible revenue-based growth capital lawfully and compliantly.

In Module 3 of Business Impact Accelerator, you downloaded the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Templates from the BIA Library. At that time, we recommended creating a first draft using information from your Revenue Sharing Offer (e.g., revenue sharing percentage, average annual revenue growth rate, starting revenue base, investment multiple or “cap”, investment time period, and amount of growth capital to raise).

It’s now time to review these documents one more time with your team as well as owners, officers, or members of your corporation or LLC. Make sure everyone understand the terms and conditions of this promissory note and subscription agreement.

External Assistance Required

Once your internal review is finished, forward a copy of your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and 3X-in-10™ Note Subscription Agreement to the team at CrowdCheck. This is a standard part of their due diligence review.

The team at CrowdCheck is very familiar with these documents since they created them for us at The Social Impact Foundation. However, the due diligence analysts at CrowdCheck will be reviewing specific terms and conditions to make sure everything is done lawfully and compliantly. You will need to make any changes to your Revenue Sharing documents if the CrowdCheck team finds something that is not clear or questionable. Please follow their directions to the letter to ensure your revenue-based investment offer is properly structured and legally binding.

You need to be aware these Revenue Sharing Offering documents will become part of your Form C submittal package to the SEC. CrowdCheck analysts will be helping your enterprise with drafting the Form C and submitting it to the SEC as required by Regulation Crowdfunding requirements.

You will also need to provide Mark Livingston at TSIF with links to your final Verified Check Report as well as the Investment Platform Profile. We’ll review your Form C submittal package and Revenue Sharing Offering documents from that funding portal’s website.

Congratulations! You are almost ready to start advertising your Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors!

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Do all team members, as well as directors, owners, officers, and members of this enterprise understand the terms and conditions of the Revenue Sharing Offering documents?
  2. Did the CrowdCheck due diligence team “sign-off” on our promissory note?
  3. Did we include any changes recommended by the team at CrowdCheck (if applicable)?

Estimated Time:

It will take 4–6 weeks to obtain a Verified Check Report from CrowdCheck. This Report includes review of your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and 3X-in-10™ Note Subscription Agreement.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

The Vegan Broker Inc.

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about the basics of contracts, we recommend “How to Make a Contract”.

To review the Regulation Crowdfunding requirements your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offering documents must comply with, we recommend reading:

Next Step

SEC Form C Review

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SEC Form C Review

Required Materials:

To create and file a Form C offering document with the SEC, you will need assistance from the CrowdCheck due diligence and disclosure team.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review Regulation Crowdfunding rules and SEC Form C requirements with your entire team.
  2. Collaborate with the CrowdCheck team in creating and filing a Form C offering document compliant with SEC requirements for raising capital on a crowdfund investment platform.
  3. Notify the securities regulators in your state that your enterprise has filed a Form C submittal package with the SEC.
  4. Provide a link to the SEC Form C on your Investment Platform Profile to Mark Livingston at TSIF for the Investment Readiness Check.

Coaching Tips:

One of the items in our Investment Readiness Checklist is a Form C disclosure statement to be created and filed with the SEC 21 days before launch of a crowdfund investment campaign (this includes any communication about the campaign).

Note: the SEC will not be “approving” these disclosure documents. They do not take a position–pro or con–on the investment merits of your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer. They do, however, want to confirm you’ve followed all rules and requirements for raising capital on a SEC-registered crowdfund investment platform and funding portal. And be warned, they do not like to see business plans, investor pitch decks, or other materials that make breathless pronouncements about guaranteed investment returns. It makes them very nervous (remember Bernie Madoff?).

Understand the Regs

As a first step, review Regulation Crowdfunding requirements one more time with your entire team to ensure complete understanding. Yes, we know this may be repetitious, but with additional study, you only deepen your understanding of what the SEC is looking for as they seek to fulfill their mission of protecting investors.

Here are the links you’ve seen in previous sections of Module 6:

Also, take the time to review this document on the SEC website, Crowdfunding Filing Review. It clarifies the review process and provides helpful tips and suggestions. As well, here’s a link to the SEC Form C that you and the CrowdCheck team will be completing.

Step-by-Step Guidance from CrowdCheck

As a part of your Verified Check Report service, the team at CrowdCheck will assist your enterprise in drafting the Form C, “EDGARizing” it, and filing the document with the SEC. They will guide you through the disclosure process.

The Verified Check process also includes a review of other offering materials, including video script, Investor Pitch Deck, and Investment Platform Profile (more about this in the next Activity). A summary of their review will be included in your final Verified Check Report that needs to be placed on your Investment Platform Profile.

When the Form C has been submitted to the SEC, send a courtesy letter to securities regulators in your state informing them you have submitted this important regulatory disclosure. Provide your contact information as well as SEC and EDGAR identification numbers. If desired, they will be able to access your specific information online. Although Form C preempts state regulatory requirements for Regulation CF capital raising, it’s always smart to keep state officials in the loop. You never know when an investor in your state will contact them directly to confirm the legitimacy of your Revenue Sharing Offer.

The last step of this Activity is to forward a link to your Investment Platform Profile to Mark Livingston at The Social Impact Foundation (TSIF). We’ll review your Form C submittal package on your funding portal’s website to complete this requirement of the Investment Readiness Check. You never know, TSIF may make a Program-Related Investment (PRI) in your Revenue Sharing Offer.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we include all information required in the SEC Form C offering document?
  2. Did we answer all questions from the CrowdCheck legal team honestly and accurately?
  3. Do we understand the “21-day wait requirement” prior to launching our crowdfund investment campaign on an approved funding portal (including communication requirements)?

Estimated Time:

It will take 4–6 weeks to obtain a Verified Check Report from CrowdCheck. This due diligence service includes assistance from CrowdCheck in creating and filing your Form C offering documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Come True Social Enterprise Co., Ltd.

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about the SEC’s mission, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Promote 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will set the stage for advertising and marketing your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer and 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign. You’ll do this by first creating an Investor Pitch Deck and Investment Platform Profile, and then obtaining a due diligence review of these assets from the team at CrowdCheck.

Advertising your Revenue Sharing Offer is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, many more women and HeForShe investors are seeking to investments that create social and economic value. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to attract these mission-aligned investors and win their support, but in a manner that meets crowdfund investment requirements.

Together, these two Deliverables will enable your enterprise to launch a Growth Capital Campaign and raise the flexible capital needed to scale impact and grow sustainably.

Investor Pitch Deck and Profile Review

Required Materials:

To create an Investor Pitch, you will need to visit SlideModel.com. To create an Investment Platform Profile, you will need to select a funding portal as the launchpad of your 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign. To obtain a due diligence review of your communication assets prior to launch, you will need assistance from the team at CrowdCheck.

To Do List:

There are seven actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Create Investor Persona and Journey Canvases using tools from the Design a Better Business website.
  2. Download the Investor Pitch template from SlideModel.com and create an Investor Pitch Deck for offline investor meetings and the Investment Platform Profile.
  3. Identify and select an approved crowdfund investment platform that sponsors revenue-sharing offers using the Regulation Crowdfunding exemption.
  4. Create an Investment Platform Profile on your funding portal-of-choice.
  5. Forward your Investor Pitch Deck and link to your Investment Platform Profile to the team at CrowdCheck for review as part of the SEC Form C Review process.
  6. Make any needed changes and ensure all relevant documents are available on the funding portal website (e.g., final Verified Check Report, Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, Investor Pitch Deck, Revenue Sharing Offering documents, promotional video, SEC Form C submittal package, etc.).
  7. Forward the link to your Investment Platform Profile to Mark Livingston at TSIF for the Investment Readiness Check.

Coaching Tips:

Before jumping into development of advertising and marketing assets for your crowdfunding investment campaign, we urge you and your team to “step into the shoes” of women and HeForShe investors. This is critical, as many of your prospective investors will be first-time participants in online investing.

We recommend taking the time to design an “engaging experience” that guides prospective investors through each step of a win-win decision-making process focused on your high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

Because your enterprise is preparing to launch a securities offering using a revenue sharing promissory note, you must comply with SEC requirements for advertising and promoting the 3X-in-10™ Offer and communicating with investors, both offline and online. Review these two documents for a quick refresher:

Then, go to the Design a Better Business website and download the Persona Canvas and Customer Journey Canvas. You previously used these templates in Module 2 of Business Impact Accelerator. Here, we recommend creating an Investor Persona and an Investor Journey Canvas to help you and your team empathize with the “investing experience” from the perspective of women and HeForShe investors. Consider all elements of their online experience, including those within your control and those delivered by the crowdfund investment platform you choose.

We leave it to you and your team to identify and select a funding platform-of-choice. We recommend checking out the Wefunder to start (they are partnering with CrowdCheck as of spring 2020). Just be sure the portal you eventually choose is approved by FINRA and sponsors revenue-sharing offers under the Reg CF exemption. Check Crowdfund Investing Platforms in the BIA Library for more information about funding platforms in the U.S. that support revenue-based investment offers (as of fall 2018).

Many of these funding portals offer online tools and word editors to help you develop an Investment Platform Profile and/or Investor Pitch Deck. Each portal will have their own standards for this profile. However, we recommend creating your own customized Investor Pitch Deck using the Investors Pitch PowerPoint template from SlideModel.com.

Note that SlideModel has a YouTube video about the design of this template. We recommend aligning this template with the section headings of the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan. As discussed in Module 3 of Business Impact Accelerator, your impact-driven business plan is a little different than profit-focused business plans. So, don’t be bashful about pointing this out by the design of your Investor Pitch Deck. 

Some funding portals will tell you the Investor Pitch Deck is more important than the business plan. This is not an entirely accurate statement. Your Pitch Deck is a document prospective investors will study after initially reviewing your online profile and viewing a promotional video (if you choose to use one). They will then seek out your Pitch Deck to get highlights of the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

However, this “pre-screen” is just Phase 1 of their decision-making process. The second phase begins with a general review of your business plan and SEC Form C disclosure. The third phase moves to an in-depth review of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and Revenue Sharing Offering documents with perhaps questions posted on the funding portal’s website. The final phase is an investment decision (yes, no, or ignore).

Your aim is to move prospective women and HeForShe investors through each of these phases as smoothly as possible with a win-win result. For a refresher of this due diligence and decision making process, review relevant content from the Business Impact Accelerator Mini-Course and 3X-in-10™ Webinar Series.

Keep It Simple

There’s plenty of advice in books, articles, and YouTube videos about pitching to investors and promoting a crowdfund investment offering. The one consistent theme is “keep it simple.” Use the Persona and Journey Canvases to put yourself in the shoes of busy investors. What is the most important information that will capture their attention and motivate them to review your supporting documentation?

These investors may not do all of their due diligence checking in one sitting, but you want to stand out from all the other investment offers so they’ll “come back for more” and invest in your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact.

There are two other points to keep in mind:

  1. Crowdfund investors are responsible for conducting their own due diligence and making their own investment decisions. However, we’ve made this easier for them (and for you) through the CrowdCheck Verified Check Report and the TSIF Investment Readiness Checklist.
  2. You must follow all marketing, advertising, and promotion guidelines established by the SEC for communicating your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer and 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign, both online and offline. Because this is a crowdfund campaign using Regulation Crowdfunding rules, you will need to direct all prospective investors to your Investment Platform Profile, Form C disclosure, and Revenue Sharing Offering documents for discussion of specific terms and conditions. Sorry, but there are no exceptions to this requirement.

When you complete your Investor Pitch Deck and Investment Platform Profile, forward these promotional assets to the CrowdCheck team for review. This is part of the service you’ve paid for with the Verified Check Report, so take advantage of this due diligence review. The team at CrowdCheck will review your marketing assets concurrent with the creation, review, and submittal of your SEC Form C package. They’ll also be checking to make sure all of your documents are aligned with each other (e.g., Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, Revenue Sharing Offering documents, Investor Pitch Deck, Verified Check Report, etc.).

When you’re ready, forward a link to the Investment Platform Profile to Mark Livingston for the Investment Readiness Check. You’re now just one step away from being able to advertise your 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign to women and HeForShe investors on the 10X Impact Community Forum.

We have several items for you to review in the Recommended Resources section to improve investor pitching and presentation skills. If you have any questions, please contact us directly through this website. We’re also available to schedule a short Skype or FaceTime conference to listen to your investor pitch and offer feedback.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we create an Investor Persona and Journey Canvas to help us design and deliver a winning experience for women and HeForShe investors?
  2. Did we communicate our story in a compelling manner, but in line with SEC regulatory requirements for investor communications?
  3. Did we clearly direct all prospective investors to our Investment Platform Profile and funding portal-of-choice to learn about the terms and conditions of our 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer?

Estimated Time:

It will take 8–24 hours to develop your Investor Pitch Deck and Investment Platform Profile (depending on materials already completed). The review of these promotional assets by the CrowdCheck team is included within the Verified Check Report timeframe (4–6 weeks).

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Insamar

Recommended Resources:

To learn about the regulatory requirements for communicating with investors during a crowdfund investment campaign, we recommend the following:

To learn more about “how to” pitch your Revenue Sharing Offer and promote your Growth Capital Campaign, we recommend the following:

We also recommend this free video series:

Next Step

Confirm Investment Readiness

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will confirm readiness to launch a 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign on a crowdfund investment platform. You’ll do this by completing the Investment Readiness Check.

Confirming investment readiness is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, 40–60% of major strategic initiatives and change efforts fail to deliver sustainable results. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to show investors your business or social enterprise is ready for investment, sustainable growth, change, and transformation.

By completing the Investment Readiness Check, your enterprise will be able to advertise its high-quality Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors.

Investment Readiness Check

Required Materials:

To complete the Investment Readiness Check, you will need to schedule an online interview with Mark Livingston of The Social Impact Foundation.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Print the Investment Readiness Checklist and review the eight due diligence questions in the Investment Readiness Check.
  2. Request and schedule an Investment Readiness Check after ensuring all documentation and links are ready for review.
  3. Complete the Investment Readiness Check with Mark Livingston.
  4. Provide an advertisement (“tombstone notice”) for the 10X Impact Forum communicating the launch of your 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign.

Coaching Tips:

Congratulations! Your enterprise has made it to the Investment Readiness Check! We want to acknowledge the hard work, dedication, and commitment of you and your team. Now, let’s advertise your high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors in the 10X Impact Forum and begin marketing the 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign on your funding portal-of-choice.

As you may have surmised, we take our due diligence responsibility very seriously. The Investment Readiness Check enables us to assure women and HeForShe investors in the Forum that your business or social enterprise has followed all regulatory requirements and is ready for investment and ready to deliver sustainable results.

When you and your team are ready, contact Mark Livingston and request an Investment Readiness Check. He’ll respond with several proposed dates and times for the review. If you have not already done so, print the Investment Readiness Checklist. We will be referencing the following eight questions during the process.

Investment Readiness Questions

Mark Livingston has the responsibility to ensure these questions are reviewed:

  1. Were any issues identified in the Verified Check Report from CrowdCheck that would make prospective investors or securities regulators doubt the integrity or trustworthiness of this team or enterprise?
  2. Did the financial statements review or audit raise any issues that would concern prospective investors, tax authorities, or securities regulators?
  3. Did this business or social enterprise address all questions in the Business Plan Checklist and submit a high-quality Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan?
  4. Are the governance documents of this enterprise sufficient to protect the long-term interests of investors and stakeholders?
  5. Are the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offering documents properly structured and legally binding?
  6. Did the Form C disclosure conform to all SEC requirements under the Regulation Crowdfunding exemption?
  7. Are promotional materials compliant with SEC requirements and do they clearly direct all prospective investors to an approved crowdfund investment platform?
  8. Is this enterprise ready to promote their 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors in the Women’s Impact Investing Network?

In working through each question, Mark will let you know if there are any issues or concerns. His job is to be honest–remember the fiduciary standard we have to protect every prospective investor? But we won’t leave you “high and dry.” We will work with you to resolve the issue.

There is one final step you’ll need to complete before we feature your enterprises’ Revenue Sharing Offer and Growth Capital Campaign to women and HeForShe investors in the 10X Impact Forum. This step requires creation of an advertisement or “tombstone notice” clearly directing prospective investors to your platform-of-choice. You can Google this term and find many examples of notices used in investment campaigns.

Review Questions:

Before scheduling an Investment Readiness Check, ask these questions:

  1. Did we provide Mark Livingston at The Social Impact Foundation with all links and required documentation for this final review?
  2. Do we have an advertisement or “tombstone notice” ready for women and HeForShe investors in the 10X Impact Community Forum?
  3. Did we clearly direct all prospective investors to our funding portal-of-choice?

Estimated Time:

It will take you and your team approximately 30–60 minutes to meet with Mark via Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime to complete the Investment Readiness Check and plan for the advertising of your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer to members of the 10X Impact Forum.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

A to Z Wineworks

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about successful crowdfund investment campaigns, we recommend the following video:

Next Step

Module Six Review

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Module Six Review

Module Six of Business Impact Accelerator© focused on these Deliverables and Outcomes:

  • Verified Check Report (raise investor trust and confidence with a comprehensive background check and due diligence review from the team at CrowdCheck)
  • Financial Statements Review or Audit (raise investor trust and confidence by meeting all SEC requirements for financial disclosure)
  • Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan Review (raise investor trust and confidence with a high-quality business plan and pro forma financial statements)
  • Governance Documents Review (protect investors and stakeholders by ensuring your enterprises’ legal affairs are in order)
  • 3X-in-10™ Offer Review (protect investors and stakeholders by ensuring your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and Note Subscription Agreement are correctly structured)
  • SEC Form C Review (protect investors by ensuring your revenue sharing investment offering meets all SEC disclosure requirements)
  • Investor Pitch Deck and Profile Review (promote your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer following all SEC regulatory requirements)
  • Investment Readiness Check (complete a final review of investment readiness before promoting your high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors in the Women’s Impact Investing Network)

So, how did you do? Are you ready for the next step? If so, congratulations! Now, let’s get your 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign started with women and HeForShe investors in the 10X Impact Community Forum. We can’t wait to feature your high-impact enterprise!

Accelerate Business Impact

Module Five Description

In this fifth Module of Business Impact Accelerator©, you and your team will accelerate the transformation of your impact-driven business or social enterprise. By making these organization development processes a part of your daily operations, you’ll create an entrepreneurial culture and high-performance workplace that generates sustainable 10X impact. 

You and your team will complete four Activities …

  1. Develop an Entrepreneurial Culture
  2. Increase Change Management Capability
  3. Improve Project Team Effectiveness
  4. Develop Business and Financial Acumen

… and produce ten Deliverables:

  • Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™
  • Culture Map
  • Core Values Interview Guide
  • Change Accelerator Project Dashboard
  • Change Assessment Profiles
  • Executive Sponsorship Assessments
  • Progress Reviews
  • Team Effectiveness Assessments
  • Marketplace® Live Business Simulations
  • Conscious Capitalism® Simulation

These Deliverables will enable you and your team to build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that differentiates you from competitors focused only on maximizing short-term profit.

For each Deliverable, we provide step-by-step instructions and coaching tips for completion. We also feature a Certified B Corporation to benchmark and offer a list of resources to help you manage the transition of your enterprise from one stage of growth to another. If you have any questions, please contact us directly through this website.

Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will develop an entrepreneurial culture within your business or social enterprise. You’ll do this by completing the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™, designing a Culture Map, and creating a Core Values Interview Guide.

Establishing and developing an entrepreneurial culture is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, executing strategic priorities and achieving sustainable growth is very challenging. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to activate and unleash the entrepreneurial talents of your entire team to fuel sustainable growth.

Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™ will help you develop entrepreneurial thinking and skills across your organization. Culture Map will help you design a work environment that prizes and rewards entrepreneurial action. Core Values Interview Guide will help you hire the right people aligned with your culture, values, and vision of the future.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you to build an army of entrepreneurs and accelerate sustainable 10X impact.

Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile

Required Materials:

To complete the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™, you will need to visit the Eckerd College Leadership Development Institute website.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™ website and download several reports on this innovative assessment, including one titled Why Entrepreneurs Matter.
  2. Open an account on the Eckerd College website and take the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™.
  3. Download and review your personal Assessment Report as well as the 67-page Development Guide.
  4. Identify one Skill Dimension and one Personality Dimension to improve in the next 9–12 months.
  5. Compare assessment results with other team members and identify one individual to assist you as a coach over the next year.

Coaching Tips:

The environment your business or social enterprise operates within is in a constant state of flux. In order for your team to respond effectively to this flux, it’s essential to break away from habitual patterns of thinking and behavior. This is a critical requirement for entrepreneurial thinking and behavior inside organizations of all types, sizes, age, and industry. In fact, a study by Deloitte Consulting found that enterprises identified as entrepreneurial grew at a faster rate with increased capital investment, higher profit margins, and greater productivity.

We believe that establishing and developing an entrepreneurial mindset across your organization is a major driving force for generating sustainable 10X impact and accelerating business transformation. But what is “entrepreneurial mindset” and how do you measure and develop it?

These are the questions answered by the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™. This cutting-edge assessment tool is a research-based instrument that examines the skills and capabilities required for entrepreneurial success in the 21st century. The Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™ (or EMP) is an online assessment instrument originally tested and validated with two groups of corporate managers and entrepreneurs.

The 14 dimension of an entrepreneurial mindset measured by the EMP include:

Personality Dimension
IndependenceThe desire to work with a high degree of independence.
Preference for Limited StructureA preference for tasks and situations with little formal structure.
NonconformityA preference for acting in unique ways; an interest in being perceived as unique.
Risk AcceptanceA willingness to pursue an idea or a desired goal even when the probability of succeeding is low.
Action OrientationA tendency to show initiative, make decisions quickly, and feel impatient for results.
PassionA tendency to experience one’s work as exciting and enjoyable rather than tedious and draining.
Need to AchieveThe desire to achieve at a high level.
Skills Dimension
Future FocusThe ability to think beyond the immediate situation and plan for the future.
Idea GenerationThe ability to generate multiple and novel ideas, and to find multiple approaches for achieving goals.
ExecutionThe ability to turn ideas into actionable plans; the ability to implement ideas well.
Self-ConfidenceA general belief in one’s ability to leverage skills and talents to achieve important goals.
OptimismThe ability to maintain a generally positive attitude about various aspects of one’s life and the world.
PersistenceThe ability to bounce back quickly from disappointment, and to remain persistent in the face of setbacks.
Interpersonal SensitivityA high level of sensitivity to and concern for the well-being of those with whom one works.
Taking the EMP

To begin developing your entrepreneurial mindset, we recommend taking the EMP on an individual basis and then comparing results with other members of your team. You’ll find the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™  at a website hosted by the Leadership Development Institute at Eckerd College. Click on the Home page video from Dr. Jennifer Hall, one of the EMP developers. You can also watch this video on YouTube at The Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile (EMP) by Eckerd College.

Next, click on Resource Center in the top navigation menu. This page will provide you with a quick overview of the assessment. There are three reports you’ll find of interest:

  • White Paper: Measuring the Entrepreneurial Mindset
  • EMP Scales & Guide Tips
  • Case Study: Sales Leadership & Future Focus

After downloading these documents, look for the section titled EMP in Action in the top navigation menu. Click on the sub-menu labeled Individuals & Corporate Leaders. Here, you’ll find a link to the study conducted by Deloitte Consulting titled Why Entrepreneurs Matter. Then, go to to the top right of the Home page where you’ll see a blue Take the EMP button. When you click this button, you’ll find a sign-up page for registering, purchasing, and completing the assessment. Individual assessments are priced at $45 and will take less than 20 minutes to complete.

Your Assessment Results

After finishing the EMP, you’ll receive a personal Assessment Report via email plus the EMP Development Guide, a 67-page document brimming with ideas for improving your entrepreneurial mindset. As you review this Report, look for the two graphs comparing your scores with the norm group of corporate managers and entrepreneurs who participated in the initial validation study. The EMP Development Guide will help you understand the “why” and “so what” behind your scores.

Look for one Personality Dimension and one Skill Dimension to develop during the next 9–12 months. Aim to keep your plan simple for this first round of personal development. A good place to start is to identify those dimensions where you are either way above or way below the two norm groups.

For example, we often see the case where an entrepreneurial leader (perhaps the founder) is way above the scores of the norm group and her/his team. You might think this is good, right? But not so fast. Sometimes, “too much of a good thing” can create chaos and havoc inside an organization through constant changes or pivots in direction that drive team members crazy.

Conversely, we’ve also seen profiles of individuals in a leadership team with very low Risk Acceptance scores. Imagine the dynamic if you combine a leader with high entrepreneurial skills with someone displaying high risk-aversion (a low Risk Acceptance score). There might not be overt conflict between these individuals, but the differences may show up in the form of over-analysis and fear of making decisions.

As you’ll learn in the next section about the Culture Map, it’s important to surface these behaviors and “have a conversation.” This is one of the benefits for using the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™. You’ll not only develop the entrepreneurial mindset of your team, but you’ll understand how each team member demonstrates this mindset in their thinking and actions.

Schedule a meeting with your team when everyone has completed the EMP. Facilitate a discussion about the assessment. Have each team member share their results by either displaying the two graphs or talking generally about their scores. Be sure each individual provides some information about their personal development plans.

The final step is to partner up and identify one individual to assist as a personal coach or mentor. The idea here is to match areas of strength with areas that a person would like to strengthen. The goal would be to meet periodically over the next 9–12 months to discuss progress, share observations, and support each other in building and developing an entrepreneurial mindset.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did everyone on the team complete the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™?
  2. What do the results say about the entrepreneurial mindset of our team?
  3. What can we do to activate and unleash the entrepreneurial talents of everyone in our business or social enterprise?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to review the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™ website and complete the online assessment. It will take another hour to discuss results with the team and identify an individual to serve as a personal coach or mentor.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Charity Bank

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about instilling and fostering the entrepreneurial spirit of an organization, we recommend the following:

  • Army of Entrepreneurs: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth by Jennifer Prosek, CEO and business owner of CJP Communications.
  • “Army of Entrepreneurs Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce” (free, hour-long webinar sponsored by the Canadian Management Center and presented by Ms. Prosek).
  • Strategyzer Blog (this blog provides articles about innovation, culture, and change along with articles about business model innovation and value proposition design).
  • Conscious Capitalism Field Guide: Tools for Transforming Your Organization by Raj Sisodia, Timothy Henry, and Thomas Eckschmidt.

Next Step:

Culture Map

Next Step

Culture Map

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Culture Map

Required Materials:

To develop a Culture Map for your enterprise, you will need to visit several websites, including those of Dave Gray and Strategyzer. Also, you will need the Change Accelerator© platform.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Learn about the Culture Map by visiting Dave Gray’s website and watching his “Culture and Change” webinar.
  2. Download the Culture Map tool from Strategyzer’s website and review several articles from the Strategyzer Blog.
  3. Review four short videos from the Canadian Management Center featuring Jennifer Prosek, CEO of CJP Communications and best-selling author of Army of Entrepreneurs.
  4. Review Best Practices: How to Use the Culture Map from the Strategyzer Blog and plan/conduct a four-hour Culture Map workshop.
  5. Develop an action plan and timetable for creating your version of the Commission for Life system implemented by Ms. Prosek as described in Army of Entrepreneurs.

Coaching Tips:

Entrepreneur and author Dave Gray is right on the mark with his mantra: “your company’s culture is your operating system.” We believe one of the fastest ways to accelerate sustainable 10X impact is to unleash the talents of your workforce in a culture where entrepreneurial action is incentivized, rewarded, and prized.

This section of Business Impact Accelerator© provides you with a tool (Culture Map) and a system/process (Commission for Life) to reinforce the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™ and develop a spirit (or culture) of entrepreneurship across your organization.

To get started, go to Dave Gray’s website and find the page titled Culture Mapping. Read this article to learn more about The Culture Map. Then, with fellow team members in attendance, watch the 30-minute webinar titled Culture and Change on Mr. Gray’s website (it can be found in the Keynotes section on the main navigation menu). Facilitate a discussion about the webinar’s key points. Be sure to make copies of the Culture Map for everyone to look at during the webinar. The Culture Map is available as a download from the Strategyzer website in the Tools/Resources/Other Tools section (at the very bottom).

Over the next week, ask team members to review several other posts in the Strategyzer Blog, including a podcast between Alex Osterwalder of Strategyzer and Dave Gray, creator of the Culture Map:

Note the definition of organization culture provided by Mr. Osterwalder: “the values, beliefs, and behaviors practiced in an organization formed over time because they are rewarded or punished (i.e., by formal and informal rules, rituals, and behaviors).” Be sure to study the workshop agenda outlined in the Best Practices post. You’ll be using it in your Culture Map workshop.

Then, on an individual basis, plan time to review four short videos from the Canadian Management Center, featuring Jennifer Prosek, CEO of CJP Communications and best-selling author of Army of Entrepreneurs:

Commission for Life

In these videos, Ms. Prosek offers several ideas we think are relevant for your growing impact-driven enterprise. We applaud the results she has achieved with an innovative lead generation system established in her business called Commission for Life. We recommend reading Army of Entrepreneurs and developing a version of Commission for Life for your business or social enterprise.

It’s a strategy that shares the revenue with employees who open the door to prospective customers. In essence, it’s a form of revenue sharing similar to the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer you made (or are planning to make) to women and HeForShe investors.

Be sure to catch Ms. Prosek’s comments about (1) insurance policy, (2) people dependency, (3) providing a nudge, (4) teaching the business, and (5) clear path to success. The comment about people dependency refers to a section in the book where she describes life in her business before Commission for Life. It involved Ms. Prosek not only serving as CEO but also as the main source of new customers and sales revenue. Before Commission for Life, Ms. Prosek brought in 79% of the revenue. After implementing Commission for Life, the percentage dropped to 29% while growth significantly increased. Ms. Prosek does not report on her stress level, but we imagine it dropped significantly too!

Does this situation remind you of anyone (perhaps yourself)? Here are the major benefits of Commission for Life as described in the book, Army of Entrepreneurs:

  • “It enables employees to earn money over and above base compensation, offering a competitive advantage over your competitors and a retention tool for the company.
  • It can be done by anyone at any level since the reward goes to the employee who identified the opportunity and booked the initial meeting. Junior folks might not be able to write the proposal or do the presentation, but they can—just like their senior colleagues—identify an opportunity and book the first meeting.
  • It reinforces teaching them the business, since the commission is paid only when the client pays the bill (that’s a receivable), and there is shared celebration (and shared pain) when that business moves in and out of the company.
  • It adds another set of eyes on the client. Even if the business generated is not managed by the person who identified it, the commission recipient has every incentive to police and support the success of that customer relationship.
  • It spreads the task of business and idea generation across the firm, which takes the burden off the primary rainmakers.
  • It also decentralizes power from the primary rainmakers, who in many firms are overrewarded for their contributions, and helps to spread financial gain.
  • It helps identify “natural entrepreneurs” who love the hunt and can be cultivated and nurtured over time to become people who run practices within the firm.
  • It is contagious, and success feeds upon itself. Believe me, once the intern brings in the largest account of the summer, everyone gets on board!”

Plan to finish these four videos by Ms. Prosek in the next 7–10 days. Then, meet with 1 or 2 of your trusted team members and plan/schedule a Culture Map workshop using an agenda from the Strategyzer Blog post titled Best Practices: How to Use the Culture Map. This 4-hour workshop should give you and your team adequate time to design a Culture Map specific to your business or social enterprise.

Be sure to use the Statements of Core Purpose and Values developed in Module 2 of Business Impact Accelerator along with your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact. Also, you may find value in using one of the tools from Change Accelerator© titled Behavior Targeting.

We recommend establishing a version of Commission for Life for your organization. You can build the behaviors and outcomes generated by Commission for Life right into your Culture Map. Of course, you’ll need to do careful planning and pilot testing before you finalize a Business Process Map for the system and begin full-scale implementation. And, be sure to visit the Change Accelerator platform and Accelerating Change and Transformation (ACT™) Model for ideas on how to introduce this new process (and change) to your team and organization.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we create a Culture Map that describes the values and behaviors we want to see demonstrated in our organization?
  2. Do we have a plan of action for developing a Commission for Life program unique to our organization?
  3. Do we have a plan of action for developing the entrepreneurial spirit and culture of our enterprise?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to review and study the videos and blog posts along with another 4 hours to conduct the Culture Map Workshop. You and your small team will need an additional 2–3 hours to prepare for this workshop.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Bullfrog Power

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about Army of Entrepreneurs and Commission for Life, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Core Values Interview Guide

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Core Values Interview Guide

Required Materials:

To create a Core Values Interview Guide, you will need to visit several websites. You will also need Change Accelerator© and the Culture Map you and your team developed in the previous Deliverable. Also, you will need the Statements of Core Purpose and Values and Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact developed in Module 2 of Business Impact Accelerator©.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Visit the ZapposInsights website to learn more about the innovative work culture at this unique and high-performance organization.
  2. Review interview questions and assessment tools used by Zappos and other organizations to hire team members aligned with your organization’s core values.
  3. Download and review the Behavior Targeting tool from Change Accelerator and review your Culture Map, Statements of Core Purpose and Values, and Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact.
  4. Create a structured Core Values Interview Guide appropriate for your business or social enterprise.
  5. Review, test, and deploy your Core Values Interview Guide as you begin hiring team members to help your enterprise scale impact and grow sustainably over the next ten years.

Coaching Tips:

In 2009, Mark Livingston had an opportunity to hear Mr. Tony Hsieh, CEO of  Zappos, speak to an audience at the Net Promoter® Conference in San Francisco. Amazon had just purchased Zappos, and Hsieh captured the audience’s attention with stories about the unique culture of his organization.

Hsieh talked about the importance of workplace culture in a book he wrote the next year titled Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. Here’s one important point he makes about the link between your enterprise’s brand and culture:

“What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture. At Zappos, our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff—like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers—will happen naturally on its own.

Your culture is your brand.”

Several years ago, the team at Zappos began sharing their expertise with the world through a website called ZapposInsights. When you visit ZapposInsights, click on the video from Tony Hsieh on the Home page. Then, click on the Start Here button to learn more about this innovative, progressive, and profitable enterprise.

One of the processes used by Zappos to reinforce and sustain their core values is the Core Values Interview. They use a set of structured questions based on the ten core values of their progressive organization. You can do this for your organization as well. Here is a list of eighteen interview questions to begin applying this strategy to your new hire selection process.

Your Core Values Interview Guide

To create a structured Core Values Interview Guide for your enterprise, bring the entire team together to discuss the approach used by Zappos. Make sure everyone has reviewed the ZapposInsights website as well as the article from thebalance.com. Then, facilitate a discussion about the pros and cons of using core values and culture fit interview questions in your business or social enterprise.

One of the first questions you may receive from your team is whether these core value questions are the only ones to ask during a new hire interview. The correct answer is “of course not.” However, Zappos is sending us a powerful signal that organization culture matters. So yes, ask different types of questions during the new hire job interview, but why not funnel the design of these questions through the lens of your Statements of Core Purpose and Values, Culture Map, and Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact? In essence, that’s what Zappos and other organizations committed to hiring the right people are doing.

The question we recommend you and your team answer is this: how can we create a version of the Zappos Core Values Interview process for our enterprise? You may only replicate 50% of what Zappos has achieved at the start, but they offer an excellent blueprint for how to build a culture of high engagement.

If you want to learn more about the approach Zappos uses to build a high-performance culture and organization, we recommend reading Delivering Happiness and subscribing to ZapposInsights.com. We also recommend a recent publication titled Conscious Capitalism Field Guide: Tools for Transforming Your Organization.

Alignment is a Beautiful Thing

One of the key elements Zappos incorporates into their Interview Guide is the “behaviors we are looking for.” These behaviors are defined for each of the ten core values of the Zappos organization. In practical terms, these behaviors are evidence of the Zappos core values in action. As with any behaviorally-based interview, Zappos interviewers are looking for evidence from candidates that core values have been demonstrated in past jobs and employment experiences.

Here are two examples of question sets you can apply to your organization:

Why is this important? Well, think about the times you’ve supervised an employee or worked with someone who was the proverbial “square peg in round hole.” Not very productive or fun, was it? If you’re going to accelerate the growth and impact of your enterprise, then you must have a team that is “ready, willing, and able” to set sail with you on a ten-year journey of sustainable growth, change, and transformation. You can’t afford to have less than 100% commitment, alignment, and engagement. The stakes are just too high.

So, what are the key behaviors driving your Core Values, Purpose, Vision Story, and Culture Map? And, how can you use these to create an Interview Guide to identify the right people aligned with your enterprise’s values?

To help you and your fellow team members flesh this out, go to the Change Accelerator toolkit and download the Behavior Targeting tool. You may have already used this tool previously in Business Impact Accelerator. But if you haven’t, this tool will help you identify specific actions and behaviors that support (or detract from) the core values of your enterprise.

Ask change coaches to plan and facilitate a workshop of 2–3 hours following the steps outlined in the Behavior Targeting tool. Refer back to all previous documents and Deliverables created or developed in Business Impact Accelerator to compile a list of “the behaviors we’re looking for.”

Then, identify a small team to develop a set of interview questions supporting each of the values and behaviors you’ve just identified. Be sure to involve frontline team members in this process, as they will have the most relevant insight and experience. And, make sure your questions align with the Culture Map, Statements of Core Purpose and Values, and Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact. Remember–alignment is a beautiful thing!

Bring the draft questions back to the entire team for review before test and validation. You’ll want to assess the impact of your Core Values Interview Guide on the engagement and performance levels of your work and project teams. One final tip: take small steps as you begin to develop this Guide. A Core Values Interview Guide is not an item on your “to do” list to be accomplished in six months and then forgotten. Building a high-engagement culture is a long-term proposition that is never finished.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we create a Core Values Interview Guide aligned with our Culture Map, Statements of Purpose and Core Values, and Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact?
  2. Are the behaviors supporting our Core Values described?
  3. Did we create an action plan for testing and improving our Core Values Interview Guide?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to conduct a mini-workshop focused on the behaviors supporting your Core Values. It will take about 8–16 hours (over several sessions) for the small team to develop interview questions. It will take around 1–2 hours for the entire team to review and improve the Core Values Interview Guide.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Endeva

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about building high-engagement and high-performing workplace cultures, we recommend the following:

  • Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.
  • Conscious Capitalism Field Guide: Tools for Transforming Your Organization by Raj Sisodia, Timothy Henry, and Thomas Eckschmidt (see Chapters 11–13).
  • Uncontainable: How Passion, Commitment, and Conscious Capitalism Built a Business Where Everyone Thrivesby Kip Tindell, Chairman, and CEO of The Container Store.
  • Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras.
  • Invisible Advantage: How Intangibles Are Driving Business Performance by Jonathan Low and Pam Cohen Kalafut.
  • Exemplary Performance: Driving Business Results by Benchmarking Your Star Performers by Paul Elliott and Al Folsom.

Next Step:

Increase Change Management Capability

Next Step

Increase Change Management Capability

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will increase capability to manage organizational change and business transformation. You’ll do this by utilizing the Change Accelerator© Project Dashboard, creating Change Assessment Profiles, and implementing Executive Sponsorship Assessments.

Increasing change management capability is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy, 40–70% of strategic change initiatives fail to deliver expected results. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to effectively navigate change and manage the transition of your business from one stage of growth to another.

Change Accelerator Project Dashboard will help you monitor employee engagement, organization health, and progress of your transformation efforts. Change Assessment Profiles will help you improve change management skills. Executive Sponsorship Assessments will help you develop more effective sponsors of change across your enterprise.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you and your team to accelerate business transformation and achieve your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact.

Change Accelerator Project Dashboard

Required Materials:

To utilize the Change Accelerator Project Dashboard, you will need access to the Change Accelerator© platform.

To Do List:

There are six actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Watch three short videos about change management and the Change Accelerator platform.
  2. Purchase a subscription to the Change Accelerator© platform from Emergent Consultants.
  3. Review the structure and design of Change Accelerator, including the six-phase Accelerating Change and Transformation Model (ACT™) Model.
  4. Add new projects or strategic initiatives to the Project Dashboard starting with Module 1–Assess Business Impact–of Business Impact Accelerator.
  5. Use appropriate Activity Checklists and Phase Health Checks from the Project Dashboard to update the progress, health, and effectiveness of your enterprises’ strategic change and business transformation initiatives.
  6. Review Project Dashboard status after completion of each Deliverable in Business Impact Accelerator as well as during operational and quarterly strategy reviews.

Coaching Tips:

If you’re new to Business Impact Accelerator©, then this section of Module 5 will provide you with an overview of the Change Accelerator platform and its Project Dashboard feature.

Let’s start with some background about Change Accelerator©. Change Accelerator is a web-based change management methodology and toolkit developed by Emergent Consultants to help leaders facilitate change in support of priority strategic objectives and business transformation initiatives.

Change Accelerator© will help your business or social enterprise accomplish the following:

  1. Increase readiness for sustainable growth and impact investment (if you’re seeking to raise flexible growth capital with a 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer).
  2. Effectively navigate through the six major phases of change and reduce or eliminate the resistance that often accompanies growth (review the six Organizational Change Infographics in the BIA Library).
  3. Assure women and HeForShe investors that your enterprise is ready for investment and ready to deliver sustainable results during a ten-year revenue-based investment period.
  4. Accelerate the growth and transformation of your organization into a business or social enterprise driven by sustainable 10X impact, not short-term 10X profit.

The Change Accelerator Project Dashboard is a tool for gaining insight into the health (and effectiveness) of your strategic initiatives as they progress through the six phases of the Accelerating Change and Transformation (ACT™) Model. Before purchasing a subscription to Change Accelerator, watch these three YouTube videos:

It’s About Sustainable 10X Impact

As discussed in Gender Wealth Strategy© Key Finding #8, 40–70% of organizations fail to achieve expected results from their strategic change initiatives or business transformation investments. This performance improvement opportunity (PIO) is what drove us to focus on “sustainable 10X impact” in developing Business Impact Accelerator©.

After reviewing these videos, sign your enterprise up on the Emergent Change Accelerator platform. Once a subscription is purchased, you will have a username and password to share that will allow your and your team to access the ACT™ Model, 60+ change management tools, and Project Dashboard with its Activity Checks and Phase Health Checks.

Start your review of Change Accelerator’s design by clicking on “ACT Model” in the main navigation bar. You’ll go to the Accelerating Change and Transformation Model (ACT™ for short). The model is research-based and reflects the expertise and 25+ years of change management experience of Jesse Jacoby, Founder and Managing Principal of Emergent.

Next, review over the sub-menus titled Activity Checks and Phase Health Checks. You and your team will use these checklists and assessments on a regular basis. Take a few minutes to look at the broad range of tools available to help you and your team navigate a ten-year journey of sustainable growth, organizational change, and business impact.

Project Dashboard

Then, visit the Dashboard page and see how the results of Activity Checks and Phase Health Checks are displayed. A relational database powers this Project Dashboard. The database automatically tabulates and updates results from Activity and Phase Health Checks. As a result, you and your team will always have visibility into the current progress and health of your organization as it implements key strategic and business improvement projects. Plus, everyone who accesses the Project Dashboard will be on the same page, which fosters alignment across the enterprise.

Note the integration of the six-phase ACT™ Model into these Phase Health Checks. Think of these Checks as an early warning system enabling your team to respond quickly to issues that could negatively impact employee engagement and/or organizational health.

Here’s an example of questions from the Align Systems Health Check:

  1. We have a set of metrics against which we can assess the effectiveness of the change effort.
  2. We have the right rewards (financial and non-financial) in place to motivate people to make this change, successfully and in a timely fashion.
  3. We have the right data/information systems and technology to implement our initiative.
  4. We have modified roles, authority, positions and reporting relationships to reinforce the behavior change required to make this initiative successful.
  5. We have identified the long-standing assumptions, policies, rules and operating procedures that are roadblocks to this change.
  6. We have a plan to develop new competencies and skills in our people, so they will be able to perform in the new environment.

Go ahead and add your first project to the Change Accelerator Project Dashboard. If this is the first time you’re using the Project Dashboard, create a project for Module One of Business Impact Accelerator (Assess Business Impact). If you’ve just completed Module 4 of Business Impact Accelerator, the Project Dashboard is where you will add all of the strategic projects and initiatives found on the far right side of your new One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

As discussed in Module 4, Execute and Align Strategic Priorities, you’ll be using the Project Dashboard during monthly or quarterly strategy reviews to track progress, update results, and learn about the change management capability and health of your organization.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Are there any questions about the six-phase ACT™ Model?
  2. Do we all understand the purpose of Activity Checks and Phase Health Checks?
  3. Are there any questions on how to use the Project Dashboard in tracking project progress or assessing organizational health or reviewing strategy?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 1–3 hours per month (across the organization) to update the Change Accelerator Project Dashboard, including time for reviewing Activity Checks and administering and evaluating the results of Phase Health Checks.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Country Life LLC

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about Emergent Consultants, change management, and strategic business transformation, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Change Assessment Profiles

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Change Assessment Profiles

Required Materials:

To create Change Assessment Profiles, you will need Change Accelerator as well as your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Download, review and individually rate all 21 questions of the Change Assessment tool found in Change Accelerator.
  2. Develop consensus ratings for the team and create a Change Assessment Profile using the spreadsheet provided in the tool.
  3. Analyze results for each of the six phases of the ACT Model using discussion questions in the Change Assessment tool.
  4. Identify opportunities for improving change management skills and develop a plan to address these priority areas; schedule another round of assessment in 3–4 months to track and update progress.
  5. Identify other teams in your business or social enterprise who could benefit from a periodic assessment of their change management capability.

Coaching Tips:

There are five change management tools we’re highlighting in Module 5 of Business Impact Accelerator. We introduced you to the Change Accelerator Project Dashboard in the previous section. Here, we focus on the Change Assessment tool and Profile.

To create a Change Assessment Profile, download the tool from the Change Accelerator platform. Be sure to print out both the instructions and spreadsheet for recording assessment scores. The tool is an individual assessment to begin with; follow the steps and rate all 21 questions of the assessment on a scale of 1–10 (1 is a rating of “strongly disagree” and 10 is a score of “strongly agree”). For each of the 21 items in the assessment, list the 1–2 reasons for that score.

Then, schedule a meeting with your entire team to compare and discuss ratings. Your colleagues will have done the same analysis. Ask change coaches to moderate the discussion and facilitate a consensus rating for each of the 21 questions. Remember the definition of consensus: “a decision we can all live with.” If there’s a score you can’t live with, then speak up and make your case.

Be sure to enter consensus scores (not average scores) into the Change Assessment spreadsheet. After entering all items, generate a Change Assessment Profile similar to the example provided in the instruction sheet.

Analyze the results for each of the six phases of the ACT Model using the four discussion questions found on the last page of the instruction sheet. These questions are:

  1. What are our strengths? How do we leverage them?
  2. What are our deficiencies? How do we eliminate or overcome them?
  3. What consistencies/inconsistencies exist across groups (if comparing more than one team). Why are the perceptions of our effectiveness different? Do we need to address these inconsistencies? How?
  4. What is the single most serious threat to our success of assuring our solution/results are accepted and implemented? Who needs to address this threat, when, and how?
Are You Taking Responsibility?

There is one more question we’d like you to add: Are we taking responsibility for leading the change management and business transformation process within our enterprise?

If you are one of the leaders of an impact-driven business or social enterprise, then it is your responsibility to ensure any low-scoring items on the Change Assessment are addressed and resolved promptly. Learning how to think and act more systematically when it comes to leading yourself and others through change is a critical skill. Because of the challenges posed by change, you and your team need to summon the courage to start addressing issues, concerns, challenges, or pain points that lie below the surface. Remember the iceberg example from Dave Gray’s webinar on Culture and Change?

Prioritize your list of improvement opportunities and develop an action plan (use the Action Plan template from Change Accelerator). Set a date to retake this Assessment in 3–4 months and continue the process throughout the ten-year journey of sustainable growth, change, and transformation. This action plan may also need to become a strategic project or initiative on your One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

We encourage you to implement one of the tips provided by the Change Assessment tool. This tip relates to posting your Profile during meetings and/or quarterly strategy reviews. You could even take it one step further and create a space within your work environment to display results on a bulletin board. By doing this, you send a strong signal to your organization that you’re serious about achieving the Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact and delivering on 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer commitments to women and HeForShe investors.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we have an honest, authentic discussion about our change management strengths and deficiencies?
  2. Did we reach consensus on our Change Assessment Profile?
  3. Do we know how to improve our change management capability and skills during the next 3–4 months?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 3–4 hours to implement the Change Assessment process, create/update/review Change Assessment Profiles, and develop an action or improvement plan.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Osana

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about Emergent Consultants, change management, and strategic business transformation, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Executive Sponsorship Assessments

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Executive Sponsorship Assessments

Required Materials:

To implement Executive Sponsorship Assessments, you will need to visit the HBR.org website. You will also need Change Accelerator© as well as your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Watch a short video on change management and review an article from HBR.org on effective sponsorship of change.
  2. Download and review the Executive Sponsorship Assessment tool from Change Accelerator.
  3. Develop a plan to pilot test the Executive Sponsorship Assessment in your business or social enterprise with strategic owners identified on the One Page Strategy Map and Plan.
  4. Implement and evaluate this test; incorporate improvement suggestions into the next rounds of deployment in your organization.
  5. Meet with strategic owners, executive sponsors, and project leaders 1–2 times per year to review assessment results and identify opportunities for increasing change management capability.

Coaching Tips:

In this part of Module 5, we examine the role of Executive Sponsor more closely and introduce you to a tool from Change Accelerator called Executive Sponsorship Assessment.

Many enterprises realize the need for this role to navigate change and implement major strategic investments. However, some of these same organizations will not spend the time or resources to identify key behaviors required for success or provide feedback and coaching to improve performance in the role. If you’ve ever been a project lead working under the direction of an ineffective executive sponsor, then you understand the stress and frustration this situation can create. In study after study over the last twenty years, “lack of effective executive sponsorship” has been cited as the primary root cause for failure of major organizational change or business transformation initiatives.

To provide more context about this important role, take a few minutes to review this short video on change management and to read a short article from HBR.org:

Executive Sponsorship Assessment

After reviewing this information, download the Executive Sponsorship Assessment tool from Change Accelerator©. Be sure to review the ten key sponsor behaviors on the third page of the tool’s instructions. Consider the Steps and Tips sections carefully. We agree with Change Accelerator that the Executive Sponsorship Assessment needs to be carefully managed by you and your team before deployment.

However, we also know from years of experience in facilitating strategic transformation efforts that senior leaders of an enterprise need authentic feedback if they’re going to improve performance and effectiveness. Just as you learned in other Modules of Business Impact Accelerator that customers will “say one thing and do another,” it’s the same with you and your fellow team members. Hey, we’re all human beings with strengths, weakness, and foibles. Obtaining honest and authentic feedback from others in your organization is invaluable. Do you think top-performing athletes like Mia Hamm or Michael Jordan never received honest and direct feedback from their coaches?

Next, schedule a meeting with your fellow team members to discuss the Executive Sponsorship Assessment and develop a plan for pilot testing with owners identified on the One Page Strategy Map and Plan. Moderate this discussion and help develop an action plan for the test. You want to keep it simple at this stage and consider all of the issues (pro and con) for proceeding down this path. As always, keep the six-phase ACT™ Model in mind.

Lead by Example

Perhaps the first place to start with piloting the Executive Sponsorship Assessment is with you and your team. You’ve been working with Business Impact Accelerator for some time now. Have you asked the rest of your organization for feedback on “how” you’ve been leading and managing this business development and improvement effort?

However, before going down this path too far, remember the mantra “be careful what you ask for.” You and your team will need to establish a clear set of standards or ground-rules for the administration and processing of assessment feedback. Keep the list of standards short and sweet, but everyone needs to stay focused on the ten sponsor behaviors and evidence discussed in the Executive Sponsorship Assessment tool.

After implementing this initial test, meet as a team to review lessons learned and plan for the next round of deployment. Be aware it gets easier over time as people learn they can speak directly and authentically to each other in a spirit of collaboration and continuous improvement. Also, use the opportunity to call a summit 1–2 times per year to talk about your overall level of effectiveness in sponsoring and managing change. This is a session where you should ask all of your strategic owners, executive sponsors, project leads, and process owners to talk about what’s going well and what needs to be improved.

One final tip. Keep your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact in plain sight as you implement the Executive Sponsorship Assessment. This Vision Story is your “True North” and any behavior not in alignment with the purpose, vision, and values of your business or social enterprise needs to be called out and discussed. No repercussion. No retaliation. No penalty. No hard feelings.

If you want to learn more about the mindset and behavior of senior leaders in building a high-performing enterprise, we recommend Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras (Collins is also the author of Good to Great). In particular, read Chapter 9 (Good Enough Never Is).

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we establish a clear set of ground-rules or standards for administering the Executive Sponsorship Assessment?
  2. Did we pilot test this process on ourselves first?
  3. What did we learn about our sponsorship behavior and overall change management skill? Do we have a plan to improve?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 4–8 hours for implementation of the first pilot test, including time to provide feedback and review lessons learned.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Wehlers

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about Emergent Consultants, change management, and strategic business transformation, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Improve Project Team Effectiveness

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will improve the effectiveness of project teams in your business or social enterprise. You’ll do this by conducting Progress Reviews and Team Effectiveness Assessments.

Improving project team effectiveness is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, 60–80% of businesses fall short of the targets identified in their strategic plans. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to develop high-performance teams that execute strategic priorities and deliver sustainable results.

Progress Reviews will help you evaluate the progress of your strategic projects and initiatives. Team Effectiveness Assessments will help you identify and eliminate barriers in the way of top performance.

These Deliverables will enable you to build effective teams and accelerate the Sustainable 10X impact and results promised to the stakeholders of your business or social enterprise.

Progress Reviews

Required Materials:

To conduct Progress Reviews, you will need Change Accelerator©. You will also need your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, One Page Strategy Map and Plan, and Business Impact Accelerator Library.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Watch a short video about building high performing teams.
  2. Download and review the Progress Review tool from Change Accelerator’s Toolkit.
  3. Develop a plan for deploying the Progress Review tool, starting with strategic project and process improvement teams identified on the One Page Strategy Map and Plan.
  4. Keep track of and review Progress Review documentation to identify opportunities for improving team effectiveness in your business or social enterprise.

Coaching Tips:

In Module 4 of Business Impact Accelerator, you learned about the cross-functional design of the Balanced Scorecard and One Page Strategy Map and Plan. You also learned about the importance of having cross-functional and high-performing teams develop metrics and implement key strategic initiatives or projects. But what is a high-performance team?

To answer this question, watch a short video on the topic of building a high-performing team:

Ms. Schwartz makes four good points in her video about: (1) self-management, (2) consensus decision-making, (3) delegating management responsibility, and (4) the myth of motivation. She also discusses these four building blocks for developing high-performance teamwork:

  1. They need to have access to information.
  2. They have to have the ability to solve problems when and where they occur.
  3. They have a meaningful involvement in decision-making that affects them.
  4. They have broad roles and responsibilities within and outside of their job descriptions.

We would add a fifth building block: a regular self-assessment of progress and performance as a team. Too many times, we’ve seen hard-charging projects leads and managers walk into a project or strategy review meeting and dominate the agenda and airtime. As a result, engagement and commitment levels of team members plummet. Then, the cycle repeats itself until someone gets fed up and quits. What is painful to observe is when team members “quit in place” and do the bare minimum to stay employed.

As a counter-measure to this occurring in your enterprise, go to the Change Accelerator toolkit and download and review the Progress Review tool. The assignment for you and your team is to develop a plan for deploying the Progress Review across your enterprise, starting with the strategic projects and process improvement teams identified on your One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

Schedule a meeting with the entire team and ask the change coaches to facilitate a discussion regarding Ms. Schwartz’s video and the Progress Review tool. Carefully review each of the four parts of the Progress Review:

  • Action Review
  • Learning Review
  • Change Review
  • Planning Review
Let the Team Do It

A total of sixteen questions need to be reviewed and answered by strategic initiative or project team members. As a group, team members need to take accountability for conducting their own self-assessments while owners, sponsors, and managers take notes, provide information, but refrain from taking over the meeting. Does this mean project owners or managers are not to interact during the session? Of course not. They just need to moderate the airtime and encourage maximum participation from the team.

Typically, Progress Reviews by strategic initiative or project teams take place 2–3 weeks before quarterly sessions conducted by the enterprise-wide Strategy Review Team. This provides time for results to be compiled by strategic owners. If you’ll recall, preparation is essential for successful strategy reviews. The most important information and lessons learned from the Progress Review can be shared in the quarterly strategy updates.

We recommend notes from each Progress Review be recorded directly on the assessment tool and copies provided to owners, sponsors, or managers for reference. It is these individuals who will be identifying opportunities for improving team effectiveness and developing more efficient teamwork within the enterprise.

One final tip about the Progress Review tool. Note in the third section there is a reference to the Change Assessment tool. This is the same Change Assessment completed in the previous Activity of this Module. By aligning the team’s effort with the ACT™ Model, you’ll be on the way to developing more effective teams that skillfully navigate change and accelerate the transformation and growth of your enterprise.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Are we conducting regular Progress Reviews of priority strategic initiatives, projects, and/or process improvement initiatives?
  2. What are we learning about our ability to execute strategic priorities while managing change effectively?
  3. Are teams developing the capability to manage on their own and deliver sustainable results?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 1–2 hours to conduct a Progress Review session, including 30 minutes of pre-work for each member of the strategic project or process improvement team.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Nature et Découvertes

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about motivating and leading people, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Team Effectiveness Assessments

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Team Effectiveness Assessments

Required Materials:

To conduct Team Effectiveness Assessments, you will need Change Accelerator©. You will also need your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Watch four short videos about team development and organizational effectiveness.
  2. Download and review the Team Effectiveness Assessment tool from Change Accelerator.
  3. Develop a plan for deploying the Team Effectiveness Assessment tool, starting with strategic project and process improvement teams identified on the One Page Strategy Map and Plan.
  4. Keep track of and review assessment results to determine opportunities for continuously improving team effectiveness in your business or social enterprise.

Coaching Tips:

Over the years, Mark Livingston has worked with many teams at all levels of large and small organizations. Some were more effective than others, and then there were a couple that … well, we won’t go into details.

Every one of these teams had one or more “issues” that needed to be addressed and resolved to improve team performance and effectiveness. Even if you think a team is functioning well, sustainable growth of 5–10% or more per year for ten years can and will throw you and your colleagues a few curves. And these positive and/or negative impacts will cascade down and throughout your business or social enterprise.

If you’re going to accelerate impact and navigate change effectively, then you must improve your team’s effectiveness first and then improve the effectiveness of each strategic project or process improvement team in your organization.

To ensure you and your team are on the same page regarding team effectiveness, schedule thirty minutes of individual study time to watch four short videos on this subject. All of these videos are from the free Alanis Business Academy Channel on YouTube:

We have used Tuchman’s Model for forty years and can verify these stages of team development. Your aim is to accelerate through the stages as quickly as possible, without taking shortcuts, to reach the performing stage. This a critical task for you and your colleagues if you’re going to accelerate the sustainable 10X impact promised to stakeholders, including women and HeForShe investors on your funding portal-of-choice.

A Failure to Launch

We have seen far too many project teams come together to work on One Page Strategy Map and Plan initiatives and waste time getting through the first three stages of Tuchman’s Model. It negatively impacts progress and makes it difficult to execute strategic priorities. We label this situation a “failure to launch.”

Also, be aware that when you add new individuals to a team that has progressed through the Tuchman Model, the team will “start over” through each of the four stages. This is not right or wrong, it just is. You and the strategic owners, project leads, and process improvement owners in your organization need to orient and bring new team members on board as quickly as possible to maintain team effectiveness. When this doesn’t happen, you lose time and momentum as the team works once again through the phases of forming (reforming), storming, norming, and performing.

You Must Address Team Dysfunction

Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, identified major issues that teams must deal with, including (1) absence of trust, (2) fear of conflict, (3) lack of commitment, (4) avoidance of accountability, and (5) inattention to results.

To address these and other barriers, go to the Change Accelerator toolkit and download and review the Team Effectiveness Assessment tool. Note the twelve elements in the tool separated into four categories (Goals, Roles, Processes, and Interpersonal). In a way, you can look at the Team Effectiveness Assessment as a “competency model” describing the expectations and standards for high-performance. As 50% of performance problems inside teams and organizations occur because of a lack of clear expectations and standards, then the Team Effectiveness Assessment can light the path to high performance.

The twelve expectations and standards measured by the Team Effectiveness Assessment are:

  1. Purpose and Outcomes: We understand and agree on our project mission and the desired outcomes.
  2. Project Scope/Definition: We understand and agree on what is in/out of our project scope and tasks; the project scope is “set.”
  3. Customer’s Needs: We know who the project stakeholders are, what they require and why this project is needed.
  4. Goals and Deliverables: We have identified specific, measurable and prioritized project goals and deliverables, linked to our business goals.
  5. Roles and Responsibilities: We have defined and agreed on our roles and responsibilities and on the skills and resources the project team needs.
  6. Authority and Autonomy: Our team knows and has the degree of authority we need to meet our project mission.
  7. Critical Success Factors: We know are focusing on the key factors needed to meet the project goals and mission.
  8. Plans and Activities: We are following an effective game plan that includes the right tasks, clearly defined and assigned to the right people.
  9. Monitoring and Measures: We have an effective monitoring process and specific metrics linked to progress and goals.
  10. Schedule and Milestones: We have defined our project schedule and know what the key phases and milestones are.
  11. Team “Operating Agreement”: We have shared expectations and agreed upon and follow guidelines to how our team works together.
  12. Interpersonal: We have the necessary relationships, trust, openness, participation, and behaviors for a productive team.
Putting the Assessment into Action

To put the Team Effectiveness Assessment into action, meet with your entire team to discuss the assessment tool as well as the four videos. Facilitate a discussion about the pros and cons of using the Team Effectiveness Assessment with teams identified on the One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

Then, develop an Action Plan for deploying the Team Effectiveness Assessment, using your group as the “guinea pig.” Follow the steps in the assessment tool and use the 1–10 rating scale. Be sure to average the scores for each category. Use the Net Promoter® approach by segmenting scores into three groups: (1) scores of 9–10, (2) scores of 7–8, and (3) scores of 6 and below.

Focus on the reasons for the scores, especially if a category score is six or below. Identify any opportunities for improving team effectiveness and create an action plan using the template from Change Accelerator.

Next, discuss how you will deploy the Team Effectiveness Assessment across your organization, starting with teams identified on your One Page Strategy Map and Plan. This is where strategic owners or process owners need to think through the best time and place to introduce this assessment. Be sensitive to the fact that people interpret “assessment” in many different ways, sometimes negatively.

You will also need to develop a process for keeping track of Team Effectiveness Assessment results. The aim here is to track progress of teams toward the high end of the scale (scores of 9 and 10). This will be one indicator, along with results from Progress Reviews, Change Assessment Profiles, and Phase Health Checks, that your project teams are moving through the Tuchman Model and arriving safely at the performing stage.

We’d like to share one final tip with you on the topic of team effectiveness. Now and then, there is a team that just doesn’t click for one reason or another. The team can’t seem to move through the storming and norming phases and about the only thing they generate is “drama.” So, how do you handle this difficult situation?

In our experience, you need to carefully diagnosis the reason or reasons for why the team is not in alignment. Typically, it comes down to conflict and a lack of trust between the team and its leader or between two individuals on a team (maybe the team leader and a team member). You need to work very diligently through each of the twelve categories of the Assessment to determine the root cause or causes.

And, it may be the case that you just can’t build the trust or resolve the conflict. In this situation, you will need to take action to get the team back into alignment. And that may involve making a change in team membership. Hopefully, you can transfer that individual to another role in the organization. At other times, you may have to bite the bullet and make a hard decision about employment.

But before you go to DEFCON 5, use all of the tools in Change Accelerator to preserve the relationship and rebuild trust. It’s not impossible, but you will have to be patient and resolve not to give up on others (or yourself). In the end, you’ll have a stronger relationship and more reliable team who knows how to work through adversity. And yes, you will experience adversity during a ten-year journey of sustainable growth, change, and transformation. This is one thing you can count on!

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Do we all understand the Tuchman Team Development Model?
  2. What did we learn about our team’s level of effectiveness?
  3. Did we create a plan for conducting the Team Effectiveness Assessment with groups identified on the One Page Strategy Map and Plan?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours for you and your team to review the four videos and conduct a Team Effectiveness Assessment. It will take your strategic project and process improvement teams 1–2 hours per quarter to conduct Team Effectiveness Assessments.

Featured Certified B Corporation:   

Patients Know Best

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about team development and effectiveness, we recommend the following:

  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.
  • Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen.
  • Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen.
  • Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.
  • Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, & Working Smarter All Day Longby David Rock.

To learn more about business and management in general, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Develop Business and Financial Acumen

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will develop the business and financial acumen of your team and organization. You’ll do this by participating in Marketplace® Live Business Simulations, including the Conscious Capitalism® Simulation.

Developing business and financial acumen is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, delivering sustained growth and positive impact is challenging. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to develop a team and organization that is financially literate and business savvy.

Marketplace® Live Business Simulations will develop the knowledge and skills your team needs to grow a successful business or social enterprise. Conscious Capitalism® Simulation will introduce you to the four principles of Conscious Capitalism® and reinforce the entrepreneurial, impact-driven culture you’re aiming to develop.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you and your team to build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that creates enduring social and economic value.

Marketplace® Live Business Simulations

Required Materials:

To participate in Marketplace® Live Business Simulations, you will need to visit the website of Marketplace® Live.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Watch a short video about Marketplace® Live Business Simulations.
  2. Visit the Marketplace® Live website to become familiar with their suite of online business simulations and micro-simulations.
  3. Watch a short demo about the Introduction to Business and Strategy simulation.
  4. Follow-up with participants between “decision rounds” to reinforce and link learning with the strategy and operations of your business or social enterprise.

Coaching Tips:

In this Activity of Module 5, you will participate in one or more learning simulations from Marketplace® Live. These online business simulations provide an opportunity to gain first-hand experience in starting and growing a business in a safe, simulated environment. Dr. Ernest Cadotte and the team at Innovative Learning Solutions (ILS) in Knoxville, Tennessee created these experiential-based simulations. Dr. Cadotte is an entrepreneur and business professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and established ILS in the 1980’s to help students and later, business professionals, hone their business and financial acumen in a learn-by-doing environment.

So, why are we recommending Marketplace® Live Business Simulations? The answer is straightforward. If your enterprise is going to generate more positive impact in the world and grow sustainably over a ten-year period, then everyone in your organization will need to have an understanding of basic business and financial concepts. This is consistent with the advice of Jennifer Prosek (author of Army of Entrepreneurs) who advised us in the Culture Map Activity to “teach the business.”

Yet, this doesn’t take place in most organizations, large or small. Typically, only a few members of the management team have a formal business education or have held line and staff roles. This is not optimal, as the One Page Strategy Map and Plan requires leadership and management teams to think cross-functionally and be familiar with core principles that drive success in the business world.

For example, Mark Livingston has facilitated numerous strategy review sessions where one or more team members “checked out” because they didn’t have the financial literacy or business acumen to follow along and actively participate. As a result, these managers could not go back to their teams and accurately explain the logic or rationale for decisions and plans.

To learn more about the innovative simulations from Marketplace® Live, watch a short video about their learning solutions. Then, visit the Marketplace® Live website to learn why simulations increase knowledge acquisition and retention by a factor of four times (4X). Here are the links:

While visiting the Marketplace® Live website, look for and watch the Introduction to Business and Strategy Demo. This demo will give you an overview of the simulation, including the computer-based evaluation you’ll receive at the end. Note how this learning experience uses the Balanced Scorecard to report results during the problem-solving and decision-making rounds.

Self-Paced Learning Option

Marketplace® Live offers eight self-paced business simulations with 4–6 decision rounds of varying length (30–120 minutes). There are 20 different simulations in all; some are self-paced where you compete against the computer and others are team-based where you compete against colleagues. Here are the eight self-paced business simulations we recommend exploring and using across your organization:

  • Introduction to Business and Strategy
  • Introduction to Accounting and Finance
  • Introduction to Marketing
  • Strategic Marketing
  • Business Primer
  • Business Fundamentals
  • Venture Strategy
  • Strategic Management

We also recommend Conscious Capitalism® Simulation, which brings all of the simulations together in a capstone-like learning experience. We’ll talk more about this simulation in the next section of this Activity. In addition, there is a family of Marketplace® Microsimulations that cover specific topics in shorter periods of time. You even have the option of bundling these microsimulations to address specific learning needs within your organization.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Who would benefit from developing their financial literacy and business acumen?
  2. How do we provide support as participants go through the various “decision rounds”?
  3. How do we link the learning from these simulations to our One Page Strategy Map and Plan, Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–16 hours per person to complete one of the Marketplace® Live Business Simulations (refer to the Marketplace® Live website for more precise estimates). Completion of Marketplace® Microsimulations can be completed in less than an hour.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Mills Office Productivity

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about increasing financial acumen, we recommend the following:

  • Visual Finance: The One Page Visual Model to Understand Financial Statements and Make Better Decisions by Georgi Tsvetanov.
  • Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs: What You Really Need to Know About the Numbers by Karen Berman and Joe Knight.

Next Step

Conscious Capitalism® Simulation

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Conscious Capitalism® Simulation

Required Materials:

To participate in the Conscious Capitalism® Simulation, you will need to visit the website of Conscious Capitalism®. You will also need to visit the website of Marketplace® Live to watch a short demo.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Watch five short videos on the core principles of Conscious Capitalism®.
  2. Visit the Marketplace® Live website to watch a short demo of the Conscious Capitalism® Simulation.
  3. Identify the individuals and teams to participate in the Conscious Capitalism© Simulation.
  4. Follow-up with participants between decision rounds to reinforce and link learning with the strategy and operations of your impact-driven enterprise.

Coaching Tips:

Is business only about profit and the financial return to investors or shareholders? Or does business serve a higher purpose and create social and economic value for stakeholders (including investors, customers, employees, community, and society)?

The Social Impact Foundation rejects the premise behind the first question and embraces the second. That is, we embrace the “stakeholder theory” of business and believe business and social enterprises create enduring value by generating compelling social and financial returns for all stakeholders, not just a few shareholders or investors. As explained in Gender Wealth Strategy Key Finding #1, this “X and Y” thinking is driving significant growth in impact investments which aim to produce a competitive market return while generating positive impact.

But as Gender Wealth Strategy also explained, our finance and investment system is biased toward the “10X profit” mindset. And in our experience working with profit-only enterprises over the years, this mindset is very difficult to change. That is, unless you work diligently to reinforce your Core Purpose, Values, Culture, and Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact at every level of the organization.

One way to enhance and sustain the entrepreneurial, impact-driven culture you aim to build is to give your people an opportunity to participate in the Conscious Capitalism® Simulation. The team at Innovative Learning Solutions has created this simulation in collaboration with the nonprofit Conscious Capitalism® organization. This simulation challenges participants to start and build a new venture that operates as a Conscious Business instead of profit-only or a profit-at-all-cost enterprise.

But what is Conscious Capitalism and how do you know a Conscious Business when you see you? To answer these questions, we recommend you bring the entire team together to watch five short videos on the core principles of Conscious Capitalism® and then watch the Conscious Capitalism® Simulation Demo from Marketplace® Live. Then, moderate a discussion about the principles of Conscious Capitalism®.

Here are the video links:

Organize Your Simulation Teams

The Conscious Capitalism® Simulation consists of six “decision rounds” of 2–3 hours each. You’ll compete in this simulation against other teams of four members each. The Conscious Capitalism® Simulation brings together all of the business and financial decisions that need to be considered when you start, launch, and grow a profitable venture driven by impact. But, there’s one big difference. You’ll not only receive a Balanced Scorecard at the end of the simulation reporting standard business results, you’ll also receive a Conscious Scorecard that describes your impact on stakeholders.

As you progress through decision rounds, the simulation automatically adjusts and provides new information about what profit-only firms are doing to compete against you in the marketplace. Make no mistake; this simulation will get your juices flowing and test everything you’ve learned in other Marketplace® Live Simulations and throughout your career.

How do we know this? Mark Livingston participated in a three-day Conscious Capitalism® Simulation Train-the-Trainer in 2016 with twenty business and marketing professors from around the United States. To describe it as “intense” would be an understatement (yes, professors are very competitive!). Plus, it was a sobering experience, as we all faced the challenges and difficulties entrepreneurs and business owners experience every day in growing a successful enterprise driven by impact.

Scheduling Your Online Experience

You will need to identify the teams to participate in the Conscious Capitalism® Simulation. You can have up to four people on a team and have as many as six teams. You’ll need to schedule the six decision rounds in advance to allow teams to complete rounds within the allotted time, generally one week per round.

We have one final tip about this learning experience. You can use the Conscious Capitalism® simulation as a team-building exercise too. Allow the competitive juices of teams to emerge (within reason)! At the conclusion, have change coaches moderate a “debrief” session about lessons learned, challenges, and how to bring learning back into your business or social enterprise. Without linking the Conscious Capitalism® Simulation to the work you’re doing to build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise, it’ll be just another training experience with no lasting impact on the entrepreneurial mindset and spirit of your enterprise.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. What did we learn about building a Conscious Business?
  2. How would we approach decisions differently if we could do it all again?
  3. How do we link the learning from this simulation to our One Page Strategy Map and Plan, Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 12–18 hours to complete all six decision rounds for teams of 2–5 participants.

Featured Certified B Corporations:  

 The One Brand

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about using business as a force for good, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Module Five Review

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Module Five Review

Module Five of Business Impact Accelerator© focused on these Deliverables and Outcomes:

  • Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile™ (develop entrepreneurial thinking and skills across your organization)
  • Culture Map (design a work environment that prizes and rewards entrepreneurial action)
  • Core Values Interview Guide (hire the right people aligned with your culture, values, and vision)
  • Change Accelerator Project Dashboard (monitor employee engagement, organization health, and progress of your business transformation efforts).
  • Change Assessment Profiles (identify opportunities for improving change management skills)
  • Executive Sponsorship Assessments (develop more effective sponsors of change across your enterprise)
  • Progress Reviews (evaluate the progress of your strategic projects and initiatives)
  • Team Effectiveness Assessments (identify and eliminate barriers in the way of top performance)
  • Marketplace® Live Business Simulations (develop the knowledge and skills your team needs to grow a successful business or social enterprise)
  • Conscious Capitalism® Simulation (learn about the four principles of Conscious Capitalism® and reinforce the entrepreneurial, impact-driven culture you’re aiming to develop and build)

So, how did you and your team do?  Were you able to complete all of these deliverables and generate these intended outcomes? Did you remember to update the Change Accelerator© Project Dashboard?

Now, on to Module 6, Fund Business Impact!

Generate Business Impact

Module Four Description

In this fourth Module of Business Impact Accelerator©, you and your team will begin to put your five-year scaling and growth plan into action. By completing these activities, you will improve the operating effectiveness of your business or social enterprise and increase its depth and breadth of impact.

You and your team will complete four Activities …

  1. Improve Customer Experiences
  2. Align and Execute Strategic Priorities
  3. Simplify Internal Processes
  4. Become a Certified B Corporation

… and produce nine Deliverables:

  • Customer Journey Maps
  • Net Promoter® Surveys
  • Company Service Aptitude Test
  • One Page Strategy Map and Plan
  • Strategy Reviews
  • Organization Chart of the Future
  • Process Improvement Plan
  • Business Process Maps and Library
  • Annual B Impact Improvement Plan

These Deliverables will enable you and your team to build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that differentiates you from competitors focused only on maximizing short-term profit.

For each Deliverable, we provide step-by-step instructions and coaching tips for completion. We also feature a Certified B Corporation to benchmark and offer a list of resources to help you manage the transition of your enterprise from one stage of growth to another. If you have any questions, please contact us directly through this website.

Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will improve the experience of customers. You’ll do this by creating Customer Journey Maps, conducting Net Promoter® Surveys, and completing the Company Service Aptitude Test.

Improving the customer experience is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, the majority of organizations adopt an “inside-out” mindset and focus only on maximizing profit. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to think “outside-in” and transform customers into loyal and profitable brand advocates who come back for more and tell others about your positive impact.

Customer Journey Maps will help you create a branded customer experience. Net Promoter® Surveys will help you strengthen customer relationships. Company Service Aptitude Test will help you measure and improve the level of service delivered by your organization.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you and your team to create loyal promoters, generate sustainable results and impact, and scale your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model.

Customer Journey Maps

Required Materials:

To create Customer Journey Maps, you will need to visit the websites of Satmetrix and Design a Better Business. You will also need the Customer Persona and Journey Canvases created in Module 2, plus your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model and Plan.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review work completed previously in Module 2 on the Customer Persona and Journey Canvases.
  2. Download and review two documents on customer experience management and watch two short videos on customer journey mapping.
  3. Start the design of your customer experience brand by crafting a Statement of Customer Experience.
  4. Create and improve customer journey maps for the customer segment(s) served by your business or social enterprise.
  5. Utilize these maps throughout Business Impact Accelerator© and during your enterprises’ ten-year journey of growth, change, and transformation.

Coaching Tips:

We consider well-designed customer journey maps to be an insurance policy for businesses serious about sustainable impact. The word insurance comes from “insure” which means “to make certain, safe, and sure.” Another definition is: “to secure or protect someone or something against a possible contingency.” We think this is an accurate description of one of the key jobs of leaders–safeguarding the experience of customers while ensuring sustainable growth.

Peter Drucker, the noted management consultant and author once said, “the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” Yet, in the pursuit of 10X profit, many organizations lose their focus on customers. As discussed in Modules 1 and 2 of Business Impact Accelerator©, these organizations become “inside-out” and put their own needs ahead of customers. In Gender Wealth Strategy©, we described how the current system of finance and investment focuses on maximizing profit while ignoring the needs of women and HeForShe advocates.

So, how do you develop and sustain an “outside-in,” customer-focused organization?

To start, review the Deliverables you and your team completed in Module Two. Schedule 45–60 minutes of individual study time to review the Customer Personas and Journey Canvases along with your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model. Review pages 84–121 in Design a Better Business or consult the Design a Better Business website if you need a refresh on the Customer Persona and Journey Canvases.

Next, download two documents from Satmetrix and watch two short videos on “customer experience” and “customer journey mapping.” Here are the links:

The e-book from Satmetrix titled Demystify the Customer Journey provides an answer to the “why” and “so what” questions behind customer experience management and customer journey mapping. Note these comments:

  • “Net Promoter Score® is the only customer experience metric proven to be a leading indicator of a company’s potential growth and financial health.”
  • “Brands that improve the experience along the customer journey see revenues increase 10–15% and cost-to-serve customers decrease by 15–20%.”

Be sure to review the section on the role of customer journey mapping in managing and improving the customer experience. This concept of “life cycle” is key to differentiating your marketing, sales, and retention strategies while increasing the lifetime value of customers.

Defining CX

After completing this individual study, schedule a short meeting with your team to discuss the highlights from these documents and videos. During the session, be sure everyone is clear on the definition of customer experience (CX) and the purpose of journey mapping.

In our consulting work over the years, we’ve used this definition of customer experience from Forrester: “how customers perceive their interactions with your enterprise.” Colin Shaw of Beyond Philosophy goes a bit further in his definition: “customer experience is a blend of a company’s physical performance and the emotions evoked, intuitively measured against customer expectations across all moments of contact.”

In this definition, Shaw highlights both the rational and emotional side of customers’ experiences, which aligns with research into the way customers make purchase decisions. Shaw states that at least 50% of the overall customer experience is emotional. And we agree.

Shaw raises two questions in his excellent book, Building Great Customer Experiences, that need to be discussed by your team: (1) does your enterprise know what its customer experience is?, and (2) is the statement of this experience written down? Shaw defines the Statement of Customer Experience as “a description of the customer experience which contains elements that have been chosen for delivery, written in a way that can be easily understood, and will inspire people to put into action.” He provides an example using a hypothetical business called Beyond Philosophy™ Holiday Tours:

“We want our customers to have a thoroughly enjoyable experience on their holiday. We will achieve this through providing a very friendly and accessible customer experience that they trust. Everything we do will be delivered in a timely and reliable manner that will be second to none. The result of this is that our customer will become loyal and will say, ‘I would never dream of going anywhere else.'”

The italicized words in this example serve as “design criteria” (of course, you’ll select ones specific to the experience you want to deliver). If you think this is fluff, think again. Disney and other loyalty leaders have been doing this for years. If you’ve ever been to Disney (as a child or parent), you’ll recall the incredible attention to every aspect–rational and emotional–of The Disney Experience.

What Is Your CX?

So, what is the CX of your enterprise? And how does it relate to the Customer Persona Canvas, Customer Journey Canvas, and High Impact Value Proposition Canvas created in Module Two? Does it support the sustainable, high-impact brand and enterprise you’re aiming to build over the next ten years?

To answer these questions, select 2–3 members of your team to develop a Statement of Customer Experience for your enterprise. Review the Customer Persona and Journey Canvases from Module 2 of Business Impact Accelerator and make changes as necessary. Take the time to expand on the rational and emotional sides of the customer experience. If you have several customer segments, then you’ll need to develop Customer Journey Canvases (or Maps) for each segment. Be sure to align everything with the “customer profile” section of your High Impact Value Proposition Canvas.

Look for opportunities to involve frontline teams in this process and to personalize and customize the Customer Journey Maps for your “rock star” customers (reference the work you completed in Module One on Evaluate Customer Engagement). Obviously, if you have several customers that contribute significantly to the revenue of your enterprise, you will want to provide them with the best possible experience in order to sustain that revenue stream and stay on track with your 3X-in-10™ revenue sharing obligations.

After the sub-team has completed their work, schedule a meeting with the entire team to review the progress you’ve made. Be flexible with the idea your branded customer experienced will change as you review Net Promoter® Surveys (coming up next). Use ongoing feedback from customers to continuously test, refine, and improve their experience.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we create a Statement of Customer Experience that differentiates us from competitors?
  2. Does this Statement align with our value proposition and the sustainable, impact-driven brand we aim to build over the next ten years?
  3. Do we have a plan and schedule for ongoing review and improvement of journey maps for our customers?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately one hour to review learning materials individually and another 1–2 hours to discuss implications with the entire team. It will take a small group about 2–3 hours to create a Statement of Customer Experience specific to your business or social enterprise.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Whole Kids

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about customer journey mapping, touch-point mapping, and improving the customer experience, we recommend the following:

  • Customer Touch-point Mapping (see Pro Bono Coaching Support section of this website).
  • Design a Better Business (in this website for the book; you’ll find Customer Persona and Customer Journey Canvases in the section titled Free Tools).
  • Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value through Journeys, Blueprint, and Diagrams by James Kalbach.
  • Building a Great Customer Experience by Colin Shaw (also, study Beyond Philosophy, the website of Mr. Shaw’s organization).
  • The Net Promoter System Podcast (from Bain & Company; both the podcast and website provide excellent information about managing and improving the customer experience, customer journey mapping, and implementing the Net Promoter System®).
  • Satmetrix (co-creator of the Net Promoter System® and Net Promoter Score® with Bain Consulting and Fred Reichheld).

Next Steps

Net Promoter® Surveys

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Net Promoter© Surveys

Required Materials:

To conduct Net Promoter® surveys, you will need to visit the Net Promoter System website. You will also need the Customer Journey Maps you just updated as well as the Customer Engagement SWOT Diagram completed in Module One of Business Impact Accelerator©.

To Do List:

There are six actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Visit the Net Promoter System website and review the section titled NPS and Growth.
  2. Watch six short videos about the Net Promoter System®.
  3. Create a Net Promoter® Survey (or update your current customer survey) and include the “recommend” and “why” questions.
  4. Pilot this Net Promoter® Survey with a small group of customers.
  5. Review feedback received from customers and close-the-loop with each one of these customers.
  6. Review lessons learned and create a personalized engagement plan, including survey schedule, for each customer.

Coaching Tips:

In Customer Journey Maps, you and your team learned about the Net Promoter System® and question: “How likely would you be to recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague?” In this section of Module 4, your business or social enterprise will put this question into action as you create and implement a Net Promoter© Survey.

First, let’s make sure you and your team have a common base of knowledge about the Net Promoter Score® and Net Promoter System®. Visit the Net Promoter System website and in the main navigation bar, look for About NPS and NPS and Growth. You’ll see this graphic from a study conducted by Bain (co-creator of Net Promoter® with Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix).

These are very compelling results, aren’t they? This website offers in-depth information about the Net Promoter System®, and we encourage you to sign-up for the Net Promoter System Podcast to hear first-hand accounts from enterprises achieving amazing results with this “outside-in” operating system.

After reviewing the Net Promoter System® website, schedule a meeting with your entire team to watch six short videos:

Facilitate a discussion about the information presented in these videos. Be sure to revisit the work completed in Module 1 on Evaluating Customer Engagement. As Bill Lee reminds us in The Hidden Wealth of Customers: “you need to develop a customer engagement system to transform customers into loyal promoters and brand advocates who in fact, attract other loyal customers.” Examine the Customer Engagement SWOT Diagram from Module 1 to see if there are any quick improvements you can (or need) to make as a result of watching these videos.

Also, take a few minutes to review the wording of the Net Promoter® question (“how likely would you be to recommend [insert your company] to a friend or colleague?”). You may need to change the wording slightly for it to resonate with your customer base.

The Real Magic

The real magic behind the Net Promoter® question is the follow-up question: “Why did you give us this score?” The answer to this second question will help you and your team to (1) segment customers into three groups (promoters, passives, and detractors), and (2) learn how to rescue a relationship, turn passive customers into promoters, or discover ways to turn loyal promoters into brand advocates.

However, this only will happen if customers are honest about their experiences with your enterprise. Over the years, customers have been reinforced by companies–large and small–to not answer this question honestly or in many cases, to ignore it. The reason is straightforward. These customers are not provided any follow-up, not even an email outlining what the company has learned and how they are planning to use feedback to improve the experience or their products and/or services.

As a result, customers consciously or unconsciously realize their opinions do not count and become cynical about future surveys. So, it’s incumbent on you and your team to change this mindset by first seeking to understand what’s driving the Net Promoter Score and then taking action to correct service failures or reinforce loyalty. Not once in a while, but every single time you ask customers for feedback.

At its heart, Net Promoter® is really a question about relationship strength. As Fred Reichheld explained in his 2006 book, The Ultimate Question, it’s a question based on the Golden Rule: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In this book, Reichheld describes the “bad profits” earned by companies that extract excessive fees or impose onerous terms and conditions on their customers (for example, banks, airlines, cable providers, and hotels to name a few). Doesn’t this sound like the profit-driven banks, lenders, private equity investors, typical impact investment funds, and Wall Street investment firms and their conventional debt and equity financing models?

Another aspect of the Net Promoter System® many fail to understand is the need to take a census of all your customers on a regular basis (once or twice a year). The desired result is a 100% response rate, not a number that satisfies statistical tables. Here’s the point. Even if you get a survey response rate of 20% (which market researchers and statisticians would say is good), what is this result saying about the other 80% of customers who chose not to respond?

We recommend adding a key strategic measure on your One Page Strategy Map and Plan (introduced in the next Activity) to increase the Net Promoter® survey response rate to 80% or more. These are the survey response rates experienced by “loyalty leaders” like USAA, Apple, Costco, and Southwest Airlines (among others). Don’t follow the example of a publicly traded company we know that boasted in their annual report they had high customer engagement scores, when in reality they received just 4% of their online surveys back from customers.

Net Promoter® Is a System, Not Just a Score

We’ve been discussing surveys in this section of Module 4, but the real focus should be on creating a closed-loop feedback and operating system that embeds Net Promoter® into the day-to-day activities of your frontline teams. This means you must push down into your organization the responsibility for closing-the-loop with customers and improving their experiences. By doing this, you’ll align daily operations with your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and strategic vision of the future.

As you create the Net Promoter© Survey and think through how to pilot with a small group of customers, realize you can ask more than the “recommend” and “why” questions (just don’t ask more than ten questions). And yes, you can ask the “satisfaction” question. You do need to know if customers are satisfied with the products, solutions, and service you provide. But as you read in the materials from Satmetrix, satisfaction is not enough to transform customers into passionate and loyal promoters. Be sure to use the same 0–10 point scale for all questions so you can continue segmenting your customer base into detractors, passives, and promoters.

Plan to pilot your initial Net Promoter® Survey with a small group of customers, preferably the earlyevangelists identified in Modules 1 and 2 of Business Impact Accelerator. Use a low-cost online survey tool like Google Forms in these early stages.

Ask one of your team members (or yourself) to be the points of contact for survey administration and to help troubleshoot any issues. They will also be the individual(s) to summarize survey responses and report back to the team. Be sure to respond to every piece of customer feedback (good or bad). In particular, if anyone scores a 6 or below on the survey, take immediate action as these are detractors who may be getting ready to “fire” your enterprise.

We advise closing-the-loop in-person to drill down into survey responses and listen to customers–in their own words–discuss the experiences they’ve had with your enterprise. This follow-up can be in-person, but it could also be via Skype or telephone. The important thing is to “close the loop” 100% of the time.

In a follow-up meeting after this first round of surveys, you and your team should review lessons learned and begin to design an operating system that works best for your enterprise. Plan to create customized engagement plans for each customer featuring regular touch-base sessions and short relationship or transactional surveys.

Remember, this is more than just an item on your to-do list. The Net Promoter® Survey is your key to building enduring relationships that translate into positive cash flow, profit, and sustainable impact.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we keep our Net Promoter® Survey to less than ten questions?
  2. Did we close the loop with 100% of our customers involved in this survey?
  3. Did we create specific plans for improving the engagement level and experience of each customer?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 12–16 hours to conduct a pilot test of your Net Promoter® Survey, including the two-hour initial meeting with your team.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Harper + Scott

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about improving customer loyalty and Net Promoter®, we suggest the following:

  • The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth by Fred Reichheld (especially Chapter 7 on Design Winning Customer Strategies).
  • The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World by Fred Reichheld and Rob Markey.
  • Answering the Ultimate Question: How Net Promoter Can Transform Your Business by Richard Owen and Laura Brooks, PhD.
  • The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value by Fred Reichheld.
  • Loyalty Rules: How Today’s Leaders Build Lasting Relationships by Fred Reichheld.
  • The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore.

To develop and manage surveys, we recommend:

  • Google Forms (Google>Google Drive>My Drive>More>Forms)

Next Step

Company Service Aptitude Test

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Company Service Aptitude Test

Required Materials:

To complete the Company Service Aptitude Test©, you will need to visit the website of The DiJulius Group. You will also need the Change Accelerator© platform and toolkit.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Learn about the ten commandments of world-class customer service as recommended by The DiJulius Group.
  2. Complete the free online Company Service Aptitude Test (C-SAT).
  3. Review C-SAT results and identify areas for improving the service aptitude level of your enterprise.
  4. Download the Action Plan tool from Change Accelerator and develop a plan to improve the customer service level of your business or social enterprise.
  5. Complete the C-SAT once per year and update your enterprise-wide customer service improvement plans.

Coaching Tips:

How would you and your team like to “make price irrelevant” by delivering a branded customer experience unique to your business or social enterprise? That’s the philosophy and approach of The DiJulius Group, a customer service and experience consulting firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. In his books and YouTube Channel, DiJulius outlines the approach of his business for delivering a world-class service experience. His approach uses these ten commandments of world-class customer service:

  1. Service Vision: a clear purpose of why the business exists.
  2. Creating a World-Class Internal Culture: attract, hire, and retain only the people who have the service DNA.
  3. Non-Negotiable Experiential Standards: experience standards everyone must meet.
  4. Secret Service Systems: utilizing customer intelligence to personalize their experience and engage and anticipate their needs.
  5. Training to Provide a World-Class Customer Experience: systems and processes that remove variation and deliver a consistent customer experience.
  6. Implementation and Execution: how to go from ideas on paper to consistently executed concepts.
  7. Zero Risk: anticipating your service defects and having protocols in place to make it right.
  8. Creating an Above-and-Beyond Culture: constant awareness and branding of how to be a hero.
  9. Measuring Your Customer’s Experience: what gets measured gets managed.
  10. World-Class Leadership: walking the talk.

The “so what” behind these principles is evident when you consider 80% of enterprises never advance beyond an average level of service. And, only 3% of companies have created a world-class capability level. These results are from research cited in DiJulius’ book, What’s the Secret?: To Providing a World-Class Customer Experience.

To learn about the work of The DiJulius Group, schedule a meeting with your entire team to watch this short video: “John DiJulius Interview, Part 2: The Ten Commandments to Providing a World-Class Customer Experience.”

After reviewing the ten principles, ask one of your team members to lead the entire team through the Company Service Aptitude Test (or C-SAT). You’ll find this 114-item survey on The DiJulius Group website. Be sure to answer each question honestly. The assessment is not a “blame exercise” as everyone in the room has had a hand in shaping the current service culture of your enterprise. Be sure to reach consensus in forming your group ratings.

After you finish and submit the C-SAT, you’ll quickly receive scores for each section as well as the overall service aptitude level of your enterprise. You can benchmark your results to the research cited in What’s the Secret?:

  • 12% of companies scored Level 1 (“unacceptable” level of service aptitude)
  • 29% of companies scored Level 2 (“below average” level of service aptitude)
  • 39% of companies scored Level 3 (“average” level of service aptitude)
  • 18% of companies scored Level 4 (“above average” level of service aptitude)
  • 3% of companies scored Level 5 (“world class” level of service aptitude)

Develop an Action Plan

As you and your team process the C-SAT results, do any priority areas jump out? Are there improvement areas that could generate immediate results?

You’ll no doubt want to dig into the ten commandments of world-class customer service by reading What’s the Secret?, but plan on this being a longer-term project for your enterprise as you begin to scale your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model and implement your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan. For now, focus on developing a customer service improvement plan that will start to address priority issues identified in the C-SAT.

Identify 2–3 members of your team to create a customer service improvement plan for the next 12 months. One of the actions you could immediately take is to prepare for the introduction and deployment of your Statement of Customer Experience (developed previously). This Statement is similar to a service vision as discussed by The DiJulius Group.

Use the Action Plan tool from Change Accelerator to develop your annual improvement plan. Be sure to use all of the processes and tools of Change Accelerator. For example, you could use the Case For Change Story tool in a future town-hall meeting to share new expectations and standards for delivering engaging and memorable service experiences.

If you’re in the process of finalizing or revising your business plan, use the results from this part of Module 4 in the section titled Operations and Service Strategy. Women and HeForShe investors will want to know how you’re going to engage and retain customers to deliver sustainable results and deliver on your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

Also, be sure to schedule a date for the team to come back together to re-take the Company Service Aptitude Test. You’ll want to assess your progress and develop new plans for improving the level of your organization’s customer service.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. What did we learn about our enterprises’ level of service aptitude?
  2. Do we have clear expectations of the experience we want our frontline teams to deliver?
  3. Did we create a customer service improvement plan unique to our business or social enterprise?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 3–4 hours (over 1–2 sessions) to complete all questions in the C-SAT. It will take another 3–4 hours (over 1–2 sessions) to develop a customer service improvement plan.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Dialogue Experience

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about delivering world-class customer service, we recommend the following:

  • What’s the Secret?: To Providing A World-Class Customer Experience by John R. DiJulius III.
  • Secret Service: Hidden Systems that Deliver Unforgettable Customer Service by John R. DiJulius III.
  • The Customer Service Revolution: Overthrow Conventional Business, Inspire Employees, and Change the World by John R. DiJulius III.
  • Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh (Zappos CEO).
  • The Disney Way: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company (3rd Edition) by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson
  • The Disney Way Fieldbook: How to Implement Walt Disney’s Vision of Dream, Believe, Dare, Do in Your Own Company by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson.

Next Step

Align and Execute Strategic Priorities

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will improve the capability of your enterprise to execute strategic priorities. You’ll do this by creating a One Page Strategy Map and Plan and conducting Strategy Reviews.

Aligning and executing strategic priorities is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, 60–80% of businesses fall short of the targets identified in their strategic plans. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to deliver the sustainable results promised to stakeholders.

One Page Strategy Map and Plan will focus and align everyone in your enterprise around strategic priorities and measures. Strategy Reviews will engage frontline teams in helping you manage and improve performance.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you to implement your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and achieve your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact.

One Page Strategy Map and Plan

Required Materials:

To create a One Page Strategy Map and Plan, you will need access to visit the Virtual Strategist Channel. You will also need your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and several tools from the Business Impact Accelerator Library.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review five short YouTube videos on strategy planning and management using the Balanced Scorecard System.
  2. Access the BIA Library and download the One Page Strategy Map and Plan Template.
  3. Customize the One Page Strategy Map and Plan for your business or social enterprise and incorporate into your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.
  4. Communicate your One Page Strategy Map and Plan to focus and align your business around its strategic direction and priorities.
  5. Use the One Page Strategy Map and Plan in monthly or quarterly strategy reviews to track progress, update results, and align improvement activity.

Coaching Tips:

In Gender Wealth Strategy Key Finding #8, we shared research about the capability of organizations to deliver sustainable growth and results. We cited research that found 44% of strategic initiatives failing in the first three years of implementation and 60–80% of businesses falling short of the targets identified in their strategic plans.

In other research on strategy management and execution, Kaplan and Norton (creators of the Balanced Scorecard) found the following: 95% of employees do not understand their organization’s strategy, 86% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy, and 60% of organizations do not link strategy to operational budgets.

These studies should be a wake-up call as you start to implement your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan. This is one of the reasons why we use the “be careful what you ask for” mantra. Yes, it takes work to become growth-ready or investment-ready, but the real work begins after you raise the capital.

Key Resources

Fortunately, there are two resources available to help you and your team improve capability to manage and execute strategic priorities. The first tool is the Virtual Strategist Channel on YouTube. The Virtual Strategist team is well-schooled in the Balanced Scorecard. This strategy management system is considered the “gold standard” for planning and measuring strategy as well as managing and improving strategy execution. The Balanced Scorecard (or BSC) is the second tool available to you and your team to deliver on your aim to generate sustainable growth and impact.

We recommend subscribing to the free Virtual Strategist Channel to accelerate learning about the BSC. With your entire team in attendance, watch these five Virtual Strategist Whiteboard Sessions:

After viewing the videos, moderate a discussion about the key points. Did everyone catch the comment about focus and alignment? It’s one of the main objectives of the BSC. In many organizations, it is a real challenge to focus and align everyone around strategic priorities and the “vital few” success metrics. Without sustained focus and alignment, it will be very difficult (and maybe impossible) to deliver sustainable results and deliver on the promises of your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

Another comment worth noting is the one about leading and lagging measures. Ideally, you would like to have an equal balance of metrics, including those reporting past performance as well as predicting future performance. The presenter, Erica Olsen, does an excellent job of explaining the difference between a lagging indicator (% increase in sales) and a leading indicator such as pipeline performance (e.g., % increase in qualified leads). The lagging indicator looks backward while the leading indicator looks forward. Both of these examples would be good measures, but which indicator do you think would do a better job of helping your team manage cash flow and calibrate financial forecasts?

Also, Ms. Olsen does an excellent job of describing how to define KPI’s  (e.g., measure, target, source, and frequency) and the type of metrics one can develop in the Balanced Scorecard (i.e., counts, progress, and % change).

One Page Strategy Map and Plan

After reviewing the five Virtual Strategist videos, access the Business Impact Accelerator© Library and One Page Strategy Map and Plan Template.

You may have already used this template in Module 3 to complete the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan (the business plan is a requirement for completing the Investment Readiness Checklist.

If this is your first exposure to the One Page Strategy Map and Plan, here are a few pointers:

  • The One Page Strategy Map and Plan uses the Balanced Scorecard System first introduced by Kaplan and Norton in 1992.
  • It utilizes a strategy map to communicate strategic priorities (in the left column) and a scorecard to communicate strategic measures and initiatives or projects (in the center and right columns).
  • Usually, there are no more than 12–16 strategic priorities (or objectives) on a strategy map.
  • Note the four perspectives (or rows) and order of appearance. Typically, in the business world, financial priorities or objectives appear in the top row (you’ll see this in the Virtual Strategist videos). But since your business or social enterprise is driven by a Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact, objectives related to stakeholder value proposition now take precedence in the top row with financial objectives right below. Remember the discussion in Modules 1 and 2 about means versus ends (and outputs versus outcomes)?
  • The family of strategic measures appear in the center and correspond to one or more objectives on the strategy map. You must have at least one metric for each objective, but you can have more. The rule of thumb for the number of strategic measures is no more than 1.5X the number of objectives. In this case, 12–16 strategic priorities or objectives translate into 18–24 key strategic measures (e.g., six metrics for each of the four rows or perspectives).
  • There is usually a time frame attached to the metrics section (e.g., 18 months to 2 years). Initially, you should focus on identifying those metrics that will guide the launch of your five-year business plan.
  • Strategic projects on the far right are related to one or more of the measures in the center section. These are your priority improvement projects or strategic initiatives for the initial 18–24 months. Your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan will have more projects identified in the growth capital budget, but in this column, you should only focus on the initial phase of scale-up.
  • You need to ensure linkage between each of the objectives and perspectives on the strategy map (as Ms. Olsen demonstrates in the video). However, you will also need to ensure linkage horizontally, between strategic objectives, measures, and initiatives.

It’s About Execution

The assignment for you and your team is to customize the One Page Strategy Map and Plan Template for your enterprise. We used the Activities of Business Impact Accelerator for the starting set of strategic priorities in this template.

However, you can replace these with your priorities. The idea here is to help you get started, put the Balanced Scorecard System into action, and continuously refine and improve this System over the ten-year journey of growth, change, and transformation. Based on our experience in helping companies implement Balanced Scorecards, it will take 1–2 years for you to integrate this new system fully into your enterprise and culture.

Ask 2–3 team members to create a draft One Page Strategy Map and Plan. Put a time frame on this group’s activity (e.g., 1–2 weeks). You have already identified many of the key objectives, measures, and initiatives in your business plan and model, so avoid reinventing the wheel. Your immediate goal is to start learning about your organization’s capability to “lift-off” and execute new strategic priorities. It is not to create the world’s greatest Balanced Scorecard.

We need to share an “inside” secret with you about implementing Balanced Scorecard Systems. That is, the BSC typically reveals a significant weakness in most business and social enterprises (regardless of size). This weakness is found in the quality of data feeding the family of strategic measures. In many BSC engagements over the years, we’ve spent considerable time during the first year of implementation ironing out data problems (e.g., missing, poorly defined, or conflicting.). So, don’t be surprised if this happens. In fact, we recommend you anticipate it and add a strategic project to the One Page Strategy Map and Plan focused on improving measurement and tracking systems.

After completing your One Page Strategy Map and Plan, you will need to think about communicating it to the entire team and organization. To assist, the Virtual Strategist Channel has an additional three YouTube videos to help you in this matter. When the time is right, schedule a meeting with your entire team to watch:

Reference Change Accelerator© and the ACT™ Model to plan how you will engage your organization in review and discussion of the One Page Strategy Map and Plan. Recognize that employees will want an answer to the WIIFM (or “what’s in it for me”) question.

We discuss the importance of conducting regular strategy reviews in the next part of this Activity. These sessions will help you, and your team, put the Principle of Involvement (“people support what they help create”) into action and develop the capability of your enterprise to execute strategic priorities and deliver sustainable results and impact.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Are the One Page Strategy Map and Plan and Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan in alignment?
  2. Did we create a robust family of strategic measures to provide evidence of strategy execution?
  3. Do we have a plan for communicating our strategic priorities, measures, and plans to the rest of the enterprise?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to review and discuss the Virtual Strategist Whiteboard Sessions. And, it will take about 16–32 hours to customize the One Page Strategy Map and Plan template for your business or social enterprise.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Ogunte

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about managing strategy with the Balanced Scorecard, we recommend the following:

  • “Episode 164: Intro to the BSC”
  • Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton.
  • Balanced Scorecards and Operational Dashboards with Microsoft Excel by Ron Person.

Next Step

Strategy Reviews

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Strategy Reviews

Required Materials:

To conduct Strategy Reviews in your enterprise, you will need access to the One Page Strategy Map and Plan and Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

To Do List:

There are three actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Learn about the rationale, importance, and mechanics of conducting regular strategy review sessions in your business or social enterprise.
  2. Conduct at least four strategy reviews per year to update the One Page Strategy Map and Plan and align your enterprise around its strategic direction and priorities.
  3. Cascade strategy reviews to frontline teams in your business to build ownership and commitment for executing strategic priorities and generating sustainable impact.

Coaching Tips:

In The Execution Premium, Dr. Robert Kaplan and David Norton (creators of the Balanced Scorecard) share results of a study they conducted in 2006 about the systems used by organizations to manage strategy execution. They found that “having a formal strategy execution system made success 2–3X more likely as not having such a system.”

An essential component of any Balanced Scorecard Strategy Management System is the Strategy Review. The logic for these monthly or quarterly reviews is straightforward: “inspect for what you expect.” In this case, the goal is not only to review and update strategic performance but to learn where and how the organization can improve. Strategy reviews are different than operating reviews because of the cross-functional nature of the strategy map and scorecard. It is in this ongoing review process where opportunities to accelerate growth, change, and business transformation will be discovered, especially if frontline teams and team leaders are involved in the process.

To start learning about the rationale, importance, and mechanics of strategy reviews, we recommend you and your team schedule individual study time to review the following documents and YouTube videos:

Strategy Review Best Practices

Mark Livingston, creator/author of the WIIN learning platform, has facilitated numerous strategy reviews over the years and has worked with internal resources (and change coaches) to develop their skills to facilitate these sessions. Here are tips for you and your internal resources to keep in mind:

  • Strategy reviews are not operating reviews. Although it may be hard at first, stay focused on the One Page Strategy Map and Plan and not the tactical details of what’s happening inside functional departments (or not). You always have the option of scheduling other sessions to work on these operational issues.
  • Strategy review sessions are conducted in a no-blame and no-fault environment. People must feel free to talk honestly and candidly about what’s taking place. It often requires a change in mindset and may be difficult for senior leaders accustomed to dominating the agenda or airtime. So, be patient. This capability will develop over time as trust and experience grows.
  • In setting targets for each metric, use the green, yellow, and red stoplight approach. You want to set goals for your metrics in alignment with the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan. Some of these targets may be ambitious, and you could be reporting “red” for some time. Be “okay” with this. Ask open-ended questions to check progress and learn how to close performance gaps as efficiently and effectively as possible. Regardless of the level of performance (green, yellow, or red), ask the strategic owner and team “why did we get this result?” The aim is learning and improvement, not robotic reporting.
  • Schedule strategy reviews one year in advance on a rolling schedule and without fail, conduct every single one. Otherwise, the team and organization will perceive you are not serious about the Sustainable 10X Impact Vision, Business Model, and Plan.
  • Preparation is essential for strategy review success. Meet with each “strategic owner” before the session to review standards, agenda, and information to be shared.
  • Typically, strategy reviews are scheduled in two to eight hour blocks of time, depending on the availability of team members and the frequency of review sessions. If you’re doing strategy reviews monthly, you might examine the top half of the strategy map one month followed by the bottom half the next. If you’re scheduling reviews quarterly, you may want to devote 1–2 hours per row (perspective).
  • Every strategic priority on the strategy map must have a strategic owner, and preferably, that owner should be in a different functional area (e.g., the finance manager is the owner of priorities in the learning and growth perspective). Take advantage of the cross-functional nature of the BSC to tear down artificial walls and the thinking and mindset that often comes with these walls.
  • Always update your One Page Strategy Map and Plan in a timely fashion. A good rule of thumb is no later than one week after the meeting. Ensure everyone in the organization hears about or reads the minutes from these strategy review sessions. Do not keep your strategy or strategy reviews a top secret.

Your Strategy Review Process

You should plan on conducting at least four strategy reviews per year (one per quarter). This is the minimum number. Often, enterprises in the first year or two of implementation will conduct monthly reviews and then shift to quarterly reviews once “bugs” have been worked out of the system. The option is yours.

Always communicate results to the rest of your enterprise. Keep people informed in numerous ways, including follow-up town-hall meetings. You don’t want to raise expectations of your business and then not keep them informed about progress, lessons learned, and pending changes. You completed (or will complete) the Activity titled “Case for Change Story” in Module 3 to build the support and commitment of employees in your enterprise. So, keep everyone in-the-loop (especially if the majority of measures are in the “red zone”).

After the first several strategy reviews, consider organizing and conducting a “bottom-up” strategy review (versus the typical “top-down” sessions involving only senior leaders). Or, schedule a combination of both. The point here is to listen to the “voice” of frontline teams and discover ways to make their jobs easier so they can deliver engaging customer experiences, simplify internal processes, and deliver sustainable results.

You can also use this opportunity to recognize the efforts and achievements of frontline teams (especially if they’re working on a challenging project or goal/target). Respectfully conduct all sessions following ground rules or standards adopted for strategy review sessions. As you well know, the positive or negative experience of employees in a “bottom-up strategy review” will be widely shared and known by every employee in the enterprise by the close of business that day.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we establish and live up to a set of standards for how we want to conduct strategy reviews?
  2. What did we learn about our organization from the last strategy review?
  3. Did we create a clear plan of action for addressing issues identified in the previous strategy review?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 8 hours per quarter to conduct regular strategy reviews, not including preparation time.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about strategy reviews and the Balanced Scorecard Strategy Management System, we recommend the following:

  • The Strategy Review Process by David Norton and Jay Weiser (Balanced Scorecard Report, November – December 2006).
  • Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton.
  • Balanced Scorecards and Operational Dashboards with Microsoft Excel by Ron Person.

Next Step

Simplify Internal Processes

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will simplify and improve the internal processes that drive the daily operations of your business or social enterprise. You’ll do this by designing an Organization Chart of the Future, developing a Process Improvement Plan, and creating Business Process Maps and Library.

Simplifying internal processes is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy, many organizations lose their customer focus and become “inside-out.” As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to design and develop an “outside-in” organization that exceeds stakeholder expectations and delivers sustainable results.

Organization Chart of the Future will help you align the strategy and structure of your enterprise as it scales. Process Improvement Plan will help you prioritize the work processes to simplify and improve. Business Process Maps and Library will help you create an online portal of process documentation to accelerate learning and performance.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you and your team to avoid the complexity created by growth and deliver on promises to stakeholders, including women and HeForShe investors on your crowdfund investment platform-of-choice.

Organization Chart of the Future

Required Materials:

To design an Organization Chart of the Future, you will need to visit the website of Bain & Company. You will also need Change Accelerator© and your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review two short videos on the “paradox of growth” and three articles about organization design.
  2. Identify (or confirm) the talent you will need in the years ahead as you scale impact and achieve take-off (this is the “primary goal” discussed in Module 3 of Business Impact Accelerator).
  3. Download and review two tools from the Change Accelerator toolkit.
  4. Develop and prototype 3–4 organization charts of the future and select one best option based on internal impact analysis.
  5. Review the selected option with your team and include in your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and ongoing strategy review process.

Coaching Tips:

In Gender Wealth Strategy©, we described the challenges faced by entrepreneurial teams in achieving and sustaining growth. This challenge of sustainable growth is the topic of two excellent books: (1) Growing Pains: Building Sustainably Successful Organizations and (2) The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth.

The authors of Growing Pains (Eric Flamholtz and Yvonne Randle) describe the situation where leadership teams “fail to manage the transition of their enterprise from one stage of growth to another.” In The Founder’s Mentality, Bain & Company principals Chris Zook and James Allen describe a phenomenon they call the Paradox of Growth–”growth creates complexity and complexity kills growth.”

In looking at potential barriers to sustainable growth, the organization chart at times can be a weakness or hindrance. An organization chart is more than a graphical depiction of hierarchical reporting relationships. In reality, an organization chart describes the structure and design of an enterprise. Both the structure and design of your enterprise need to be considered very carefully as you work to grow revenues by 5–10% or more in each of the next ten years.

Here are the formal definitions of organizational structure and design:

  • Organizational Structure: The hierarchical arrangement of lines of authority, communications, rights, and duties of an organization. Organizational structure determines how the roles, power, and responsibilities are assigned, controlled, and coordinated, and how information flows between the different levels of management. A structure depends on the organization’s objectives and strategy.
  • Organizational Design: The manner in which management achieves the right combination of differentiation and integration of the organization’s operations, in response to the level of uncertainty in its external environment.
Get Ready for Growth

To learn more about organizational structure and design as well as the Paradox of Growth, schedule an hour of individual study time to watch two videos and review three articles. These include:

Did you catch the two very important statistics from these articles?

  1. “A 2014 Strategy+ survey found that 42% of executives felt that their organization was not aligned with the strategy and that parts of the organization resisted it or didn’t understand it.”
  2. “According to McKinsey’s research, less than a quarter of organizational-redesign efforts succeed. Forty-four percent ran out of steam after getting underway, while a third failed to meet objectives or improve performance after implementation.”

These statistics should provide a cautionary warning as you and your team examine whether the structure and design of your enterprise aligns with the strategic priorities identified in the One Page Strategy Map and Plan and your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact and Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

In our work with business and social enterprises over the years, we’ve used a tool called the 4S Model to describe key elements of organizational design that leaders need to get right if they’re going to scale, navigate change, and manage growth effectively. The 4S Model stands for: (1) Strategy, (2) Structure, (3) Systems, and (4) Skills. And yes, the order matters.

In too many cases, we’ve seen enterprises change their organizational structure or design without a careful assessment of the impact on their strategy and internal systems, processes, or skill-sets. By the way, we think the numbers in McKinsey’s research are low. They do not account for the high level of employee disengagement that takes place when the 4S’s get knocked out of alignment by poor leadership or management decisions.

Organization Chart of the Future

To avoid potential issues getting in the way of sustainable growth, management teams need to think about the impact of scaling plans on the enterprise, including selection and hiring of new talent needed to scale.

As a first step, facilitate a discussion about the “lessons learned” from these videos and articles. In your discussion, be sure to review your Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact and the Scaling Action Plans created previously. Along with the average annual revenue growth rate in your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer, this review will help you to identify (or confirm) the headcount needed to achieve future growth plans.

Then, select 2–3 team members to develop an Organization Chart of the Future. This Chart is a tool for identifying the talent needed to launch scaling plans and achieve sustainable operation and growth after scale-up. Another purpose is to help you assess the impact of growth on the capability of your enterprise to execute strategy and deliver sustainable results.

Download and use both the 4S Realignment and Systems & Structure Impact Analysis tools from the Change Accelerator toolkit. Identify any changes to the design of your organization that might be appropriate given the scaling strategies and growth plans you’ve developed (or are currently in the process of developing). In the 4S Realignment tool, plan to use the Case for Change Story from Module 3.

Explore different possibilities for your Organization Chart of the Future by sketching out 3–4 prototypes. Use 4S Realignment to evaluate the impact of each prototype on your enterprises’ structure, systems, skills, and spirit (or culture). Present your options and preferred choice to the entire team and when ready, include in your business plan in the section titled Organization and People Strategy. Use your subscription to SlideModel.com to find a template appropriate for depicting this organization chart of the future.

Just one more tip, be sure to consider the impact your future structure will have on current team members. Your employees will want to know the potential implications of any change in their roles, responsibilities, and career prospects. Take the time to build commitment for these anticipated changes. Consult Change Accelerator for a quick review of the Accelerating Change and Transformation (ACT™) Model to plan a proactive course of action.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Does everyone in the team understand the Paradox of Growth?
  2. Did we identify opportunities to simplify our organizational structure as we scale?
  3. Did we select one best option to include in the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to review the videos and articles as well as previous work from Modules 2 and 3. It will take the small group another 3–4 hours (over 1–2 sessions) to design and prototype alternative organization charts.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Genuine Health

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about organization structure, organization design, and managing for growth, we recommend the following:

  • Bain & Company YouTube Channel (scroll down to find The Founder’s Mentality series).
  • The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth by Chris Zook and James Allen (this is the website for The Founder’s Mentality).
  • Nicolay Warren YouTube Channel (series of videos on organization design from a skilled practitioner).
  • Organisation Design: Re-defining Complex Systems by Dr. Nicolay Worren.
  • Growing Pains: Building Sustainably Successful Organizations by Eric Flamholtz, PhD., and Yvonne Randle, PhD.
  • SlideModel.com (affordable subscription plans to 12,000 PowerPoint templates and slide designs, including several styles of organizational charts and diagrams).

Next Step

Process Improvement Plan

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Process Improvement Plan

Required Materials:

To develop a Process Improvement Plan, you will need to visit the website and YouTube Channels of Ian James, The Process Consultant. You will also need Change Accelerator© and your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review six short videos on mapping and improving business processes.
  2. Review the four-part video series on The Buyer’s Journey from The Process Consultant website.
  3. Use the Action Plan template from Change Accelerator to create (or update) a Process Improvement Plan.
  4. Use the SIPOC and RACI Profile, along with other tools from the Change Accelerator Toolkit to simplify, streamline, and align the internal workflows of your business or social enterprise.
  5. Identify the top ten process improvement opportunities and include within the Annual B Impact Improvement Plan and Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

Coaching Tips:

This part of Simplify Internal Processes focuses on Systems, the third “S” of the 4S Model. As you’ll recall, 4S stands for (1) Strategy, (2) Structure, (3) Systems, and (4) Skills. A key requirement for building a sustainable, high-impact enterprise is continuously monitoring and improving the alignment of these four components of effective organization design.

Yet, we know that life does not always work according to a model or to plan. Things change in the competitive environment, in the lives of customers, and within the four walls of your enterprise. This is why process improvement (sometimes called continuous improvement) is critical to your success. By not continuously improving (or changing) systems, processes, and workflows, a business or social enterprise will find it difficult to deliver the results promised in a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

To learn how to streamline and improve internal workflows, schedule an hour of individual study time to watch six videos from the ProcessConsultantChannel on Youtube. Here are the links:

To ensure everyone on your team is up-to-speed with process mapping, moderate a discussion about the six videos and white paper. If needed, cue up one or more of the videos to review important points and stimulate discussion.

Notice the definition of a process used by Ian James, The Process Consultant: “a sequence of (arbitrary) activities designed to create something of value.” With apologies to Mr. James, we added the word “arbitrary” to his definition. We did this as a reminder to you that workflows, roles, and job positions are in fact arbitrary. You have the power to make changes in how processes are designed anytime it makes sense and is warranted.

Internal and External Processes

To expand on this point, take the time with your fellow team members to watch four more videos from the website of The Process Consultant. You’ll find these four videos by clicking on the Business Process Videos link at the very top of this website. The four videos focus on:

  • “Aligning the Sales Process to the Buyer’s Journey (Part 1)”
  • “Why Cold Calling is So Inefficient (Part 2)”
  • “Smart Lead Generation (Part 3)”
  • “Misaligning the Sales Process and the Buyer’s Journey at Closing (Part 4)”

This series highlights the need to align internal sales processes with the experience of customers as they move through a decision and buying process. The Business Process Maps and Customer Journey Maps you’ll be creating, validating, and improving on a continuous basis are the “heads” and “tails” of the same coin. You and your team need to align these two maps and processes to deliver the customer revenue, retention, and loyal promoter behavior built into your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model and Plan.

Always start with the journey and experience of customers at critical “touch-points” of your business or social enterprise. Then, develop the internal workflows required to deliver the service and experiences desired by customers. This two-step “dance” is one that needs to be designed and orchestrated across your entire organization. This is the orchestration and systematization that Disney (for example) has been able to deliver and one of the primary reasons this enterprise continue to amaze and delight customers and their shareholders and investors.

So, what’s your version of The Disney Experience? You need both the Customer Journey Maps and Business Process Maps to deliver this experience in a repeatable, scalable, and profitable manner. Sounds like a “Key Activity” on the left side of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model, doesn’t it?

Your Process Improvement Plan

Now that you and your team have a basic understanding of business process mapping and improvement, it’s time to develop (or update) a Process Improvement Plan for your business or social enterprise. This Plan should be incorporated into a number of other plans, including Scaling Action Plans, Annual B Impact Improvement Plan, and the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

To develop a Process Improvement Plan, use the Action Plan template from Change Accelerator and identify the top ten processes within your enterprise that need to be put under the microscope and redesigned to support scaling and growth.

In addition to this template, download the SIPOC and RACI Profile tools from the Change Accelerator Toolkit. SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.

Both tools will help you map the as-is process as well as redesign roles needed for the new process. The RACI Profile, in particular, is a useful complement to the Business Process Map, as it gets into more detailed analysis of who, what, and when.

You will need a way to document the Business Process Maps that result from your Process Improvement Plan. We have two options for you to consider. First, you can use several PowerPoint templates from the SlideModel.com website. The second option is yEd, a free process mapping tool provided by yWorks. Ian James, The Process Consultant, offers the yEd Free Process Mapping Tutorial Course on his website to help you learn and apply this tool.

We also recommend reviewing more of the content on The Process Consultant website. There are several excellent blog posts and articles, including:

We have one last coaching tip. Be sure to identify an “owner” for each of the processes you’ve included in your Process Improvement Plan. These owners have a fundamental responsibility to develop, document, and improve Business Process Maps. They also have a responsibility to train (or cross-train) team members using process documentation in your web-based Business Process Library (subject of the next Activity). To help members of your team perform in this role, consult Implementation Resources in the BIA Library.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Do we understand the requirements for effective process mapping and improvement?
  2. Did we create a Process Improvement Plan for our business or social enterprise and identify the top ten process improvement opportunities?
  3. Is our marketing and sales process aligned with the needs, expectations, and emotions identified in our Customer Persona and Journey Maps? Did we include this improvement opportunity in our Process Improvement Plan?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to review the videos from The Process Consultant and another 2–3 hours for a small work group to develop a Process Improvement Plan.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Little Sun

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about improving business processes, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Business Process Maps and Library

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Business Process Maps and Library

Required Materials:

To create Business Process Maps and a Business Process Library, you will need to visit the website of The Process Consultant. You will also need your Process Improvement Plan and list of top ten improvement opportunities.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Watch a short video titled “Is Your Process Documentation a Mess?” and learn about the Process Discovery solution provided by Ian James, The Process Consultant.
  2. Schedule and conduct a Skype conference with Mr. James to learn more about his Process Discovery program.
  3. Incorporate Process Discovery expenses into the current operating budget or the growth capital requirements of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.
  4. Start implementation of the Process Discovery program and establish your Business Process Library to accelerate learning and performance at the frontline of your enterprise.

Coaching Tips:

This part of Simplify Internal Processes focuses on Skills, the fourth “S” of the 4S Model. As you’ll recall, 4S stands for (1) Strategy, (2) Structure, (3) Systems, and (4) Skills. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is your responsibility to ensure you’re not “putting good performers in a bad system.”

Yet, this often happens in organizations. Frontline team members are not provided the tools, training, and resources to perform confidently or proficiently. In many cases, management offers a “sink-or-swim” employee proposition that results in bad service, low productivity, and customers who leave and never return. If this situation is taking place in your organization, then you may be setting yourself up for some painful lessons as you try to scale and grow.

Previously, you learned about the work of Ian James, The Process Consultant. In this section, we’ll continue diving into the tools provided on The Process Consultant website. You’ll learn how to achieve a quick-start to your business process improvement efforts as well as establish a Business Process Library to ensure process maps and documentation become a permanent feature of your frontline operations.

To start, visit The Process Consultant website and listen to a short video from Ian James titled Is Your Process Documentation a Mess? In the video, James makes these comments:

“Even large and sophisticated organizations struggle with their processes. And a big part of the problem is lack of business process documentation.”

Process Discovery

As a counter-measure, James has created a solution he calls Process Discovery. You can learn more about Process Discovery on his website.

Plan to reach out to Ian James through his contact form on The Process Consultant website and request a Skype conference to discuss the Process Discovery program.

You can frame the Process Discovery program with your team as a quick-start process to get the enterprise up and running in developing Business Process Maps and a Business Process Library. Share the top 10 list of processes in your Process Improvement Plan with Mr. James and identify the process you believe would be well-suited for a pilot test.

You can incorporate expenses of the Process Discovery program into your current operating budget. Or, include this cost as a line item in the Growth Capital Requirements section of your Business Plan if you are planning a 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign.

What is the ROI?

You may be wondering if this investment is worth it. Here’s our point of view. In the Evaluate Customer Engagement activity of Module 1, you answered this question: “Do you know the lifetime value of your customers?” You can also ask this question in a different way: “Do you know the long-term revenue loss your enterprise will suffer if your most valuable customers decide to stop doing business with you?” Armed with this information, you should be able to calculate a quick return-on-investment related to investing in the Rapid Process Discovery program.

However, the added-value is not only in producing new or improved process maps, training new process owners, or establishing an online portal of learning materials to accelerate performance. The real value is embedding “process thinking” at every level of your organization. If you reviewed the four videos from The Process Consultant website in the previous part of this Module, you realized how important it is to “align” Customer Journey Maps with Business Process Maps. This type of thinking and action needs to be replicated and orchestrated throughout your entire organization if you want to achieve high customer retention rates, grow brand advocates, and ensure recurring revenue streams to meet your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing obligations.

One final note: be sure to add the Process Discovery program to your One Page Strategy Map and Plan in the far right column. Implementing this program will be one of the most important strategic projects going forward to generate business impact and ensure delivery of sustainable results and impact.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. In what shape is our process documentation? What do we need to improve?
  2. Do we know how long it takes new employees to reach proficiency in each position of our enterprise?
  3. Do we have a secure portal of job aids and other learning materials for the operation of our critical systems, business processes, and workflows?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 hours to review information about the Rapid Process Discovery program, including discussion within the team and Skype conference call with Ian James.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Spark Strategy

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about mapping, documenting, and improving business processes, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Become a Certified B Corporation

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will continue progress toward achieving B Corp Certification. You’ll do this by developing an Annual B Impact Improvement Plan and incorporating it in your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and One Page Strategy Map and Plan.

Gaining recognition as a Certified B Corporation is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, Positive Impact is rapidly becoming a driver of competitive advantage. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to differentiate your organization from competitors focused only on short-term profit.

Annual B Impact Improvement Plan will help your enterprise achieve and/or sustain B Corp Certification and build a sustainable brand recognized as a “force for good.”

Annual B Impact Improvement Plan

Required Materials:

To develop an Annual B Impact Improvement Plan, you will need to visit the website and YouTube Channel of B Lab. Also, you will need Change Accelerator and your current B Impact Assessment Report and Improvement Plan.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review your current B Impact Assessment score and determine how close your business or social enterprise is to the minimum certification requirement of 80 points (out of 200).
  2. Review the progress you’ve made in the last 6–12 months by examining your current B Impact Assessment Report and most recent Improvement Plan.
  3. Develop an Annual B Impact Improvement Plan and include it within your One Page Strategy Map and Plan and/or Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.
  4. Continue updating quarterly and annual improvement plans and when your organization is ready, complete the five-step process outlined on the B Lab website for obtaining B Corp Certification.

Coaching Tips:

This Activity is a continuation of work you and your team started in Modules 1 and 2 of Business Impact Accelerator©. The main difference here is that you will be developing an Annual B Impact Improvement Plan instead of the short-term plans you and your team have been implementing every 90 days. This Annual Plan is the one you will reference in your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and One Page Strategy Map and Plan as appropriate.

To develop this Annual Plan, you’ll first need to access your current B Impact Assessment Report. You can find this report at the B Impact Assessment platform. Bring the entire team together to review your current assessment score. How close is your enterprise to the minimum certification requirement of 80 points (out of 200)? Bring your team together and facilitate a discussion of the progress made in the last 6–12 months to improve the social and environmental impact of your enterprise.

Use the Action Plan template from Change Accelerator to develop an Annual B Impact Improvement Plan. Think through the priority areas where you could improve your B Impact Assessment score in the next twelve months. However, be sure the work you’re planning to do is in alignment with the strategic priorities on your One Page Strategy Map and Plan and of course, the financial and human resources available to your enterprise.

In other words, this is not about scoring points to get certified. It’s about building a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that delivers compelling social and financial returns. Becoming a Certified B Corporation is a valuable goal to obtain, but it’s just one of many means you will deploy to achieve your ten-year Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact.

After finishing the Annual Plan, make sure it’s referenced in the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan titled Organization and People Strategy. The specific question is: “how will the Annual B Impact Improvement Plan advance your enterprises’ commitment to sustainable business and B Corp Certification?” You can include a copy of your Annual Plan in the Business Plan Appendix.

Why Get Certified?

Why should your business or social enterprise pursue formal certification and gain recognition as a Certified B Corporation? To answer this question, revisit the B Lab website and look for “Become a B Corp” in the main navigation bar. In the sub-menu are three links: (1) Why Become a B Corp?, (2) How to Become a B Corp and (3) Not Sure?

Click on the first link, Why Become a B Corp? Here, the B Lab provides eleven reasons. Be sure to click on the icon in the lower right of each reason to see more information. The eleven reasons are:

  • Lead a Movement
  • Differentiate from Pretenders
  • Pass Legislation
  • Attract Investors
  • Benchmark Performance
  • Generate Press
  • Save Money and Access Services
  • Attract and Engage Talent
  • Protect Mission
  • Participate in Ad Campaign
  • Partners with Peers
 Click on the image to enlarge.

Next, review the information in the “How to Become a B Corp” sub-menu. The team at B Lab has laid out a three-step process:

  • Step 1: Meet Performance Requirements
  • Step 2: Meet Legal Requirements
  • Step 3: Make it Official

In the “Meet Performance Requirements” section, you’ll see these five steps:

  1. Schedule an Assessment Review and Submit Supporting Documentation
  2. Complete the Assessment Review
  3. Submit Additional Documentation
  4. Complete Disclosure Questionnaire
  5. Background Checks

Note requirements for recertification as well as site visits (10% of companies annually). You may think these terms are onerous, but B Lab has been working diligently over the past decade to establish the global benchmark for certification as a sustainable business.

We think these terms and conditions are a small price to pay for differentiating your impact-driven business or social enterprise from competitors focused only on maximizing short-term profit. And we believe prospective investors will value your commitment to building a sustainable business when they review your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer on your crowdfund investment platform-of-choice.

Be sure to check out the B Lab’s YouTube Channel and online B the Change publication to learn more about how Certified B Corporations are using their certification to differentiate themselves in a world that prioritizes short-term profit and greed. The links are provided in the Recommended Resources section.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. How close are we to achieving the minimum score of 80 points?
  2. Are we making progress in sustainably improving our social and environmental impact?
  3. Are we building a workplace culture dedicated to sustainable business practices and Sustainable 10X Impact?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 3–4 hours (over 1–2 sessions) to develop an Annual B Impact Improvement Plan.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Ecofiltro

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about the global B Corp Movement, we recommend the following:

Next Step

Module Four Review

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Module Four Review

Module Four of Business Impact Accelerator© focused on these Deliverables and Outcomes:

  • Customer Journey Maps (create a branded customer experience)
  • Net Promoter® Surveys (strengthen and build customer relationships)
  • Company Service Aptitude Test (measure and improve the service level of your enterprise with the C-SAT)
  • One Page Strategy Map and Plan (focus and align everyone in your enterprise around strategic priorities and measures)
  • Strategy Reviews (engage frontline teams in helping you manage and improve performance)
  • Organization Chart of the Future (align the strategy and structure of your enterprise as it scales)
  • Process Improvement Plan (prioritize the work processes to simplify and improve)
  • Business Process Maps and Library (create an online portal of process documentation to accelerate learning and performance)
  • Annual B Impact Improvement Plan (achieve and/or sustain B Corp Certification)

So, how did you and your team do?  Were you able to complete all of these deliverables and generate these intended outcomes?

Now, on to Module 5, Accelerate Business Impact!

Scale Business Impact

Module Three Description

In this third Module of Business Impact Accelerator©, you and your team will create a five-year business plan to scale the impact-driven business model you tested and validated in Module 2. If you’re aiming to raise flexible revenue-based growth capital, this Module will help you create a high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer to promote to women and HeForShe investors on your crowdfund platform-of-choice. 

You and your team will complete four Activities …

  1. Establish Scaling Plans
  2. Calculate 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer
  3. Create 10X Impact Business Plan
  4. Confirm Organization Readiness

… and produce seven Deliverables:

  • Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives
  • Scaling Action Plans
  • 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer
  • Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan
  • Cash Flow Pressure Test
  • Business Transformation Readiness Assessment
  • Case for Change Story

These Deliverables will enable you and your team to build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that differentiates you from competitors focused only on maximizing short-term profit.

For each Deliverable, we provide step-by-step instructions and coaching tips for completion. We also feature a Certified B Corporation to benchmark and offer a list of resources to help you manage the transition of your enterprise from one stage of growth to another. If you have any questions, please contact us directly through this website.

Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will determine the amount of growth capital needed to scale the impact-driven business model you designed and validated in Module 2. You’ll do this by establishing Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives and preparing Scaling Action Plans.

Establishing a capital raising target is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, impact and crowdfund investing is expected to grow significantly through 2030. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to secure the flexible revenue-based growth capital needed to scale impact and fuel sustainable growth.

Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives will help you identify the key results to be achieved during scale-up. Scaling Action Plans will help you plan the financial and human resources needed to deliver on the scaling objectives.

Together, these Deliverables will enable your business or social enterprise to develop a viable growth capital plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer that attracts the attention of women and HeForShe Investors on a crowdfund investment platform.

Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives

Required Materials:

To establish Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives, you will need to visit the Nonprofit Finance Fund website. You will also need the Deliverables created in Modules 1 and 2 of Business Impact Accelerator©.

To Do List:

There are three actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. View four short Youtube videos on the subject of growth capital and revenue-based finance.
  2. Download and review an article on the purpose and role of growth capital.
  3. Discuss the purpose of growth capital in your enterprise and identify 5–6 key results you want to achieve as a result of scaling your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model.

Coaching Tips:

In Gender Wealth Strategy©, you learned that gaining access to flexible growth capital on friendly terms is a major barrier to the expansion of many enterprises, especially those led by women without 10X profit-driven business models (95% of the population).

But what is growth capital and what is the purpose of revenue-based growth capital in helping your enterprise scale its impact? These four YouTube videos will help you and your team understand the role of growth capital and the power of revenue-based finance:

As you watch these videos, listen for comments related to patient and flexible capital, access to capital, and the right financing vehicle. Please note the video from Michael “Luni” Libes (“A Different View on Impact Investing“). This is the same video introduced to you in Key Finding #5 of Gender Wealth Strategy©.

The Cypress Growth Capital video will give you an example of how one investment firm is using revenue royalties (another term for revenue sharing) to fund the growth of mature technology companies. Arthur Fox, one of the early pioneers of revenue-based finance is a senior advisor to this firm. You’ll remember Mr. Fox’s name from Key Finding #6 in Gender Wealth Strategy (“few entrepreneurs, investors, and educators know about revenue-based finance”).

The article from Nonprofit Finance Fund to download is titled Nonprofit Growth Capital: Building is Not Buying. The author is George Overholser, former director of this social finance enterprise. Be sure to review the definition of growth capital on page 2 of this article: “Growth capital is an investment of funds from financial partners who join with management to build a sustainable enterprise.” Note this important comment: “Growth capital covers the deficits incurred en route to sustainability.”

Although the article is focused on nonprofit finance, Overholser provides a clear definition of growth capital for any enterprise, regardless of legal structure or tax status. Be sure to review the section explaining why it’s important to separate growth capital investment from operating revenues in your financial statements. Many enterprises co-mingle these funds, and it leads to poor cash flow management, one of the primary reasons for business failure. This is a good reminder for you to track accurately the inflow and outflow of growth capital, whether these funds come from owners, retained earnings, or revenue-based crowdfund investors (or ideally, all three).

Next, bring your team together and lead a discussion about these videos and article. Ensure all team members are on the same page about the difference between growth capital and operating revenue. This discussion will give you an opportunity to start identifying potential uses of growth capital to scale your positive impact.

Potential Growth Capital Uses

So, what expenses can you build into a growth capital budget and include in your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors? Here are just a few examples:

  • monthly or annual subscriptions to business development or financial management tools like QuickBooks™ or LivePlan business planning software.
  • new hires to support scaling plans
  • outside consultants or technical experts to design and redesign systems, processes, workflows or tools
  • assessment tools and online business simulations to develop an entrepreneurial culture
  • capital raising costs associated with your crowdfund investment platform-of-choice (they typically charge between 2–8% of the capital you raise).
  • CPA costs to conduct an independent review or audit of your previous two years of financial statements
  • Legal fees of $5,000 for retaining CrowdCheck to conduct background checks and review of your governance documents, 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offering documents, and SEC Form C (reference first two Activities in Module 6, Fund Business Impact).
  • Marketing costs for planning and launching a successful 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign

After your team discusses possible uses of growth capital, identify (or confirm) the objectives or goals you want to achieve as a result of scaling your newly validated Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model. We recommend you establish a Primary Goal of “scale impact and grow sustainably after scale-up.” This sustainability goal is the “take-off” point described on page 4 of Overholser’s article and the “burn rate” commonly referred to in the world of finance and investment.

It is not the BHAG you identified in your Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact (achieving that BHAG will take ten years or more). Growth capital investment is designed to get you to the point of being able to scale-up, operate sustainably at this higher level of scale, and then continue steady and sustainable growth for the rest of the ten-year investment period (and beyond).

If this Primary Goal isn’t coming into focus right away, read the previous paragraph and Overholser’s article again. We’ve seen more than a couple of management teams and boards struggle with the purpose and role of growth capital. In addition to this Primary Goal, think about the other results you’d like to achieve in the estimated 3–5 years it will take to achieve “take-off.” Use all of the documents created so far in Business Impact Accelerator© to identify and prioritize your 5–6 Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives.

Be sure to record these objectives or results on a flip chart and use this information to help draft Scaling Action Plans, estimate the growth capital amount you will raise, create a 3X-in- 10™ Revenue Sharing Offer, and develop a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Does everyone understand the purpose and role of revenue-based growth capital in scaling the impact of our business or social enterprise?
  2. Is the Primary Goal of “scale impact and grow sustainably after scale-up” clear?
  3. Did we establish 5–6 Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives to guide development of our Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer, and Growth Capital Campaign?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 3–4 hours (over 1–2 meetings) to discuss and clarify Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Better World Books

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about revenue royalties and revenue-based finance, we recommend the following:

  • The Road Less Travelled: The Story of Revenue Royalties by Robert Steven Kramarz (available in the free resource Library of the Intelliversity website).
  • The Larry and Barry Guide to Understanding Royalties by Arthur Lipper (available on KindleUnlimited; other free articles and resources about revenue-based finance are available on the Pacific Royalties website).
  • Revenue Royalties: Why and How Revenue Royalties Will Become The Standard Finance Approach for Both Investors and Company Owners by Arthur Lipper.
  • The Realities of Funding a Startup by Michael Libes (part of The Next Step Series of books for business and social entrepreneurs).

To learn more about impact metrics (which might influence your scaling objectives), we advise the following:

  • IRIS (or Impact Reporting and Investment Standards; provides a database of metrics used by the B Impact Assessment and impact investors).

Next Step

Scaling Action Plans

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Scaling Action Plans

Required Materials:

To prepare Scaling Action Plans, you will need to visit the McKinsey & Company website as well as access the Change Accelerator© toolkit and platform. You will also need the Deliverables created in Modules 1 and 2, along with Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives established previously in this Activity.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Download and review the 7S Analysis tool from the Change Accelerator Toolkit.
  2. Visit the McKinsey & Company website and listen to the podcast titled Enduring Ideas: The 7S Framework (published in the March 2008 McKinsey Quarterly).
  3. Review discussion questions in the 7S Analysis tool and identify key issues and resources needed to achieve the Primary Goal (“scale impact and grow sustainably after scale-up”).
  4. Use the Action Plan tool from the Change Accelerator Toolkit to prepare first draft Scaling Action Plans.
  5. Save a copy of these plans for the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan to be created later in this Module.

Coaching Tips:

The 7S Framework and Model was originally developed by Robert Waterman and Tom Peters at McKinsey & Company in the late 1970’s (Waterman and Peters are co-authors of the classic In Search of Excellence). 7S is an analytical tool for considering the impact of new strategies and business models on organizational performance and effectiveness. Problems arise when these seven “pillars” become misaligned, either because of significant change in the external environment or because of issues not anticipated or adequately addressed by leadership and management teams (or both).

Plan a team discussion about the 7S Model. Start by downloading the 7S Analysis tool from the Change Accelerator toolkit and platform. Feel free to customize the discussion questions in 7S Analysis for your business or social enterprise. The aim here is to “think strategically” about key issues that could positively or negatively impact your ability to achieve the Primary Goal and BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) in your Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact.

In preparing for the 7S discussion, listen to a short podcast/interactive from the March 2008 McKinsey Quarterly. Lowell Bryan, a partner at McKinsey&Company, offers a brief explanation of the 7S Framework. Be sure to catch his comment about “blind spots.” Be open to the possibility that you and your team may have one or more blind spots about the enterprise you lead (e.g., the impact of growth on cash flow, organization readiness for change and growth, investment readiness, natural or man-made disaster, etc.).

Be sure to examine other tools in the Change Accelerator Toolkit that could help your team identify key issues in scaling-up your positive impact. Refer to the Recommended Resources section for a list of relevant tools.

It is important for you and your team to identify all of the tasks required to scale your 10X impact-driven business model. And, be aware your enterprise will have more work to do to improve and fine-tune business model “fit.” Testing and validating a business model with “early adopters” is one thing, but often, the real customer segment (or base) emerges later. This business reality sometimes catches entrepreneurial teams by surprise and contributes to the “cash flow roller coaster.” So, allocate resources for ongoing experimentation, testing, and validation of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model.

Stay focused on the next 3–5 years, as this is the estimated timeframe for reaching “take-off” and “burning through” the growth capital you raise internally or from investors externally. Be sure to consider all of the hard and soft issues related to scaling and develop estimates of the financial and human resources required to address these issues. Be very conservative in developing these Scaling Action Plans. It typically takes longer than expected, so factor in the appropriate amount of time and resources.

Regulation Crowdfund Investing Laws

You will need to keep your growth capital funding target to less than the maximum amount of capital that can be raised in a single year under Regulation CF crowdfund investing laws. The next Activity of Module 3 will walk you through the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer and help you calculate the percentage of revenue your enterprise can afford to share with revenue-based investors.

Use the Action Plan tool from the Change Accelerator Toolkit to identify all of the financial and human resources needed to achieve “take-off.” You will continue to refine these estimates in the next several Activities as you create a viable 5-year business plan and pressure test a high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

Yes, the work you’re doing right now is challenging. On the one hand, you’re thinking about the ten-year vision of your business or social enterprise. Next, you’re planning the work required to achieve “take-off.” And of course, you still have day-to-day issues to manage. But, take a deep breath … you can do this!

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we identify and prioritize all of the issues that will impact our ability to achieve the Primary Goal?
  2. Did we consider the impact of “soft” issues as much as “hard” issues?
  3. Did we identify all of the human and financial resources needed to scale our impact and grow sustainably after scale-up?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 weeks (over multiple working sessions of 1–3 hours each) to complete and review draft Scaling Action Plans.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Cabot Creamery Cooperative

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about analyzing and assessing the impact of new strategies and change initiatives, visit Change Accelerator and download these tools from the Toolkit:

  • Force-Field Analysis
  • 4S Realignment
  • Systems-Structure Analysis
  • Current-Future State Analysis
  • Change Impact Assessment

We also recommend:

Next Step

Calculate 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will create a high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer for women and HeForShe investors.

Crafting a viable and high-quality offer is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, investors are searching for sustainable investments that deliver positive impact, and offer liquidity, a tangible exit, and competitive returns. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to create a 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer that attracts the right investors and secures their financial support.

This Deliverable will help you and your team calculate a safe percentage of revenue to share with crowdfund investors during the ten-year growth capital investment period.

3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer

Required Materials:

To create a viable and high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer, you will need to access the Business Impact Accelerator Library. You may also need to review key sections of the Gender Wealth Strategy© learning program.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review the video by Michael “Luni” Libes titled “A Different View on Impact Investing” and if needed, key sections of the Gender Wealth Strategy© learning program (“A Failed System”, “Whose Needs Come First?”, and “Women’s Wealth System”).
  2. Access the BIA Library and review 3X-in-10™ Webinar Series, including the 3X-in-10™ Calculator.
  3. Use the 3X-in-10™ Calculator to determine the revenue sharing percentage your enterprise can safely offer women and HeForShe investors on your crowdfund investment-platform-of choice.
  4. Rank order different revenue sharing scenarios and incorporate this information into your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offering documents, and Investor Pitch Deck (discussed in Fund Business Impact, Module 6 of Business Impact Accelerator©).

Coaching Tips:

In the first Activity of Module Three, you identified objectives and plans for scaling the positive impact of your business or social enterprise. Now, it’s time to create a viable and high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer that will enable your business to raise the flexible growth capital needed to scale positive impact and grow sustainably after scale-up.

As you know from the Gender Wealth Strategy© Mini-Course and full learning program, there are several benefits for raising flexible revenue-based growth capital on your terms (instead of begging for money from lenders and investors focused only on their 10X-profit or 10X-exit):

  1. Attracting patient, mission-aligned investors with a compelling 3X-in-10™ Offer of “triple your impact investment in ten years.”
  2. Raising flexible and entrepreneur-friendly capital based on a share of top-line revenue (i.e., a revenue royalty).
  3. Gaining “breathing room” and time for scaling new, high-impact business models and value propositions.
  4. Making an investment offer you can deliver on without taking unnecessary risks (e.g., 50%+ hyper-growth every year).
  5. Staying in control of your enterprise with flexible capital instead of taking on inflexible debt or selling a percentage of your business to outside investors.

We created the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer to help your enterprise “stand out from the crowd” with a compelling offer that provides investors with an opportunity to:

  1. Invest in a stable and sustainable enterprise led by women with impact-driven business models (or HeForShe advocates with business models that positively impact women).
  2. Receive liquidity (cash) in the form of quarterly revenue sharing payments (which provide the opportunity to invest in other high-quality Revenue Sharing Offers).
  3. Realize a quicker return on invested capital as compared to equity investments (e.g., as outlined in the 3X-in-10™ Piggy Bank video, “time-to-1X” is potentially 4.5 years).
  4. Potentially earn a higher rate of return if revenue growth is faster than projected.
  5. Safely exit the revenue sharing investment after the “3X cap” is reached.

As discussed in Gender Wealth Strategy, we designed our 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer after learning about the work of Michael “Luni” Libes in funding entrepreneurial start-ups with this form of flexible capital. If the team has not watched “A Different View on Impact Investing”, take the time now to ensure everyone has an understanding of the major differences between revenue-based financing and traditional debt and equity financing. As discussed in Gender Wealth Strategy/Key Finding #6:”Few entrepreneurs, investors, and educators know about revenue-based finance.”

Also, be sure the team is familiar with the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Model. If needed, review contents in the WIIN learning program category titled 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing.

Just Six Numbers

In order to create a winning 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer specific to your enterprise, you need six numbers: (1) starting revenue base (use net revenue at end of current fiscal year), (2) estimate of your average annual growth rate during the next ten years, (3) revenue sharing (or revenue royalty) percentage you can safely afford to offer investors, (4) the amount of growth capital required to scale your positive impact and grow sustainably after scale-up, (5) investment multiple (3X), and (6) investment time period (10 years).

In turn, this information will tell you: (1) how much flexible revenue-based growth capital your enterprise potentially could raise on a crowdfund investment platform, and (2) the potential financial return for your prospective women and HeForShe investors.

Remember, an IRR (internal rate of return) above the benchmark 7–10% range is considered a competitive return (see key finding #7 in Gender Wealth Strategy).

Keep in mind that you may be able to create other revenue sharing offers other than 3X-in-10™. For example, a viable 2X-in-5 offer that provides a compelling financial and social return might be a better alternative. Our 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Model is a starting point. You must make the final decision of what will work for your impact-driven enterprise.

Here are a couple of points to keep in mind as you begin working with the 3X-in-10™ Calculator:

  • Typically, 1–10% is the revenue royalty or revenue sharing percentage used by enterprises seeking growth capital investment.
  • Use 25% of net revenue as a “safe” starting point for your estimated growth capital funding target; as a rule of thumb, you will need gross margins of 30% or more (or be able to improve these margins with increased cash flow, higher prices, and improved cash flow management).
  • Make sure the 10-year average revenue growth projection is realistic (we advise 5-10% as a “safe” point to start; a good strategy here is to underpromise and over-deliver).
  • Use the net revenue you project for the current fiscal year as the starting base.
  • Calculation of the revenue sharing percentage is an iterative process; you’ll need to incorporate your projections of revenue growth and revenue sharing percentage into your pro forma financial spreadsheets and Sustainable 10X Business Plan.

If necessary, go back and review videos and materials from the Business Impact Accelerator Mini-Course and 3X-in-10™ Webinar Series programs. These learning programs will help everyone on your team understand the what, why, and how of crafting a 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing investment offer.

A Viable 3X-in-10™ Offer

As you begin to calculate the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer, be sure you are not “making commitments” you can’t deliver (e.g., annual revenue growth forecasts for the ten-year investment period).

Remember, 10% growth every year for ten years is a significant achievement. In Gender Wealth Strategy, we pointed out the Bain Consulting study that revealed less than 10% of large corporations producing this level of organic growth over a ten-year period of time.

Plus, we don’t want to see you underestimate the potential negative impact this growth will have on the cash flow of your enterprise. Be conservative in your estimates and ensure delivery of sustainable results. The only downside of under-promising and over-delivering is that you “exit” investors more quickly with a higher rate of return!

This would be a good time to mention that you will be documenting your investment offer in two customizable documents: a 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Promissory Note and 3X-in-10™ Subscription Agreement. You can download these two documents from the BIA Library. We recommend starting sooner rather than later in familiarizing yourself with these two documents and drafting a draft promissory note and subscription agreement.

In Module 6, we’ll discuss these documents in more detail and introduce you to CrowdCheck and their related law firm, CrowdCheck Law. CrowdCheck drafted these templates for The Social Impact Foundation and will be guiding your enterprise through the due diligence process needed to (1) pass our Investment Readiness Check, and (2) promote a high-quality Revenue Sharing Offer to women and HeForShe investors on a crowdfund investment platform.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Do we all understand how the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer works?
  2. Did we identify the six numbers needed to create a growth capital funding target and a high-quality 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer?
  3. How does this growth capital target compare with the resources identified in our Scaling Action Plans? Do we need to change or revise any of our plans?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 3–4 hours (over 1 or 2 work sessions) to establish a viable Revenue Sharing Offer for your business or social enterprise.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Plum Organics

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about revenue-based finance and  royalties, we recommend the following:

  • “The Road Less Travelled: The Story of Revenue Royalties” by Robert Steven Kramarz (available in the free resource Library of the Intelliversity website).
  • “The Larry and Barry Guide to Understanding Royalties” by Arthur Lipper (available on KindleUnlimited along with many other articles about revenue-based finance on the Pacific Royalties website).
  • Revenue Royalties: Why and How Revenue Royalties Will Become The Standard Finance Approach for Both Investors and Company Owners by Arthur Lipper.
  • “The Realities of Funding a Startup” by Michael Libes (part of The Next Step Series of books for business and social entrepreneurs).

To learn more about improving your cash flow to pay for the revenue sharing percentage (or revenue royalty), we suggest:

  • “Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It … and Why the Rest Don’t”  by Verne Hamish (especially chapters 12–14 on Cash Flow). Note: the Scaling Up website offers some free tools, including The Power of One and Cash Acceleration Strategies that we discuss in the next Activity.
  • Cash Flow Story (website by the developers of The Power of One).
  • QuickBooks Resource Center (look for the Cash Flow section of this website to learn more about improving the cash flow of your enterprise).
  • LivePlan Business Planning Software (look for LivePlan Blog and free articles on cash flow management).

Next Step

Create 10X Impact Business Plan

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will plan for the scaling of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model. You’ll do this by creating a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and conducting a Cash Flow Pressure Test.

Planning for sustainable growth is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, impact and crowdfund investing is expected to increase significantly through 2030. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to develop a viable plan that investors and stakeholders can trust.

Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan will help you create a high-quality scaling plan and realistic financial projections to achieve “take-off” and sustainable growth. Cash Flow Pressure Test will help you examine the impact of different growth scenarios on the cash flow and profitability of your enterprise during the time it takes to reach take-off.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you to create a high-quality business plan and build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that generates enduring social and economic value.

Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan

Required Materials:

To create a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, you will need to access the Business Impact Accelerator Library. You will also need The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan book plus Deliverables created in other Modules of Business Impact Accelerator©.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review the Business Plan Checklist and Investment Readiness Checklist in the BIA Library category of the WIIN learning platform.
  2. Review the table of contents in The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan book and become familiar with the Plan As You Go website.
  3. Identify 2–3 team members to draft a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan over the next 4–6 weeks (or schedule that works for your enterprise).
  4. Incorporate your 3X-in-10™ calculations into the draft five-year business plan and verify accuracy of all forward-looking financial statements.
  5. Review the five-year scaling and growth plan with the entire team and ensure all items of the Business Plan Checklist have been addressed.

Coaching Tips:

Former general and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower famously said: “The plan is useless, but planning is essential.” We wholeheartedly agree and offer these four reasons for creating a high-quality business plan to scale your impact-driven business model:

  1. Clearly communicate your business strategy and growth capital needs to women and HeForShe investors and other strategic investors (e.g., leaders of philanthropic and community foundations).
  2. Reduce the risk of business and investment failure (e.g., 40% of new ventures fail by year three and 60–80% of strategic plans fail to deliver on one or more key objectives).
  3. Describe how your business or social enterprise will change and transform itself to deliver sustainable results and impact during the ten-year investment period.
  4. Develop business and financial acumen within the entire leadership and management team.

To start, review the Business Plan and Investment Readiness Checklists found in the Business Impact Accelerator Library. Examine these documents as a team. You’ll see a direct connection with the Deliverables you’ve been creating in Modules 1–3 of Business Impact Accelerator. Then, identify 2–3 team members (including yourself) to draft a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan over the next 4–6 weeks. The time frame is approximate as it will depend on the availability of staff and the quality of your current business plan and financial statements.

Download and use the Action Plan tool from Change Accelerator to organize this important assignment. Be sure to set aside time on a weekly basis to “touch base” and check progress. Ensure the planning team has access to all of the Deliverables generated so far in Business Impact Accelerator, as well as the 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer created in the previous Activity of this Module.

Business Plan Requirements

The Business Plan Checklist explains requirements for each of the eleven sections. Aim to keep the main part of your plan to 25–30 pages (plus or minus). The five-year pro forma financial statements go in the Appendix, along with other supporting documents you feel are essential to “make your case” to women and HeForShe investors on your crowdfund investment platform-of-choice.

We recommend everyone in the planning team as well as larger leadership or management team purchase a copy of The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan by Tim Berry. Mr. Berry has a website called Plan as You Go that also provides supporting information. Review the Table of Contents in this book and go to any section that is of interest at any time during the planning, writing, review, and revision process.

We recommend you consider using the LivePlan business planning platform. This tool is offered by Mr. Berry’s firm (Palo Alto Software) and provides a number of advantages (e.g., benchmarking against organizations of similar focus and size). Also, the software will help you learn about and focus on key financial metrics used by investors, especially the angel investors who will be attracted to your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer and its potential internal rate of return (or IRR) of 15–25%. Plus, this feature of LivePlan will increase the financial and business acumen of your team.

If you do have a current business plan, you may need to rewrite a few sections or reconfigure some content to align with the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan Checklist. Our template is a bit different than conventional business plan templates because an enterprise driven by sustainable 10X impact is a much different entity than one focused only on maximizing short-term profit. This is the reason why we include a few more sections that what is typically required in pitch decks or investor-focused business plans. You’ll appreciate this when women and HeForShe investors respond positively (and quickly) to your high-quality Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

Near the end of the planning and writing process, select 1 or 2 individuals to be the final editors and polishers of the five-year plan. You will need to integrate your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer into the plan, along with your growth capital budget and itemized list of needs. Then, proceed to the Cash Flow Pressure Test, the next Deliverable in this Activity of Module 3. You’ll address the results of this Pressure Test in the section of your business plan titled Financial Performance (and possibly in the Appendix as well). After you’ve conducted the Cash Flow Pressure Test, schedule a time to review your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan with the entire team.

And remember, you may need to “iterate” between the business plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer during this time. This process is not perfectly linear.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, change coaches should ask these questions:

  1. Did we adequately address all questions of the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan Checklist, including the question of positive impact on women?
  2. Did we address and resolve any issues that surfaced in the development of this plan, including pro forma financial statements for the next five years?
  3. Is this a plan that will capture the attention of women and HeForShe investors in the WIIN 10X Impact Forum and on our funding portal-of-choice?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 4–6 weeks for you and your team to create and review a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan (including pro forma income, balance sheet, and cash-flow statements).

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Sinnova Tek

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about business plans, business planning, and accounting software, we recommend the following:

  • The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan by Tim Berry (check out the Plan As You Go website).
  • LivePlan (look for LivePlan Blog at the bottom of the main menu).
  • QuickBooks (look for Support and QuickBooks Resource Center at the bottom).

Two additional business planning software systems you may want to check out are BizPlan and BizPlanBuilder. They offer many free resources and articles about planning, cash-flow management, and business development. BizPlanBuilder also sells other systems focused on marketing and sales, human resources, and safety (as does Palo Alto Software)

We also recommend:

Next Step

Cash Flow Pressure Test

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Cash Flow Pressure Test

Required Materials:

To conduct a Cash Flow Pressure Test, you will need the five-year pro forma financial statements developed for your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan. Also, you will need to visit several websites that have information on improving cash flow and cash flow management practices.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review the pro forma financial statements created for your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, including balance sheet, income statement, and cash-flow statement.
  2. Conduct “what-if analyses” by examining the impact of several revenue growth scenarios on key cash flow and profitability metrics of your business or social enterprise.
  3. Share results with the team and determine if there are any changes to be made in the five-year business plan and financial forecasts.
  4. Evaluate opportunities for improving the liquidity and cash flow of your enterprise, including raising prices to cover the revenue sharing percentage to be offered to women and HeForShe investors.
  5. Incorporate Cash Flow Pressure Test results in your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

Coaching Tips:

In his QuickBooks Resource Center article, 3 Simple Ways to Optimize Your Cash Flow, Jimmy Daly writes: “82% of businesses that shut their doors cite a poor understanding of management of cash flow as a primary reason.” And, you’ve learned from the Strategyzer Blog post, Why Companies Fail & How to Prevent It, the top reason investor–funded startups failed in a study of business failure was “running out of cash.”

It is essential you anticipate the positive and negative impact that revenue growth will have on the liquidity and cash flow of your enterprise. Otherwise, you might find the “cash flow roller coaster” to be a stressful ride. As we described in several sections of Gender Wealth Strategy©, growth (especially hyper-growth of 50%+ per year) can negatively impact the ability of your enterprise to forecast and manage cash flow.

Your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer is built on revenue growth projections that you and your team must deliver on during the five years of scaling-up as well as entire ten-year investment period. One way to stand out from all the other crowdfund investment campaigns is to show prospective investors that you pressure tested the impact of different revenue growth scenarios on key cash flow and profitability metrics.

The LivePlan business planning software will help you quickly perform “what-if” analyses. But you may also benefit from the assistance of an outside financial resource if you do not have access to internal staff. Typically, these professionals will be able to conduct different “what-if” analyses to ensure you and your team are forecasting practical growth targets.

The Pressure Test

The Cash Flow Pressure Test we’d like you and 1–2 other members of your team to conduct is straightforward. You’ve previously identified an average annual revenue growth rate for the ten-year revenue-based investment period. In this test, we’d like you to evaluate what would happen to cash flow and profitability if your revenue declined by that same amount for three consecutive years. Then, do it again by doubling the amount of decline for three consecutive years. And then, one more time.

For example, if you’re projecting a 10% average annual revenue growth for the ten-year investment period, we’d like you to examine what would happen to your cash flow and profitability if revenue growth declined by 10% for three straight years. Then, double this amount to a 20% decline for three straight years. Then, one more time, test a decline of 40% for three straight years.

If you were working in a business or social enterprise during the years 2008–2012, then you will remember the devastating impact the Wall Street Meltdown and Financial Crisis had on businesses and communities in the U.S., Canada, and world. And now, how about the negative short-term and long-term impacts of the Covid-19 global pandemic?

Perhaps you or someone you know may have experienced this “pain” firsthand. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to plan for the future – good, bad, or ugly. You and your team must anticipate and be ready for all three scenarios.

On the other side of this Cash Flow Pressure Test, look at doubling your growth projections to 20%, and then 40%, and then 80% for three consecutive years. What happens to the key cash flow and profitability metrics of your enterprise under these scenarios?

Ironically, it’s the unrelenting pressure of growth (especially hyper-growth or growth greater than 50% per year) that causes high-flying enterprises to “crash and burn.”

In their book Growing Pains, Eric Flamholtz, Ph.D. and Yvonne Randle, Ph.D. describe this phenomena and outline solutions to manage the transition of your enterprise from one stage of growth to another. In Module 4 of Business Impact Accelerator, we’ll introduce you to the Paradox of Growth developed by Bain Consulting (“growth creates complexity and complexity kills growth”).

Improving Cash Flow

After completing the Cash Flow Pressure Test, you’ll include and discuss results in the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan. Before you do that, however, meet with the entire team to review test results. Is there anything in your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer, five-year Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, financial forecasts, scaling action plans, or overall strategy that requires revision or adjustment? Are there opportunities to improve the short-term liquidity and cash flow of your enterprise (e.g., raising prices in order to cover the revenue sharing percentage you are planning to offer investors)?

This issue of cash flow management is so critical to achieving your Primary Goal of scaling impact and growing sustainably that we’d like to draw your attention to three websites that will help you improve cash flow and cash flow management practices. The three resources we recommend are:

  1. QuickBooks: click on Support in the main navigation bar and look for Resource Center at the bottom, then click on Cash Flow; a variety of articles, guides, tools, and videos are available free of charge (be sure to check out the article on the Stagger Chart which will help you and your team improve forecasting skills).
  2. Scaling Up: look for Tools in the main navigation bar; then Cash; look for information on The Power of One and CASh (Cash Acceleration Strategies); more information on The Power of One is available in the book Scaling Up and at the Cash Flow Story website.
  3. Cash Flow Story: look for Key Concepts in the main navigation bar.

By conducting these pressure tests and improving the management of cash flow in your enterprise, you will be able to safely afford the revenue sharing percentage in your 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer and reduce pain of the “cash flow roller coaster.”

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, change coaches should ask these questions:

  1. What did we learn about our financial situation by conducting these “what-if” scenarios?
  2. What steps do we need to take to improve our cash flow and liquidity?
  3. What longer-term actions do we need to consider to ensure we can effectively manage our cash flow under different revenue growth scenarios (positive or negative)?
  4. How is our team and the organization doing on the Change Accelerator Project Dashboard?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 4–6 hours (over several sessions) to conduct these Cash Flow Pressure Tests and discuss implications with the entire team.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Danone North America and Danone Canada

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about cash flow and financial management, we recommend the following:

To learn more about business plans, and business planning and accounting software, we advise the following:

  • The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan by Tim Berry (check out the Plan As You Go website).
  • LivePlan (look for LivePlan Blog at the bottom of the main menu).
  • QuickBooks (look for Support and QuickBooks Resource Center at the bottom).

We also suggest:

  • The Art of Startup Finance (free 10-part video series from the Kauffman FoundersSchool).
  • Growing Pains: Building Sustainably Successful Organization by Eric G. Flamholtz, Ph.D. and Dr. Yvonne Randle, Ph.D.

Next Step

Confirm Organization Readiness

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will confirm the readiness of your organization for growth, change, and transformation. You’ll do this by completing the Business Transformation Readiness Assessment and creating a Case for Change Story.

Confirming readiness is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, 40–60% of strategic initiatives fail to deliver results and 50% of businesses fail by their fifth year. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to assure investors that your organization is ready for investment and ready to deliver sustainable results.

Business Transformation Readiness Assessment will help you diagnose the current health of your business and organization development efforts. Case for Change Story will help you communicate the strategic direction and vision of your business or social enterprise.

Together, these Deliverables will enable you and your team to confirm and improve organization readiness to embark on a ten-year journey of sustainable growth and impact.

Business Transformation Readiness Assessment

Required Materials:

To complete the Business Transformation Readiness Assessment, you will need to visit the TransformationReady website.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Visit the TransformationReady website and review About the Assessment, including sections titled How It Works and What is Business Transformation?
  2. Take the free confidential assessment focused on the readiness of your business or social enterprise to manage change and lead a business transformation initiative.
  3. Open the TransformationReady Results email and review your assessment profile, including a comparison of your scores with averages for various industries in the TransformationReady database.
  4. Print your assessment results directly from the website page or record scores and suggestions for improving your organization’s readiness.
  5. Discuss and analyze results from the Business Transformation Readiness Assessment and incorporate any “next steps” into Scaling Action Plans, Case for Change Story, or other change management activities.

Coaching Tips:

In the military, readiness assessments are a way of life, especially if a combat or support unit is getting ready for deployment. Yet, in many business or social enterprises, leaders and managers often assume that because they are “in charge,” everyone in the organization is ready, willing, and able to move forward on a major strategic initiative or project.

During Mark’s career as a Certified Management Consultant™, he referenced and used this video–“They’re Not Ready”–from the motion picture The Last Samurai to drive home the point about readiness. We won’t tell you what happens in the next scene of this compelling movie and story. Needless to say, it doesn’t turn out very well for the young soldiers when they have their first (and last) encounter with an experienced army of samurai warriors.

To help you avoid this negative result in your enterprise, you and your team have access to the online Business Transformation Readiness Assessment (BTRA) from Emergent Consultants, creators of the Change Accelerator© and Rocket Manager™ platforms. BTRA is a free, confidential assessment that takes five minutes to complete and will help you gauge the health of your current organizational change and transformation efforts. It consists of 30 questions focused in six areas: (1) Governance, (2) Urgency, (3) Sponsorship, (4) Engagement, (5) Alignment and (6) Sustainability.

Visit the TransformationReady website and review About the Assessment and the two sections titled How It Works and What is Business Transformation? Then, click on Take the Free Assessment. You’ll need to enter your name and contact information in order to receive results by email.

In minutes, you’ll receive a TransformationReady Results email with your assessment profile. Open the link and review your scores in each of the six areas. A short analysis is provided for each section with 1–2 suggestions for improving readiness. Scroll down the screen to see how your results compare to average scores from companies in the TransformationReady database. Go ahead and print the web page or record the scores and improvement suggestions prior to meeting with your fellow team members.

Are You Ready?

Next, facilitate a discussion about TransformationReady results with your team. Go around the room and capture scores on a flipchart pad for each individual in each of the six sections of the assessment. Calculate a team average for each section and compare your scores against the averages of companies in the TransformationReady database.

Look for wide variation in scores and if one is found, ask team members for more information (“tell us more”). Use active listening skills to assess if your enterprise is truly ready to move forward in launching the scaling plans in your five-year Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and/or raising flexible growth capital on a crowdfund investment platform. Do not make the assumption everyone is “on-board” or you may replicate the experience of the young soldiers in The Last Samurai.

Continue to use the BTRA, along with Change Accelerator Phase Health Checks, to gauge the current level of organizational readiness for growth, change, and transformation. Note that “readiness” is not something to be achieved once and forgotten. As you grow 5-10% or more each year during the next decade, expect to see readiness levels increase and decrease. The BTRA and Phase Health Checks will help you recognize “early warning signs” and take proactive action.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. What opportunities do we have for improving our level of readiness for organizational change and business transformation?
  2. Was there a wide variation in our individual assessment results or are we in agreement on our strengths and weaknesses in the six areas of the assessment?
  3. Is this team ready for the changes and transformations that will take place in the next ten years?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 1–2 hours for you and your team to complete, discuss results of the Business Transformation Readiness Assessment, and make decisions on “next steps.”

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

King Arthur Flour Company

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about strategic change and transformation, we recommend the following:

  • Emergent Consultants (look for Transformation Resources and a free newsletter, journal, and white papers; Emergent is also the creator of Rocket Manager™, an online management development program we highly recommend.
  • Growing Pains: Building Sustainably Successful Organizations by Eric G. Flamholtz, PhD. and Yvonne Randle, PhD.
  • Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change by William Bridges, PhD. with Susan Bridges.
  • Getting Your Organization to Change: A Guide to Putting Your Strategy into Action by Dennis T. Jaffe, PhD., and Cynthia D. Scott, PhD., MPH.

Next Step

Case for Change Story

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Case for Change Story

Required Materials:

To create a Case for Change Story, you will need the Change Accelerator platform plus your Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact and Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Download and review the Case for Change tool from the Change Accelerator© Toolkit.
  2. Form a small group of 2–3 team members (including yourself) to develop a draft Case for Change Story.
  3. Review and polish the Case for Change Story and presentation.
  4. Schedule a series of “town hall” meetings with managers and frontline teams to present the Case for Change Story.
  5. Review feedback from these meetings and identify ways to build employee engagement and support for your scaling and growth plans.

Coaching Tips:

In this part of Confirm Organization Readiness, you and your team will build on results from the Business Transformation Readiness Assessment. You’ll create a presentation for other managers and frontline teams to explain the major changes coming to your business or social enterprise.

Without doubt, your managers and employees have taken notice of the work to assess, improve, and plan for the scaling (and potential funding) of your enterprises’ positive impact. It’s now time to share the key elements of your vision and strategy before finalizing scaling plans and launching your crowdfund campaign. You and your team need to realize this activity is more than a one-way series of communications. If you’ve been using the ACT™ Model and Change Accelerator Phase Health Checks, then you know how important it is to prepare people for change. Reference the Business Impact Accelerator Library for the six change infographics if you or team members need a quick reminder.

To start development of your presentation, download and review the Case for Change tool from Change Accelerator©. Next, form a small group of 2–3 team members, and create a Case for Change Story. Follow instructions in the tool and prepare a draft for the entire team to review. Note that much of the Case for Change Story already has been developed in Modules 1–3 of Business Impact Accelerator©,

Be sure to incorporate your Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact into the presentation. Discussing the “strategic destination” is important to give your enterprise a sense of direction (remember Proverbs 29:18?). As well, be sure to discuss the upcoming 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign you’re aiming to launch, including an overview of the benefits of revenue-based growth capital.

This small group can present the Case for Change Story to the entire management or leadership team and ask for feedback and improvement suggestions. Depending on the size of your enterprise, this team might be involved in “cascading” the presentation to their departments and frontline teams. Use the 3:1 rule of thumb for the presentation – three minutes of presentation/discussion for each slide shared. This will provide 45 minutes of presentation with another 15 minutes for questions from employees attending “town hall-style meetings.”

Communicate Honestly and Directly

Be very clear and direct about each of the Case for Change Story elements, especially “expectations.” If you tell employees you want their feedback, then you must be ready to receive that feedback and “close the loop” by following up on each and every suggestion or comment that is provided (whether given in person or provided anonymously).

The Change Accelerator Toolkit has several other tools that may be of benefit in preparing for your presentations:

  • Communications Strategy
  • Elevator Pitch
  • Manager Enrollment Plan

At the conclusion of these meetings, tell employees your door is open to any and all conversations about the changes coming to your business or social enterprise. Be sure to mention you’ll keep them in-the-loop as your crowdfund investment campaign preparations near completion. You may wish to conduct another round of town-hall meetings to review over the specifics of your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer, including the do’s and don’ts of advertising and marketing your 3X-in-10™ Growth Capital Campaign to prospective investors (more information on this in the Module 6 Activity titled, Promote 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer).

We do not recommend using a survey after your presentation to assess results. A better approach is to engage directly with employees in small groups or one-to-one. This principle of Management by Walking Around (MBWA) is critical at this early stage of change to assure employees that you and your team will lead them safely through each phase of this ten-year journey of growth, change, and transformation.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we create a realistic and compelling story of our future plans?
  2. Did we make a positive impression and open the doors to ongoing conversations?
  3. Is everyone in our enterprise ready to scale our positive social and environmental impact?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 6–8 hours to create, review, and polish your Case for Change Story.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Galileo Learning

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about leading change and communicating vision, we recommend the following:

  • “How to Lead Change Management” (YouTube video).
  • Design a Better Business (book and website; look for the 5 Bold Steps Vision® Canvas, Cover Story Vision© Canvas, and Storytelling Canvas).
  • Leading Change by John Kotter.
  • Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter and Holger Rathgerber.
  • Who Killed Change? Solving the Mystery of Leading People Through Change by Ken Blanchard, John Britt, Judd Hoekstra, and Pat Zigarmi.

Next Step

Module Three Review

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Module Three Review

Module Three of Business Impact Accelerator focused on these Deliverables and Outcomes:

  • Scaling and Growth Capital Objectives (identify the key results to be achieved during scale-up)
  • Scaling Action Plans (plan the financial and human resources needed to deliver on the scaling objectives)
  • 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer (calculate a safe percentage of revenue to share with investors during the ten-year growth capital investment period)
  • Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan (create a high-quality scaling plan and realistic financial projections to achieve “take-off” and sustainable growth)
  • Cash Flow Pressure Test (examine the impact of different growth scenarios on the cash flow and profitability of your enterprise during the time it takes to reach take-off)
  • Business Transformation Readiness Assessment (diagnose the current health of your business and organization development efforts)
  • Case for Change Story (communicate the strategic direction and vision of your business or social enterprise)

So, how did you and your team do? Were you able to complete all of these deliverables and generate these intended outcomes?

Now, on to Module 4 and Generate Business Impact!

Transform Business Impact

Module Two Description

In this second Module of Business Impact Accelerator©, you and your team will transition from assessing to transforming the strategic and operational impact of your business or social enterprise. By completing these “design thinking” activities, you’ll create a blueprint for sustainable growth and impact. You and your team will complete four Activities …

  1. Continuously Improve Impact
  2. Envision Sustainable 10X Impact
  3. Design 10X Impact Business Model
  4. Validate 10X Impact Business Model

… and produce seven Deliverables:

  • B Impact Improvement Plans
  • Customer Persona and Journey Canvases
  • Statements of Core Purpose and Values
  • Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact
  • High Impact Value Proposition Canvas
  • Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas
  • Investment Readiness Level Canvas

These Deliverables will enable you and your team to build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that differentiates you from competitors focused only on maximizing short-term profit.

For each Deliverable, we provide step-by-step instructions and coaching tips for completion. We also feature a Certified B Corporation to benchmark and offer a list of resources to help you manage the transition of your enterprise from one stage of growth to another. If you have any questions, please contact us directly through this website.

Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will start improving the social and environmental impact of your enterprise. You’ll do this by developing quarterly B Impact Improvement Plans.

Improving your business impact is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy, the strategy of Positive Impact is rapidly becoming a key driver of competitive advantage and differentiation. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to “measure what matters” and improve the impact you generate for stakeholders.

B Impact Improvement Plans will help you embed impact into your daily operations and organization culture. This Deliverable will enable you and your team to progress toward B Corp Certification and gain recognition as an enterprise that “does well by doing good.”

B Impact Improvement Plans

Required Materials:

To develop B Impact Improvement Plans, you will need to access the baseline B Impact Assessment Report you finished in Module 1.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review the baseline B Impact Assessment Report you started or completed in Module 1 of Business Impact Accelerator.
  2. Download and review the Action Plan tool from the Change Accelerator© Toolkit.
  3. Create or update a B Impact Improvement Plan (use the action planning tool from Change Accelerator) every 90 days to continuously improve your social and environmental impact and earn more assessment points.
  4. Conduct quarterly strategy reviews of Improvement Plans to track progress toward B Corp Certification and celebrate successes in building a sustainable, high-impact enterprise and work culture.

Coaching Tips:

This Activity is focused on developing and implementing a continuous impact improvement process within your enterprise driven by the B Impact Assessment. If you are seeking to scale positive impact and build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise, then you need a systematic process for doing this.

When you access your B Impact Assessment account, be sure to read Step 3 (Improve Your Impact). In this section, you’ll see a number of best practice guides and improvement case studies provided by B Lab. Log into your account and go to the B Impact Assessment you started in the previous module of Business Impact Accelerator©.

Use the main navigation menu to find your B Impact Assessment Report. Look for the “filter tabs” at the top of “Full Assessment Improvement Report” and focus on improvement opportunities aligned with the “vital few” areas you and your team identified in the first Activity of Module 1. As you click on each potential improvement, you’ll see the assessment question, your answer, and three tabs (“Explain This”, “Show Example”, and “In Practice”). Be sure to click on “Score Value” in the lower right to see how many points your enterprise could earn by answering or improving on the response.

Next, download and review the Action Plan tool from the Change Accelerator© Toolkit and develop a 90-day plan to implement improvement opportunities identified from the B Impact Assessment. Identify a manageable number of opportunities consistent with the available time and resources in your enterprise. Be sure to focus first on the “low-hanging fruit.” The goal here is to create immediate “wins” and build confidence and positive energy for the process of continuous impact improvement.

Culture Change

Use all of the resources from the B Impact Assessment and Change Accelerator platforms (e.g., best practice guides, case studies, Project Dashboard, Phase Health Checks, etc.) to accelerate learning and change. The goal is to embed the B Impact Assessment and 90-day action plans (and later, annual improvement plans) into the daily operations and culture of your enterprise. These tools and processes will “sustain the change” you’re asking everyone to get behind and support.

As you complete items on the 90-day Improvement Plans, be sure to update your assessment answers on the B Impact Assessment. Take time to communicate progress to your team and organization. Don’t take small improvements for granted. This is essential for putting the Principle of Involvement into action and reinforcing positive action. Continue to go back to Change Accelerator for other tools that will help you and your team strengthen its commitment to sustainability and building a high-impact enterprise.

Be sure to save copies of your B Impact Improvement Plans to record progress as you work toward B Corp Certification (reference Module 4 of Business Impact Accelerator).

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. What are we learning about our social and environmental impact?
  2. Did we make progress these last 90 days in improving our impact?
  3. Did we use a gender lens to identify impact improvements within our enterprise?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 4–6 hours (once per quarter) to create a B Impact Improvement Plan. Additional time will be required to monitor implementation of 90-day action plans and report/celebrate progress at the end of each quarter.

Featured Certified B Corporation:

Greyston Bakery

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about measuring, managing, and improving impact, we recommend subscribing to the B Lab Channel on YouTube.

Next Step

Envision Sustainable 10X Impact

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will transform the strategic vision and brand identity of your enterprise. You’ll do this with the Customer Persona and Journey Canvases, Statements of Core Purpose and Values, and Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact.

Transforming the vision of your enterprise is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, the current system of finance and investment is biased against enterprises that do not maximize short-term profit. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven company, it is incumbent on you to attract customers and investors driven by mission, purpose, and sustainable impact.

Customer Persona and Journey Canvases will help you gain insight into the customers you currently serve (or may decide to serve in the future). Statements of Core Purpose and Values will help you redefine and articulate the “why” behind your enterprises’ existence. 

Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact will help you establish a strategic destination for the ten-year journey of growth, change, and transformation you’re preparing to launch.

Together, these Deliverables will inspire you and your team to build a sustainable, high-impact enterprise that delivers enduring social and economic value.

Customer Persona and Journey Canvases

Required Materials:

To create Customer Persona and Journey Canvases, you will need the Design a Better Business and Value Proposition Design books. You will also need to visit the Design a Better Business website and use results from customer impact interviews conducted in Module 1.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Download and review the Persona Canvas and Customer Journey Canvas from the Free Tools section of the Design a Better Business website.
  2. Review pages 98–103 in Design a Better Business and page 106–119 in Value Proposition Design.
  3. Review the feedback and insights gleaned from customer impact interviews conducted previously.
  4. Create a Persona Canvas and Customer Journey Canvas for one or more customer segments served by your business or social enterprise.
  5. Save these Canvases for your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and for ongoing use throughout Business Impact Accelerator©, especially Module 4 (Improve Customer Experiences).

Coaching Tips:

In 2008, we facilitated a leadership development program with the theme: “It starts with you, but it’s about them (the customer).” One of the exercises in this program asked the 45 participants to “walk in the shoes” of customers and visualize their journey at every “touchpoint” (both online and in-person). It was an eye-opening exercise for “inside-out” leaders more concerned about internal metrics than the impact they created in the lives of customers.

In this Activity, you and your team will use the Persona and Customer Journey Canvases from Design a Better Business to walk in the shoes of customers. You will find both Canvases in the Free Tools/Understand section of the Design a Better Business website. Be sure to read through the descriptions and instructions provided on the site for each canvas.

Also, read pages 98–103 in Design a Better Business and pages 106–119 of Value Proposition Design before completing these canvases. And, use the feedback and insights gleaned from customer impact interviews conducted in Module 1. From these interviews, you will have gained insight into the needs, expectations, and emotions of your customers.

There is a quote on the Design a Better Business website that is relevant to the scaling and growth journey you and your team are preparing to launch: “The Customer Journey is relevant for everyone. Everyone on the team, and in your company, must understand what your customers experience, how they feel, what they struggle with, and how you can improve their experience. The underlying goal: to solve our customer’s problems and make them happy.”

Personalize the Canvas

As you create Persona and Customer Journey Canvases, keep these thoughts in mind:

  • Creating the Canvases will help you to more clearly define the root cause (or causes) of the problem (or problems) you solve for customers.
  • Give each segment a face and name on the Persona Canvas; that is, you need to “make it personal” so your team can empathize with the world customers live in and experience every day.
  • Think “outside-in” from the customer’s point of view; her or his goal isn’t to purchase your product or service, but to solve a problem, reduce pains, and create gains important to them.
  • Results from customer impact interviews could be pointing your enterprise toward “low-hanging fruit” that will immediately improve the experience of your customers. It may also inform you and your team that your enterprise has an opportunity to create even more impact and value for customers (and ultimately for you).
  • Understanding the journey of your customers is key to delivering high-impact value propositions and creating retention levels that enable you to deliver sustainable results during the ten-year journey of growth, change, and transformation.

As you develop Persona and Customer Journey Maps, be sure to identify at least ten “earlyevangelists” or “early adopters” as discussed on page 118 of Value Proposition Design. These “rock stars” could be very helpful in providing feedback for the new value proposition and business model you’ll be designing, prototyping, and testing later in this section of Business Impact Accelerator©.

Also, be sure to review the Business Plan Checklist to see where you will place this information in the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan that you and your team will be creating in Module 3 of Business Impact Accelerator.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we completely describe the persona of our selected customer(s)?
  2. Did we discover any “low-hanging fruit” that would help us to improve the customer experience?
  3. Are these canvases based on any assumptions we need to confirm or validate?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 3–4 hours to complete both the Persona and Customer Journey Canvases.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Seventh Generation

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about customer empathy and the value of putting customers first, we recommend you subscribe to the Hallmark Business Connections Channel on YouTube and watch these videos:

We also suggest:

Next Step

Statements of Core Purpose and Values

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Statements of Core Purpose and Values

Required Materials:

To create Statements of Core Purpose and Values, you will need an article from the HBR.org website as well as visit the Whole Foods Market website.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Purchase, download, and review an article from HBR.org titled Building Your Company’s Vision.
  2. Review the mission and core values statements of Whole Foods Market.
  3. Develop or upgrade Statements of Core Purpose and Values for your business or social enterprise.
  4. Save a copy of your Statements of Core Purpose and Values for use in the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan you’ll develop in Module 3 and for ongoing use in the Business Impact Accelerator© program.

Coaching Tips:

Many enterprises claim to be guided by a purpose-driven mission and set of core values. However, during moments of crisis or “ethical challenge,” we often see these guiding principles sacrificed for short-term profit or personal greed. You don’t need to think too long about the number of corporations in the past that have compromised their publicly stated beliefs and principles for short-term gain.

So, what is a purpose or mission statement? And what are core values? To answer these questions, go to HBR.org and purchase an article titled Building Your Company’s Vision (by James C. Collins and Jerry L. Porras). You’ll need to create an account (if you don’t already have one) and search for this classic article by the authors of Built to Last. HBR.org charges $8.95 per article, but they also provide several free articles to read each month. Each member of your team will need to review this article.

There are many approaches to creating a mission statement or statement of core purpose (perhaps too many). However, we like the advice of Kevin Starr of the Mulago Foundation (as described in the +Acumen course, Business Models for Social Enterprise:

  • A Mission describes what you want to change for whom.
  • Use less than ten words.
  • Use a structure of verb, target, outcome.

To identify or improve on the values of your enterprise, we recommend visiting the Whole Foods Market website and reviewing their six Core Values and Statement of Higher Purpose. Notice how these statements are focused “outside-in” on their family of stakeholders, not primarily on the internal operations or organizational culture.

Is there any doubt about the values of Whole Foods? We think this is one of the primary reasons that Amazon purchased Whole Foods at a premium price in mid-2017.

Next, organize and facilitate one or more sessions to identify and discuss the core purpose and values of your business or social enterprise. Remember to stay focused on your family of stakeholders (like Whole Foods) and keep the priority “jobs, pains, and gains” of customers in mind. Use the approach Whole Foods Market has taken to describe your core purpose (mission) and core values (beliefs or guiding principles).

This information will need to be included in the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan you’ll be developing and documenting in Module 3 of Business Impact Accelerator. Plus, your Statements of Core Purpose and Values will raise the “trust factor” of women and HeForShe investors in the 10X Impact Forum. They will be eager to learn the “why” behind your enterprises’ existence as well as the values that guide your business plan.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Does our Core Purpose (or Mission Statement) capture the true essence of who we are and what we do?
  2. Will stakeholders understand at-a-glance why our enterprise exists?
  3. Did we define 5–8 Core Values and are they described clearly?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 6–8 hours total (over several sessions) to create Statements of Core Purpose and Values.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

Eileen Fisher

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about purpose and values, we recommend these YouTube videos:

We also recommend three books about building purpose-driven enterprises:

  1. Built to Last by Collins and Porras (this book was written in the 1990’s and provides a timeless perspective of what it takes to build an enterprise that delivers enduring social and economic value).
  2. Conscious Capitalism by John Mackay and Raj Sisodia (Mackay is the co-founder of Whole Foods Market); you’ll learn more about Conscious Capitalism® in Develop Business and Financial Acumen (Module 5 of Business Impact Accelerator).
  3. Conscious Capitalism Field Guide: Tools for Transforming Your Organization by Raj Sisodia, Timothy Henry, and Thomas Eckschmidt.

Next Step

Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact

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Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact

Required Materials:

To create a Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact, you will need to use the HBR.orgarticle from the previous section and visit the Stanford Social Innovation Review website.

To Do List:

There are six actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Download and review an article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled Scaling Impact.
  2. Review an article from the Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship titled Approaches to Scaling Impact.
  3. Review pages 73–77 of the HBR.org article titled Building Your Company’s Vision.
  4. Download and review the Reverse Imaging tool from the Change Accelerator© Toolkit and Vision Story Template from the Business Impact Accelerator© Library.
  5. Use the Vision Story Template to develop your organization’s ten-year Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact.
  6. Save this Vision Story for use in your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and throughout Business Impact Accelerator©.

Coaching Tips:

There is a verse from the Bible that is often used during the visioning phase of strategic planning: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It’s from the book of Proverbs, chapter 29 and verse 18. A review of the original Greek and Aramaic reveals the underlying meaning of this prophetic statement:

  • “Where there is no vision” refers to the absence of a “destination” or “picture of the future.”
  • “The people perish” refers not to physical demise, but to “traveling in circles.”

Is this not an apt description of the “desert experience” from biblical history? Well, this verse applies to many organizations and institutions in the 21st century. It is particularly true in the case of organizations that lack a “strategic vision” and lurch back and forth from one crisis to another, failing to generate sustainable impact, results, or progress. No wonder President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the verse in his first inaugural address to a country in the midst of a Great Depression.

In this part of Module 2, you and your team will create a ten-year Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact. Notice the words: ten-year … vision story … sustainable … 10X impact.

A Vision Story is not a narrative about scaling a business or social enterprise to deliver a 10X exit for private equity investors or 10X profit for bankers and lenders. Rather, it’s about scaling the positive social, economic, and environmental impact of your enterprise in a profitable, stable, and sustainable manner. One of the aims of the Women’s Wealth System (as discussed in Gender Wealth Strategy©), is to create a new system of finance and investment that both incentivizes and rewards organizations generating higher impact (10X) without a corresponding increase in operational costs.

To understand this line of thinking, ask the members of your team to schedule individual study time. There are three articles to download and/or review:

In the Scaling Impact article, author Jeffrey Bradach asks the question:“How can you get 100X the impact with only a 2X increase in size? This question speaks directly to the heart of a scaling strategy. The Approaches to Scaling Impact article will provide you and your team with different ideas for scaling the positive impact of your business or social enterprise. This information will be invaluable for the next two Activities of Module 2 (Design/Validate 10X Impact Business Model).

Pages 73–77 of Building Your Company’s Vision will provide you with the rationale for creating an envisioned future, including development of a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (or BHAG®). The purpose of a BHAG is to stretch your enterprise to achieve something many people thought impossible (at least in the beginning). In this case, your BHAG is related to the “10X impact” you and your team will aim to scale, fund, and accelerate over the next ten years.

What’s the Destination?

So, here’s the assignment for you and your team: create a one to two-page “vision story” set ten years into the future describing the sustainable, impact-driven enterprise you’ve successfully grown and the 10X impact you’ve generated for stakeholders.

To develop this vision, select 2–3 team members to work with you to create a draft Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact. You’ll need to download the Reverse Imaging tool from the Change Accelerator© Toolkit and the Vision Story Template from the Business Impact Accelerator© Library. These two documents will help you: (1) maintain an “outside-in” focus as you envision the future, (2) identify potential strategies for scaling the impact of your enterprise by 10X, and (3) write a one to two-page vision story.

Remember, this is not a linear problem to be solved. Channel the words of Buckminster Fuller to think about an envisioned future with exciting potential: 

A great way to think about your vision story’s opening paragraph is to visualize you are delivering a short address at a future New Year’s Eve celebration ten years into the future. Imagine welcoming everyone with these opening words: “It’s December 31, _____ (ten years into the future), and looking back on great success, __________ (fill in the blank and the rest of the story).”

One way to get started with this assignment is to ask all members of the leadership, management, or project team to individually write a 1–2 page Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact. The smaller group can then collate into one composite document. This Vision Story should be shared with the entire team, discussed, debated, and revised until the team feels it accurately reflects a compelling vision of your business or social enterprise for the next ten years.

Don’t be surprised if you change your Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact several times. In our experience, it usually takes 6–8 drafts. However, a high-quality Vision Story will provide your team and enterprise with a clear “True North” and guide the design and development of a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model and Business Plan.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. Did we create a compelling, exciting and practical Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact?
  2. Did we describe our BHAG and the why behind this goal?
  3. Did we describe the positive impact we would like to create for women in our Vision Story?

Estimated Time:

It will take the team approximately 12–16 hours to craft a Vision Story.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

New Belgium Brewing

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about vision and vision statements, we recommend the following videos:

We also suggest:

  • Visual Capitalist (daily infographic on future trends in business and investment).
  • Scaling Your Company (free 12-part video series from the Kauffman FoundersSchool).
  • How to Build a Startup (free Udacity course by Steve Blank).
  • Finally, Evidence That Managing for the Long Term Pays Off (Harvard Business Review article by Dominic Barton, James Manyika, and Sarah Keohane Williamson).
  • IRIS (or Impact Reporting and Investment Standards; provides a database of metrics used by the B Impact Assessment and impact investors).
  • Gender Lens Investing: Uncovering Opportunities for Growth, Revenue, and Impact by Joseph Quinlan and Jackie VanderBrug.

Next Step

Design 10X Impact Business Model

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will transform the business model of your business or social enterprise. You’ll do this by designing and prototyping a High Impact Value Proposition Canvas and Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas.

Transforming your business model is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, the business and investment strategy of Positive Impact is rapidly becoming a driver of competitive advantage and differentiation. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to design a scalable, profitable, and impactful business model aligned with your sustainable vision and brand.

High Impact Value Proposition Canvas will help you adopt an “outside-in” point of view and discover ways to create more value for current and new customers. Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas will help you find the right business model to deliver on the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG®) identified in your vision.

High Impact Value Proposition Canvas

Required Materials:

To design and prototype a High Impact Value Proposition Canvas, you will need the Value Proposition Design, Business Model Generation, and Design a Better Business books. You will also need the Business Impact Accelerator Library.

To Do List:

There are four actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review the Understand and Ideate chapters in Design a Better Business (pages 84–149).
  2. Review pages 102–103 (Six Ways to Innovate from the Customer Profile) in Value Proposition Design, as well as pages 144–157 (Finding the Right Business Model) and pages 98–99 (Identify High-Value Jobs).
  3. Implement the Coffee Challenge (page 121 in Design a Better Business) and rapidly prototype at least ten different value proposition canvases in the next 1–2 weeks.
  4. Select one High Impact Value Proposition Canvas for ongoing refinement, testing, and validation.

Coaching Tips:

In this section of Module 2, you and your team will engage customers to learn more about their priority jobs, pains, and gains. Your aim is to take an “outside-in” point of view and discover higher value benefits you could deliver to achieve the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG®) identified in your ten-year Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact.

Start this process by first reviewing the Understand and Ideate chapters in Design a Better Business. Be sure to examine the case studies, especially the Wavin story on page 93. This story is an excellent example of “outside-in” design thinking as well as creation of a Level 4 Customer Value Proposition (the free Wavin Academy). Note the comment CEO Richard van Delden makes on page 96: “We knew that there were other options worth exploring as well. So, rather than spend time arguing about the one option on the table, we decided first to validate our assumptions and learn from our customer first hand. We got out of the building.”

Also, review the Coffee Challenge described on page 121 of Design a Better Business. The Coffee Challenge is a customer discovery exercise you and your team should plan to accomplish in the next 2–3 weeks. Use the initial sketch of your enterprise’s Value Proposition Canvas from Module 1 to dive more deeply into the high-value jobs of customers (note–you may want to schedule a return visit with some of the “earlyevangelists” identified in your customer impact interviews). Pages 98–99 in Value Proposition Design outlines the information you will be seeking. Also, note there are other customer discovery tools in the “Understanding Customers” section of the book.

As you start to generate new ideas for potential high impact canvases, consider the information provided on page 131 of Design a Better Business (Improving the Lives of Millions). This example illustrates the importance of using your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG®) to evaluate prototypes.

Search, Not Execution

There are two other sections in Value Proposition Design we recommend before conducting the Coffee Challenge. On pages 102–103, there is a summary of Six Ways to Innovate from the Customer Profile. Note the third example, which supports The Level 4 Customer Value Proposition idea presented by Bill Lee in The Hidden Wealth of Customers (reference Module 1, Evaluate Customer Engagement).

As well, pages 144–157 in Value Proposition Design discuss the reality of searching for high-impact value propositions and business models. That is, you should expect this process to be “dynamic” as you work back and forth between the two canvases, arriving at a prototype to test and validate.

There is one more YouTube video we recommend you and your team watch (and watch together): “How to Grow Your Business and Sales Faster”. In this YouTube video, you’ll learn about an analytical framework for developing a revenue growth strategy using the 80/20 Principle.

Next, schedule and moderate “integration meetings” to ensure coordination and communication. As team members present prototype canvases, apply the Thinking Hats process outlined on pages 136–137 in Value Proposition Design.  If space is available, you may even want to designate an area of your enterprise as an “innovation center” and start involving a wider group of people in the process of transforming your value proposition and business model.

Be sure to select one High-Impact Value Proposition Canvas for further refinement, testing, and validation. In reality, you’ll be developing this Canvas at the same time as you design/redesign your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model.

Our last coaching tip focuses on the Business Plan Checklist you’ll be completing in Module 3 of Business Impact Accelerator©.  Note the section titled “Unique Solution.” This is where you’ll be communicating your high-impact value proposition (and business model) to women and HeForShe advocates.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. What did we learn from our meetings with customers?
  2. Did we discover any “high-value jobs” or priority pains and gains that could lead to a more impactful value proposition for women?
  3. Did we design and select one High Impact Value Proposition to test and validate with our Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model?

Estimated Time:

It will take you and your team approximately 2–3 weeks to design a High Impact Value Proposition Canvas.

Featured Certified B Corporation:  

Cotopaxi

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about creating value propositions and business models from an impact point-of-view, we recommend the following:

We also recommend these free online courses from +Acumen (on the NovoEd learning platform):

  • Social Entrepreneurship
  • Business Models for Social Enterprise
  • Introduction to Human-Centered Design
  • Social Impact Analysis

We also advise:

  • The Lean Approach (free 6-part video series from the Kauffman Founders School on Youtube)
  • The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less by Mark Joyner.
  • How to Build a Startup (free course on Udacity by Steve Blank).
  • Gender Lens Investing: Uncovering Opportunities for Growth, Returns, and Impact by Joseph Quinlan and Jackie VanderBrug.

Next Step

Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas

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Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas

Required Materials:

To design and prototype a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas, you will need the Value Proposition Design, Business Model Generation, and Design a Better Business books. You will also need to visit the Strategyzer website.

To Do List:

There are five actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review Business Model Canvas Ideation on pages 142–143 in Design a Better Business.
  2. Review Epicenters of Business Model Innovation on pages 135–145 in Business Model Generation.
  3. Review pages 122–123 and pages 156–157 in Value Proposition Canvas (or download these checklists from the Strategyzer website).
  4. Prototype at least six different business model canvases based on the information you gained from the Coffee Challenge and through developing your High Impact Value Proposition Canvas.
  5. Select one Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas to test and validate in the next Activity of Business Impact Accelerator©.

Coaching Tips:

In this part of Module 2, you and your team will prototype several business model canvases based on your customer discovery meetings and High Impact Value Proposition Canvas. You’ll focus your “what-if” thinking to design business models with the greatest potential to achieve your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact.

To start, review pages 142–143 in Design a Better Business and pages 135–145 in Business Model Generation. Both sections describe the “epicenter” approach to business model innovation using the business model canvas you created in Module 1 of Business Impact Accelerator.

Next, review the checklists on pages 122–123 and 156–157 of Value Proposition Design with the entire team. The first section covers ten questions to assess value proposition design while the second section focuses on issues to strengthen the business model. These checklists are also available on the Strategyzer website in the Resources section.

Business Model Ideas

We have listed several additional resources in the Recommended Resources section you may wish to consult. For example, the potential benefits of a recurring revenue model are one that you and your team should consider seriously. A subscription-based business model could be used to complement what you’re already doing and increase the cash flow and gross margins needed to afford a revenue royalty percentage of 1–10% (we’ll talk more about this in Module 3). Be sure to check out the resources on “scaling up” and the impact of growth on cash flow (it’s not always positively correlated).

Also, consider reviewing two other resources that might stimulate new business model ideas. The first resource is Business Model Gallery and the second is Business Model Zoo. Business Model Gallery offers affordable subscriptions for 1–12 months and provides access to 100+ business model canvases from a wide variety of enterprises. Business Model Zoo provides free access to their collection of reports on 100 business models.

Then, schedule and facilitate “prototyping sessions.” As before, apply the Thinking Hats process on pages 136–137 of Value Proposition Design to avoid backsliding into “yeah, buts” and “this will never work here.” At this stage of the search and discovery process, be receptive and open to any and all ideas. You never know when one crazy idea propels your enterprise to the next level of sustainable growth and impact (e.g., it happened at WR Systems, one of my clients from 2007-2011, and resulted in a new operating division).

Also, be sure to check out the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan Checklist. You’ll see an entire section (Unique Solution) devoted to your high-impact business model. And if you’re seeking to raise flexible revenue-based growth capital, women and HeForShe investors will want to know about the profitability, sustainability, and impact of your new and improved business model.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. How did our prototypes score on the “Seven Questions to Assess Your Business Model Design”?
  2. Did we consider combining prototypes to create an impact-driven business model aligned with our BHAG?
  3. Do we have one Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model to take into testing and validation?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 2–3 weeks to design a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas (this Deliverable overlaps with work on the High Impact Value Proposition Canvas).

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

3Degrees Group

Recommended Resources:

To generate more ideas for your transformed business model, we suggest the following:

  • Business on a Mission: How to Build a Sustainable Brand by Andy Last.
  • Gender Lens Investing: Uncovering Opportunities for Growth, Returns, and Impact by Joseph Quinlan and Jackie VanderBrug.
  • How to Grow Your Business with a Subscription Revenue Model by Nat Chiaffarano (available on KindleUnlimited).
  • Testing Business Ideas by David Bland and Alex Osterwalder.
  • The Invincible Company by Alex Osterwalder, Yves, Pigneur, Fred Etiemble, and Alan Smith.
  • The Next Step: Guiding You from Idea to Startup by Michael “Luni” Libes.

To learn more about scaling your business model, we recommend the following:

  • Scaling Up (you’ll find the book Scaling Up here, along with free resources and tools on strategy, growth, and cash flow management).
  • Visual Capitalist (daily infographic on future trends in business and investment).
  • Scaling Your Company (free 12-part video series from the Kauffman FoundersSchool).
  • How to Build a Startup (free course on Udacity by Steve Blank).
  • IRIS (or Impact Reporting and Investment Standards; provides a database of metrics used by the B Impact Assessment and impact investors).

Next Step

Validate 10X Impact Business Model

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Activity Description

In this Activity, you and your team will move from designing and prototyping a Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model to testing and validating its viability. You’ll track the progress of these validation efforts with the Investment Readiness Level Canvas.

Business model validation is important because as you learned in Gender Wealth Strategy©, lack of business model viability is the #1 reason founders cited for the failure of their startup. As one of the leaders of an impact-driven enterprise, it is incumbent on you to reduce the risk of business model failure and generate evidence that customers are responding to your value proposition and package of benefits.

Investment Readiness Level Canvas will help you track progress toward validation of a profitable and scalable business model aligned with your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact.

This Deliverable will enable your enterprise to assure women and HeForShe investors your business model is capable of generating positive cash flow and sustainable impact.

Investment Readiness Level Canvas

Required Materials:

To use the Investment Readiness Level Canvas, you will need the Value Proposition Design and Design a Better Business books. As well, you will need to visit the Design a Better Business website. You will also need to download resources from the Strategyzer website and Change Accelerator© platform.

To Do List:

There are six actions for you and your team to complete:

  1. Review content in Value Proposition Design, including Fit  (pages 42–63), and Testing Process (pages 198–199 and pages 188–252).
  2. Review the Strategyzer Blog post dated June 20, 2016, by Alex Osterwalder titled Why Companies Fail & How to Prevent It.
  3. Download and review The Progress Board and Testing Your Business Model: A Reference Guide from the Resources section on Strategyzer’s website.
  4. Review Introduction to Investment Readiness Level in Design a Better Business (pages 242–247) and download the Investment Readiness Level Canvas from the Design a Better Business website.
  5. Download the Action Plan tool from the Change Accelerator Toolkit and implement a test and validation plan specific for your Sustainable 10X Business Model.
  6. Track and record progress on the Investment Readiness Level Canvas and save a copy for the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan (to be developed in Module 3).

Coaching Tips:

In this part of Module 2, you will use the Investment Readiness Level Canvas to track progress in validating the Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model you and your team designed in the previous Activity. You’ll be using this Canvas in your five-year Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan to show prospective crowdfund investors how you mitigated the risk of business model failure.

As Value Proposition Design says on page 178: “When you start exploring new ideas, you are usually in a space of maximum uncertainty. You don’t know if your ideas will work. Refining them in a business plan won’t make them more likely to succeed.”

We think this statement is true regardless of the age, size, or type of enterprise you founded or now lead and manage. Envisioning a future of 10X impact is one thing, but being able to scale impact and achieve sustainable growth after scale-up is another matter. Given the failure rate of young ventures or new products and services in larger enterprises, it is essential to reduce uncertainty and risk before developing a business plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

As you review pages 42–63 in Value Proposition Design, note the three kinds of “fit” described on pages 48–49 (problem-solution fit, product-market fit, and business model fit). Access and download the June 20, 2016, post from the Strategyzer Blog. Here, Alex Osterwalder discusses a study of over 200 startups post failure. In FRACTL’s study, the top three reasons that founders cited for their organization’s failure were: (1) business model not viable, (2) ran out of cash, and (3) not enough traction.

After reading this post, download Testing Your Business Model: A Reference Guide from the Resources section of the Strategyzer website. This guide will provide you with ideas for testing the assumptions or hypotheses driving your new impact-driven business model. Then, review pages 198–199 in Chapter 3 of Value Proposition Design to learn about the testing and validation process recommended by the Strategyzer team. Additional information on each step is provided in pages 188–252 of the book.

Download and use The Progress Board from the Resources section of Strategyzer’s website. List your priority business model assumptions and hypotheses on this tool. Then, identify the combination of tests, minimum viable products, and other experiments that will provide evidence you are ready to scale your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model.

What is Your Plan to Test and Validate?

The Testing Your Business Model Reference Guide provides three focus areas and eight validation questions which will help you and your team create a test and validation plan specific to your enterprise. The priority areas and validation questions discussed in the Guide include:

  • Testing Interest and Relevance (Do potential customers show interest in your ideas? Are your ideas relevant to them? Are they interested enough to perform an action?)
  • Testing Willingness and Ability to Pay (Are potential customers interested enough in the features of your value proposition to buy? Will they put money where their mouth is?)
  • Testing Preferences and Priorities (Which features of your value proposition do potential customers refer? What do they really value? What do they prioritize?)

Next, download the Action Plan tool from Change Accelerator and with 2–3 members of your team, develop a test and validation plan specific to your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model. Note the free training resources available on the Strategyzer website (in addition to their affordable online programs) that you and your team can use to create a practical and viable testing process.

However, before finishing this action plan, review pages 242–247 in Design a Better Business. This section provides a quick overview of the Investment Readiness Level Canvas. Also, visit the Design a Better Business website and download the Canvas. Use this tool to shape the metrics you’ll be using to signal completion of each stage of the Investment Readiness Level Canvas.

Be sure to track progress of the 30–90 day (or longer) test and validation plan and document progress on the Canvas. Be specific with the completion date and metrics used by your business or social enterprise as evidence of investment readiness. By referencing or using the Investment Readiness Level Canvas in your Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan, you will impress women and HeForShe investors that your enterprise is ready to deliver on its 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer.

Review Questions:

Before moving to the Next Step, ask these questions:

  1. What did we learn about the integrity and viability of our impact-driven business model?
  2. Did we generate the right evidence of business model validation and investment readiness?
  3. Are we ready to move forward in preparing a five-year Sustainable 10X Impact Business Plan and 3X-in-10™ Revenue Sharing Offer? If not, what do we need to verify?

Estimated Time:

It will take approximately 6–8 hours (or more) to develop a high-quality test and validation plan. Execution of that plan will take anywhere from 30–90 days (or longer) depending on the age, type, and size of enterprise you’re leading and the nature of your new or improved business model and value proposition.

Featured Certified B Corporation: 

The Redwoods Group

Recommended Resources:

To learn more about the Investment Readiness Level Canvas, we recommend subscribing to Steve Blank’s Blog.

To find out more about customer development and business model validation, we suggest these resources from Michael Libes, Steve Blank, and Eric Ries:

  • The Next Step Series by Michael “Luni” Libes (a $10 per month online training program by an impact-driven entrepreneur turned revenue-based investor and head of a “conscious company accelerator”).
  • The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company (by successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor now turned consultant and educator Steve Blank).
  • The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneur’s Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (by Eric Ries).

We also recommend these recently published books (and related online learning programs) from Strategyzer:

  • Testing Business Ideas by David Bland and Alex Osterwalder.
  • The Invincible Company by Alex Osterwalder, Yves, Pigneur, Fred Etiemble, and Alan Smith.

We also advise:

  • The Lean Approach (free 6-part video series from the Kauffman FoundersSchool).
  • How to Build a Startup (free course on Udacity by Steve Blank).
  • 25 Need to Know Key Performance Indicators by Bernard Marr.
  • Key Performance Indicators: The 75 Measures Every Manager Needs to Know by Bernard Marr.

Next Step

Module Two Review

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Module Two Review

Module Two of Business Impact Accelerator focused on these Deliverables and Outcomes:

  • B Impact Improvement Plan (embed impact improvement into the daily operations and organization culture)
  • Customer Persona and Journey Canvases (gain insight into customers you currently serve or may decide to serve in the future)
  • Statements of Core Purpose and Values (redefine and articulate the “why” behind your enterprises’ existence)
  • Vision Story of Sustainable 10X Impact (establish a strategic destination for the ten-year journey of investment, growth, and transformation you’re preparing to launch)
  • High Impact Value Proposition Canvas (adopt an “outside-in” point of view and discover ways to create more value for current and new customers)
  • Sustainable 10X Impact Business Model Canvas (find the right business model to deliver on the Big Hairy Audacious Goal identified in your vision)
  • Investment Readiness Level Canvas (track progress toward the validation of a profitable and scalable business model aligned with your Vision of Sustainable 10X Impact)

So, how did you and your team do?  Were you able to complete all of these deliverables and generate these intended outcomes?

Now, on to Module 3, Scale Business Impact!