5 Benefits of Hiring a Social Business Consultant for Your Impact Start-Up
Are you considering hiring a social business consultant to help your impact start-up secure financial sustainability? Here are five of the most important reasons why hiring a social business consultant is a good idea.
If you’re an impact start-up founder, you know exactly what it feels like to be in the start-up world…
Dynamic start-up landscape.
Profits are being pushed as the ‘one’ way to measure success.
Faster growth and ‘more’, ‘more’, ‘more’ mentality.
How many times have you heard that social entrepreneurship is the ‘softest’ version of business?
I bet countless.
You’re balancing traditional business goals and requirements with a much greater purpose - creating true, ground-breaking solutions for social impact challenges.
Who said social entrepreneurship is for softies?
Your business comes with an added layer of success standards like:
Overcoming pressing social and environmental challenges
AND building a strong business case to attract funding, investment, or clients to ensure financial sustainability
So, the question is: can hiring a social business consultant be the answer to making your venture meet the success standards and accelerating your impact and profit goals?
From understanding what a social business consultant does to digging deep into the top 5 benefits of working with one, this article will share why hiring a social business consultant can help you reach your goals.
What exactly is a social business consultant?
A social business strategy consultant blends and integrates traditional business growth strategies with strategies that support impact scaling goals, solutions, and ambitions.
They help you keep your impact goals at the forefront of your start-up while bringing in the knowledge and expertise to become financially sustainable.
Rather than focusing solely on profit-driven strategies, social business consultants understand the tension between creating a positive impact on society AND building a profitable business.
What does a social business consultant do? This depends on a consultant’s area of expertise and knowledge, but at FairForce Consulting, we bring in:
Executive and leadership growth strategies
Investment and funding strategies
Business development, and impact solutions
Why are social business consultants so important in today’s world?
Impact businesses and start-ups are on the rise. This also means that there is more investment being poured into impact businesses and impact entrepreneurs.
Impact startups raised a record $68B in 2021. (DealRoom, November 2022)
With impact becoming more and more important to investors and venture capitalists (VCs), they are choosing social impact as a new form of return on investment.
This means there is opportunity for your impact start-up to receive funding and grow in today’s socially conscious world…
The challenge is finding a business consultant who understands both business principles and solutions, impact strategies, AND how to blend the two together so impact and profit can work together to help your start-up scale.
How is this different from a general business consultant?
While both general business consultants and social business consultants aim to optimize and grow a business, their approach and focus differ substantially in terms of:
1. Impact AND Profit: Whereas general business consultants primarily emphasize operational efficiency and profit maximization, social business consultants understand the business value of impact and the importance of profit. They bring in knowledge, expertise, and experience in both a business and impact setting, blending and integrating strategies that work together to scale impact and profit simultaneously. This leads to innovative solutions, models, and methodologies that create a different way to do business.
2. The What AND How: Social business consultants don’t operate in silos - they look at impact start-ups holistically. A social business consultant crafts strong business cases where impact plays a key role in growth, while also bringing in knowledge for start-ups to develop organizational processes, ethical business development strategies, and leadership skills - aiding the business to grow in alignment with internal and external impact principles, values, and operating models.
Think of a social business consultant as someone who can help you build a company that advances solutions for a fairer world, shapes inclusive and intentional cultures for better business practices in your industry, while also helping you achieve financial sustainability. It’s a win-win!
3. You (the leader) AND the Ecosystem: A social business consultant is human first, meaning they take into account your connection and relationship with yourself AND your ecosystem. You and your business are part of a larger community, and a social business consultant knows how to strategically position both in your ecosystem with actors, companies, and stakeholders who are all working towards shared goals.
Instead of the traditional ‘competitor analysis’ (which is important!), a social business consultant might approach this as a strategic partnership; transforming ‘competitors’ sharing similar missions into a competitive advantage for your work.
The top 5 benefits of working with a social business consultant
So, how can you make sure that impact is making a difference while also creating a thriving business?
Enter the social business consultant, someone who understands and works in both business and impact ecosystems.
Coming in with more than just traditional business insights, social business consultants confidently navigate social impact topics and objectives with a keen sense of business and financial knowledge.
What exactly does that mean? Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of bringing in a social business consultant – and how they can be the game-changer your start-up is looking for.
1. They offer a broader and more diverse industry experience
A social business consultant is more than just an industry expert – they're an active player in numerous areas of the ecosystem. Their expertise covers everything from much-needed technical knowledge to understanding current trends and perspectives of different investors, the know-how of industry-specific terms, and even insights into best practices and “unspoken rules”.
Plus, drawing from diverse business contexts, a social business consultant can offer a wealth of experiences from various industries and business settings. All of which makes them a valuable asset to your start-up.
Some areas of expertise a social business consultant brings can look be:
Operational effectiveness and sustainability
Organizational practices and processes
Investment and funding strategies
Impact solutions
Community growth
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
At FairForce, we bring in more than 8 years of experience in the impact business sector. Having led 50+ growth and impact projects in over 10 countries, our unique approach incorporates an intersectional feminist perspective that both sets us apart and amplifies our impact.
We combine our experience working in for-profit businesses and start-ups, with our experience in not-for-profit organizations - combining both strategies and models to create innovative solutions for your impact start-up.
2. They have experience related to where you want to be
Navigating unfamiliar scenarios can be daunting. However, a social business consultant has already walked the path you're currently on – and they’ve probably overcome the same challenges you’re about to encounter. Because of this, they can provide a detailed roadmap that’ll guide you through each step and even prepare you for specific challenges.
Over the past few years, FairForce has worked side by side with start-ups – focusing on business growth strategies, sourcing funding or investment opportunities, and developing impactful social components — with the goal of achieving financial sustainability.
Solutions we’ve crafted for our clients have looked like:
Accelerating institutional funding readiness by crafting strategic pitch decks, annual impact reports and executive summaries for globally distributed organizations;
Strategies for negotiating and securing up to $1.5 Million in partnership and funding deals with a global FemTech organization;
Developing knowledge and capacity around equity, inclusion, and community-building topics to embed the knowledge into the product/service development process
Providing structure and clear processes to measure diversity, equity, and inclusion in a growing impact start-up
3. They’re equipped with strategic thinking and external feedback
Social business consultants are more than ready to help you gain a fresh view of your business. Beyond identifying gaps, they’re also experts when it comes to highlighting opportunities and strengths and ensuring a holistic approach to business and company strategies.
By prioritizing tasks, offering negotiation tactics with partners, customers, and investors, and guiding on leadership roles, social business consultants can ultimately provide clarity on achieving goals.
FairForce brings in experience across various industries and impact projects around the world. This has allowed us to engage with diverse business models – including 'entrepreneurial NGOs' – with a deep understanding of the nuances each one entails.
That’s why we offer tailor-made strategies to suit your start-up's specific goals – be it funding, community impact, or ensuring financial sustainability.
We are able to blend the know-how of business strategies and development, while also understanding impact principles and values - using both strategies to work together for the greater social impact and business sustainability.
4. They have a network and connections to rely on
Connections matter, right? Along with deep industry insights, a well-networked social business consultant offers access to key industry players, opportunities, and businesses.
These networks can be essential when it comes to maximizing growth potential, as well as offering sponsorships or referrals when the opportunity comes.
Having a well-connected network means a social business consultant can:
Bring in other insights from their peers that can give a different perspective on your challenges as an impact start-up
Bring your problem or challenge to a group of experienced consultants and investors for various ideas or solutions
Bring insights from various industries, sectors, and markets that enrich your business and impact
FairForce’s founder, Margherita, originally from Italy but based out of Berlin, has fostered connections with more than 50 growth and impact organizations. Backed by a global network that’s equally insightful and brimming with resources, we're always ready – and eager! – to connect startups with the right opportunities and partners.
5. They’re all about hands-on engagement
Unlike conventional consultants, social business partners actively participate in the strategic development process. What does that mean? Well, they don’t just advise – they actually work alongside you to create essential business documents, templates, and working boards. Introducing tested templates and frameworks, social business consultants help ensure a smooth operational process that can make the difference between operational struggles and seamless execution.
Some of the hands-on engagements we’ve supported clients on have looked like:
Creating a hiring action plan to expand the team and recruit pedagogy experts.
Facilitated multiple strategy workshops to align with the project roadmap and break down key project execution steps.
Integrate an equity-driven analysis into the product and service development process.
Advising impact founders on best practices to foster equity, inclusion, and community values in product/service development.
Driven by a set of values centered around feminist, human-first, ethical growth, FairForce emphasizes a holistic ecosystem where personal, professional, and political dimensions can coexist and cooperate to build a more equitable future.
Unpacking the value of a social business consultant
In today's rapidly growing social business landscape the role of a social business consultant stands out more than ever - for their business acumen and their deep understanding of impact strategies.
To recap, here are the five pivotal benefits they can bring to the table:
They offer a broad and diverse range of industry experience, drawing from various sectors.
Their experience aligns with your future goals, guiding you through challenges and equipping you for financial sustainability.
Strategic thinking and external feedback are their bread and butter, which gives you a fresh perspective on your business.
Their strategic networks and connections can open doors and insights.
A hands-on engagement approach means they're building your business alongside you.
Ready to tap into the benefits of working with a social business consultant? Schedule an introductory Strategy Call with our founder, Margherita, and get ready to learn more about how to build financial sustainability in your impact start-up.
Curious to keep learning? Check out our blog post on Values-led Entrepreneurship Culture for Ethical and Business Growth, where we discuss a more human approach to doing business.