What skills are required to run a thriving social business
Hello Khalil, I hope you are doing great. I would like to ask you a favour. I will be giving coaching sessions in a competition for early-stage impact entrepreneurs/startups. For me, you are an ideal role model for a successful entrepreneur in this field. May I call or visit you for a coffee to talk about how you reached BFWP success so far as well as the challenges you had to overcome? That would help me a lot in preparing my coaching sessions. If you agree we could publish the interview to support other socialpreneurs. Looking forward to hearing from you. Kind wishes, Anne Marie
Khalil Radi, founder & managing director of Buy Food with Plastic, received this message the 3rd of May 2021 from Anne Marie Schulte, Founder of Impact Vision.
And here is the result:
What mindset must a successful social entrepreneur have in your opinion?
- That everything is possible.
What skills are required to run a thriving social business?
Important not as an individual, as a team these skills are needed:
- Be yourself
- Persuasion
- Empathy
- Public speaking
- Writing
- Coordination
- Communication
- IT
- Excel
- People reading
- Event planning
- Relationship Management
- Photography
- Videography
- Management
- Strategy
- Finance
- Accounting & Controlling
- Sustainability Know-how
- Language
- Culture
- Legal
- (Product design (for BFWP very important))
- Administration
- Social Media
- Google SEO, etc.
- Fundraising
- WebDesign
- Passion (if that is considered as a skill)
How do you organize your work? What are your favourite tools / apps?
- Canva.com for presentation
- Calendly to schedule meetings
- Instagram to get reach
- LinkedIn to get reach and connect
- Excel for lists & budgeting
- Squarespace for homepage
- Bexio for accounting
- Slack for internal communication
- WhatsApp for external communication
- Microsoft Office 365
- Trello for sprints
- Sharepoint for data storage
- Outlook for calendar & email
- Grammarly for better English
- Deepl for translation
- RaiseNow for online fundraising
- Google maps for ground coordination
- Spotify because music is essential and increases productivity
- Unfold for stories on Instagram
- Lightroom for photo editing
- Final Cut Pro for video editing
- VSCO for fast photo & video editing
- Eveni.to for event management
- YouTube to share videos
- Clubhouse to increase network
- MasterClass to learn from the best
- Medium to write blogs
- SumUp to accept card payments
- QR Codes
How do you acquire the required knowledge to run a social business?
- Books
- MasterClass App
- Interview specialists
- Networking
- Internal & external workshops
- YouTube
How did you make BFWP as successful as it is?
- Forget I/You, it’s WE
- Only the team makes the dream work
Do you have a clear picture of how BFWP will develop in the next 5 or 10 years?
- Yes, in 5–10 years, we will have a GLOCAL self-sustaining Ecosystem of joy, knowledge and opportunities.
Is there something you did wrong in the past of which you would like to make other social entrepreneurs aware of?
- Don’t forget yourself (mental health issues)
- Implement the management style Sociocracy 2.0 from the beginning and not two years later (I wished I would have known this style before)
- Transferring knowledge has more impact than transferring money
- If you have the funds, start simultaneously with an association/foundation and GmbH/AG
- Value your time (still learning)
What are the major stressors or challenges you´re struggling with right now?
- Full inboxes, E-Mail, Outlook, Slack, WhatsApp & Instagram, not enough capacity to answer everything
- Raising CHF 804'387 for the World Changing Campaign
How do you make sure that BFWP receives the required money? Do you think it’s okay when social businesses make profits?
- Fundraising & Creating a Selfsustaining Business Model
- To answer this question, we first have to define profit.
If you could give some crucial advice to someone who is building a social business what kind of advice would you give?
- In the break lies the success
- Let your actions and not your mouth speak for you
- Courage to try
- Stronger together
