Ready to spend all of our $20,000 bank account

***Every month I will be sharing my thoughts on the challenges of actually operating and leading Duplessy Foundation. My goal is to be honest about the good, bad, and interesting in growing an organization. Hope you enjoy.***

Now do I want to spend all of $20,000? Nope. I grew up thinking really hard about buying 1¢ and 5¢ candy. Mom always had “better than McDonald’s” burgers at home. Those survival experiences got me far, but they really can’t help us now.

Today, we are coaching 20 small business owners. This cohort is part of our 12 week Sales Accelerator Program ending June 30. They all need help with different aspects of their sales process.

Anne needs research for an interactive art exhibition focused on the stories of domestic violence survivors, specifically kids and mothers.

Marie needs updated sales materials to get more remote art programs to kids and seniors.

Sid needs help with the logistics of fulfilling 400+ pre-orders and launching an ecommerce store selling running apparel to diverse people with diverse bodies.

Mathematically, we can spend about $1,000 per person. I’m making a bet that these individuals will create a huge return on this investment. My confidence in them is grounded in two things:

1) We will invest the money in ways that will return 10x on the investment.

2) We will get help from talented people who care about our overall mission.

Here’s how we will invest money and how talented people will invest their experience.

How to invest $1,000 in a business to get 10x back

When I think about investing money into a business, I think about what useful thing will be left behind once the money is spent. I’ve been heavily influenced by investors who say “I don’t invest in salaries”. They’ve explained to me that building a business is about people, product, and process. People will come and go through the lifecycle of a business. Your process and product are what they leave behind.

In Marie’s case, developing new sales materials and a website doesn’t have to cost thousands. I am working with her on a coherent “hook, story, and offer”. That HSO combo will be the basis for what her new website and sales materials will explain.

We will start with a low fidelity, simple document outlining each piece of her HSO. All text with no images. Then we layer in images that compliment the text. From there, Marie will create a medium fidelity layout with Canva (a free online graphic design tool) for her sales materials and website. Once all those steps are complete, Marie will hand them to a contract designer and web developer. My estimate of the cost is just under $1,000 for everything.

Without the new materials or website, Marie has been able to grow her sales. She had her first $10,000+ month recently. What the new website and materials will allow her to do is pitch to clients with bigger budgets. We anticipate this year, she will triple her sales from last year and go beyond $100,000+.

More importantly, her virtual art programs will go from helping hundreds of children and seniors to thousands.

How talented people invest time with our diverse small businesses

Sid just completed a crowdfunding campaign with 400 pre-orders for his performance streetwear running apparel company. The campaign generated $53,000.

This might be the most precarious time for his business. The trajectory or potential direction largely depends on the decisions he makes in the next 3 months.

So many people were ready to guide him to “success” for the low price of $5,000+ per month. The wrong decision would lead him to lost money, lost time, and far away from his initial vision. In his case, we focused on the minimum effective dose of guidance.

Step 1 was getting a project manager who could manage upwards and help him focus on the most impactful things to do. He first explored a VA (virtual assistant) at $4 per hour. That person was used to being told what to do in a big organization. We hired a project manager for Sid at $40 per hour. In just 8 hours per week, she has really helped him organize his efforts by creating priorities and deadlines.

Step 2 was getting strategic help from our friends at Acceleration Partners. This agency runs partnership programs for a variety of big companies around the world. In essence, AP finds partners with audiences to share their clients’ products/services. The partners then receive some kind of consideration if the audiences buy those products.

Sid is working with an Account Manager at AP to develop the partnership programs that will bring continuous traffic to his new running apparel website. Four 1 hour sessions with Sid and his AP mentor over a month will have a great impact on his trajectory over the next year.

Spending almost all of our $$ is scary

We have no clue how many of our investments will pay off. When I login to our bank account it’s nice to know we’ve hit the $20,000+ savings plateau for the third time. The first time took 9 years because we did almost everything for free. The second time took one year. The third time took 9 months. The fourth time it took one month. Yet the fear of getting that money back remains.

Relatively speaking, we are still making “little bets”. My friend Peter Sims (Bowdoin alum) wrote the book “Little Bets” detailing how Pixar and other companies innovate. In the case of Pixar, they will create thousands of versions of the scenes in a movie. You will never see 90% of them. It’s part of their creative process. Nobody on their team is distraught if an idea doesn’t work. You just add to the first idea and try again.

No matter what happens, these 20 experiments/investments will speed up our learning. We will get better at coaching the sales process for women, immigrant, and minority business owners. My intent is to share with you everything we learn as we invest all this money and energy.

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Duplessy Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit that teaches women, immigrant and minority entrepreneurs how to implement their sales process. Our goal is to coach 1,000 new women, immigrant, and minority biz owners to $1M per year by 2040.

Join our supporter squad to volunteer your skills, donate, and stay updated on our progress.

Thanks so much for your support.

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