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The pandemic has fuelled the gig economy in ways we have not seen or experienced before. As individuals think about career prospects, the ending of furlough, and the natural downsizing agenda that firms follow when the climate becomes challenging, personal income diversification becomes front of mind.
According to the FSB … "at the start of 2020, there were 5.94 million small businesses (with 0 to 49 employees), 99.3% of the total business. SMEs account for 99.9% of the business population (6.0 million businesses)". The expectation is that these micro and small businesses will continue to grow in number as the creator economy takes hold. Traditionally, people have tended to create a business plan, speak to their bank about financing, and understand how to accept payments when starting their new business. But is this the right strategy, and is this enough due diligence when thinking about setting up a new venture?
Having followed CH over the last two months, where I have joined several rooms explicitly designed to help entrepreneurs/small business, I have probably heard some of the best advice for anyone looking to start a business or scale an existing project. Several of the regular moderators of rooms, or "Mods", cover a spectrum of topics designed to give small business and entrepreneurs sound advice on growing audience, engagement, and scaling. Here is a short profile of some of the Mods that I see making a real difference and the areas they cover:
John Lee – Brand, Marketing, and Social Media Expert. Helping businesses establish their brand, attract an audience, drive engagement, add value and drive sales. John is a social media mastermind, with several tips for building followership, fast. John is a multi-millionaire and has set up several successful businesses, starting his journey in the property sector.
Rob Moore – "The Disruptive Entrepreneur". Supporting individuals with exercising agility, pace, and momentum in getting their business started and scaled. A great advocate of the test and learn approach or succeed quick/fail fast. Rob is a no-nonsense, straight-talking, bestselling author (Start Now, Get Perfect Later) and has built several multi-million-pound businesses over the last 15 years from the ground up.
Dan Priestley – London based serial entrepreneur and best-selling author. Dan has extensive expertise in business model configuration and planning for growth. He supports several newbie entrepreneurs in setting themselves up for success. He is also the co-founder of Dent Global, one of the world's top business accelerators for entrepreneurs and leaders to stand out and scale-up
All the insights, covered daily by the Mods and their best practices, are not ordinarily available from banks, accountants, or financial advisors for budding business owners. This made me think about how can banks learn from this platform to give businesses not only an account, loan, or ability to accept payments… but also do something much more fundamental… help them start, scale, survive, and thrive. This would be the pinnacle of customer care and client centricity. The closest model I have seen to this in banking is from NatWest, where they offer the Business Builder Programme. This is not entirely surprising as historically NatWest has been the go-to bank for new business start-ups. This is a great initiative where businesses can access training, support, access a community and attend business building events. However, much more than that can be done in this space… almost akin to business-startup-scaleup-as-a-service (BSSAS).
BSSAS models have become increasingly crucial as delinquency/failures are set to become a feature of the economy as we continue to feel the impacts of the ongoing pandemic. In this climate, businesses need more support from their banks to survive and thrive. Here are five services/ideas that can be incorporated into a Bank BSSAS model to better support new start-ups, micro-businesses, and participants in the gig economy, which are based on some of the recurring themes I have heard on Clubhouse over the last two months
5 Themes that can be offered by Banks under BSSAS
This list is not exhaustive but serves to get the conversation started on how networking platforms can support the banking industry, and the customers it serves. Afterall, the ability to help customers grow their business more broadly than just offering banking products has got to be a win-win for both banks and customers.
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
Igor Kostyuchenok SVP of Engineering at Mbanq
28 May
Alisa Zejnilovic B2B Marketing at Klika
27 May
Denys Boiko Founder at Erglis
26 May
Rob Straathof CEO at Liberis
23 May
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