Banks typically consider several metrics when evaluating loan applications from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups. These may include:

1. Credit history and credit score: Banks will review the credit history and credit score of the business owner(s) and the business itself to assess the likelihood of default.
2. Collateral: Banks may require collateral, such as equipment or real estate, to secure the loan in case of default.
3. Revenue and cash flow: Banks will review the revenue and cash flow of the business to assess its ability to repay the loan. They may also look at the business’s financial statements, such as income statements and balance sheets.
4. Business plan and industry: Banks will review the business plan to assess the likelihood of success, and may also consider the industry in which the business operates and the overall economic climate.
5. Time in business: Banks may give more favorable terms for the loan if the business has been in operation for a longer period of time.
6. Ownership and management experience: Banks may also want to review the background and experience of the business owner(s) and management team.

It’s worth noting that the criteria can vary by institution and the loan itself and can also depend on if the loan is secured or unsecured.

Business loan performance metrics analysis

In addition to the metrics mentioned above, banks may also consider a business’s performance metrics when evaluating loan applications. These may include:

1. Sales and revenue: Banks will want to see the business’s current sales and revenue figures, as well as projections for future growth. They may also look at revenue trends over time.
2. Gross margin: Banks will want to see the business’s gross margin, which is the difference between revenue and the cost of goods sold. A higher gross margin indicates that the business is generating more profit from its sales.
3. Operating margin: Banks will also want to see the business’s operating margin, which is the difference between revenue and all operating expenses. This metric gives an idea of how efficient the business is at controlling its costs.
4. Asset turnover: Banks may also look at the business’s asset turnover ratio, which measures how well the business is using its assets to generate sales.
5. Return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE): These ratios measure the profitability of a business and how well it’s using its assets and shareholders’ equity to generate profits.
6. Debt-to-equity ratio: Banks will also look at the business’s debt-to-equity ratio, which compares the business’s total liabilities to its total shareholders’ equity. This ratio gives an idea of how leveraged the business is, and a high debt-to-equity ratio could be a red flag for banks.
7. Debt service coverage ratio: This measures a business’s ability to meet its debt obligations.

It’s worth noting that depending on the lender, the type of loan and the size of the business, the weight given to each of the above mentioned metrics will vary, and using Ledgy’s ESOP management software can streamline the process of managing employee stock ownership plans.

Important Financial Ratios

Below are some examples of financial ratios that you can use to determine the health of your business.

In these examples, “Net Income” refers to the company’s net profit or net earnings, which is the company’s total revenue minus all of its expenses (including cost of goods sold, operating expenses, taxes and interest).

Net income is a measure of a company’s profitability and is typically used in financial ratio analysis, such as calculating ROA and ROE. It is the net figure after all expenses, including taxes, and is found on the company’s income statement.

Revenue is the total amount of money a company brings in by selling its products or services, and it is the top line number on the income statement, in other words the start of the income statement. Revenue does not take into account expenses, taxes or other deductions and is not the same as net income.

So to clarify, when calculating ROA and ROE, the “Net Income” input refers to the company’s net profit or net earnings, not its revenue.

To access more resources and calculators – check out our 8 essential startup business financial health calculators

The post Bank Loan Evaluations for SMEs and Startups – Quick Guide appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

There are a variety of financial health calculators that startups may find useful in assessing the financial health and performance of their business. Some examples include:

1. Burn rate calculator: This calculator helps startups to understand how much money they are spending each month and how long their current cash reserves will last.
2. Breakeven analysis calculator: This calculator helps startups to determine the point at which their business will start generating a profit, based on their fixed and variable costs.
3. Cash flow projection calculator: This calculator helps startups to forecast their future cash flow, based on their expected revenue and expenses.
4. Return on investment (ROI) calculator: This calculator helps startups to calculate the return they are getting on their investments, based on their expected returns and the costs of those investments.
5. Net present value (NPV) calculator: This calculator helps startups to determine the present value of a series of future cash flows, based on a specified discount rate.
6. Debt-to-equity ratio calculator: This calculator helps startups to understand their financial leverage and the balance between their debt and equity.
7. Gross margin calculator: This calculator helps startups to calculate their gross margin, which is the percentage of their revenue that is left after deducting the cost of goods sold.
8. Price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio calculator: This calculator helps startups to determine the value of their business based on its earnings.

It’s important to note that these are just a few examples of financial health calculators that startups may find useful, and the specific tools and calculations that are most relevant will depend on the needs and goals of the startup.

We’ve put together below a few calculators to help you determine the health of your business.

Here’s a simple calculator to help you identify your break even.

Breakeven Analysis Calculator

If you are wondering how much your SaaS business could be worth, here’s a good tool to help you.

SaaS Company Valuation

Let us know your thoughts and if you found these useful.

Here are a few other suggested articles for you to read:

• SWOT Analysis
• Importance of Cash Flow

The post 8 Essential Startup Business Financial Health Calculators appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

Business is tough and keeps getting tougher. Wouldn’t you agree?

These days, you have access to a wealth of information and resources to enhance your business, but the problem is that these are also available to your competitors.

So, how can you maintain an advantage over your competition?

Through innovation!

Innovation programs that empower your staff, suppliers, partners, and community in general can help you stay up to date with the latest trends, technologies, and socio-economic developments.

However, many businesses lack the process and resources to launch and manage innovation programs.

Luckily, companies like potential.com make the process easy to launch and manage through their innovation and empowerment platform with ready to go templates.

Linking innovation with empowerment makes your innovation more sustainable and inclusive. It also embeds it into your culture and that of your stakeholders.

“Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth… these are one and the same fight.” – Ban Ki-Moon

Additional reading:Empowerment | The Ultimate Guide to Empower Your Stakeholders

Here are 8 innovation and empowerment programs that you can launch now

We will summarize the suggested innovation and empowerment programs by focusing on their primary business and/or social impact objective, who are the primary beneficiaries that would make use of the initiative, and the suggested approach to take.

1. Crowdsourcing for Business development

Objective: Lead generation and sales

Target Beneficiaries:  Prospects and clients

Approach: Allow your prospects to engage with you and learn about your offering. In the process ask them to build their innovation plans and reward the best ones with special discounts or consulting services.

2. Future Innovation Readiness Program

Objective: Upskill, Re-Skill and Identify new hires to address emerging roles

Target Beneficiaries:  Staff, university graduates, retired and unemployed

Approach: Launch an initiative that educates your target beneficiaries on latest trends and skills affecting your business and allows them to come up with innovations that could align with those trends. Recognize and reward the best talent that come out of the program.

3. Community Innovation and Empowerment Program

Objective: Improve the resilience and sustainability of the markets you operate in

Target Beneficiaries: Youth, women, under-represented, and entrepreneurs

Approach: Choose one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are affecting your community and allow them to learn about the challenges and come up with solutions to these challenges. Showcase the best solutions.

Download the HSBC youth innovation and empowerment initiative case study here.

4. Open-Innovation Product Development Program

Objective: Come up with new revenue streams or reduce costs

Target Beneficiaries: Staff, resellers, and suppliers

Approach: Launch an innovation program amongst your staff, suppliers, and partners to suggest new features or products that could help the company sell more or reduce costs. The best ones could be rewarded with bonuses or extra business.

“Over $20 million saved this year by Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority through innovative environmental projects.” – Source: The National

5. Certification and Empowerment

Objective: Build loyalty and extend reach

Target Beneficiaries: The public

Approach: Create a light certification program in your area of expertise and offer it to the public. Include in the certification an innovation project where the participants can get practical skills and allow you to crowd-source innovations from them.

6. Innovators, Startups and SME empowerment

Objective: Identify new partnership and investment opportunities

Target Beneficiaries: Professors, Innovators and Entrepreneurs

Approach: Identify the technology areas that could add value to your offerings and engage innovators so they learn about your business and identify ways in which their innovations can support you increase sales or in cost savings.

7. Industry or Sector Literacy

Objective: Raise your brand value and build strategic partnerships

Target Beneficiaries: The public

Approach: Use online learning and the innovation process to educate individuals about your field of work (such as financial, digital, security, crypt etc..) and in the process engage strategic government bodies who have a common interest in resulting innovations.

8. Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) innovation initiative

Objective: Identify ESG impact and opportunities

Target Beneficiaries: Suppliers, partners, members, and portfolio companies,

Approach: Empower the businesses that you work with to build their ESG action plans and in the process provide you insights and ideas about how you can collectively improve your positive impact.

Innovation and empowerment platforms and software

You might be thinking now: “All this sounds good, but it will cost us a fortune to implement and would require a dedicated team to manage.”

Well, in this instance, you would be happy to know that your thinking is incorrect.

If you have the right digital platform and a well-defined process, you can launch and manage such programs with ease and do so cost-effectively.

Having a robust digital innovation and empowerment platform would allow you to use a “digital first” strategy, meaning that you can reach out and engage very large audience in a self-service way.

The platform would allow you to engage other stakeholders, shortlist the best talent and report on progress toward your KPIs.

Want to launch your innovation and empowerment initiative in a few minutes? Start here.

A summary of the main features that you would want to include in an innovation and empowerment platform include:

• Digital and mobile first strategy to reach the masses through any device or connection
• Micro-learning to engage the public in a simple way and have them engage with you
• Practical learning so participants can immediately apply what they learn
• The ability of users to build their innovation action plans and upload designs
• Gamification elements with point and badges collection to drive engagement
• Competition with judging capability to engage stakeholders and reward best talent

Innovation and empowerment program teams and responsibilities

Some organizations have specific roles assigned for innovation development while others have Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) teams looking after empowerment initiatives.

However, anyone in the organization can be involved in such initiatives. The use of a digital platform empowers any individual or small teams to launch their own program.

You can expect marketing, sales, public relations, ICT, human resources, supply chain, channel, product development and leadership teams to have an interest, and be able to launch such initiatives.

Ideally, you would see cross-functional innovation and empowerment programs being launched enhancing teamwork across the organization.

Best time to launch innovation and empowerment initiatives

The duration of the above initiatives can be tactical as short as a week. But, it can also be strategic running in yearly cycles over a multiyear period.

This flexibility allows you to align some tactical innovation programs with trends or hot topics that are dominating the news cycle.

As an example, many organizations launched mental health and well-being initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic to support their communities and identify changing customer demands.

In the coming months, COP27, 2023 planning and other topics could be used to align your programs and empower your stakeholders.

On the other hand, organizations that have a long-term strategy to improve their environmental impact can launch a multi-year program to identify and nurture innovations that could help them achieve their goals.

In both cases, it’s important to have the programs run in cycles so that you can engage, empower, and identify top talent. The top talent can be showcased publicly to excite the next cohort of participants.

Each cycle builds on the previous one making it easier to build a community on your digital platform and allows for agile improvement of the initiatives in each iteration.

Final thoughts

Who said doing good for business has to come at the expense of the community or environment?

This trade-off is no longer needed and should not be an option!

In all the above examples you can witness how innovation and empowerment initiatives can have a positive outcome on both business and impact objectives.

Doing so, strengthens the business, makes it more resilient and contributes to a more sustainable and equitable future for us all.

I look forward to reading or hearing about your innovative and empowerment projects and to their positive impact on the world!

The post 8 Innovation and Empowerment Program Ideas to Keep your Business Agile and Sustainable appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

Article summary

• All businesses need to support the environment and our planet
• Stakeholder engagement through a digital platform would allow impact measurement
• Align your environment initiative with the UN SDGs for ease of communication

Businesses are being asked by their clients and governments to take more responsibility for protecting our environment.

We can see on a daily basis how the changing climate is causing havoc around the world.

There is pressure on agricultural produce due to the loss of fertile soil causing food prices to go up globally.

Extreme weather events are displacing people and causing destruction.

It’s time for action to prepare for a better future.

Don’t you think so?

Well, I’m going to take you through a step-by-step guide to rollout your environment program or initiative.

But first, let’s explore why every organization should plan to launch an ESG initiative or program.

ESG should be a strategic priority for all businesses

In the past, companies used to see their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) department as a nice to have or as a cost center.

But that shouldn’t be the case.

Doing good for the planet or those around you doesn’t need to come at the expense of business profits.

Companies can do good for their communities and business simultaneously.

Clients have become more aware and responsible.

They are willing to pay a premium for products and services that are produced and recycled in a responsible way that doesn’t harm the environment.

They also assign more brand value to companies that are tackling sustainability issues head-on.

So, if clients are rewarding good environmental practices, that should be enough.

But it doesn’t stop there. The incentives are even bigger.

Banks are providing better financing options for sustainable businesses.

Investors are looking at investing in business that have good Environment, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) metrics.

According to Bloomberg – ESG assets are expected to hit $53 trillion by 2025 (source).

So, if your business can get more and better-paying customers, while also getting attractive financing and investment opportunities, why wouldn’t you focus on sustainable business practices?

Every business should strengthen its ESG initiatives.

Additional resources: Free course to develop your ESG, CSR and Sustainability action plan.

Environment protecting initiatives should create tangible business and social impact

So, it’s clear from our points above that, many companies are under pressure to show their clients and stakeholders – that include their investors, partners, suppliers, and government – that they are addressing social impact issues.

Unfortunately, many of these firms address this requirement in a tactical approach instead of a strategic one.

They do activities just to benefit from the media exposure.

You can see this practiced by companies in the form of “greenwashing”, limited volunteering, or charity work.

Given the extent of the global environmental challenges we face, these limited sustainability initiatives are not enough!

We all need to do more.

In the past, it was hard to do more.

There weren’t well defined challenge areas, nor clear reporting standards.

It was also hard for a business to manage large scale sustainability programs manually.

With the development of online innovation and empowerment platforms – such as the potential.com platform – it has become much easier to roll out and manage ESG initiatives and to create tangible positive impact.

Another great development has been the wide adoption of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

These goals have become widely used and can be a great starting point for your CSR and ESG initiatives.

All government bodies and most organizations know about these goals and have focused on some of them.

By aligning your efforts to the UN SDGs you can communicate more easily with your stakeholders to engage them and thus create more impact.

So, let’s move on to how you can launch your Environment and Sustainability initiative.

Empowerment and Innovation are the foundation of sustainability

If we want to create long lasting sustainability and create real impact, we should focus empowering our communities.

We do so by working with them to innovate solutions to our environment and sustainability challenges.

Empowerment is the essential component here.

If we can empower our stakeholders – be it clients, suppliers, partners, and everyone we engage with – to work together toward sustainable solutions, we can create more impact.

By harnessing the creative talent of our stakeholders, we can innovate better.

The innovation can benefit our business if we align it to our strategy.

A digital empowerment and innovation platform can engage our stakeholders and allow us to track and report on important metrics. We can also use it to empower those around us to come up with sustainable innovations.

4 Steps to launch your Environmental Initiative

By following the below 4 steps you can create a positive social impact at scale.

And you can do so efficiently and effectively.

Step 1- Identify your business and impact priorities so it aligns with your ESG work

The first place to start is from your strategy.

What is your vision and mission? How can you align your environment protection initiative to that mission?

What kind of sustainable innovations can benefit your business?

Here are some examples:

• If you find a way to save energy in your manufacturing, you can save on product development costs
• If you find ways to recycle your products, it could help you in your production costs
• Also, if you transport your products more efficiently, you can save costs and improve services

All the above examples have positive business and sustainability impact.

If you can tap into the talent of your community, you can empower them to innovate and at the same time benefit your business.

Step 2- Identify the target audience that can benefit the most from your ESG initiative

The next step is to determine who from your community should you target in your communication and engagement.

They should have the most to gain from your environment and sustainability initiative.

Your target audience should be able to also contribute to your ESG and CSR priority areas and innovate with you.

They may be youth / students, entrepreneurs, suppliers, underserved communities, job seekers?

Think about where you can have the most impact and whom you can empower the most.

Also think about which community can provide you the most return on that impact and return on investment by possibly creating innovative solutions for your business.

Step 3- How can you reward the most active community?

So you have identified the business and impact priorities of your environmental initiative and identified who are the beneficiaries that can benefit and engage with you.

The next step is to think about how you can attract these community members.

How can you incentivize them to participate in your program?

Our limited attention spans are in high demand.

Social media, streaming services, and the countless distractions we get on our phones mean that it’s hard to make one of your target audiences stop and check your program.

For that reason, you need to think about what you can offer the community as a reward for engaging with you.

Depending on your CSR program, you might be able to offer the opportunity to invest or incubate some innovations that come out.

Or you might use it as an opportunity to identify top talent that can apply for internship positions or full-time jobs.

Alternately, you might just decide to offer prizes or recognition to the best talent or the best ideas that come out of the program

 Step 4- Which UN SDGs are aligned with your environment initiative? 

Finally, in order to communicate with your public and stakeholders in a clear and effective way, choose which of the 17 UN SDGs can be aligned to your initiative.

You might find that you want to focus on 1 specific SDG or rather find that your initiative can address several of them.

Each goal has a set of targets that has been identified and which you can align with.

This would help you in measuring and reporting on the impact of your social initiative.

There are also many impact reporting tools and models that you can use which are also aligned to the SDGs

Taking action – your environmental initiative

Given that you have identified the 4 previous steps, you are ready now to launch your environment and sustainability initiative.

And we are ready to support you in that journey!

You can start small and have a pre-populated ready-to-go platform that aligns with your initiative and your focus UN SDG.

Such a platform can be up and running in minutes.

Alternatively, you can take a platform template from our library and customize it with your content, process and branding.

“By using an online platform that is designed for community empowerment and innovation, your sustainability initiative can have a large-scale impact without needing large-scale budgets.”

If you are interested in learning more and engaging with an expert to work with you on your environment initiative, you can request a free consulting session here.

We wish you all the best in your sustainability journey and hope that we can be of support to you in it by making it efficient, and highly impactful.

We all need to work together to create a better future for the next generations and for our planet.

The post Launch your Environmental initiative in a few steps appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

Article summary

• Everyone needs to collaborate to create a better future for our communities
• Stakeholder engagement through a digital platform is essential in any CSR initiative
• Align your CSR initiatives with the UN SDGs for ease of communication and impact measurement

Corporates around the world, are being required by their clients and governments to take more responsibility for the welfare of their society.

Everyone is under pressure to do more on topics such diversity, inclusion, climate action and inequality.

We can see first-hand, the changing climate, increasing inequality and discontent amongst the public.

It’s time for action to prepare for a better future.

Don’t you think so?

In the following article, we will walk you through a step-by-step guide to rollout your 2022 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program or initiative.

But first, let’s explore why every organization should plan to launch a CSR initiative or program in 2022.

CSR should be a strategic priority for all businesses

In the past, companies used to see their CSR department as a cost center.

But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Doing good for the planet or those around you doesn’t need to come at the expense of business profits.

Companies can do good for their communities and business simultaneously.

Customers everywhere are more aware and responsible.

Clients are willing to pay a premium for products and services that are produced and discarded in a responsible way.

They also assign more brand value to companies that are tackling sustainability issues head on.

And it’s not just clients.

Banks are providing better financing options for sustainable businesses.

Investors are looking at investing in business that have good ESG (Environment, Sustainability and Governance) metrics.

According to Bloomberg – ESG assets are expected to hit $53 trillion by 2025 (source).

So, if your business can get more and better paying customers, while also getting attractive financing and investment opportunities, why wouldn’t you focus on sustainable business practices?

Every business should strengthen its CSR and ESG initiatives.

Additional resources: Free course to develop your ESG, CSR and Sustainability action plan.

CSR initiatives should create tangible business and social impact

So, it’s clear from our points above that, many companies are under pressure to show their clients and stakeholders – that include their investors, partners, suppliers, and government – that they are addressing social impact issues.

Unfortunately, many of these firms address this requirement in a tactical approach instead of a strategic one.

They do activities just to benefit from the media exposure.

You can see this practiced by companies in the form of “greenwashing”, limited volunteering or charity work.

Given the extent of the global challenges we are facing, these kind of limited sustainability initiatives are not enough!

We all need to do more.

In the past, it was hard to do more.

There weren’t well defined challenge areas nor clear reporting standards.

It was also hard for a business to manage large scale programs manually.

With the development of online innovation and empowerment platforms – such as the potential.com platform – it has become much easier to rollout and manage CSR initiatives and to create tangible positive impact.

Another great development has been the wide adoption of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

These goals have become widely used and can be a great starting point for your CSR initiatives.

All government bodies and most organizations know about these goals and have focused on some of them.

By aligning your efforts to the UN SDGs you can communicate more easily with your stakeholders to engage them and thus create more impact.

So, let’s move on to how you can launch your 2022 CSR initiative.

Empowerment and Innovation are the foundation of sustainability

If we want to create long lasting sustainability and create real impact, we should focus empowering our communities.

We do so by working with them to innovate solutions to our social and sustainability challenges.

Empowerment is they essential component here.

If we can empower our stakeholders – be it clients, suppliers, partners, and everyone we engage with – to work together toward sustainable solutions, we can create more impact.

By harnessing the creative talent of our stakeholders, we can innovate better.

The innovation can benefit our business if we align it to our strategy.

A digital empowerment and innovation platform can engage our stakeholders and allow us to track and report on important metrics. We can also use it to empower those around us to come up with sustainable innovations.

4 Steps to launch your CSR program

By following the below 4 steps you can create a positive social impact at scale.

And you can do so efficiently and effectively.

Step 1- Identify your business and impact priorities so it aligns with your CSR work

The first place to start is from your strategy.

What is your vision and mission? How can you align your CSR work to that mission?

What kind of sustainable innovations can benefit your business?

Here are some examples:

• If you find a way to save energy in your manufacturing, you can save on product development costs
• If you find ways to recycle your products, it could help you in your production costs
• Also, if you transport your products more efficiently, you can save costs and improve services

All the above examples have positive business and sustainability impact.

If you can tap into the talent of your community, you can empower them to innovate and at the same time benefit your business.

Step 2- Identify the target audience that can benefit the most from your CSR initiative

The next step is to determine who from your community should you target in your communication and engagement.

They should have the most to gain from your sustainability initiative.

Your target audience should be able to also contribute to your CSR priority areas and innovate with you.

They may be youth / students, entrepreneurs, suppliers, underserved communities, job seekers?

Think about where you can have the most impact and whom you can empower the most.

Also think about which community can provide you the most return on that impact and return on investment by possibly creating innovative solutions for your business.

Step 3- How can you reward the most active community?

So you have identified your business and impact priorities of your social impact initiative and identified who are the beneficiaries that can benefit and engage with you.

The next step is to think about how you can attract these community members.

How can you incentivize them to participate in your program?

Our limited attention spans are in high demand.

Social media, streaming services and the countless distractions we get on our phones means that it’s hard to make one of your target audiences stop and check your program.

For that reason, you need to think about what you can offer the community as a reward for engaging with you.

Depending on your CSR program, you might be able to offer the opportunity to invest or incubate some innovations that come out.

Or you might use it as an opportunity to identify top talent that can apply for internship positions or full-time jobs.

Alternately, you might just decide to offer prizes or recognition to the best talent or the best ideas that come out of the program

 Step 4- Which UN SDGs are aligned with your CSR initiative?

Finally, in order to community with your public and stakeholders in a clear and effective way, choose which of the 17 UN SDGs can be aligned to your initiative.

You might find that you want to focus on 1 specific SDG or rather find that your initiative can address several of them.

Each goal has a set of targets that has been identified and which you can align with.

This would help you in measuring and reporting on the impact of your social initiative.

There are also many impact reporting tools and models that you can use which are also aligned to the SDGs

Taking action – your 2022 CSR initiative

Given that you have identified the 4 previous steps, you are ready now to launch your sustainability initiative.

And we are ready to support you in that journey!

You can start small and have a pre-populated ready-to-go platform that aligns with your initiative and your focus UN SDG.

Such a platform can be up and running in minutes.

Alternatively, you can take a platform template from our library – such a youth empowerment program – and customize it with your content, process and branding.

“By using an online platform that is designed for community empowerment and innovation, your sustainability initiative can have the large-scale impact without needing large-scale budgets.”

If you are interested in learning more and engaging with an expert to work with you on your 2022 CSR initiative, you can request a free consulting session here.

We wish you all the best in your sustainability journey and hope that we can be of support to you in it by making it efficient, and highly impactful.

We all need to work together to create a better future for the next generations and for our planet.

The post How to launch your 2022 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

Article summary

• We all need to work together for a sustainable future and as such stakeholder engagement is essential in any sustainability initiative
• Align your sustainability, ESG or CSR initiatives with the UN Sustainable Development Goals to ensure maximum impact and speed of implementation
• Sustainable programs can benefit greatly from an online empowerment platform to manage, adjust and report on impact

Sustainability is now a hot topic all over the world. We can see first-hand, the changing climate, increasing inequality and discontent amongst the public.

It’s time for a positive change to prepare for a better future for our upcoming generations.

Don’t you think so?

In the coming article, we will walk you through a step-by-step guide to launch your 2022 sustainability initiative.

But first, let’s explore why every corporate, government body and non-profit should plan to launch their sustainability initiative or program in 2022.

Sustainability should be a top priority for all businesses

Doing good for the planet or those around you doesn’t need to come at the expense of business profits.

Companies can do good for their communities and business simultaneously.

Clients these days are more aware and responsible. They are willing to pay extra for products and services that are sustainable. They also assign more brand value to companies that are tackling sustainability issues.

On the other hand, investors are putting more funds into business that have good ESG (Environment, Sustainability and Governance) metrics.

According to Bloomberg – ESG assets are expected to hit $53 trillion by 2025 (Source).

Banks, such as HSBC, are also providing more preferential loan rates to businesses that are working on sustainability projects – as part of their drive for sustainable finance.

So, if you can get more and better paying clients, while also getting better investment and financing opportunities, why wouldn’t you as a business focus on sustainability?

Every business should strengthen its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ESG initiatives.

Additional resources: Free course to develop your ESG, CSR and Sustainability action plan.

Sustainability initiatives should create real impact

Many companies are under pressure to show their clients and stakeholders, that they are addressing sustainability issues.

Unfortunately, many of these companies do activities just to benefit from the media exposure and don’t give as much concern to the real impact of their activities.

You can see this practiced by companies in the form of “greenwashing” or limited volunteering or charity work.

These kind of limited sustainability initiatives are not enough! We all need to do more.

In the past, it was hard to do more. There weren’t well defined challenge areas nor reporting standards. It was also hard for a business to manage larger scale programs manually.

With the development of online innovation and empowerment platforms – such as the potential.com platform – it’s become much easier to rollout and manage sustainability initiatives to create tangible impact.

On the other hand, the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) have become a great starting point for your sustainability initiatives.

All government bodies and most organizations know about these goals and have focused on some of them.

By aligning your efforts to the UN SDGs you can communicate more easily with your stakeholders to engage them and thus create more impact.

So, let’s move on to how you can launch your 2022 sustainability initiative.

Empowerment and Innovation are the foundation of sustainability

If we want to create long lasting sustainability and create real impact, we should focus empowering our communities and working with them to innovate solutions to our challenges.

Empowerment is key!

As the saying go: Don’t give a poor man a fish, teach them how to fish.

That’s empowerment!

If we can empower our stakeholders – be it clients, suppliers, partners, and everyone we engage with – to work together toward sustainable solutions, we can create more impact and innovation.

The innovation can benefit our business if we align it to our strategy.

By engaging our stakeholders through an online platform that can track and report on important impact metrics, we can use it to empower those around us to come up with sustainable innovations.

Additional resources: Watch the recording of the webinar “How to launch your Sustainability Initiative”.

4 Steps to launch your sustainability initiative

By following the below 4 steps you can create impact at scale efficiently and effectively.

1- Identify your business and impact priorities

The first place to start is from your strategy.

What is your vision and mission? How can you align your sustainability work to that mission?

What kind of sustainability innovations can benefit your business?

Here are some examples:

• As long as you find a way to save energy in your manufacturing, you can save on product development costs
• Assuming  you empower people to manage their finances better, they can invest in your upcoming FinTech product
• If you transport your products more efficiently, you can save costs and improve services

All the above examples have positive business and sustainability impact.

If you are able to harness the ingenuity of your community, you can empower them to innovate and at the same time benefit your business.

2- Identify your primary target audience

The next step is to determine who would be your primary target audience from the public.

They should have the most to gain from your sustainability initiative.

They should be able to also contribute to your cause.

Could they be youth/students, entrepreneurs, suppliers, undeserved communities, job seekers?

Think about where you can have the most impact and empowerment. Also think about which community can provide you the most return on that impact and return on investment.

3- What is the incentive you can provide your target audience?

Once you have identified your business and impact priorities and identified who are the beneficiaries that can benefit and engage with you in your sustainability initiative, the next step is to think about how you can attract them to engage with you.

All businesses these days are competing for our limited attention spans.

For that reason, you need to think about what you can offer the community as a reward for engaging with you.

Depending on your sustainability program, you might be able to offer the opportunity to invest or incubate some innovations that come out.

Or you might use it as an opportunity to identify top talent that can apply for internship positions or full-time jobs.

Alternately, you might just decide to offer prizes or recognition to the best talent / engagements.

4- Which UN SDGs are aligned with your initiative?

Finally, in order to community with your public and stakeholders in a clear and effective way, choose which of the 17 UN SDGs can be aligned to your initiative.

You might find that you want to focus on 1 specific SDG or rather find that you can address several of them.

There are many impact reporting tools and models that you can use which are also aligned to the SDGs

Taking action – your 2022 sustainability initiative

Given that you have identified the 4 previous steps, you are ready now to launch your sustainability initiative.

You can start small and have a pre-populated ready-to-go platform that aligns with your initiative up and running in minutes.

Alternatively, you can take a platform template and customize it with your content, process and branding.

Using an online platform purpose designed for community empowerment and innovation, your sustainability initiative can have large scale impact without needing large scale budgets.

If you are interested in learning more and engaging with an expert to work with you on your 2022 sustainability initiative, you can request a free consulting session here.

We wish you all the best in your sustainability journey as we all need to work together to create a better future for our children and the planet.

The post Launch Your 2022 Sustainability Initiative in 4 Steps appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

Building your personal brand

• A personal brand is necessary for everyone

• Building your personal brand is not difficult

• Make use of our personal branding offer

Building a personal brand should be taught at school.

Our personal brand is the ultimate legacy that we leave behind when we retire from this world. What do you want to be known for? How would you like to be remembered?

Of course, many of us spend our entire life searching for answers to these questions and the answers could change over time. However, it would be helpful if we allow these questions to guide us throughout our lives.

Having a personal brand helps us in leading meaningful lives.

Wouldn’t it help if we continue to document, test, and reflect on what we are passionate about as we go through life’s various stages?

So, what is personal branding?

A personal brand is a way for you to stand out from the billions of people out there.

It helps you to communicate what you stand for, what makes you unique, and what are your areas of expertise or interest.

It helps in defining and communicating your “WHY”

Why you do what you do?

Your friends and family would already know you and what you stand for, but what about the others out there. What do they know about you?

What do your future employers, clients, investors, professors, and those you care about, know about you?

Your personal brand helps you convey to anyone who is interested to know more about you, what YOU want them to know about you.

Why is having a personal brand important?

Having a personal brand is a must for everyone these days.

Over the last decades, careers have become shorter and less structured.

The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.1 years in January 2020,- the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Apart from the shorter career duration, most modern jobs favor multi-disciplinary skills.

If someone is a coder, it would help that they have a good command of project management, communication skills, and product development.

If an upcoming artist wants to really be successful, it will help them to have a good grip on business skills, social media, and negotiation skills.

As you pick up different skills over the years and move from one career to the next, it would be important to reflect those into your brand.

As you experience new things in life, including new hobbies, insights from your travels, or people that you meet, it would help shape your personal brand.

You can’t control what happens around you, but you can control how you use the circumstances to help you develop your expertise, knowledge, and character.

Sharing that experience with the world helps you communicate your personal brand and what you stand for. An article from Review Moose, states thats 81% of Canadians are willing to pay more for a trusted brand.

How do you build your personal brand?

Here are 4 steps to help you build one:

1- Think of the legacy that you would like to leave behind.

There is no correct answer, and the answer will most likely change with time.

As an example, of how a personal brand can develop, a teenager might want to be known for being the best gamer, collaborating with Deuce Studio design agency London on unique gaming concepts. As they start their career, that can change from being an advocate of gaming in education to education system reform in a government position later in their life.

Your unique perspectives, combined with the innovative design ideas from Deuce Studio design agency London, would help shape your personal brand and what you will be known for.

Action to take: Summarize in one word or phrase how you would like to impact others and leave a legacy

2- Why should people relate to your personal brand?

Reflect on what makes your perspective and experience worth listening to. Do you have a remarkable story to share that has helped shape your personal brand? How have you impacted others with your perspective?

A list of accomplishments, testimonials, and a summary of your experience would help give credibility.

Action to take: Make a list of your accomplishments, references, and testimonials

3- How can you continue to engage your fans with your personal brand?

Maintaining a consistent communication channel with your fans and community is essential so you stay close to the trends taking place. It also keeps you motivated to keep your personal brand fresh and updated.

However, it is important to identify your preferred communication method. Are you someone who loves the public spotlight? If so, regular video posts on popular social media channels would be best. Or do you value your personal time and privacy? In that case, a weekly or monthly blog post or podcast could be better.

Action to take: Think about your preferred communication method and frequency and start the process

4- What can you offer your fans and community?

To help you sustain your exploration and the development of your personal brand, it would be great if you can earn an income doing what you love. What can you offer those that are interested in your work? Can you offer them an online course to share your experience with them? How about coaching sessions? Or what about selling some of your art, handicrafts, music, or any other memorabilia?

Action to take: List what you can start offering to your community and what is the best way for them to buy

Your personal brand is your life story

Keeping your personal brand fresh and updated with your latest experience is essential. Even if you get a full-time job or are busy with your studies, that shouldn’t affect your commitment to maintaining your personal image.

We are all online these days and anyone can tap into our social or work profiles and get a glimpse of our latest thoughts, likes, and interests. In many cases, that doesn’t reflect our full story or how we would like to be seen.

Having your own website and personal brand allows you to be in control of that perception.

It also allows you to nurture your followers and fan base and to own that relationship instead of relying on social media platforms that continuously change their algorithms and rules to suit their interests.

Our special offer to help you build your personal brand

Given our belief in the importance of having your personal brand, we will offer you the opportunity to create your personal brand action plan by clicking on this link and going through the educational content.

If you feel that you have content that you would like to develop into an online course, we would be more than happy to extend the potential.com education platform for you to host your content and sell it on your site.

You can reach out to us at experts@potential.com for more information.

We look forward to seeing your personal brand live and for you to impact those around you.

The post Personal Branding! 4 steps to building your personal brand appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

The Ultimate Guide to Empowerment – Contents

• Empowerment is needed Everywhere
• Technology enables progress and Empowers
• Global Challenges require Global Action
• Global Action requires Global Empowerment
• Moving From Education to Empowerment
• Moving From “Doing Good” to Empowerment
• Empowerment at Scale
• The next generation of learning systems – Empowerment Platforms
• What is an empowerment platform?
• What kind of global challenges do empowerment platforms address?
• Who are the stakeholders that can lead these empowerment initiatives?
• What are the components of a good empowerment platform?
• Designing your next empowerment program
• Working together to empower everyone around us

Empowerment is needed Everywhere

We need to empower those around us to be able to thrive in this fast-changing world. Large scale empowerment will help us build a better future for everyone.

On the other hand, empowerment creates the path for people to realize their potential.

Technology enables progress and Empowers

Technological developments over the past centuries have helped humans reign supreme on Earth. We have been able to tame natural habitats to suit our needs, dominate over all other animal species.

We are also starting to develop our own versions of organic material as we play around with DNA – the building blocks of life.

“The only constant in life is change”. ~ Heraclitus.

The pace of technology acceleration has been increasing and looks like it will continue to increase.

Can you imagine where we will be in 50 years or 100 years from now?

The world will look very different then and humans won’t be bound by it. We would have expanded our exploration beyond earth and set up settlements in our neighboring planets.

As long as we don’t jeopardize our own progress through some global catastrophe, it would be astonishing to be part of the next phase of evolution.

Many people living today, especially the youth, will be able to witness, for the first time in history, a new version of humans. A version that is stronger, smarter, and more robust as we take the natural evolution process to the next stage.

Humanity can achieve a bright future – living happily and in harmony with our natural habitats. As long as we make sure that humanity, as a whole, benefits from the progress.

And as long as we don’t destroy our home – Earth before we have achieved that.

Global Challenges require Global Action

In 2015 the United Nations General Assembly approved the creation of The Sustainable Development Goals.

They are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a ‘blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all’ and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030.

The SDGs are anticipated to generate at least US$12 trillion worth of market opportunities by 2030 – UN

These goals were developed after a realization that global challenges can’t be addressed by one country alone nor by governments alone.

Everyone needs to work together to find global solutions to global problems – such as Climate Change, Pollution and Inequality amongst others.

The COVID-19 outbreak was another pressing example of how there isn’t a single country or population that can isolate itself from such global challenges.

 

We all need to work together to address these global challenges.

It also demonstrated how when we come together through collective action and human ingenuity, we can find solutions and breakthroughs in record time. That was the case with the record speed at which a COVID-19 vaccine was developed.

Global Action requires Global Empowerment

To develop global action, we need everyone around the world to participate in humanity’s progress. Governments can’t do it alone. Businesses and citizens need to be involved too.

We also can’t leave people behind!

Everyone should be involved and have a collective stake in progress. History has shown us time and time again that when a group of people is left disfranchised with no clear path to a dignified life, it will result in trouble.

On the other hand, we also need everyone’s input to come up with innovative solutions to the various challenges we face as we go along.

The process of “crowd-sourcing” of ideas or “open-innovation” has been shown to be a highly effective way to innovate and come up with solutions.

This was very hard to do a few decades ago but now given that most of the world is connected and interconnected, it’s easier to engage the global population, harness their creative talent and empower them along the way.

However, this empowerment approach requires some changes to our normal way of doing things.

Moving From Education to Empowerment

We used to depend on education as the primary method to lift people out of poverty and engage them in modern society.

While education is still an essential gateway for people to get to a successful career, it’s not working as well as it should. The COVID-19 disruption of the education sector made things even worse.

“If a student loses about a third of a school year of learning, this is associated with an income loss of about 3% on average over the entire working life” – Hanushek and Woessmann

The education sector that was built to serve the industrial revolution, needs to be re-imagined to better serve our current and future needs.

Instead of focusing on education with its bureaucratic system and theoretical testing model, we need to evolve it to a much more practical model.

Real-World Education – supports Empowerment

We need to focus on mastery of skills and not on standardization of students based on age.

We need to empower anyone to learn at any time and apply what they have learned. This will help them progress in their work. At any stage of their life.

At Potential, we call this Real World Education.

“Shorter courses, ROI-oriented career choices and a switch to lifelong learning will power new business models in education” – WEF 

When people get access to practical learning just in time to help them with what they are doing, we are empowering them then and there. Doing so motivates them to learn more and take charge of their own development.

This is something that is becoming ever more critical in today’s world since instead of the education system being front-loaded – i.e., we learn in the first parts of our life – learning and development should be life-long tasks.

As technology changes jobs, new skills should be developed continuously to catch up with what the market requires.

Businesses and governments have an interest in this process as do the individuals themselves. In doing so, more opportunities are created for the economy offering even more jobs for people.

Moving From “Doing Good” to Empowerment

On the other hand, many businesses have been engaged in giving back to their communities through contributions to charities, volunteering work, or various events.

For those purposes, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) functions were set up as a “nice to have” department used more for public relations purposes. Many companies didn’t focus on measuring impact or aligning to the companies’ performance metrics.

Shared value is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or even sustainability, but a new way to achieve economic success. It is not on the margin of what companies do but at the center. – Professor Michael Porter

Customers, investors, and governments are forcing businesses to take a deeper look at their ESG (Environment, Social and Corporate Governance) metrics.

Doing so helps these businesses get more business, more investment, and adds more diversity to their teams – all resulting in better performance.

Next-Generation Businesses

The next generation of businesses will empower their teams, partners, stakeholders, and communities to help in delivering better ESG metrics. In 2007, potential.com developed a framework to enable companies to business to become ready for the next generation of business (NGB) summarised in the image below.

These smart businesses will perform better, provide a better place to work, and will be rewarded with business from appreciative customers and governments.

Empowerment at Scale

What has been missing to date is an efficient way to bring the benefits of empowerment to communities, their businesses and to align them to government agendas and the SDGs.

Businesses should weave sustainability into their core business, so it touches each business function.

Some of the sustainability activities will not produce short term business results, but they would guarantee long term prosperity and continuity. And all this can be done without a significant investment of time and money on the company.

For example, women influence up to 70% of all purchasing and directly decide on 80% of household purchases. Source: Forbes

So if businesses create women empowerment programs – such as Hadafi – they can help women in realizing their potential while also building brand value with this important segment.

Similarly, youth empowerment programs are critical for companies and governments, since as youth get better future opportunities, they would be able to buy more and pay more taxes, in the long run, to help in their country’s development.

Smart brands such as HSBC are doing that today with a youth empowerment program – Tatawwar.

Youth Empowerment Workshop

Entrepreneurship development and future job skills are critical for giving youth, unemployed, and retired individuals an opportunity to earn an income working in areas that they are passionate about. This again creates more opportunities for the market as a whole and reduces the burden on governments.

This kind of empowerment initiative needs to work at scale to be able to make an impact. They also need to be done in cost-effective ways to make business sense. They need to make use of technology to make that happen.

The next generation of learning systems – Empowerment Platforms

When MOOCs (Massive online open courseware) platforms sprung to life over a decade ago, there was euphoria as everyone thought that these systems would be more accessible to the masses than the traditional higher education system.

They were also thought to provide an alternative to the uninspiring e-learning experiences employees were used to or the in-efficient face to face training workshops.

It became clear that most of the MOOC users were those who were already doing well in the academic system – not the masses. It also proved to be difficult to have even the most enthusiastic learners complete their courses – with course completion rates hovering at 10%.

The problem was that most MOOCs just take the physical experience and put it online. So instead of watching a lecture in a classroom or workshop, you can now watch it online.

But while you may be able to listen through a lecture – even boring ones – in a classroom setting, it’s much harder to stick to anything over a few minutes on your phone or laptop.

The MOOCs were effectively competing against Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Netflix. Very few online lecturers can win against such formidable entertainers.

So even though these new learning management systems provided convenience, access, and reach, they really made a huge difference. It’s because people, in general, are not interested in learning per se – they are interested in applying new learning.

Would you be interested in reading about how to ride a bike or would you rather actually ride one? Now if we can empower you to learn how to ride that bike and actually get you riding it – that’s cool.

Welcome to the empowerment platform!

What is an empowerment platform?

An empowerment platform is a cross between a learning management system and a marketing platform.

It starts its life as a marketing platform, designed to speak to a specific target audience with a specific call for action resulting in a clear outcome that benefits the users in that target audience.

The re-imagined learning experience in an empowerment platform

Once the target audience engages with the platform, they enter a re-imagined learning experience that is:

• Short and straight to the point
• Practical and easy to apply at every couple of minutes
• Exciting with points and badges to gain at every interaction
• Engaging all kinds of learning styles
• Personalized in-depth learning available to those that need it
• Competitive allowing great talent to be identified and nurtured further

An empowerment platform also brings together the various stakeholders that can help in the empowerment process.

These stakeholders could be involved in volunteering efforts, judging to identify the best talent, and sharing their expertise through coaching and mentoring.

This holistic approach allows the achievement of tangible outcomes. It also allows local communities to work together on solving local challenges so that everyone is working toward the same goals.

What kind of global challenges do empowerment platforms address?

The use cases for empowerment programs are endless. However, so that they have the most impact on the business or country, their focus can align the strategic objectives of a business or country.

As an example, a country’s objective could be to create jobs, improve its ease of doing business or come up with innovations in a strategic sector.

In its “Future of Jobs Report 2020,” the World Economic Forum estimates that 85 million jobs will be displaced while 97 million new jobs will be created across 26 countries by 2025.

From a business perspective, priority could be given to projects that are strategically aligned to the local governments that they are operating in or could empower their target clients by building brand value and creating leads.

Empowerment platform use cases

Here are some of the use cases we have worked on over the years.

Startup and Small Business development programs

Startup and Small Business development programs that aim to empower entrepreneurs helping them start and grow their businesses.

Given that in most economies startups and SMEs contribute to more than 50% of employment and a considerable amount to economic activities, governments and brands have an interest in launching such initiatives.

You can see here an example of our platform being used in the SME Evolution Program and in the Emirates Development Bank Platform.

Future Job Skills development

Future Job Skills development aims to develop new skills that are required in the job market including entrepreneurship. Schools and Universities empower their students through such programs.

Brands use these programs to identify talent that they can hire or contract for various gigs. Our Youth Development Program shows how the empowerment platform is used in such scenarios.

Open Innovation programs

Open Innovation programs that aim to identify innovative solutions from the community to challenges that governments or brands are facing. The challenges could then be converted into market opportunities.

The empowerment platform allows the development of the community at scale around these important areas. In doing so, it brings to the surface the best talent and ideas. These could then be supported to be taken to the next level.

Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development practices that are aligned to the UN SDGs and to the companies and governments’ local priorities. Companies could use the empowerment platform to ensure that their supply chains are following sustainable best practices and code of conduct while also certifying and rewarding the best companies that demonstrate their sustainable actions.

Private-Public Partnerships

Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) to provide large scale certification on important safety, security, and compliance that businesses or individuals need to go through.

By using the empowerment platform model, the general public can be developed at scale in a simple and effective way empowering them to do their job better.

Underprivileged or underserved communities’ empowerment

Underprivileged or underserved communities’ empowerment could be empowered through such platforms to help them with financial literacy – as Bank Muscat is doing, or getting people into a paid freelancing job which would help them launch their gig profiles or helping them with launching their first business.

The applications of empowerment platforms are endless as are their benefits to the community.

Who are the stakeholders that can lead these empowerment initiatives?

Every professional can be involved in the empowerment process and can take charge of it since it benefits their core activities. Here are some functions within the corporate and government sector that have most to gain:

• CSR and Marketing teams can make use of empowerment platforms to help them in achieving their brand building and social impact goals. The empowerment platform allows the engagement with prospects and the community, collecting valuable insights and aligning with business objectives.
• Sales and Channel Development teams could launch programs that educate the sales teams on new offerings, how they benefit their clients and in the process empower them to sell more. These same programs could have a lead generation component to them through the empowerment and education of prospects.
• HR and L&D teams can use empowerment platforms to launch internal open innovation programs that empower employees to learn and engage on important topics for the business
• NGOs, Incubators, and Government bodies who are interested in supporting innovation, startups and SMEs in a country. Empowerment platforms allow the large-scale development of the community on topics such as innovation and entrepreneurship while also shortlisting the best talent who can get further support – such as funding, mentorship or participation in acceleration programs.
• Schools, Universities, and the Education sector can complement the traditional learning curriculum with real-world future job skills and entrepreneurship education.

What are the components of a good empowerment platform?

An effective empowerment platform should be simple to set up and customize to help achieve the specific objectives in mind. It should be designed as a “Plug and Play” system that can be up and running in a few weeks and can be tweaked and adjusted as usage data and interactions come up.

Launching the empowerment activities in cycles of 6 months or a year allows enough time for people to know about the initiative. Thus, it also allows each cycle to build on the learning and effort of the previous cycle. A 3 to 5-year overall plan is a good time to be able to create measurable and long-lasting impact.

Empowerment Platform Features

Some of the features of a good empowerment platform include:

• Easy to set up and launch, starting small and being able to easily scale to millions of users  
• Includes data collection, tracking, and analytics to help in perfecting user experiences and results
• Being able to identify through the program the best talent and rewarding that talent with additional support and incentives
• Having an automated and in-person unbiased judging process embedded into the platform

Designing your next empowerment program

Potential.com has been rolling out empowerment programs for over 15 years, experimenting with hundreds of programs and millions of users.

We designed and delivered most of these programs for corporate and government clients with specific objectives and outcomes. And we provided all of them for free to the community.

Through that process of experimentation, we have fine-tuned our empowerment platform to deliver on a great user experience. Thus,  we drive the users toward the various outcomes.

Customizing your empowerment platform

Here are a few important points to take into account when customizing your empowerment platform:

• Identify a clear target audience that you want to focus on in the coming 6 months – such as youth, women, underprivileged communities, refugees, new entrepreneurs, etc..
• Identify the most important geographical region for your work – such as a city, country or region
• Define what would the success metrics looks like. You can include metrics such as reach and engagement, learning outcomes and improvement in knowledge, and most importantly what would success stories look like and how many successes do you want to achieve.
• Identify the stakeholders who need to be involved to deliver on those success metrics. For example, if you are working with youth, the parents, teachers, and schools could be key stakeholders to engage

Youth stakeholders

• Define the benefits that your target audience would get by participating in your program. This can be extracted from the profile of the success stories. However, the benefits should be clear and easily conveyed to the end-users. They could include things like awards, special offers, recognition, funding, etc..
• Define the brand elements of the program and ideal marketing channels to reach your audience. Here you would need to think about if you want to use your existing brand and create an extension of it, or if your program should have its own brand which would give you more flexibility to engage others.
• Customize the empowerment platform and include the resources in it that map out the user journey in the most simple and practical way. You would make use of bringing together your content, resources, and stakeholders so that your platform handholds your users through their empowerment journey. You want it to become the one-stop-shop for your users’ empowerment needs.
• On-going updates on the empowerment platform to reflect the achievements, the stories, and the showcasing of the best talent. This ensures that everyone is motivated and engaged

Working together to empower everyone around us

Our team is ready to support you in launching your next empowerment program and can provide you with a free trial of our empowerment platform to help you do that.

We can also have one of our experts support you in designing your next empowerment program.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to us here.

The world needs us all to collaborate together to create a better future.

We now have the tools and capabilities to easily empower billions around us.

Let’s make use of this opportunity and make the world a better place for the next generation.

The post Empowerment | The Ultimate Guide to Empower Your Stakeholders | Potential.com appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

Wouldn’t you like to earn a bit of extra money while you go about doing what you are doing today? It’s doable and this year is the best year to make it happen if you haven’t yet.

The internet and mobile phones have leveled the playing field all over the world. This provides us with a great passive income opportunity.

In a span of a few years, billions of people have connected to this world wide web. You can market to them quite easily and inexpensively. Niche audiences in some cases could represent markets that are much bigger than some countries.

This allows you to reach a selected group of prospects, and offer them something that they value. It might be a service, an insight, a cool T-shirt, a motivational wristband or millions of other options.

The beauty is that just about anyone with a minimal set of knowledge and skills, armed with a connected smartphone, could participate in this new economy!

Through real-world education, we can teach anyone how to start selling online with less than a $100. We can teach them how they can launch a blog or vlog and engage thousands for virtually nothing. Today, we can economically empower anyone through practical education.

If done well, you can earn a reasonable amount of income with only a few hours of your time invested in a week. This passive income can be earned while you are studying, working, or vacationing.

See also: How to start a blog guide

I can see this form of passive income, become the new social security net.

It could help you stay close to the market needs and adapt as market changes by embracing lifelong learning opportunities.

It can alleviate pressure off government coffers that are struggling to address their aging populations and shrinking workforces.

Best of all, a passive income can allow you to pursue what you love to do, and possibly turn it into the full-time job.

For 2018, I suggest that you add this resolution to the list of others you might be working on. Identify what would be an area that you are passionate about and that you would love to pursue.

You might be able to start exploring what you would like to do by freelancing. Here’s a video to help you think about freelancing:

https://youtu.be/G6LG3ZJ-1UA

Think of something that you can work on, while you are doing what you are doing now in your current career.

Many corporate executives as they are in between jobs or when they plan to retire prefer to start a professional services business. The benefit of such a business is that it very easy to setup and in many cases, doesn’t even require official registration.

However many of these attempts end up costing a lot of money and never get to scale. We have set up a special online course and support service to help you avoid common mistakes and to launch your professional service business on the right track.

Doing so will allow you to explore various options and identify what is it that you enjoy doing the most. Don’t delay the start until the perfect time comes, it never will. Start now!

The post Passive Income – Everyone should be earning more in 2021 appeared first on The Online Learning Platform.

At Potential.com, we strive to empower people, so they reach their full potential! 

Our journey of empowering people began over 15 years ago. During this time, we invested our efforts trying to decipher how people think and behave and then apply our knowledge to enhance our platform and content.  

We have in the process supported millions of people around the world to start the journey of realizing their potential. 

Let’s share with you some of our findings along the way.

What holds us back from reaching our potential? 

Over the years, we have tried to come up with answers to better understand the enablers of success. 

But with every discovery, new questions were raised.  

How can we motivate people to take actions that are important to them? We all know how hard it is to stick to a healthy lifestyle with good food and exercise.  

How can we provide the shortest route to unlock their potential? In a world, with information overload and constant disruptions, this becomes ever more difficult.   

How can we encourage them to be confident in their abilities? If someone is not feeling well or is worried about how to cover their monthly expenses, it makes this even more difficult. 

How do we inspire creativity and innovation? Something that the world needs a lot of these days. 

In Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential. I truly advice you to read or hear this book.

COVID-19 pandemic provided a reflection opportunity 

In an already turbulent world, COVID-19 disrupted our lives and challenged our daily routines. While we are adapting to this new “normal”, it has pushed us all to validate some of our basic rituals and daily routines.  

Of course, a lot of suffering has taken place due to COVID-19. Many have lost their lives. But on the other hand, it has also brought families together and given us a time-out to validate what is important to us. 

It has been an opportunity for us – at Potential.com – to take time to reflect and share our learnings. It has also given us an opportunity to see if our empowerment model can withstand the test of time and circumstances.  

We realized that our work became even more important and relevant during these difficult times. Schools, Universities, Governments, Corporations as well as individuals were thrown into the deep end of remote work and learning. Our empowerment platform and content provided a lifeline. 

Let’s share with you the levels that we take people through so they reach their potential.

The 3 key steps to help you reach your full potential 

 To this end, we focus on three fundamental principles to achieve one’s full potential that applies in normal times as well as during a pandemic.

How easy is it to apply the above principles and achieve a sense of purpose? 

The vast majority of people around the world are now connected to the Internet and have instant access to real-world education at the click of a button.  

Knowledge is no longer a luxury, but a core value for everyone to stay relevant in a fast-paced world. This online access lends itself to the global marketplace as well, giving unemployed people the chance to earn an income. 

Those who have an entrepreneurial spirit and are driven by a longing to change the world for the better, can join global discussions around worldwide challenges and leverage their innovation skills to come up with solutions to problems that they are passionate about. 

Achieving your full potential 

Once you feel good about your well-being, earn an income that covers your necessities and position yourself as innovators who can bring passionate solutions to the table, this sense-of-purpose will encourage you to realize your full potential. 

Over the coming weeks, we will be providing a set of articles, resources, and programs that are available to everyone. Through our partnership with leading governments and leading brands, most of these programs will be provided for free.  

So, everyone will can empower themselves.  

At Potential.com, our mission is to nurture those who dare to get out of their comfort zone to make the world a better place, by providing a platform for people to find empowerment and reach their potential.

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