How to Communicate Your Impact: A Framework for Entrepreneurs
In a world where attention spans are shrinking, distractions are ever-present, and the noise can be tumultuous, entrepreneurs face a critical challenge: constructing and delivering powerful communications.
If you struggle to articulate your business's purpose, how can you expect others to understand, let alone support, what you're trying to achieve?
This is where the Business and Local Government Data Research (BLGDR) model of communicating impact comes into play. I came across this framework at an event at the University of Essex in 2019. If applied judiciously, the model can help you refine your message so that your impact is felt, understood, and amplified. The model is perhaps better understood if we relate it to good strategy principles, as Richard Rumelt articulated in his book Good Strategy Bad Strategy. If any model is to be of use, it needs to be practical and able to be applied to your business.
Finally, we'll look at the Pitch to Convince workshop series by The Weave, due to start on the 24th of September, which is designed to turn complex ideas into compelling narratives.
Firstly, let’s break down the BLGDR Framework: Communicating Impact step by step.
This model provides a practical roadmap for communicating your business impact.
The model has six key steps:
1. Have a Clear Purpose
2. Define Your Aims
3. Create Coherent Actions
4. Demonstrate Results
5. Provide Evidence
6. Share Lessons Learned
Have a Clear Purpose
For many years, even before the words of Simon Sinek were immortalised in his book "Start with Why," the concept of purpose in business has fascinated me. Business as a force for good and for positive and inclusive change were notions I certainly did not associate with my upbringing. I grew up as the son of a motor trader and nightclub owner, and my youth was full of questionable deals and smelly sheepskins. Ethics was rarely discussed at our Sunday lunch; whisky, cigarettes, and the aftermath of a night of 'good living' were the norm in my home. My father was not a bad man; he had some wonderful values, including putting friendship ahead of hardship. However, he was not what we would now call a purpose-driven businessman – he would see business purpose solely in generating money. For him, the purpose was paying the bills, having a nice home, eating well, and ensuring his children were educated and his wife clothed. He externalised his success through fast cars, expensive wristwatches and a nice cut of suit. The Arthur Dailey entrepreneurship model suited him; as a beneficiary, it suited me.
He wanted me to follow in his steps, but I couldn’t. Instead, I chose a different path. At that time, when Thatcher unleashed financial liberation, I signed up for a life of investment banking. It took me a little while to figure things out, only to conclude that this was hardly a million miles away from motor trading. The auction rooms of Sheffield had the same feel as the trading floors and exchanges of the City; it just smelt marginally better. My career in investment banking could be described as long but not too exciting. I did, though, survive beyond many people’s expectations, including my own. I have been lucky enough to enjoy prosperity but also dull enough not to become immersed in it. I have also seen how the inauthenticity of purpose is a black hole rather than a guiding star.
Your purpose is the heart of your business. It’s why you do what you do. To communicate your impact effectively starts with clarity and a well-articulated purpose. This doesn’t mean crafting a vague mission statement. Instead, it’s about defining what drives your business and why it matters.
In the aftermath of my redundancy in 2011, I spent every Wednesday evening at the Quaker meeting rooms in Colchester, running a voluntary group to help mid-career executives (me and many others) handle career change. We did this for nearly 4.5 years and helped 60+ people find work or start a business. I am proud of that foray into social enterprise and that this happened under the auspices of the Quakers—not because I am one, but because the foundation of purpose-led business is aligned with their values.
There, I read a book on Elizabeth Fry, the Fry family, prison reform, and the power of ethics to drive differentiation. I was hooked on the idea that purpose, once cemented into a business's values, could also differentiate it. Start with Why, written in 2009, was my first read in 2012. If you are going on this journey, and I would encourage you to do so, read this book.
So, what drives you and, therefore, your business? Are you angry about food waste and want to find a way to do your bit? Perhaps it is the oceans, the pollution that runs throughout waterways and seas or the unfairness of society where opportunity is defined by gender. Maybe your region’s economic performance is just too low because investment in the periphery of the UK denies businesses the resources needed to create those valuable opportunities (that's one of mine). Having a clear idea of what truly pisses you off in this world and a promise to find a way to arrest that damage – knowing this can become your purpose. Nothing is off limits, and you will be amazed who is wearing the same badge that you are. Look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals, pick one, research it, and see what others are doing and what you could do to make that your just cause.
Define Your Aims
Once you have a clear purpose, everything you do will touch this. Set out what success looks like to keep you focused on delivering your desired impact sustainably. Ask yourself what the business should be doing in a year from now, describe the company, and use this to define a series of specific, measurable goals. This step is about narrowing your focus and being explicit about your goal. Vague aims lead to ambiguous results, so clarity here is crucial. Too many businesses start and then stroll along, happy that the bills are being met and the occasional award is being garnered. It does come unstuck eventually since awards and praise, though important for morale and the release of cortisone, are not what truly matters; impact does.
At The Weave, we aim to eradicate wasted human talent— including founders who crash and burn or well-educated students who live unfulfilled lives in unrecognised ways. It is about stopping regions from becoming wastelands during the day, as talent gets on a symbolic or physical train and leaves the station. If we keep businesses growing and the startup region energised, we bring in investment.
How do we set aims around this?
According to some sources, 39% of entrepreneurs have experienced burnout symptoms for over six months, 41% have experienced a decline in their motivation and drive for their business, and 49% have trouble concentrating due to burnout.
We would aim to monitor our community via our founder's well-being app, Base Camp, and see how it performs against this data. Setting aims and explicit targets helps us understand the results we are targeting.
Student Life
Researchers from UCL and the University of Liverpool have found that more graduates find post-university life challenging. This can be characterised by periods of part-time or self-employment and unemployment. We aim to develop a post-graduate startup internship and help graduates gain a startup foothold.
Setting aims for participation and funding for the first year would be essential.
Regional Wastelands
Entrepreneurship may advance a region by creating jobs and increasing per capita income. Taking a baseline measure of business starts, changes in business employment and GVA measures for a region and setting up monitors on businesses that engage with The Weave, will help us identify impact and define clear aims to match and surpass existing levels.
Create Coherent Actions
Now, it’s time to turn your aims into action. Coherent actions are specific, strategic steps to help you achieve your aims. This is where Richard Rumelt’s “good strategy” concept comes into play. In Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Rumelt emphasises the importance of defining coherent actions that align with your guiding policy and avoid the trap of fluff or fog. The number of pitches I have heard which fail to resonate because the impact is lost in a lot of woolliness. When possible, we define our outcomes with clear objectives and identify the results that would be seen if success were to happen. As advanced by John Doerr in his book Measure What Matters, this model, Objectives and Key results, is one that we ascribe to and helps keep us all on point.
Coherent actions are not just a random list of tasks that wouldn’t make them coherent. Purposeful and deliberate choices that move you closer to your goal. If we do a gap analysis, look at the desired future state as defined by your objective and think about where we are today. What fills that gap? What purposeful actions can you take to move you closer and fill the gap? In the case of a food waste enterprise, coherent actions might include partnering with local grocers, launching a community awareness campaign, and developing an app to coordinate food redistribution.
In the case of The Weave, here is a list of purposeful actions that we engage with:
1. Regular meetings with a clear agenda and purpose are the rhythm and cadence of the business. It’s tough when we are remote, but we try. That’s all we can do, but getting everyone to try is the role of leadership.
2. Contribute to the community—in some way, get everyone to reach out to the community in the hope that the community will reach out to us. When and if they do, help them; that’s what a community is focused on.
3. We actively grow our personal LinkedIn connections, directly reaching investors, innovators, and founders. Once contact has been made and a small degree of trust established, we ask them to follow The Weave. Once they have made that commitment, we suggest they join us in Mighty Networks, which establishes a greater opportunity to show value and personalise the relationship.
4. Develop content to keep people engaged, such as blogs like this or our monthly horizon scan Catch the Wave, which aims to keep everyone focused on market trends.
5. Explore strategic partnerships, not constantly looking for the next sale but the next opportunity which we cannot deliver on our own.
6. Read—find content, blogs, books, articles, research, transcripts of podcasts, novels—on the pages we engage with lies inspiration and another point of view. Unless you read to understand and uncover something new, you will only read to be entertained; you will consume the knowledge and not use it to create.
What purposeful actions can you establish?
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Demonstrate Results
Whether you are going after funding or simply engaging with your next customer, traction matters, and so do results. Traction is how your product or service makes a difference to whomever it aims to benefit. So, once you’ve acted, you need to show the impact you’ve made. Demonstrated results are proof that your business is achieving its aims. This step is about more than just stating outcomes—it’s about showing them that a good pitch without evidence of how something is working is just a fantasy. Few will buy a fantasy unless the people selling it are amazing, and the concept is mind-blowing. When we test something, we need to show the results and assumptions we are working to test once more.
Traction can be manifested in various ways, depending on the specific goals and objectives of the strategy. Some examples of traction that could demonstrate the results of coherent actions include:
· Sales and Revenue Growth: Sales volume, recurring revenue, and overall revenue increase as the sustainable appliance line gains market acceptance and adoption.
· Customer Acquisition and Retention: Steady growth in the number of new customers acquiring sustainable appliances and high customer retention rates indicate customer satisfaction and loyalty.
· Market Share Expansion: Gaining a larger share of the sustainable home appliance market, potentially at the expense of competitors, as the company's products and brand become more prominent.
· Partnerships and Collaborations: Securing more partnerships with energy utilities, government agencies, and other relevant stakeholders, which can further drive the adoption and visibility of sustainable appliances.
· Brand Equity and Reputation: Positive shifts in brand perception, with the company recognised as a sustainable home appliance leader, have increased customer trust and loyalty.
· Operational Efficiency: Improvements in manufacturing efficiency, supply chain optimisation, and other operational metrics that enable the company to scale its sustainable appliance production and distribution.
By tracking and monitoring these various traction metrics over time, the organisation can demonstrate the concrete results of the coherent actions taken as part of the strategy. This traction data can validate the strategy's effectiveness, identify areas for further optimisation, and communicate the progress to stakeholders, including investors, customers, and partners.
Provide Evidence
It’s not enough to state your results—you need to back them up with evidence. Evidence adds weight to your claims and helps others trust in your impact. Evidence provides the foundation for your impact story. It can come in the form of specific data, customer testimonials, or case studies that accentuate the value from the customer’s perspective. The problem is that we ‘assume’, there’s that word again, that the evidence is understood and almost intuitively known by those we are engaging with. We see several pitch decks where the work has been done, but no evidence is being used to underpin the arguments.
Here are the five pillars of evidence that can be used to strengthen the case for adoption:
1. Planning and Preparation
o Define the objectives – the evidence we aim to collect aims to support the notion that burnout exists
o Identify the sources for your evidence – data from the app itself or surveys and conversations with the community.
o Manage where the evidence will be collated and managed
2. Collection
o Outline the strategy for physical, digital and testimonial sources
o Ensure that its integrity can be substantiated.
o Create a viable chain of evidence
3. Documentation
o Who, want, when, where and how
o Use as many sources as possible to triangulate the evidence
4. Analysis
o Examine the data and look for patterns.
o Be as scientific as you can – assess the probability that the evidence is relevant
o Look for correlations and causalities – correlation alone is not evidence
5. Presentable
o Organise the evidence in a way that it can be presented with the most impact,
o How can you present the evidence clearly and compellingly?
o When creating a narrative, how does the evidence support the human aspects of the problem?
Share Lessons Learned
Finally, sharing your lessons adds depth to your impact story. This step shows that you deliver results, reflect on the process, and continuously improve. Much of what has come before is to prepare you for the actual output you want to create.
We are only as good as our ability to communicate our story and the journey we have taken. The power of The Weave’s Pitch to Convince transforms your impact when it comes to communicating it.
Just read what some of those who have attended this programme say:
“This course was nothing short of transformative. The course has been wide-ranging, covering everything from organisational culture to financial best practices. It has given me the tools to grow my business. It has been truly game-changing!” Matt 2023
“It was very thought-provoking and made one think differently. It will undoubtedly help me if and when I need to get investors on board.” Amanda 2023
The Weave tutors have an incredible knack for simplifying the complex in business; even concepts I was already aware of were given a new light, making the teachings much more tangible.” Dinal - 2021
So, if you’re an entrepreneur struggling to communicate your impact effectively, The Weave’s Pitch to Convince workshop series is designed for you. This eight-week programme transforms how you see your business and how others experience it. Through hands-on workshops, expert feedback, and live practice, you’ll learn to turn complex business ideas into clear, impactful narratives that resonate with stakeholders.
With the right tools and guidance, you can articulate your purpose clearly, define your aims, create coherent actions, and demonstrate the impact of your work. By the end of the programme, you’ll have a professional pitch deck ready to win over clients, investors, and partners. Every conversation is a chance to convert, and with Pitch to Convince, you’ll make every one count.
Don’t miss this opportunity to refine your message, elevate your brand, and turn onlookers into advocates. Sign up for Pitch to Convince and find a new voice for your business today.
Conclusion
I think communicating your impact is essential to making it last. Using the BLGDR framework and the principles of good strategy, you can craft a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience and drives real results. With programmes like Pitch to Convince, you’ll gain the skills and confidence you need to tell your story effectively and make every conversation count.