I was reminded by a friend today how unimportant the benefits of a project are to investors if they don’t get the "how" part. When pitching products or services or investment schemes, its easy to focus on the benefits for the client. This is what you are trained to do from earliest days. "Avoid features and focus on benefits".
Actually, most people get the benefit straight away. It’s the "how" are you going to deliver this benefit which they are keen to understand. At first, this looks to the entrepreneur like a person who is just being difficult. "How? I told you how I am going to fill this building up with life. I am going to inspire local entrepreneurs, I am going to create an incubation hub, I am going to……blah, blah, blah. To the entrepreneur, who is living and breathing their project, these sound like perfectly good answers to "how". But, look closely and you will see that they are simply examples of more benefits, more of the "so what".
As a social entrepreneur you must communicate "the how". It is the answer to this that clients, funders, et. al what to know. How are you going to fill that building, find people to participate, change the culture, etc?
By focusing intensively on the "how", you will clarify your message and give the right information for a proper debate of the merits or costs or whatever.
The Harehills Project "how" is: Leveraging networks. We will leverage networks (both existing and new) to fill the building, bring it to life, extract value, and add all that other value we keep talking about. The difference (another important thing to know about a project) in our project is that we will work to create a network that is recognized via the use and occupation of the building. Yes, but "how"?
You see how this can keep going?
Ok. Person to person connections and small group instigation. Yes, but how?
I think you are getting the point. At the mid level of answering this question you see clearly the way forward on the project. At the deeper levels of this question, you begin to map your specific project plan and the team necessary to deliver on the "how".
*Photo by JerryDoughnut via flickr
Go on, put your idea to the "how" test.
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