Social entrepreneurs face a challenge like few others

There is a tremendous lure to doing well professional by doing good for society. There are approximately some 30,000 social entrepreneurs out there looking to apply the principles of business and its best practices to the problems that face us. These problems are many; of pollution and environmental awareness, of poor nutrition and of impoverishment. But despite this feel good factor that comes from solving social ills, there are some innate challenges that come with growing the business and protecting the financial well being of the company.

No one ever said that social entrepreneurs will have it easy, and they don’t. When you’re running a private enterprise, the aim of the business is to look after the interests of the shareholder or the stakeholders. But social entrepreneurs running a social enterprise will have to look at the social impact they will have above all and somewhere along the line growth becomes a bit secondary to everything else. That can become fatal since funding is vital to the perpetuation of a social entrepreneurs business model. Their aims might be noble, but at the end of the day a business must make money for itself in order to at the very least run its activities.

If you have an eye of being one of these budding social entrepreneurs, here’s what you should focus on.

Maintain your focus

The single biggest mistake that social entrepreneurs make is trying to grow too big too fast. Instead of trying to spread your focus and doing many things well, focus on a few things in your product line and do them very well. This is a mistake that many startups make. Everyone wants to be a Jack of all trades, and you might very well be capable of being one. But you should trot that out only once you’ve proven that you’re the master of one thing. The interest that one particular aspect of your product line generates can then be transferred to other products and generate increased revenues for you. Keep it simple, stay narrow. Focus on the mission

Be competitive

Business is business, say what you will. Helping society is the aim of a social business, but you still need to be business savvy. Consumers won’t come to you just because you’re a Good Samaritan. They need other benefits too, and your quality and costs should be as good as or better than that of rivals while keeping costs reasonable. Being charitable is no way to go about building a business model. Your brand intrinsically holds a promise. Meet this promise in order to lure in your customers and the potential pays-offs, both commercially and in a social sense, could be immense.