Small and medium businesses are the backbone of economies
A new kind of business school
Our vision is a world full of successful purpose-driven small and medium business that support their thriving communities. And we want to use our super powers in impactful education with our extensive experience growing businesses and supporting SMEs to give them the best chance to succeed.
We want to maximise the time for leaders so that they can achieve more with less. Their confidence and strategic capability will increase and they will drive growth for their business in competitive and evolving markets.
We do this by helping them refine their critical thinking skills, get super clear on exactly what they need to focus on in their business to get to the next stage, build their strategic leadership knowledge through MBA-accredited business education, ensure they reach the best outcomes with expert business coaching and provide them inspiration and connections through Industry Mentorship. Combine this with the opportunity to connect with like-minded business owners in Mastermind style group sessions or online community and you have a program that gets real results for both the business and the business leader.
Equity of access to high quality business education and coaching
We need small and medium business to succeed because it greatly impacts our society (they are the biggest employer in the world!), but often the leaders of those businesses are stuck not knowing what to do next to grow their business or making a decision that leads to the business failing.
Often those that start the business don’t have any formal business education or what they do have may not be applicable to the modern market.
High quality business education isn’t cheap with even the cheapest MBA costing in the tens of thousands. The same goes for quality business coaching, those that have the expertise to guide the leader through the complexities of changing markets.
By 2030 we will ensure a minimum of 20 million business leaders have built their confidence and strategic capabilities to lead a high performing business.
Our mission is to increase their success rate and empower their leaders with the smarts, tools and support to thrive now and in the future.
Why do we do what we do?
Small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are the backbone of local communities; providing opportunities for meaningful work, fostering local economies and account for 60-70% of jobs in most OECD countries. SME’s account for 99.8% of Australian businesses and contribute significantly to Australia’s economy.
However, small to medium-sized businesses have a much lower success rate than larger business and face greater hardships in extreme market conditions. SME’s are less likely to have effective growth, marketing or digital strategies or have adopted digital transformations due to a lack of time, resources, confidence and/or knowledge to do so.
By building their confidence and capabilities to develop effective strategies and use cutting edge practices , they can increase revenue, time, job creation and the longevity of their business whilst developing future of work skills that will help them now and into the future. This not only benefits them personally but contributes to the community around them.
Our measurements of impact
Quality of program
We believe that business education, coaching and mentoring should be accessible and transformational. It should help change mindsets and lead to adoption (the implementation of the learning) continuously. In order to do this, we must first deeply understand the needs of the individual and business as well as best practice in adult learning and the latest innovative practices. We measure this with an assessment, data and a dedication to research.
Participant engagement
Average engagement and completion rates of free and paid courses and business support programs are typically quite low. Participants have to be highly intrinsically motivated to complete them. We set ourselves high targets in engagement and completion rates so that we provide a support environment that encourages all participants to complete a stage in their learning journey. We measure this throughout our engagement and learning experience with them.
Confidence & Continuation
Our unique assessment allows us to pinpoint the sweet spot of learning for our participants, allowing them to develop self-efficacy to action what they have learned. We measure that confidence and continue to measure the impact of the learnt frameworks and tools on them and their business. We believe that continuous confidence in action leads to greater business maturity and a willingness to innovate. Success comes when they reference the tools again with new information.
Impact on the business
The real measurement of our success is if our programs have created decent work and economic development. We measure further to the completion of our engagements to understand the impact on revenue, time and efficiencies, job creation, profitability and confidence in their abilities and resilience to market change. We know our programs are truly transformational when tangible changes are recorded. We also know they work by engaging past participants as Industry Mentors to pass on their lessons.
Theory of change
Research & Development
25eight has conducted extensive research to deeply understand the factors that ensure the success of a smaller business as well as the challenges and needs of the individuals that operate them.
With a team that has Masters of Teaching degrees, we also ensure that the programs we design meet the learning needs of participants, such that the likelihood that participants successfully action what they learn meets our high standards. We ensure every single participant increases their capabilities in at least one area. We know that we do this, because we measure it.
Our ongoing R&D work to develop personalised assessments and learning experiences in a way that ensures high completion rates for time-poor business leaders increases our relevance and success rates.
We don’t make wild claims, we let the data do the talking.
If small to medium-sized businesses thrives, the community thrives
SME’s contribute to local economies by bringing growth and innovation to the community in which they are established. They also provide employment opportunities for many people, including those that may experience disadvantage, to achieve financial success and independence.
We love talking about the change we want to see!
Talk with Phil, our Co-Founder, by booking a meeting with him using this link