THE WECOACHING JOURNEY

You, WECoaches, are the guardians of future entrepreneurs, as you support the advancement of their skills required in today’s entrepreneurial world. There are several methods a WECoach can use, according to the needs of the learner and the goals that he/she sets.

Two very important methods to use during your WECoach journey are:

• Nonformal Education (NFE) is any organized education that takes place outside the formal educational Most of the times, it is adaptable, learner-centered, contextualized and uses a participatory approach. There is no specific target group for NFE.
• Informal education also includes aspects whereby the individuals seek or want to learn a specific skill or when they look into a certain area and don't use formal or non-formal ways to learn. But informal education means also learning things without the learner realising that he/she learned it.

Tips for the WECoaches ?

• As the WECoach you need to get to know your learners from the very beginning. Non formal education methods could be useful to strengthen communication and collaboration between you.
• Make sure that you know your learners’ goals and needs. Self and peer reflection activities could be an important tool to set the goals of a coaching journey.
• Use personal experiences and success stories. Personalizing the coaching journey could be very essential for the learners. Using real time stories as examples could play an essential role to the motivation of the learner.
• Respect diversity and adjust each methodology and method according to the individual/group.

The Entrepreneurship Coaching Model by Valerie Lim

https://coachcampus.com/coach-portfolios/coaching-models/valerie-lim-the-entrepreneurship/

The Entrepreneurship Coaching Model is a 5-step framework on starting up a new business. It follows Sir John Whitmore’s highly successful GROW model. This model can be applied in a personal or group coaching format.

It could be used to assist the learner’s WECoaching journey to:

• Check and refine the viability of the start-up business idea.
• Develop an action plan to launch the new business.
• Feel confident, inspired and motivated to make it happen.
• Develop skills to keep going even when faced with obstacles.

Some online tools that WECoaches can use with the target group:

• Ladies First! Project

https://ladiesfirst.fvaweb.eu/ 

To be a successful entrepreneur, one needs to be able to grow both personally and professionally. Hence, one important tool could be the curriculum developed under this project, that sets the framework for planning teaching and learning experiences.

This EU project aims to inspire and empower teachers, trainers and counsellors to assist women beneficiaries to finally achieve the required balance in-between working and personal life through a coaching journey. Learning outcomes, as an important part of the curriculum, guide teachers and trainers on the teaching process and inform the learners about what they are expected to know, understand and are able to do after a given learning activity. The “Ladies First!! Training Curriculum for coaching and support women in work life balance” is based on EQF framework addressed to coaches/counsellors and VET for women coaching and support.

For more regarding the Curriculum: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K3WT-nuenLA66K6-PbC77y-08SCs2Dif/view and for the topics you can press here: https://ladiesfirst.fvaweb.eu/?page_id=449.

An App Toolkit has also been developed as part of the project to support the trainers using the Ladies First training curriculum: https://ladiesfirst.fvaweb.eu/?page_id=293.

• Better Entrepreneurship Policy tool:

https://www.betterentrepreneurship.eu/en

The Better Entrepreneurship Policy Tool, is a tool available online and it addresses policymakers and other stakeholders at a local, regional and national level who would like to discover how public policy can assist people (especially underrepresented groups of society such as migrants, women, people with disabilities, etc.) in business creation and self-employment and how they can support the development of social enterprises.

What does the tool do?

• Stimulates thought-provoking reflection on inclusive and social entrepreneurship policies and programmes.
• Promotes learning through international good practices.
• Enhances inclusive and social entrepreneurship policy design and implementation.
• Targets a wide variety of stakeholders, such as policymakers, business associations and networks, chambers of commerce, finance providers, research institutions, education and training providers, and civil society organisations.

Hence, this tool can be used by WECoaches to guide the learners through their entrepreneurial journey.

• Proposed Approaches to Social Impact Measurement in European Commission Legislation and in practice relating to EuSEFs and the EaSI (2014): https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=7735

Measuring social impact is very important in the social entrepreneurship sector to assess the level to which an enterprise is meeting its social purpose.  In October 2012, a group of experts on measuring enterprises social impact was created by the GECES (“Groupe d’Experts de la Commission sur l’Entrepreneuriat Social”) with the aim of offering their advice and suggest a unified methodology  which could be functional among the European social entrepreneurship sector. This tool is essential to help social fund managers to decide whether a particular social enterprise is worth investing funds in and whether it has achieved its social objectives both internally and externally.  This publication presents the suggested ways to assess and follow-up on the social impact of social enterprises that could be useful in the WECoaching journey to assess the learners’ social enterprise’s objectives.

• Business Plan Writing:

https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/write-your-business-plan.

SBA.gov recommends that a business plan include and offers various of templates for the initial enterprise planning. This guide could be used by WECoaches to help the learners develop their business plan by following the writing steps of this platform:

• Executive summary -- a snapshot of your business
• Company description -- describes what you do
• Market analysis - research on your industry, market and competitors
• Organization and management -- your business and management structure
• Service or product -- the products or services you’re offering
• Marketing and sales -- how you’ll market your business and your sales strategy
• Funding request -- how much money you’ll need for next 3 to 5 years
• Financial projections -- supply information like balance sheets
• Appendix -- an optional section that includes résumés and permits