The World Fair Trade Day, started in 2001 by WFTO members, is an initiative of WFTO that falls on the second Saturday of May of each year. It is an inclusive worldwide festival of events celebrating Fair Trade as a tangible contribution to the fight against poverty and exploitation, climate change and the economic crises that has the greatest impact on the world’s most vulnerable populations.
From 2015 until 2017, WFTO developed a theme for World Fair Trade Day celebrations: ‘Be an Agent for Change’. Agents can be an individual – a consumer, a producer, a lobbyist, an event organiser. An agent can also be a company, a retailer, a community, a town. Importantly an agent can also be a product – a shawl or a bag of coffee (when you next pop to the shop keep an eye out for the World Fairtrade logo on many different food packages) – these ‘agents’ can particularly play a critical role in raising awareness of the issues and providing a solution through the product itself.
Have you or your small business got what it takes to be an Agent? Have you got a business idea that is still waiting to be made into a reality?
Here is our top three tips for turning your business dreams into a reality!
1.Make it simple
Everyone needs to fully understand how your product or business plan works. Fergus Moore says it was crucial to secure funding and advice for his company, Revive Eco, which recycles coffee grounds to create high-value bio-oils.
“When starting a business – especially in technology – it’s important to remember that not everyone you speak to will know what you’re talking about,” he explains. “You should be able to clearly explain your concept with as little jargon as possible, in one or two sentences. Stripping back the idea into two simple, easy-to-understand sentences meant that funders became more excited about his proposition. “People won’t buy into or get excited about something that they don’t understand.”
2.Two prototypes are better than one
Elena Dieckmann, co-founder of start-up, AEROPOWDER, which creates insulation material from waste chicken feathers, says that it’s a good idea to work with two prototypes when developing your product.
“You should have a visual lookalike and a working model that displays the proof-of-concept in a technical manner,” she explains. “The visuals will get people excited about what the final product will look like, while the working prototype should show pretty clearly how it will perform.They don’t have to be perfect, she adds. If they’re a little rough around the edges, that’s fine. “If your product is electronic, for example, the working version can be a module with wires hanging out, so long as it visualises how it might work. The visual version could be a 3D-printed model of any size and colour that you like.”
3.Work out the costs
For entrepreneurs who have ideas for lots of different products, cost forecasts are a sensible way to work out what should come first. So says Terence Chung, founder of FRUU, which uses fruit bi-products to create natural cosmetics and has already started trading.
“Run the numbers for each idea and for different business scenarios,” he says. “Then develop the product, or products, with the highest cost-to-impact ratio.”
Choosing the most cost-effective route meant that Mr Chung could get a quick and early indication of what consumers thought about the brand and the technical process behind it – and gain valuable feedback on what other products they were interested in, helping him to work out what to focus on and launch next.
Want to know more about World Fairtrade Day? Find out more about how you can support and be involved here #worldfairtradeday #agentforchange