Enhance your curriculum by addressing the QAA Guidance on skills for your subject, and incorporating the QAA (2018) Guidance on Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.
Providing resources and support to those working with pre-starts, start-ups and busineses.
The following ETC tools can help you to deliver these skills in the curriculum
These guides have been selected to build QAA (2018) enterprise skills in your teaching.
Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Small group (teams of 4-6), Large Group
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Lecture Theatre, Presentation Space, Carousel Tables (small working group)
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
8.) Digital and Data Skills
1Creativity and Innovation
3Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
7Communication and Strategy
Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Individual Task
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Presentation Space
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
8.) Digital and Data Skills
7Communication and Strategy
The main benefits of this approach are to enable students to pick up the skills to summarise something in a focused and precise way. The outcome is often that they are aware how important lucky opportunities can be in entrepreneurship and to prepare for such opportunities should they occur.
An Elevator Pitch (or Elevator Speech) is a brief overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The pitch is so called because it can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (say, thirty seconds or 100-150 words). The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitch to quickly weed out bad ideas.
In the entrepreneurship educators programme the elevator pitch is used to force participants to think carefully about their personal strengths and to be confident about these by making an explicit pitch. Within the entrepreneurship educators programme it is used to give participants experience of an elevator pitch. The basic approach is to invite individuals to develop their pitch beforehand with a strict time limit (usually 1 to 3 minutes). Participants are asked to compete in front of a panel of judges equipped with agreed judging criteria. Participants are lined up to encourage swift movement from one participant to another and they are timed – a whistle is blown at the end of the time and they must then depart.
Elevator Pitches are commonly used in US Enterprise Education and are often used in business plan competitions. The purpose is to force students to prepare a short and focused explanation of their business should they have the opportunity to pitch it to somebody in an informal situation. It is an encouragement to think out the core of the business and find attractive ways of putting it over.
If you would like to have your How to Guide featured, please download the template and email the completed version to hello@etctoolkit.org.uk.
We have produced a guidance sheet which will assist you in completing the How to Guide.
If you have any questions regarding completing the template, please Contact Us.
If you would like to have your Case Study featured, please download the template and email the completed version to hello@etctoolkit.org.uk.
We have produced a guidance sheet which will assist you in completing the Case Study.
If you have any questions regarding completing the template, please Contact Us.
If you or your students are interested in developing a business idea, becoming self-employed/freelance or creating a business here are some tools to help and also some links to business start-up support.
These guides have been selected to build QAA (2018) entrepreneurship skills in your teaching.
Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Any
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Any
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
8.) Digital and Data Skills
5Reflection and Action
Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Small group (teams of 4-6), Individual Task
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Any
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
8.) Digital and Data Skills
3Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
|
Objective:
|
|
Overview: This activity is designed to provide an opportunity for the entrepreneur/ small business owner to estimate the capacity of their proposed business in the tables, then summarise this information and consider what measures they would take if they were not working to full capacity or if were working to overcapacity. |
Activity:How many hours per week will you require to fulfil all the functions of the new business? By reflecting on the business presented, does the entrepreneur/ small business owner already have some equipment, stock, staff, premises and how much total hours/time spent in service, production, preparation etc. that are/can be used in the business?
Once the entrepreneur/ small business owner have broadly identified the above issues, it’s advised that they conduct an in-depth capacity planning exercise analysis covering areas and sections as follows: Time
Staff
Stock: Thinking about your stock levels:
Equipment
Space
Once the above capacity issues have been completed, it is only then that the operational aspect of running the business can be estimated. The owner will have to calculate whether the cost involved will increase production capacity sufficiently to meet demand and still make a profit or the other way round. If operation costs are higher than at first anticipated, it may be that the new business owner needs to re-evaluate these costs. For example, consideration of renting items of equipment instead of buying, subcontracting production. Time, equipment, space and stock are all linked together and dictate the production capacity of the business and also consider staffing.
|
Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Individual Task
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Any
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
8.) Digital and Data Skills
3Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
Objectives:
To ensure the potential new business owner knows exactly how much income the business needs to sufficiently generate, in order to cover personal living costs to survive.
To analyse how financial circumstances may change when becoming self-employed.
When setting up a business, the first thing to do is work out exactly how much money the business needs to make to support the individual. This ‘Personal Survival Budget’ activity is designed, so that the new business owner knows exactly how much money the business needs to make, in order to support and cover personal expenditure. This is critical to ensure that business and household expenses are kept separate and to support business decision making and planning.
This takes approximately 20-30 mins to complete the template below.
1. First of all, remember that you are only calculating your personal expenditure, not any expenses the business may incur.
2. Ensure that you include all of the items that you have the responsibility to pay for in your household. If you have any other items of expenditure that do not appear on the list, include them in the ‘other’ box.
3. Secondly, remember that your financial circumstances will change when you become self-employed, as you will begin paying class two national insurance contributions monthly, and any benefits that you are currently entitled to, such as housing/council tax benefit, may reduce or stop. If you are not sure what benefits you may be entitled to, seek advice from a Welfare Rights Advisor.
4. Finally, the budget is based on your expenditure per month, so if there are bills that you pay weekly, quarterly, or annually, remember to divide them by the appropriate amount.
|
Items of Expenditure |
Monthly £
|
|
Rent/ Mortgage |
£ |
|
Council Tax |
£ |
|
Water |
£ |
|
Utilities (gas, electricity, water, oil, etc |
£ |
|
Phone |
£ |
|
Food |
£ |
|
TV License |
£ |
|
Home/ Life Insurance |
£ |
|
Loan/ Credit cards/ personal debt repayments |
£ |
|
Newspapers/ Magazines |
£ |
|
Car Tax/ Insurance |
£ |
|
NI Contributions |
£ |
|
Saving Plans |
£ |
|
Other |
£ |
|
Total Expenditure |
£
|
5. Now that you have established your average monthly expenditure, the next step is to identify any income that you may already have, or possibly claim for, to help meet this expenditure. Again remember that this is a monthly budget. Depending on your personal circumstances, you may receive some, all or none of the items below:
|
Estimated Income Outside Self-Employment |
Monthly £ |
|
Income from family/partner - parents |
£ |
|
Part-time job |
£ |
|
Full-time job |
£ |
|
Benefits |
£ |
|
Other income |
£ |
|
Total Income Outside Self-Employment |
£ |
6. To give a new business the best chance of survival, it is best to minimise your drawings as much as possible in the first year to avoid getting into debt. For this reason we establish the minimum drawings that you could take form the business and ‘survive’. This is calculated by taking the total income (above) from the total expenditure . What remains will be the minimum amount that you could draw from the business per month in order to survive.
|
Minimum drawings calculation |
Monthly £ |
|
Total expenditure |
£ |
|
Total income outside self employment |
£ |
|
Total expenditure less total income |
£ |
NB. In some cases, your income may exceed your expenditure. This occurs when there is already enough income coming into the household to cover all the bills, and drawings from the business are not ‘necessary’. In this case it is best to set very low drawings to allow the business a healthy cash flow.
Reflection
Financial analysis and budgeting
Rationalising
Decision making
Resources:
Flip Chart / Power point (if presenting in a group)
Calculator
Hand out the following template for the entrepreneur/ small business owner to complete (link)
Template to hand out to business owner / entrepreneur
To help estimate the minimum amount of monthly drawings that you need to take from the business to cover all your personal day to day living costs, please complete the tables below and add any other items of personal expenditure that may not be on the list.
|
Items of Expenditure |
Monthly £
|
|
Rent/ Mortgage |
£ |
|
Council Tax |
£ |
|
Water |
£ |
|
Utilities (gas, electricity, water, oil, etc |
£ |
|
Phone |
£ |
|
Food |
£ |
|
TV License |
£ |
|
Home/ Life Insurance |
£ |
|
Loan/ Credit cards/ personal debt repayments |
£ |
|
Newspapers/ Magazines |
£ |
|
Car Tax/ Insurance |
£ |
|
NI Contributions |
£ |
|
Saving Plans |
£ |
|
Other |
£ |
|
Total Expenditure |
£
|
In the table below please list any income outside self employment that you receive such as: Income from Partner/ Tax credits/ Child benefits/ House Keep
|
Estimated Income Outside Self-Employment |
Monthly £ |
|
Income from family/partner - parents |
£ |
|
Part-time job |
£ |
|
Full-time job |
£ |
|
Benefits |
£ |
|
Other income |
£ |
|
Total Income Outside Self-Employment |
£ |
|
Minimum drawings calculation |
Monthly £ |
|
Total expenditure |
£ |
|
Total income outside self employment |
£ |
|
Total expenditure less total income |
£ |
This section highlights that you will need to draw a minimum of £_____ from the business to cover all personal day to day living costs.
https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/help-for-young-people/tools-resources/business-tools/finance-advice
Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Any
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Any
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
8.) Digital and Data Skills
2Opportunity recognition‚ creation and evaluation
4Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5Reflection and Action
6Interpersonal Skills
7Communication and Strategy
An elevator pitch (EP) is becoming an important item in the toolkit of most people. It doesn’t matter if you are a job seeker, business person, or gainfully employed professional, you need a powerful elevator speech (EP) to extend and support your personal brand.
Activity:
PART 1: Using a flip chart, PowerPoint or workbook the tutor will take the individual or the group through the key points of elevator pitches.
Make them care
The main mistake many people make when pitching is listing their products and services and go into detail about processes. People want to know how you can help them, or solve a problem they have. Emphasise benefits and solutions rather than features.
Your Second Word Should Be A Verb
What do you do? For others? This also forces you into thinking about your results and accomplishments. Get a list of powerful verbs, look them up.
You Have To ‘Get’ What’s Unique About You and Your Business
What differentiates you, what causes you to stand out from the competition? This is what you want in your elevator pitch.
A Few Sentences Is Usually Enough
Think short and sweet. Powerful is not lengthy or full of too many words. When you force yourself into a few sentences, it causes you to think about each word more carefully so that each one tends to convey more.
It Has To Roll Off Your Tongue
You need to write it down and practice it so it becomes second nature to you. This will support a confident appearance when you say it.
You Have To Believe It
If you develop an EP that embarrasses you or causes you to cringe, you either need to boost your confidence or change what you’re saying about yourself.
Give It Attitude
If your EP doesn’t have energy or enthusiasm, then expect it to be received the same way. We like people with confidence and a bit of attitude about their abilities. You’re not bragging, but proud.
Smile
It’s hard not to love people who smile. It communicates warmth and confidence. You come across as engaging and someone people would like to know more about.
Shut Up
Once you’ve delivered your EP, stop yourself from saying anything else. I know this is a tough one, but people often blather on, which deflates the impact of your ES. When you stop talking, it will also prompt the person you are introducing yourself to to ask about you or introduce themselves. Both results are great.
Leave Them Wanting More
A great test of a powerful EP is if they ask you about what you’ve just said. Go have fun with this. Next time you attend a professional meeting, say your EP, shut up and see what happens.
Have A Few EP’s In Your Toolkit
EP’s are not one size fits all. Your audience will be a determining factor in whatspecific message you want to convey. Different aspects of your products or services will appeal to different people and companies
Once you have your primary EP, think through the various groups of people you are likely to use it with. This will help you decide what needs to get tweaked to make it just right for that group of people.
Your elevator pitch is among the first things you do that will form an impression with others. You want it to be professional and well delivered.
PART 2: Each member of the group has 10 minutes to devise their own elevator pitch.
PART 3: Each member of the group delivers their elevator pitch with the tutor and the rest of the group giving feedback and suggestions for improvement.
PART 4: This can be developed further by videoing each person so they can see for themselves.
Planning, preparation, presentation, feedback review, reflection
If you would like to have your How to Guide featured, please download the template and email the completed version to hello@etctoolkit.org.uk.
We have produced a guidance sheet which will assist you in completing the How to Guide.
If you have any questions regarding completing the template, please Contact Us.
Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Any
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Any
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
8.) Digital and Data Skills
1Creativity and Innovation
2Opportunity recognition‚ creation and evaluation
3Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5Reflection and Action
6Interpersonal Skills
7Communication and Strategy
8Digital and Data Skills
Taking #EntEdOnline: What did you need to do to deliver your Enterprise Support programme online?
The Enterprise Support programme at Oxford Brookes which consists of three elements: Support for Start-Ups, Tier 1 Start Up Visa programme (T1SUV) and Partnership Work.
The challenges of working online or at a distance include:
The key challenge is networking in a digital landscape as well as running and operation of an Incubator (IceQube) virtually. We explored launching a new co-working Incubator space for our enterprise community; how to co-work in a social distance landscape and using telephone calls / inquiries to keep communication available and accessible.
(note: voice communication options have been limited to the above whereby you must make an account on a video call platform or have access to a work mobile phone to make a voice call.
Our biggest challenge was making changes to our offerings for a "biggest idea pitching competition" working out how best to support our entrepreneurs in the current climate, and communicating these changes to them efficiently through calls and emails, as well as changes to the delivery of the event which was set to be held as a gala dinner.
What were your concerns, constraints and priorities?
With delivery and supporting clients our priority, we focused on mentoring despite the technical constraints. In order to conduct face to face mentoring for students, staff and recent graduates and that mentee’s must have access to a strong internet connection and video call software such as Zoom, Google Hangouts or Skype with microphone.
We also needed to address what would be the direct line of contact for our community? Without open office hours for those on Campus to speak to the Enterprise Support Team. Programme administration, the preparation and production of official documents on behalf of the University was key. This process now requires people to sign documents digitally and substitute headed paper for a digital option. We needed to deliver a programme of live events including a pitching competition and monthly meet-up. The issues to be aware of when taking these online were, training our team, participants and audience on how to engage in these events online.
What did you do?
We acknowledged the covid-19 situation on all our communication/across all channels to keep our content relevant to our audience and what they are preoccupied about. We provided digital solutions to access our services in a matter of days and reassured our audience that we could go ahead with the rest of our programme. We delivered our two main funding programmes online with the first webinar ‘Pitch@ The Zoom’ seeing 12 people pitch for funding and our idea pitching competition Fuel which followed the same tested format via the Zoom platform. We encouraged and nurtured audience engagement through the interactive Q&A features and the polling features. We addressed our partnership work by ceasing the opportunity to work with individuals or organisations which could play a role in providing additional mentoring support, expert guidance, signposting for us. This was achieved by putting a call out to host a series of ‘How to Webinars’ to directly help towards building and developing business ideas. Fostering relationships with an existing and growing network of alumni, who can play a role in accompanying our enterprise community of students, staff and recent graduates on their journey to starting or growing a company. We plan to share their stories through our digital marketing and PR.
What resources, links, advice, guidance did you consult?
Alongside the existing resources EEUK already provides, we have looked to Enterprise Nation alongside Zoom who offer a plethora of support including demonstrations for how their different services work, and step by step how-to guides for every feature.
What other challenges do you have that you have not yet resolved
One challenge we are facing is that it is harder to host networking because for both our audience and ourselves, we are not used to networking online. We need to get comfortable with this new way of doing things. As an example we are trying to work out how to host our monthly networking events online (Monthly Meet-Up). We usually provide food and drink, and host games for our attendees to win prizes. We originally planned on utilising Zoom and are considering running a virtual pub quiz, but feel this is still quite isolating in its nature for those who would normally attend our events and speak with new people. Ability to generate individual conversations in a group setting isn't something that Zoom can easily facilitate and is key for us.
With grateful thanks to Katrina Gill Enterprise Support, Oxford Brookes University for sharing to support the sector.
If you would like to have your Case Study featured, please download the template and email the completed version to hello@etctoolkit.org.uk.
We have produced a guidance sheet which will assist you in completing the Case Study.
If you have any questions regarding completing the template, please Contact Us.
EEUK have created a guide to help you develop online business support but follow the updates on https://www.enterprise.ac.uk/ented-online/ which includes the national resources and is updated regularly. These resources include:
Specific COVID-19 measures for trading businesses https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
- and select your region to see regional financial support from www.gov.uk
Specific guidance and support for employers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-employers-and-businesses-about-covid-19
Govt Business Support can be found here: https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/
FSB advice https://www.fsb.org.uk/campaign/covid19.html
Deloitte Guide to Managing Cash Flow in response to COVID-19
Seeking to give guidance to the right steps to take: https://growthplatform.org/business-covid-19-advice/10-steps-to-take-now/
Freelancers are currently (March 24th) being directed to Universal Credit and Citizens Advice https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/health/coronavirus-what-it-means-for-you/
Well being guidance from FSB
Lockdown 24th March 2020: which businesses are affected https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874732/230320_-_Revised_guidance_note_-_finalVF.pdf
