Pro-bono charity campaigns;  lots of agencies do this kind of work. Some shout about it, many don’t.

Helping out like this is laudable, our industry should be giving back. Our services are expensive and not everyone who needs them can afford us and that’s to the detriment of society more broadly as I’ll explain.

Of course, there are still many small charities we should continue to support, whether formally or via passion projects, but there is another group that we speak about less, that also needs our input.

Marketing isn’t accessible to all

And that’s the vast pool of small entrepreneurial businesses. Some of them might be attempting to serve neglected and under-represented communities; some might be looking to innovate a tired or outdated category; others might have the potential to change the world and create a positive impact. With growth high up the political agenda, the long tail of SMEs, acknowledged as the UK growth engine, needs whatever help it can get.

How many small businesses have an incredible idea that fails to see the light of day because entrepreneurs don’t understand what needs their brand meets and crucially how to communicate their USP to consumers and investors?  Many of them are unable to access the critical thinking and oxygen that brand and marketing provides and to identify and tap into the right networks and ecosystems.

Why SMEs deserve more of our support

So my letter to our industry is this; do your bit to power the growth engine of the UK economy and where possible to support the businesses that have positive change baked into their DNA. You won’t back a winner every time, nor should that be your main criteria. Of course, we all have to focus most of our energies on the big clients that pay everyone’s bills, but keep aside 5% (or similar) of resource to offer your services to those standout ideas that need a helping hand.

But how do you spot these promising businesses? Predicting future outcomes is a tricky undertaking especially when we live in a world that is more subject to change than ever. The serendipitous nature of life and world events is the topic of the brilliant book, The Black Swan:The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Taleb’s vocabulary and central concept has entered the mainstream as a shorthand for intensely unpredictable events and outcomes. 

Improving the probability of Black Swan events

There are two quotes in Taleb’s book that I think provide some solace and clarity when we agencies try to rationalise supporting promising SMEs whilst also struggling with the frustration of not knowing whether our efforts will bear fruit.

The first is: “I know that history is going to be dominated by an improbable event, I just don’t know what that event will be.” The second being: “This idea that in order to make a decision you need to focus on the consequences (which you can know) rather than the probability (which you can’t know) is the central idea of uncertainty.”

While Taleb shows us that nothing’s ever guaranteed, my take out is this: wouldn’t it be wonderful if by our involvement we could change the course of history, setting off a chain of events that deliver a positive Black Swan event? His book teaches us that extremely low probability events can have a huge bearing on the world. If agencies decided to give more opportunities to promising brands, that’s a way of increasing the odds of them going from nothing to brilliance and potentially changing the world.

How and where to provide support

So, what does practical support for a promising entrepreneurial business look like? 

In the work that we’ve done, we’ve helped entrepreneurs create brands around their vision – we’ve got right inside their heads to give meaning to the brand and create a proposition that is totally authentic to them. We leverage our investment networks to connect ideas with money. We share our network of influence so that good ideas encounter the greatest number of people who can give them a chance to take off.

And we make informal introductions to people who can act as mentors and advocates. We’re currently supporting a female led business that is looking to tackle the problem of wastage in the footwear industry by using dead stock materials to create beautiful designs, via all of these touchpoints.

As I was writing this piece I also came across an article that mentioned the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, and the dismal statistic that only 5 percent of venture capital money goes to female entrepreneurs. While I don’t necessarily support the idea of quotas, it seems to me that where possible, we should be particularly mindful of giving our time and support to female-run businesses.

For most SMEs, marketing is hard, so come on agency leaders, let's do what we can to improve their chances of success and give generously of our time and our connections to help the businesses we think have potential. By doing this we raise the odds of a female Black Swan or even unicorn – and wouldn’t that be something to shout about!