Manaaki Insights Volume One, July 2020

On 25 March 2020, New Zealand went into lock-down, and Manaaki went live. In just over three months since, 85,000 people have visited the website, and 200,000 have watched our live interviews with inspirational Kiwi business people.

Here’s what we’ve learned from those 285,000 interactions, and what that means for small business and New Zealand. There’s so much more to learn, but we’re taking every insight as an opportunity to listen, reflect and apply with a bias for action.

What follows are our written insights - if you want to watch a short video of these insights - check it out here

How do I get over this hurdle, right now?

Observation: From day one, business owners have been asking us ‘how do I work through this thing?’ Whether ‘this thing’ is the wage subsidy, small business loan, an HR issue, or the many other challenges that business owners face. 

Those are straightforward questions that need straightforward answers but are acting as real roadblocks for businesses. They need help, and they need it now so they can move forward.

Insight: Covid-19 has accelerated the trend of instant advice. Just like the EMA Advice Line and MyHR, Manaaki’s crowd-sourced guidance collapses the value chain for advice. And because it’s digital and therefore ‘always-on’, it’s even more instant. 

Make it easy to find answers, and people will come. Our users receive at least one answer that same day, from a diverse range of experts, for free. Being able to tick one more thing off their ‘to do list’ is absolutely invaluable.

Implication: Instant is the new table stakes. Organisations need to consider how they can provide instant access, responsiveness, and engagement, for their community. Because if they don’t, someone else might, and take their place in the market. 

Challenge: How can we make it easy for small businesses to provide their customers with ‘always-on’ access to the right people? 

We all want to be more digital. 

Observation: A significant number of the questions we’ve received have been around digital: 

• How do I go digital?
• How do I generate more sales online? 
• How do I reach more potential customers online?

Insight: Covid-19 has accelerated Kiwi businesses into digital: a space where many businesses who were used to traditional retail, were lacking understanding. We’ve seen a shift from “why should I go digital?” to “how can I go digital?” and now “how can I make my digital experience more engaging?” Although many users found success after featuring on the New Zealand Made Products Facebook page or a popular blog, they’re struggling to then maintain sales. 

Digital appears so simple from the outside, but it’s much more complicated behind the scenes. So demystifying those ‘hidden’ and ‘unreachable’ elements is essential. As is giving business owners the awareness that some aspects of digital such as E commerce and AI, require specific processes, systems, and capabilities that may need to be outsourced. 

Implication: It’s easy to say “I want to go digital” but much harder to know where to start. A personal ‘digital guide’ with the requisite skills, experience and context could make a material impact.

Challenge: How many ‘digital guides’ would we need to help New Zealand go digital? These guides must be able to not only ‘show’, but also ‘do’. 

Challenge: Once a business owner goes digital, the challenge is that so many digital ‘systems’ don’t talk to each other. We need tech platforms to ‘open up’ in order to enable this. 

Friction: The gates are open, owners want to move to digital, but they are super frustrated with the how part. Guides required, better tools required, more focus needed to get this moving. 

There are more starting than ever. It's time for a side hustle. 

Observation: When you lose something in a crisis, it creates urgency to find something new. So it’s no surprise that many people are venturing out on their own. They’re:  

• Seeking guidance on finding and reaching their markets
• Sharing their hypotheses about market opportunities
• Looking for funding to support their start-up

Insight: More and more people want to ‘do their own thing’, almost certainly spurred on by Covid-19. There’s also a huge number of people when you add up the unemployed, failed businesses, expats back from overseas, University graduates, and youth not going on their OEs. Think 115,000 Kiwis!

Implication: There’s a need here. It’s either being ignored or not seen.

Challenge: We need a start-up grant, and digital tools and pathways for people who want to find their own path to independence. This could be a pivotal moment in our history when we look back at the tens of thousands of Kiwis who started up post Covid-19. 

Hope: Right there is a WINZ grant for people on benefits, to help start a business. This could be extended to include people not just on benefits now as long as there was no crowding out. 

Insight: The side-hustle is front and centre, and at times it is hard to know what is the ‘side’ or what is the ‘core’ - and that does not matter because if you want to get ahead, then standing up, testing, iterating and learning what resonates and then doubling down will be key to move forward. Don’t assume too much, test, iterate and welcome to the period of hustle. If you are not hustling, you will be left behind. 

Community organisations have been forgotten, and their volunteers are an untapped resource.

Observation: Social enterprises and community organisations have struggled to maintain cash flow while also supporting their communities. 

For many of them, cash reserves are limited, as is their ability to borrow and seek funding. Their working capital typically comes from trade, and while the economy is in lockdown, they will struggle to survive. The good news is that their supporters and volunteers have time to contribute. 

Insight: In crisis, some people look after themselves, and others find causes and communities they care for and choose to contribute. This ‘others first’ approach has huge power, because this is a large group of people with a massive potential impact for good. 

Implication: If we forget community organisations, it constrains their volunteers’ ability to find solutions. This is a hidden part of the community, and these organisations are even more ‘at risk’ than others. 

 Mindset, belief, and inspiration, are empowering. 

Observation: As adults, we often learn from people who are the same as us, or taking a similar journey. The Manaaki Lives on Facebook and Instagram have shown time and time again how important authentic storytelling is for supporting, inspiring, and empowering others to do the mahi.

We are our words, and we can at times be our faces. An interesting observation is that our Live viewers are typically younger and more diverse. Why? Well, yes, because we are on Instagram and Facebook, but also because so many of our guests are young Māori & Pacifica. Contrast this with the age splits on the Manaaki site, where our largest demographic age group is 60+!

Insight: Storytelling creates a wonderful opportunity, not only for the storyteller to self-reflect, but also for the wider community to learn and gain inspiration. Live broadcasts straight to our viewers’ phones are more personal than traditional broadcasts through TV and radio. 

Insight: If you want diverse communities of engagement, you must be diverse yourself!

Insight: A regular schedule builds consistent communities. 

Are we still afraid to ask for help?

Out of every 100 people who visit Manaaki, 99 consume content, and just one actually asks a question. Halfway through Covid-19, we added a feature where users could ask questions anonymously. And guess what – the number of questions doubled that week. 

Insight: As Kiwis, we’re proud of our DIY mentality. But it can also hold us back. Believing we can handle things ourselves can stop us from asking for help.

Insight: Everyone’s reason for getting into business is different and deeply personal. They may be striving for fame and glory, carrying their family name, or just trying to make ends meet. That’s why asking for help can make people feel so vulnerable, and why many businesses ask questions anonymously.

Insight: Some people are happy to search our content to find the answers they’re looking for. Not all business owners are looking for exposure, in fact, most are not. It reminds us of conferences and classrooms when only a few people actually ask the questions, and that’s ok!

Challenge: How do we create environments where business owners can feel comfortable to ask for help, but if they don’t feel that way, they can still seek guidance or input?

Truth hurts, and you hardly ever win the lottery. 

Observation: What we’ve seen through three months of engagement with 285,000 Kiwis, is that so many are looking for answers, inspiration, and the ticket to independence. What they’re finding in some cases are ‘green shoots’ of hope, for example being featured on New Zealand Made Products. 

The counter is that ‘shoot’ can be a once-off. To keep momentum, there’s no escaping the need to grind and hustle every day to keep themselves in business. 

Insight: Instant stardom comes quickly and disappears just as fast. What does not change are the fundamental principles of building a successful business: customers, team, and markets, and everyone putting in the work on a daily basis. Look after the people, your customers, stakeholders, and team, and you will get through. But everyone has to keep working at it. 

Truth: Being honest and discerning on every foundation you have in business is a fundamental success factor right now. Question everything you do, every assumption, every expense, every resource - if it is not helping you go forward, then be honest, cut-it, change it, re-frame it to give you the time and resources to survive and then thrive. This does not mean you should reduce head-count, but it does mean you have to establish clarity on every part of your business to ‘win’. 

Thank you from us to you.

Thank you to the quarter of a million Kiwis who have engaged with Manaaki over the first three months of our existence. We take your engagement with an open heart, and we’re excited to continue serving you as we evolve, and hopefully exceed your expectations. 

When we reflect on the feedback and engagements, we think there remains some big themes coming through which provide risk and opportunity. There is naturally a big shift to short-term behaviours focused on survival, not so much about the long-term. There is also the need for speed, and anything that restricts this or creates friction will cause a suboptimal outcome. 

Business owners who deal with the ambiguity, the uncertainty and just find the way to get through will be the ones that can take their business forward. It feels like a period of hand-to-hand engagement in business is here, and for that we wish all business owners the power and belief to get up and find the little wins every day, the more of these you have, the more you can define the future for you, your business and your whanau. 

Nga Mihi from the Manaaki Whanau