My advice for agency owners who want to be a B Corp
My business was one of the first creative agencies in the UK to become a Certified B Corp. My strategic branding agency, Hands Down® (currently dormant after I decided to ‘sunset’ in June 2022) was certified in December 2020.
Since then a few people have asked me for some advice and insights about the certification, so I have written this article to help answer the common questions I always get asked and share the insights I learned on the journey too, so here you are...
Why certify?
Starting with the end in mind is always the way to do things. It’s good to ask yourself ‘to what end’. I did it because I had so much in place at the agency already that was ‘good business’, such as; giving regular charity donations; excellent staff pay; exceptional gender balance; a diversity, equity and inclusion policy; working ethically with our freelancers; seeking out good suppliers; and positively impacting on the creative community.
For me, certification was about the succinct communication of all of this good stuff - plus the external evidence that it wasn’t all talk. And there was obviously the other benefit that it added our USP and resonated with our B2B clients.
Is the B Corp process hard/complicated/difficult?
I completed the entire process myself, end-to-end. Was it hard? Not really but it was time consuming and the type of work that I am not great at. Although the B Corp website is pretty good and made it much easier.
The certification is broken down into five parts and then there are a series of questions for each one. Each question has multiple choice answers that give you a different rating. The more you have in place as evidence the higher the score. For example, some answers are worth 2 points, some 0.25 - you need to get to at least 80 to certify.
The 5 areas are:
Governance
Workers
Community
Environment
Customers
On our first go at the process (which you can do yourself online) we scored around 75 points. I then had a call with the BCorp team and they went through each answer with me. It turned out that I actually had much more in place then I realised, so it was simply a case of a bit of admin to document these things to provide the proof to gain the points needed to certify. Our final score was 81.4.
What changed by becoming a B Corp?
I got my life back! Joking aside, it was quite admin heavy and not something that I could have delegated as I had to have a deep knowledge of the business to be able to answer the questions and dig out the right documentation.
In regards to agency changes, well I think it was a big feel good factor for me, the team, and the business. Even clients loved it too. But I also liked that now I had some more ideas and insights on how to improve how we were doing good business.
A note on the ‘Mission Lock’ 🤪
This one sent me around in complete circles. My accountant didn’t understand what I needed and the wording from B Corp was very confusing. I finally asked another B Corp-er and they then showed me what was needed. It is basically changing some ‘articles’ on the documentation you have as a Limited Company on file at Companies House. Obvious and easy when you know….
Other things you might want to know...
You have to re-certify every three years
Three years seemed way off but it comes around very quickly. They also expect you to increase your score.
You pay every year (not just when you certify)
I assumed it would be a one-off fee but there is an annual fee based on your turnover. Opps...
Each year you have to produce an impact report – see mine here.
Obviously I procrastinated over this one but it was really lovely to create. And makes for a lovely piece of marketing and talent attraction for your agency.
The wonderful B Corp community
After certifying you become a member of the BHive, the community of other B Corp businesses. I really liked that I could find others who had the same business mindset as me.
It helped with new business
We had a number of inbound inquiries from people searching the B Corp directory and I definitely could have been more proactive at connecting with the other B Corp businesses too.
It was a nice accidental staff benefit
As they all got access to the BHive community too. And they loved that we were now a B Corp.
Not everyone knows what a B Corp is
For me we were targeting B2B clients so often it helped with our conversations with Procurement. But for Joe Bloggs in the street I am not sure they really know what a B Corp certification really means.
So there you go, hopefully it demystifies the process a little bit and helps you on your B Corp journey too.
I just hope that your reasons for joining are because you genuinely believe in doing good business (the world needs much more of that) not because you want to jump on the B Corp Band Wagon….