I have already mentioned the famous “Unique Selling Point - USP” in one of these posts a couple of weeks ago (see the previous post here > My Eureka moment: Scarcity VS Abundance Mentality).
As I was doing my benchmark to start The Office Elf, I knew I had a set of skills that I could use to support entrepreneurs and SMEs to focus on what they do best: developing their business rather than spending their time doing Administration and Accounts tasks that are usually time-consuming and not fun for a lot of people.
Obviously that couldn’t be my USP as it’s a basic service that pretty much all Virtual Assistants offer. So I thought, my USP is going to be my vision of what work should be!
First, the numbers vary but you can find that we spend around 13 years of your lives working. That’s a lot!
Second, as explained in “When art is the best climate change advocate: CastAway”, I’m conscious about climate change and I want to make a difference.
Third, I believe that a positive working environment will improve your staff productivity, but that’s not the topic of today – if you are interested in that topic, keep an eye out for the upcoming post: My “Unique Selling Point” – Part 2: Well-being at work.
So going back to my second point, I really wanted to find a way to introduce sustainability in my daily work practice and if I could pass that attention to the environment to my clients whilst working for them, it’s a win.
I have an “organic” relationship with Climate Change. I do read a bit about it but it’s mostly through my emotions that I first developed growing concerns about the future of our planet and our civilisation. When it came to The Office Elf, I knew that I had to get some training behind me to be able to transfer that awareness to my customers. I did my research and came across The Carbon Literacy Project.
The definition of Carbon Literacy is:
“An awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis.”
I really think that the Carbon Literacy Project is mastering the art of making a complicated and worrying subject accessible to all.
To become carbon-literate you follow a 1-day course (in person or online). The focus of each course is different depending on the instructor. I find the tailored-programs really interesting as you will need different information whether you’re a teacher, a builder or a virtual assistant.
I had the chance to do my training with Christiane Lorent from Lorent Training. The training was focused on Small and Medium Enterprises. I took out of this training valuable information to start my sustainable journey as a new business. You get a good overview of the reality of carbon emissions today. The training is also focused on solutions rather than the doom and gloom that usually surrounds this topic. My favourite module was about “Communicating Climate Change”.
If you want, as an individual or an organisation, more information on the Carbon Literacy Project > have look here: https://carbonliteracy.com/.
Feel that we could be a good professional match?
More info on The Office Elf Website