CEED Global’s, Barbara Bregar-Mrzlikar, the former Director of CEED Slovenia, entered 2019 on a mission to better package CEED’s Membership offering. With the help of successful serial entrepreneur, Elio Iori, she developed the CEED Taster to provide interested entrepreneurs with a taste of what it means to be a CEED entrepreneur. Moreover, she’s developed a detailed strategy for how to implement the membership model in a CEED Center.

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On October 16th and on November 20th, Barbara and Elio flew to Kosovo to help rollout the taster model in Pristina, Kosovo. Over 65 participants were able to get a glimpse of the CEED experience, and experience CEED’s peer-to-peer model of learning first hand. Barbara has also helped the CEED Tanzania host taster events in Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, and most recently in Morogoro.

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Both Tanzania and Kosovo are markets in which there is no shortage of free services for entrepreneurs, so why launch the membership model in these markets? CEED’s experience has shown us that implementing paid memberships attracts the most talented enterprises and charging them ensures that these members are highly engaged with CEED’s network and services. Moreover, why CEED is certainly proud of its ability to get entrepreneurs in the room, charging members ensures that we are accountable to CEEDers to deliver services that are valuable and impactful. In short, the membership model allows CEED to more efficiently accomplish CEED’s mission of developing and connecting entrepreneurs ultimately growing economies and creating jobs.

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The other key component of the CEED Membership roll-out in Kosovo are the community events and the launch of new peer-to-peer cohorts. On November 26, CEED Kosovo hosted a topic breakfast on “Mastering Change.” The CEED community was introduced to Visar Kelmendi, Founder and Owner of Rugove, and Shpend Nura, CEO of KEP TRUST, where they learned from their experiences of mastering change. Both guests encouraged CEEDers to accept change without stubbornness in order to help their companies maintain a long stable life in the market. Moreover, they recommended that CEO’s avoid imposing their opinions and be open to new innovative ideas. Kelmendi emphasized the importance of being 100% involved in order for change to come naturally from within and not from outside.

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During peer-to-peer groups with CEED Grow and CEED Pro members, the conversations quickly gravitated to challenge of staff shortages caused from the emigration of much of the workforce to Western Europe, and the impact that this phenomenon has on the wellbeing of companies. Some of the topics  discussed included how to expand as a company, salary leveling, when job outsourcing makes sense, and how to keep staff motivated. Given these challenges, human resource management was unanimously chosen as the subject for the next meeting.

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While packaging CEED’s membership model has proven a worthwhile exercise, this would not have been possible without the pre-existing strength of the CEED network Kosovo. “CEED Kosovo builds trust as the foundational principle that holds all partnerships in their togetherness because the best way to succeed is by helping others do the same,” explained CEED Kosovo Director, Kreshnik Lleshi.

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Ultimately, Kosovar entrepreneurs choose to join the network because of the trust that is proactively built between CEEDers, and the CEED membership model will allow for a deeper level of engagement. With CEED Kosovo as a successful case study, CEED hopes to expand the rollout to more CEED centers in 2020.