MAKE 2019 YOUR YEAR OF PURPOSE

Make 2019 Your Year of Purpose

Let #Purpose drive #profit, #impact, #results and sustainable competitive advantage.  And make your business and work more fun and enjoyable; for you, for your customers and your team.

This is true whether you are a home-crafter making products for shows, or a major global business.

Purpose is the bigger reason for your business. It is your Why. Why do you do what you do?  It is your reason for being.  It is the higher order benefit or value that you bring to the world. It doesn’t change, but it often inspires change. And it can drive profit and value.

If you think your primary purpose is profit, then I am sorry.  Your business is likely to fail and you and any others you involve in it are going to have a miserable time in the process.

Aligning purpose and profit is increasingly important and can accelerate profit and impact.  But, if you focus on profit as your purpose, you will drain energy, life and yes, profit, from your business.

Purpose is the glue that connects and energizes leaders, teams, customers and the entire value chain.  It is the thread that can lead you to developing value-propositions that create alignment and value (and profit) for yourself, and your stakeholders.

Baraka Shea Butter was created with purpose; to bring pure, unrefined shea butter to North America and the world in a way that connected and benefited the value-chain, from the hard-working women who make it, through the crafters and businesses that produce amazing products with it, and all the way to the customers who use those products.

We sure aren’t perfect, but the more we succeed in our purpose, the more fun we have, the more money we make and the more support and engagement we have from all our stakeholders.  For us, if we lose our purpose, we truly lose our business.

The BarakaInside Newsletter came directly from our purpose – and drives our profit.  People and businesses who make products from Baraka Shea Butter wanted tools, support and social media content to help them show customers how their products had direct impact on people, communities and environment. BarakaInside supports our purpose and profit (and our customer’s purpose and profit).

The importance of Purpose stretches across businesses of all types.

 Why do you do what you do is much more that a philosophical question.  It defines a strong, shared purpose for your organization and stakeholders and can create a key competitive advantage and bottom-line benefits in our increasingly fast-paced and interconnected world.

It may sound like a philosophical question, but defining a strong, shared purpose for your organisation is much more than an abstract statement. It can create a key advantage in an increasingly fast-paced world, with tangible bottom line benefits.

A recent study of 10 year’s data from 50,000 brands clearly demonstrated a direct relationship between a brand’s ability to serve a higher purpose and its financial performance.

Businesses and brands with ‘higher purpose’ ideals, especially those with a focus on social value grew three times faster than their competitors.  Investing in those businesses and brands with the strongest purpose would have been 400% more profitable than investing in the S&P 500 over the 10-year study period.

Make 2019 your year of purpose. Your business will benefit, your customers will benefit, the world will benefit, you will be happier and enjoy work more, and your bottom line will benefit.

Please, let us know how we can help and support you to make 2019 your year of purpose.  You may find some of the resources from my other organization, the CSR Training Institute, helpful.  You can access them here