Skip to main content
BrandingBusinessFeaturedLeadershipPurpose

Meaningful is Profitable

By March 16, 2019 No Comments

Business owners are usually full of purpose when they start their company. They may not articulate it clearly or even recognize it’s significance, but something is driving them to overcome all odds to succeed. Their passion for their product or service is contagious. They attract others to their cause, and their belief in their brand is imparted to others.

The Struggle is Real

However, many business owners struggle to impart that purpose into their company in a scalable way. Often, as they grow, more and more employees are added who don’t share the owner’s passion and don’t get to see it modeled personally. At that point, the repeatable processes become the focus and they either make it possible to repeat success across the company or they don’t. And even if they do create repeatable success, the culture of the company suffers and becomes more and more like a machine. Customers and employees lose the meaningful connection to the original purpose, and when that happens their connection to the company becomes merely transactional instead of meaningful.

Purpose is a Growth Strategy

Many business owners are starting to realize that they must restore purpose to the company in order to achieve the growth and stability the business needs to succeed over the long term. The answer is found in creating a culture of engaged employees. When employees are engaged, capacity increases. Alignment increases. Identity and meaning grow exponentially. Customers are attracted to that as well, and the cycle of engagement starts to take over and make an impact. The process to create that type of culture starts with uncovering your purpose, and then building the entire employee and customer experience on it.

Let’s look at some data that backs up that claim:

People want to connect with the brands they buy from. Loyalty is still to be had, and if you want it, you have to lead with your purpose story. Brands like Chipotle are having purpose-conversations with their audience about “Food with Integrity” and their customers are eating it up. Foodies want to talk about the quality of their food, and how it’s sourced. It takes something as mundane as a burrito and reveals the meaningful culture behind it.

Leading with purpose actually begins within. It begins within the leadership of the organization. If the purpose story is meaningful to them, they will attract and develop a team that cares passionately about the organization’s purpose. And passionate employees create passionate customers. Engaged employees don’t leave. They see that they are building something meaningful and want to show up every day to see it come to life. And do I need to mention how expensive it is when employees leave?

This stat is hard to put my mind around. It’s such a huge number. In the book, Firms of Endearment, researchers found that companies like Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Costco, Amazon and others are winning with PURPOSE. These “Firms of endearment” are companies people love doing business with, love partnering with, love working for, and love investing in. They endear themselves to stakeholders by bringing the interests of all stakeholder groups into strategic alignment. 

This last statistic reveals the massive opportunity that PURPOSE delivers today. Many business leaders recognize the power of their WHY, but the majority haven’t brought it to life in their organization… yet. It’s only a matter of time before that percentage rises, and hopefully it’s you that’s making that statistic rise — not your competitor.

At AM, We help you get back in touch with the reason you are doing what you do. Once we uncover and clarify your purpose, we then build your branding, marketing and website to clearly tell that story to the world. We help you change the conversation your brand is having to ensure that your PURPOSE is what you are focusing on, infusing meaning into your culture and profit to your bottom line.


RELATED:

Learn more about bringing your purpose to life through OVRFLO.

Learn more about Aaron’s purpose journey.