Use Purpose to Attract more Business

Guest Blog, James Bolle, Purpose and Team Happiness Expert

Have you been to Toronto? Toronto is a great city to visit, partly because everything is so simple: it has a culture a bit like the UK; everyone speaks English; there are lots of brands and street names you recognise. The problem is that this simplicity can lull you into a sense of false security. On my first visit, I felt so relaxed and at home that I forgot to check which direction the cars were driving up and down the street… and stepped out in front of a taxi. Luckily, the taxi driver was alert and my only injury was a little embarrassment.

I think of this experience every time I’m asked to write a blog about Purpose. On the one hand, Purpose is such a simple topic to get your head around. It makes intuitive sense:

You want to attract more of the clients you love to work with? Start with why, as Simon Sinek would say. People don’t buy what you do, or how you do it, but why you do it. Everything you do flows from your Purpose.

You want to attract the right people to work with your organisation and keep them? Use Purpose. Four out of five Millennials will consider a company’s social and environmental credentials when they are choosing where to work. All age groups are willing to sacrifice salary in order to maximise meaning at work. This comes from Purpose! Oh, and people working in organisations with Purpose are three times more loyal.

You want your team to work harder, or make better decisions? Purpose is the key. People working with Purpose are 30% more productive, 40% more engaged. They have a clear difference they are trying to make in the world, so they don’t need hand-holding, and leaders don’t need to arbitrate over arguments, since the Purpose is the judge.

You want to make more money? Purpose leads to Profit. Purpose-led organisations are twice as likely to be profitable in their early years and grow up to 15 times faster than their competitors.

Convinced that Purpose is important? Great. Unfortunately, like Toronto, the simplicity of Purpose can be misleading and dangerous.

You might be tempted to think “Having Purpose will benefit my business? I’ll write one then!” And if you do, you will be in fine company. Many a CEO has done this and declared things like “Our Purpose is to save the planet!”. Unfortunately, these Purpose statements have often been made up in a boardroom or, worse, in response to what some customers have said they want in a focus group. As a result, they sometimes have nothing to do with how the organisation actually operates and end up being meaningless fluff.

This type of inauthentic Purpose does more damage than not having a Purpose in the first place. Customers can smell the bullshit a mile away, and your people become (more) cynical since they perceive you as trying to take advantage of something important.

Over time, as more and more organisations do this, it erodes trust in business. It undermines the value of Purpose in general, as people begin to view it as a gimmick, a PR trick that is only used by businesses to try and pull the wool over our eyes. Both of these things inhibit our ability as business owners and leaders to positively impact society.

So what can you do to find a Purpose and make sure you aren’t stepping out in front of the metaphorical cab?

• Make it authentic – you need to find your Purpose in the things your organisation already does – taking stories of pride in the difference you are already making.
• Make it collaborative – you need to listen to the stories told across your organisation in order to understand the common, emotional core of your business.
• Make it big – the Purpose is what will remain when the mission ends (in success or failure). It’s something you will always be able to work at. If your Purpose can be achieved, it’s a mission, not a Purpose. Still useful, but several times less so.
• Make it active – it’s not good enough to say you will do passive things like help or facilitate, you need to do something active, like create, make, or build, in order to influence the activities people do every day. Ask yourself how will you help, what will you do to facilitate?
• Make it live – you don’t convince people of your commitment to a Purpose by shouting loudly, you live it every day in how you treat your suppliers, people, and customers.

Purpose is an authentically-lived, aspirational call to action for an organisation that advances an external cause or constituency. Truly work with Purpose and you can be unstoppable.