A group called Business Roundtable (181 CEO’s of America’s largest brands representing 30% of market capitalization) stated officially that a company needs a purpose beyond just profit.
They said business should DO GOOD. That business should care about people. Rich, successful corporate CEOs had a purposeful awakening. Hmm.
Although their statement could be considered benign as they are just words without policy change at this point, the words do matter.
A follow-up article in Fast Company by the cofounders of the B Corporation movement (which certifies B-Corps), challenged the Business Roundtable to back up their purpose statement with real policy changes that rein in Shareholder prioritization in boardroom decision-making.
The B-Corporation founders said:
People are demanding a new social contract between business and society in which business and the capital markets create long-term value for ALL stakeholders.
My prediction: we are about to enter a decade of reckoning in our nation, and in particular, business culture.
As Conscious Entrepreneurs, it’s time to step forward and add our voices to this debate.
Entrepreneurship has always been a driving force in societal transformation. And I believe it will be THE driving force in this movement.
Most of us didn’t start our business to “be a conscious entrepreneur.” We started our brands to make the world better while making money.
Most of us didn’t even realize we were a conscious entrepreneur. But once we found others like us, we quickly realized that collaboration fuels growth and purpose can lead to profit when we serve rather than sell.
At the time I started what is now Succeed On Purpose and Share On Purpose, I had experienced my own awakening. For me, it was about purpose. I wanted my entrepreneurial pursuits to matter. I wanted to make money in business AND do good.
On the surface, it seemed easy. I had already been successful in business and now my heart was truly in the right place. I wanted my work to matter and my business to be based on my purpose which is to inspire potential. Easy enough.
Wrong. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Purposeful entrepreneurship is not easy. Each day you have to trade-off paying your mortgage while trying to do good.
Each week you re-evaluate how to price a product designed to make the world better, asking yourself incessantly… how much profit is good or fair?
You have to focus on making a sale AND making a difference. Marketing strategies are different. The way you lead your team is different.
Everything I knew about being successful in business had to be rethought.
Conscious Entrepreneurship is challenging yet worth it. And after a decade of failures, pivotal mistakes and some fun success along the way, here’s what I know to be true:
Conscious Entrepreneurship requires 3 things:
- Purposeful Businesses evolve as much as they grow. There are three stages to evolve a start-up to $1M in annual revenue, and a total of six stages to go from a start-up to over $10M in annual revenue. After 10 years of testing, we developed a Conscious Business Growth Platform™ to walk entrepreneurs through these stages.
- Traditional marketing strategies are incongruent with conscious entrepreneurship. Potential customers who are aligned with your business purpose are not going to be attracted by the old ways of discounting, advertising and other traditional lead generation methods. Most importantly, what works for one conscious entrepreneur, doesn’t necessarily work for another. Over the last decade, we’ve tested and developed an Authentic Demand Generation™ methodology to teach entrepreneurs how to authentically grow purposeful businesses based on who they are, from their unique passion and purpose.
- Conscious entrepreneurs transform from the inside out as they grow their business. You can’t “fake it until you make it.”
A truly purposeful business will take you on a personal journey while you grow and evolve your business. You will not only face your fears but also find soulful perseverance. This is less about willpower and more about alignment and connection to the best parts of yourself. It’s more about the journey to who you are becoming, as it is about the growth of the business.
We are on the cusp of the biggest shift in cultural and business values since the days of The Men Who Built America. We are at the proverbial tipping point.
And I believe it will be conscious entrepreneurs who ignite the revolution and power it to the next level.
I am curating a group of conscious entrepreneurial leaders to be a driving force in this movement. Let me know if you want to be a part of creating lasting business change. Reach out and let’s chat.