40: 6 Principles for Doing Good With Your Small Business
Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast for small businesses who want to make a big impact.
I’m your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 40.
For most of my life, somehow I had the idea that you could either when it came to careers, you basically had two main choices.
You could do something good for the world.
You could be a business person.
I don’t mean to say that I thought business people were universally bad and wrong. But I really hadn’t thought about the potential for businesses to be instruments of positive change.
In fact, I believe that businesses -- and specifically small businesses -- are uniquely positioned to make a positive impact on the world.
When business owners and leaders are thoughtful and make decisions that are good for the world, for their communities, for their people -- and not just good for their revenue numbers, huge change can happen.
Because in business, as long as we’re following the law, we can play by our own rules. We can spend our money and resources on what matters to us. We can make the decisions that are best for the environment.
I started this podcast to explore this idea of using business as a tool for good. I knew that businesses could make change in the world and I knew that they needed to have a strong foundation in order to do that… but I didn’t have a philosophy around it beyond that.
But the last (nearly 40!) episodes of this podcast have taught me so much. About myself, about small business, about creatives, about community, and I wanted to share some of the key themes and truths that have come up as a result of the work we’ve been doing together on this podcast.
Intention is power.
It’s easy to go through life just following along with what other people are doing, or with what someone tells you to do.
It’s harder to stop, get quiet, and ask yourself the big and sometimes questions about life. What do I care about? What do I want my impact on this world to be? What will my legacy be?
I know this. I spent the first nearly 10 years of my career just trying to climb a ladder but not really thinking too hard about what that ladder was.
But getting intentional about how you’re going to spend your life and about what matters most to you is POWERFUL. I believe that the day you get clear and intentional design your life and business around that is the day that your most important work begins.
Where we spend our money matters
If I could sum up business in a few words, it would be this:
Businesses exist when people buy from them.
This means: where we spend our money MATTERS. If you want more good businesses that do the right thing and genuinely make the world a better place -- you have REAL POWER to make that happen simply by where you spend your money.
To run a business, we buy things. So we have the opportunity to create the world we want to live in simply by where we invest our money.
And, we also have the opportunity to be one of those companies that does the right thing -- that when you spend your money with them, you can feel confident about where that money is going and how it is going to impact the world.
Doing good doesn’t have to cost money
Yes, where we spend our money is super powerful.
But there are so many ways to make an impact that don’t cost money. We can raise awareness for causes we care about. We can be a good boss. We can work hard to make our customers’ days through our customer service. We can create inclusive spaces -- physically and online that make EVERYONE feel welcome and seen and heard. When you’re clear about what you care about, you can infuse this intention into every seemingly small decision your business makes, right down to the stock photo you choose to put on your website or the language you use in your Instagram caption.
Small actions matter.
If you’ve been around here a while, you’ve heard me quote the Aesop from the Lion and the Mouse.
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
Don’t fall into the trap of all-or-nothing thinking that I have so often fallen into myself. That if I can’t donate huge sums of money, what’s the point? If I can’t make a huge action, what’s the point in a small one?
But smalls actions matter. Yes because they add up, but also because small actions matter!
For example, I read recently that the cost of building a well in Mozambique is around $8,000, and each well serves 2,000 people. That means that every $4 you donate helps provide access to clean water for one person. $4.
Life is a series of Ripple Effects - you can’t do just one thing.
There is a concept in ecology that my partner told me about once:
“You can’t do just one thing.” It reminds me of the Jane Goodall quote that I share all the time:
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
Everything we do makes an impact, and we can either be thoughtful about what that impact will be, or we can put our heads in the sand and try not to think about it.
I have come to view this fact of life as a responsibility. We all have an impact on the world around us. Our businesses have an impact on the world around us. That much is inevitable. It’s up to us to decide what that impact will be.
I’ve come to view every business decision as an opportunity to create change of some kind with my business, when I make the decision that is in alignment with my values.
The right time is now.
This is the big one, and this has been the hardest one for me personally to implement.
My instinct to feel like I’m super super prepared, overly qualified, and the best I’ll ever be before I start something new.
But when you want everything to be perfect before you do anything… you tend to just not take action.
This is where being clear on the impact you want to make gets super important. Because you can tell yourself… for every day I’m stuck in perfectionism and indecision, that’s another day I’m NOT taking any action toward creating the change I want to create.
So, to wrap up, here are the 6 principles of doing good through your small business.
Intention is power
Where we spend our money matters
Doing good doesn’t have to cost money
Small actions matter
Life is a series of Ripple Effects - you can’t do just one thing.
The right time is now.
If you’re as fired up as I am about the prospect of making a REAL IMPACT on the world, I have two next steps for you:
Download your GOOD BUSINESS WORKBOOK. This is a 17-page free PDF that will help you get clear on what you care about and how your business is going to do something about it.
You can get it at makinggoodpodcast.com/goodbusiness.Join a community of small business people who are on a mission to make a difference. This Facebook group was created specifically for people who want to make change in the world, and build a strong small business to do it.
To be redirected to the Facebook group, go to makinggoodpodcast.com/community (or just search Good Business Community in Facebook).
Finally, let’s spread the word about how we can use our businesses to make a positive impact! Take a screenshot while you’re listening to this and post it to your Instagram stories or message it directly to a friend who you think would be interested.
You can find links to the resources I mentioned at makinggoodpodcast.com/40.
Thank you for being here, and for focusing on making a difference with your small business!
Talk to you next time.