“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” —Theodore Roosevelt
Alice Tang used this quote in her question at yesterday’s Entrepreneurs Foundation of the Northwest luncheon workshop “Maximizing the impact of your community involvement through PR”. I co-presented with Renee Spears from Rose City Mortgage Specialists, who provided the case study for my how-to part. Along the lines of my previous post “What you do is not interesting: Say what you love”, I argued that people don’t care about mortgages, they care about what Rose City stands for.
That the company performs its core business well is a given and a necessary condition to its business success. In competitive markets – and which market is not commoditized by now? -Â companies are fairly similar in their offerings and comparable in their benefits. Good is the new baseline. However, all too often do companies get wrapped up in talking about what they do or the benefits they deliver to you as a customer.
Renee and I argued for companies to share stories about what benefits they provide for the community at large. Use all your internal and external communication channels to share stories of your success in making your community a better place.
A ton of companies in Portland metro can help you with your mortgage. Very few local mortgage brokers will share your values (and manifest them), stand for what you care about, and love what you love.
People must first know how much you care and what you care about. Telling them what you know can wait.
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Image credit: Perrenque
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I agree with your assessment that meaning is the new differentiator for business. Customers want it; hopefully they’ll start to pay for it.
But I think it’s important to help businesses understand sustainability isn’t about treehugging. In fact, it’s arguably the only source of sustained competitive advantage. Companies can find ways to profit from these CSR programs when they make the business more valuable. Value (profit, if you like) can be found by addressing social issues in their value chain (markets for waste product, more efficient fuels, etc) and in bettering their competitive context (educating the workforce, influencing local demand with social programs, etc).
There aren’t too many great examples, but honestly, and begrudgingly, I’ve gotta point to McDonalds (recycled packaging) and Wal-Mart (transparency on impact) as leaders.
Man, the world must have tipped off its axis.
@Matt: I merely recognize the fact that brands must use meaning to differentiate themselves. The same goes for triple bottom line sustainability, as you point out.
Both axis-tipping examples you mention have more to do with environmental sustainability than anything. I believe we need triple bottom line business models, not just the application of green from the outside in.