Community Matters in Business

Episode Outline: Today, we're diving into the often-overlooked aspect of business leadership—your role in the community. But hey, it's not just about feel-good vibes; it's good for your bottom line, too. We'll get tactical, offering real-life examples and action steps to foster community involvement that pays off. So, don't just stand there on your business island. Swim out and engage with your community ecosystem.

Here are a few things Pete covers:

• The mutual benefits of social responsibility for your business and the community
• How fostering teamwork through community involvement can boost employee morale
• Tactical action steps for community engagement that align with your business type
• Why community involvement isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have,’ but a need for business longevity
• Examples of how even small community efforts can make a significant impact

It’s time to take action: Listen, you don't need to change the world overnight. Start small. Identify one community issue your business can address. Then, get your team involved. This is about moving from simply earning profits to purposeful leadership. Ready to make a change? Great. Let's go.

Download the 10 Pillars of Purposeful Leadership eBook: https://simplifyingentrepreneurship.com/tenpillars/

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

Transcript

Pete Mohr: 0:35

All right, it's time to get down to the last pillar of the 10 pillars of purposeful leadership for your small business. And today we're going to talk a little bit about the role of your business in your community. You see, businesses aren't just standalone islands, they're part of a broader ecosystem, right. And the ecosystem is your community. Whether you have a physical location business, or whether your business operates in a virtual community, it's still a community. And you may think your primary responsibility is to generate a profit. And it's true, you do need to generate a profit in your business. But here's the deal, social responsibility can't be overlooked. In fact, businesses that give back often see more of an uptick in customer loyalty, and profit, in satisfaction of their team and their clients. It's really a win win, right? You've heard the adage that givers get well, it's true. Secondly, you're fostering a sense of teamwork here, right? Your team will take pride in working for a company that stands for something. So you want to give them a chance, as often as you can maybe volunteer during work hours or support causes that they care about, and watch the team morale of your business soar. Really, that's part of being a good leader, right, you want to boost morale, and this is one of the ways you can do that. And let's get tactical here, as well. And you know, this series is all about action items that can help make you a better leader. Well, this is where your unique skill set can come into play. So you run maybe a tech company, how about offering some free coaching classes to underprivileged kids on how to code, for example, or maybe you're in the food industry, and you can give back to your local food bank excess food, in its utopia, we have set up with our local food bank as well. And it's not necessarily to give food, although we do do some food drives throughout the year, it's more around having a box that people can bring their footwear that they're not using anymore, to our stores, we clean it up, we fix it up, we get them all ready and give them back to underprivileged people through the food bank, in our local communities. So that's going to help them get what they need in order to have a better life, right? Let's say you run a plumbing company, you know, you can use your expertise to give back and several ways maybe you could offer free plumbing workshop for local residents, teaching them the basics of maybe some home repair, maybe they can't afford to hire a plumber at this point in time. And they just need a small fix that you could help them along the way with it not only educate your community, but also positions your company as the expert in the field. So for the people that are willing and wanting to pay or when this person may be can afford, they're going to go to you down the road, right? You could also collaborate for local charities to provide free or discounted services, maybe to low income households, just imagine relief, maybe a struggling family would feel if you could fix a significant issue that they had to live with simply because they couldn't afford to address it in the past, right? That kind of goodwill reverberates far beyond that single act. And it could just start from a quick phone call to your local not for profit housing authority in your area, if you are a service based business, right? If you're not sure which cars would be the best fit for your business, why not just ask your team, they're part of your community too, right? They might have insights and local needs that you haven't even considered. getting them involved could even spark this company wide initiative, maybe, and boost the morale and bring them even closer together as a team. And when you have a close team working with common goals, it makes a difference. And your customer see that too, right? These kinds of initiatives can go and generate some serious PR for you as well. We've had the good fortune to be in the local newspaper several times for some of the things that we've done in the past. And from those perspectives, you can't pay for that kind of advertising. Doing good and talking about helps you normalize these kinds of acts within the business community. And it's a really, it's a win win for the broader community. And you can get your other business friends on board too. There's also something to be said for the networking opportunities that arise for engaging with your community, right, whether it's meeting other business owners at Charity events, maybe going to get to know local leaders around these events. The relationships can provide a lot of value down the road. So what's stopping you from getting involved? Take a step back and look at your community. What are the issues that you can help address right? We've discussed a lot here but don't get overwhelmed. Break it down. Pick one thing to start with and make it manageable and make it meaningful. Leadership isn't just about steering your company towards profits. It's also about steering towards purpose. And remember that first episode in this series here, purpose and passion. Don't underestimate how these acts of community involvement can galvanize your role as a leader. When your team sees you taking a stand getting involved in making a real impact. They're ready and going to want to stand up as well. leadership in this case is really contagious and interesting. When you start looking at it, how do you incorporate all of these elements into your business model? Well, start by setting a budget, I think that's a good place to start, really, I know that it's a word that nobody wants to hear. But hey, we got to be realistic, you can't do everything. And you can't help every single person. So decide what portion of your profits you can allocate towards community engagement and build a strategy around that and might not be big, but that's okay, you got to start somewhere. And it's okay to start small. You could initiate maybe a quarterly community day where your team volunteers for a chosen cause. And maybe it's even just cleaning up the ditches along the road outside of your business. It doesn't have to take a lot of money, you could start a mentoring program at a local trade school. One of the things that I did during COVID With simplifying entrepreneurship is I aligned with our local Chamber of Commerce. And we ran a series, a 10 part series, I think it was a 12 part series of how to adjust to the new normal of what COVID was bringing at that point in time a few years ago, there are so many different areas that you can help, right? You might be thinking this all sounds great, but who's got the time? I guess the trick really is to integrate the initiatives into your existing operations. Really, if we go back to the plumbing business, for example, maybe there's a way to fit in a small community project between jobs or perhaps part of your team could tackle it as a training exercise down the road, or there are so many ways to work on this sort of stuff, it's time to wrap up this entire series here. And leadership is not just a one size fits all cap that you put on, it's a tailored suit, stitched together with various qualities that we've discussed through this 10 part series here, right? From community to accountability from adopting the global perspective to diving into the micro details of your business, remember, balcony, and remember, dance, floor, all sorts of different things. It all matters. The ultimate goal here really is to be a well rounded, purpose driven leader who not only thrives in business, but also enriches the community around them. That's the kind of leadership that leaves a legacy. So I challenge you, what kind of leader do you want to be? If you're pondering that question, and you need some help figuring out how to evolve from operator owner while bettering your community, then we should probably have a little chat and all you have to do there is go over to speak to pete.com, to book in an appointment with me and we'll dig into your leadership and your business and see if we're maybe a right fit for future consideration and conversation, right. It's time to evaluate not just your business, but your entire life and being a leader and being a good community citizen. If you want a summary of this series, I just crafted up a little quick download on the 10 pillars and you can download it at simplifying entrepreneurship forward slash 10 pillars that's written out te NP i l l a r s just go to simplify entrepreneurship.com My my website, forward slash 10 pillars and you can download it over there. You don't have to do all 10 Right away, but I think I'm going to leave you with this. Think of which one you're going to focus on this quarter and then go and make it a great day.

Buzz Burbank: 8:56

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