I recently saw this Peter Drucker quote in a comment someone made to a blog post about purpose-driven marketing (PDM) and felt it to be a worthy topic for a post of its own. “Profit for a company is like oxygen for a person. If you don’t have enough of it, you’re out of the game. But if you think your life is about breathing, you’re really missing something.”
I thought — Wow, PDM is not new. One of the most visionary and successful business thinkers of the mid-1900′s recognized that business is truly about doing something, not just getting something. And when you do something that gives benefit to others, whether you are compensated for it or not, you get something back in return. Companies measure some of it in profits, but society in total measures it in so many more important ways.
As Wikipedia notes, “Drucker’s writings were focused on relationships among human beings, as opposed to the crunching of numbers. His books were filled with lessons on how organizations can bring out the best in people, and how workers can find a sense of community and dignity in a modern society.”
Organizations with purpose experience high levels of employee engagement, more loyal customers, and the freedom to innovate, and they will win against the competition more often.
According to Roy M. Spence, the author of “It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For”, standing for something is the “secret to developing a more fulfilling work life as well as a healthier bottom line.”
Roy believes that leading brands are the outgrowth of a business vision focused on inventing and delivering products and services that truly make a difference in people’s lives.
Brand teams need to ask themselves, “What business are we really in?”
Some organizations have a clear sense of purpose and are able to articulate it and bring it to life in the marketplace. That’s intention.
Other organizations for a variety of reasons have not been able to articulate their purpose. Therefore, the results are a mixed bag of success and set backs.
Yahoo, apparently is a case in point. They had a hard time declaring what business they were in because the internet and their services were evolving rapidly. Meanwhile, they lost ground to Google which had a clear, big, purpose-driven mission — and put it out there for employees, business partners, advertisers, users and the universe to support. No surprise, its clear and consistently-reinforced vision is becoming a reality.
Roy sums up the essential steps nicely, saying that a purpose-based brand needs to:
1) Tell the world what it stands for — I say, have focused spiritual intention
2) Attract and inspire employees who share its values — the first stage of creating the result
3) Guide the creation of products, services, and experiences that matter to people — yes, because we are all creators when we harness the energy of the universe for a greater good
4) Face the realities of the current market situation — as marketers, we must feel the context in which success will be manifested
5) Address them with powerful and persuasive messaging — because it is truth, belief, knowing that manifests the intended result.
I think it is the belief and knowing that is the hardest thing for marketers and their management to embrace. In my experience, skeptical organizations rarely see the results that assured organizations do.
So, in the end, I think that purpose is only defining the intention, while it is the passion for and confidence in the outcome which is ultimately the true essential of success.