Purposeful follow-up

A few days ago, I suggested that a business plans should include a section for purpose.

List member Rel responded with a thoughtful email, and I’d like to highlight this comment:

“Not everyone is in a position to donate a portion of their profit to causes…”

This is a great point, and again makes me realise I’m not doing a good job of getting my own point across!

Money isn’t the only way to deliver purpose (I’d actually say that’s not what’s happening at all, but maybe we’ll dive into that another day).

In the last email, I gave examples of businesses I’d met that week. One of them was a cleaning company who plans to donate $1million to charity, another was a lawyer who owns a zero-waste coffee shop as a side business. Both of those require serious cash to happen, so I can understand how examples like that can create a misconception that having money is the only way to create purpose.

The other examples were businesses who were delivering their purpose directly through their services – either using education, support, or by focusing on a particular type of person.

There are a multitude of ways to deliver purpose.

I’m going to find more examples and break them down further so we can get more actionable stuff out of them.

If you’d like a breakdown of a particular company, send it over and I’ll give it a crack! 🙂