That means you clearly understand the problem(s) you want to resolve and also understand the needs of your customers. Your orientation is about making a difference in society; money is important too, but is secondary to your desire to impact society. You don’t pay lip service to your customer pains; you look deeply into solving their issues and do so while also contributing to your drive to change society. Finally, you recognise that you can’t do it alone and build a team that can deliver your vision.
You may be wondering whether a purpose-driven business can be profitable as profit is seen as secondary to contribution to a cause. Marketing talks about a business working best with a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A business that is passionate about delivering for a cause definitely has a very clear USP. Some of the benefits of a purpose-driven business are as follows:
Probably the most important characteristic of someone who is purpose-driven is that they have an extremely clear understanding and passion for the work that they are doing or have a vision for. However, tightly bound to this is that they must be competent, as, without competence, you won’t be able to deliver your vision. They are likely to be humble about their accomplishments but remain firm about the what and how of delivering their vision.
At this point, a note of caution should be made. The vision and mission statements beloved by companies across the world are not what we are talking about here. These statements may be produced. However, the vision for a purpose-driven business tends to be driven by the founder or founders and relates to a positive cause to improve society and/or the environment.
Your purpose is what drives you. If you’ve never reflected on what your purpose is, you could be working at a job that has no real interest for you. If you’re lucky, you might have fallen into a job that actually feels important to your core purpose without you realising it. However, it’s better to sail through your life knowing exactly what you’re contributing and where you aim to end up.
Also, be aware that your purpose can change throughout your life. So, checking what your purpose is should be done regularly. I check every January or before or after a major life event.
So, if you’re unsure of your purpose, ask yourself a few questions that you need to answer honestly:
Don’t stop here. Ask family and friends what they think, too.
The Harvard Business Review published an article: How to Find Your Purpose (Yemiscigil et al., 2023), in which their research discovered that those who spent significant time cultivating passions across a wide range of topics with a diverse set of people had a strong sense of purpose. They also found that people with purpose used self-reflection to decide what lessons to take from their experiences. These lessons go beyond what they see for themselves to what impact they might have had or could have on society.
Almost the same process to discover an individual’s purpose can be used for a business.
Just like individuals, businesses without purpose can drift. If a business is unsure of its purpose, it can end up delivering products and services that aren’t quite right for its customers. If a purpose-driven business arrives in a drifting business’s niche, the purpose-driven business knows and delivers exactly what the customer needs. This directly impacts the other business’s profits. Customers will also return to the purpose-driven business as it meets their needs and wants. The original business is left floundering with products and services that weren’t exactly right.
