The Power of Running a Purposeful Business cannot be overemphasized.

Just as in life, Purpose is a very important aspect of a good business. When there is a clear purpose behind what is being done, the thing takes a whole new reality and becomes something much greater than just an activity to get by or make a profit alone.

However, the truth is that finding purpose or putting one behind one’s agenda is no small task and requires a higher level of courage. This explains why we have a lot of businesses in America that are not built with purpose.

The businesses are just ran without any attachment to a strong purpose. The sole aim of the founders is just to make money and that’s it.

But it is important to build more purposeful Businesses in America.

What is a purposeful Business?

The value of a company should be seen as a pie that is fairly divided between the profit expectations of the shareholders and other stakeholders’ interests.

These expectations include things like paying standard wages, paying tax to the government, supporting charitable causes, and generally living true to their corporate social responsibility expected by society.

But the alternative way to look at it is suggested in the work of Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School and author of “Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit”.

Alex suggests that instead of thinking of how to share the business pie, the focus should be on how to grow it and make it large enough to become an innovative anchor.

He also highlighted how traditional companies focus on ‘problem-solving’ – satisfying a known need – but building a great and purposeful company in America will involve ‘problem finding’ – using available resources and expertise to create a product or service that customers never previously asked for yet end up finding valuable.

According to him, a ‘purposeful business’ is one that creates profits only through creating value for society. 

This is how great companies are built in America.

A purposeful company in America will focus on using its expertise and resources to solve problems which ultimately leads to more profit and value expansion for the society at large.

This ‘growing the pie’ mentality resolves the trade-off between profit and purpose and asserts that profit can be a by-product of solving social problems. This goes ahead to mean that companies that are finding unique ways to solve societal problems can be classified as “purposeful businesses”.

Another way to look at is if you are finding creative and innovative ways to eliminate societal problems for profit, you could be seen as a purposeful entrepreneur.

Being a purposeful entrepreneur is very important because Apart from the fact that running a purposeless business is a much harder experience, it also means that what you are building as a company doesn’t connect to the users in a deep and emotional way could encourage word of mouth virality.

So, while it is important to make money, the drive from the beginning should be more than just profit in the first place.

Anyone who wants to build a purposeful Business in America must first understand that your purpose in business just as in life is like your life print in the world.

And with that in mind, it means that nobody could ever solve the problem just as you would. whatever field you play in, you are meant to bring a distinction that ordinarily wouldn’t have been there if not for you.

When you look at some of the iconic brands in America today, you will see them trying to create something that goes beyond the balance sheet. This mindset has helped them over time to build cult-like followership of people who will go above and beyond just to be identified with them.

Even in politics, the countries that do well are those whose leaders are purpose-driven compared to their purposeless counterparts.

How do you create a purposeful business In America?

The first step in creating a purposeful business in America is to start with WHY.

When the why is clear, the how is usually not a problem.

Make your why clear and keep it close by so that you and the team can always refer to it especially when things fall apart or when you begin to feel a sense of disconnection.

Steve Jobs made it clear that Apple’s purpose is to “connect man with technology”.

That singular purpose has driven everything about the company and has made it the 2 Trillion Dollar American company that it is today.

You can write your top WHYs or summarize them on note cards and place them around your workspace and other strategic places that everybody can see them.

Align yourself to something big and inspiring.

Always see your business as something bigger than you. It’s more like seeing a giant forest even when all that is available is just a seed.

Thinking, believing, and aligning yourself to something bigger attracts you to the necessary energy and higher powers that can help you in times of trouble.

When you look at your work in this way, you’ll begin to see how what you do is making a difference, not only in your own life but in the lives of others.

Find something bigger than you to inspire the work that you do

Inspiration is everywhere and anything can inspire anyone. In the business world, even the tiniest of things such as logos and colors are inspired. All of these come together to give a good and inspiring story about you and what you are creating for the world.

It is important that you go back and figure out the things that should or inspired you to get into this walk in the first place. And when you do, own it, tell it, and sell it.

Some questions that could drive and inspire you are…

Why is it important that you create this?

 Who will die if you didn’t start this business?

What will the marketplace miss if not for your presence?

What will the world miss or have enough of because you started this business?

What errors or societal ills does your business set out to correct?

Knowing all these and more will help you to create a purpose blueprint for your business and put it in a class of its own.

Some examples of Purposeful businesses in America that you can learn from include…

Hershey goes beyond making chocolates to empowering youths.

Ebay allows buyers to make donations to charity as they shop.

IBM is going beyond profit to leveraging technology to create disaster relief programs

Gilead Sciences go beyond profit to creating drugs and communities for AIDS and HIV survivors.

 Interface which is working towards a carbon-free atmosphere.

Timberland is planting Trees to help restore global balance.

Amgen which is going beyond profit to supporting science education among youths

Microsoft which creating big data solutions to help Nonprofits to measure and optimize impact.

Tesla is working to make renewable energy transportation available to the masses.

Body shop is focused on enriching the people and the planet.

Savers is serving and helping the environment by recycling products that are not sold.

Starbucks is fighting hunger.

Dove is helping to improve the self-esteem of girls.

Apple is helping enhance the relationship between man and technology.

Facebook is helping connect the world as one big happy family

AirBnB is helping travelers stay in unique homes and experience cities like a local.

when you look at these purposeful American companies, you will discover that they have more to their existence than just making profits.

Why Is a Purpose Driven Business Important?

Running a purpose-driven business is Important because it is what will make you stand when the going gets really rough as it always will.

I mean, anybody can be great and driven when all is going on fine. But only those with a superior purpose keeps going even when things are falling apart.

Beyond being able to weather the storm, purposeful businesses also enjoy some other benefits.

Purposeful Businesses Make more money. If you check, some of the richest companies in America today are also the most purpose-driven. This means that being a purposeful business eventually helps the balance sheet to look great.

Higher trust and acceptance score.

Purpose-driven businesses tend to be better trusted by the market.

This gives them the opportunity to build a loveable brand create serious customer loyalty that seems insane sometimes.

Makes for focus and strategic clarity

Being driven makes it clear for an organization to build a strong culture that guides its dos and donts.

And with such clarity of action and focused determination, it becomes easy to achieve incredible results.

Purpose Powers innovation.

According to a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (supported by EY), about 63.4% of executives surveyed said a sense of purpose helps them innovate and better able to disrupt or respond to disruption.

Building bridges and impacting the world

The purpose behind a company serves as a binding force that holds many things together.

Loyal partners and consumers will first connect with the purpose of a company before they can accept its products.

In the words of Patanjali, the founder of the ancient Indian practice of yoga, “when you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary projects, all your thoughts break their bonds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you have dreamed yourself to be”.

The brilliance of building a purposeful business in America is very important.

Clear and true purpose services as the great foundation upon which unforgettable companies are built.

Not just because it helps such companies to perform better than their counterparts but also because it is a noble thing to think beyond the balance sheet.