08/ 16/ 2004
by Tamara E. Holmes
While starting a business is enough to bring pride to most entrepreneurs, developing a personal purpose that is not tied to making money can help business owners turn their businesses into something really meaningful.
Ensuring that a business has a purpose tied to serving humanity in some way allows business owners to point to their businesses' success regardless of economic fluctuations and better maintain a passion for what they do that transcends making a living.
"All of my clients do something service-oriented," said Maria Marsala, a small-business consultant who lives in Poulsbo, Wash. "I think it's almost a built-in idea that we'll make money and we'll do good for the world or what that world may look like to us."
Coming up with a purpose for your business does not have to involve saving the hungry or putting roofs over the heads of the homeless. A retailer of beauty products might aim to make customers happier with their appearances, while a realtor might have the goal of helping people find homes they love.
The key, said Marsala, is figuring out where one's interest lies.
"You would want to be passionate about whatever the cause is that you're getting involved with. That would be an added bonus as a human being to be able to give where you're the most passionate," she said.
If one of Marsala's clients approached her about developing a mission or purpose for a business, she says, she would start off by asking that client two questions. What are your gifts as a human being and where are you the strongest when it comes to those skills?
The next step in coming up with a mission is figuring out to whom the small business currently caters and how the business makes those people's lives easier.
If your business creates a product that cleans floors, then the mission statement would have something to do with cleanliness and order. Perhaps with cleanliness and order, people can be more productive in their own lives. If you believe in that idea, the mission statement would have to do with helping people to be more productive in their lives by bringing cleanliness and order to their environments.
A purpose translated to employees can also do wonders for your company's productivity. Employees that buy into your mission and feel like they are helping to better the world in some way are likely to work harder and may even be more loyal.
"I was a trader on Wall Street, and there became a point in time where I was making so much money … and I went home and I said, 'How many more TVs do I want?’" Marsala said. "There's got to be more purpose to life."
By providing that purpose to your employees, you can give them a way to satisfy the desire to serve, and raises and business perks are no longer the only ways to motivate workers to do a good job.
Every business provides a service or product to its customers. By figuring out how that service or product adds to the greater good of humanity, you can appeal to clients and customers from the heart rather than merely the wallet.
