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How To Balance Impact And Profit
On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks about how to balance the desire to make a positive impact with the need to generate profit and sustain a business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A lot of social entrepreneurs (and some charities) need to create an impact, have to rely on funding and have to trade to maintain the business and generate some kind of profit for the business or the community they’re trying to support. To do this, the first thing you should do is clearly define the mission and the values of the organisation, what are you trying to do? This will help guide you in your business decisions and make sure you’re staying in line with the positive impact you want to make, whether that’s social impact, environmental impact, or whatever.
- Identify opportunities, based on your business’ values and mission, to create value for customers, employees, and the wider community through the business. This could be offering certain products and services that meet a real need, create jobs or economic opportunities for the communities, address social/environmental issues.
- Measure and communicate your impact, not just within the organisation but to your stakeholders, customers and everybody else who is involved and interested in the company. When you share these measures and data it also serves as accountability to keep yourself and your organisation within the framework of your initial mission and values and shows you’re not getting distracted by simply making profit.
- I work with disadvantaged young people and we are trying to improve and make a positive impact on their lives, so I won’t necessarily charge them for the services we provide for them (e.g. coaching programmes), but I could charge the parents, ask the council or schools if they could provide funding for the programme.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Focus on creating long term value for your stakeholders (customers / council / schools / community / environment) rather than the short term. This will create trust and loyalty which will help towards long term profitability.’
‘Purpose driven businesses and entrepreneurs are often not driven by financial gains only, we’re often driven by other things such as social impact, positive environmental impact or whatever we’re driven by.’
‘We have to really think about the impact we want to make and how we can do that. Be creative.’
‘We must always, always stay true to our values. If we don't, that's when we get distracted by profit and there becomes an imbalance between the positive impact that we want to make and the profit we’re trying to generate.’
ABOUT THE HOST
Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing and home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.
In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools and colleges.
Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed, through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring and digital marketing company.
Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people and planet.
CONTACT DETAILS
Tze Ching’s website: https://wedisruptagency.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wedisruptagency
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wedisruptagency/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/wedisruptagency
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzechingyeung/
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By Tze Ching Yeung
5
44 ratings
On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks about how to balance the desire to make a positive impact with the need to generate profit and sustain a business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A lot of social entrepreneurs (and some charities) need to create an impact, have to rely on funding and have to trade to maintain the business and generate some kind of profit for the business or the community they’re trying to support. To do this, the first thing you should do is clearly define the mission and the values of the organisation, what are you trying to do? This will help guide you in your business decisions and make sure you’re staying in line with the positive impact you want to make, whether that’s social impact, environmental impact, or whatever.
- Identify opportunities, based on your business’ values and mission, to create value for customers, employees, and the wider community through the business. This could be offering certain products and services that meet a real need, create jobs or economic opportunities for the communities, address social/environmental issues.
- Measure and communicate your impact, not just within the organisation but to your stakeholders, customers and everybody else who is involved and interested in the company. When you share these measures and data it also serves as accountability to keep yourself and your organisation within the framework of your initial mission and values and shows you’re not getting distracted by simply making profit.
- I work with disadvantaged young people and we are trying to improve and make a positive impact on their lives, so I won’t necessarily charge them for the services we provide for them (e.g. coaching programmes), but I could charge the parents, ask the council or schools if they could provide funding for the programme.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Focus on creating long term value for your stakeholders (customers / council / schools / community / environment) rather than the short term. This will create trust and loyalty which will help towards long term profitability.’
‘Purpose driven businesses and entrepreneurs are often not driven by financial gains only, we’re often driven by other things such as social impact, positive environmental impact or whatever we’re driven by.’
‘We have to really think about the impact we want to make and how we can do that. Be creative.’
‘We must always, always stay true to our values. If we don't, that's when we get distracted by profit and there becomes an imbalance between the positive impact that we want to make and the profit we’re trying to generate.’
ABOUT THE HOST
Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing and home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.
In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools and colleges.
Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed, through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring and digital marketing company.
Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people and planet.
CONTACT DETAILS
Tze Ching’s website: https://wedisruptagency.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wedisruptagency
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wedisruptagency/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/wedisruptagency
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzechingyeung/