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Is your impact positive – and why it matters for your business?
In our regular world how you treat other people really matters. People will respond to you and do business with you when they know and trust you.
You can’t spread misery all day, then post a smiling image to your Instagram feed and think people will trust you. People will sense something is ‘off’ even if they can’t explain why.
The best way to have friends, be respected and run a great business is to use your power to impact others positively.
Positive impact can give you:
- significance to your life through building a good reputation, positive legacy, meaning and significance, good health and personal satisfaction
- profit to your business because positivity is good for business. It builds trust, which helps you get repeat clients and more positive ‘word of mouth’ recommendations
- benefits to other people and starts a ripple effect as people pass the positivity or ‘good deeds’ forward
Just as positive impact is good for you, your business and other people, so negative impact harms you, your business and other people.
Positive impact is good for your business
When people get value from your business and from you as a person, your business is likely to be more profitable.
People want to do business with you because your products or services help them and others like them in the community. That leads to positive reviews, word of mouth recommendations and repeat customers. Good business!
You are also more likely to attract the right sort of employees to your business. The best employee is the person who is committed to your mission and who gets involved in the purposeful work of helping others.
As an entrepreneur, your focus is to build a profitable business. If you aren’t profitable you won’t be in business for long! But as well as making money you can find ways to have a meaningful impact through your business.
Positive impact can come through your core values and business principles, how you treat your employees, and the quality of the products or services that you sell to your clients and customers.
Positive impact can reach beyond your direct employees into their families and other contacts.
Your business gives you more scope to influence and impact other people because you have the infrastructure to reach out and spread your message.
According to Liliana Biglou the Head of British Council Ghana, “Businesses have the power not for profit alone, but to bring social empowerment to societies.”
A new research by the Social Enterprise Activity (announced by the British Council Ghana) revealed that 98 social enterprises in Ghana currently employ 998 young people directly, and that impacts positively on 103,148 lives in Ghana. www.ghanaweb.com
There is more likelihood of you being profitable when you make a meaningful impact. People will want to do business with you because your product or service helps them and other people like them in the community.
Quote: ‘If you aren’t making a difference in other people’s lives, you shouldn’t be in business – it’s that simple.’ Sir Richard Branson
How to have a positive impact as an entrepreneur
As an impact hero you are responsible to impact others positively in your life and your business. Here are 5 steps to help you be more impactful
- Understand that you always make an impact – either positive or negative
- Evaluate the type of impact you currently have and decide what type of impact you want to have from now onwards
- Decide what you can do in your life and business to make people’s lives better – helpfulness, quality, service, product, attitude, value
- Ask this question – ‘will doing _____ enable me to impact more people positively?’ (Don’t think only about money and profit)
- Measure the impact of your positive impact – more satisfied customers, re-purchases, and positive recommendations, OR less complaints, returns, damaged products
Oprah Winfrey says: “The surest way to bring goodness to yourself is to make it your intention to do good for somebody else.”
Impact positively and help others. They will love you for it.
In the best case, they will also pay it forward! And as Spiderman reminds us: ‘With great power comes great responsibility’.
Since you have the power to impact and influence, use your power responsibly!
Choose wisely!
Before you go, tell us when you had to choose to have a positive impact and how that turned out in your life or business.
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