The Powerful Impact of One - You Can Be a Purpose Driven Solopreneur Even On a Tight Budget: Ep. 115

Small companies should care about being more purpose-driven because it can help them stand out from their competitors, attract customers who share their values, and create a positive impact on the world. From the power of one to a collective village, as entrepreneurs, we can break boundaries, just like the Village People did with their music. Using my YMCA framework, I break down the steps to have a significant impact, despite your budget. 

Episodes referenced: 114, 66, 48, 45, 38, 35, 34, 27, 19, and 11

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Transcript

 📍 Question.  Who out there is scared about the future of this planet? What about making a bigger impact in the world?

Are you saying yes to both of these? Yeah.

Whether it's for the environment like social justice, animal rights. Or just ending, like all the horribleness in the world, like poverty, starvation, human trafficking, and war. Oh my God. The world is so messed up.  But as business owners. We can make a big difference.

I'm going to talk to you about this today. Because I want you to get radical with your business. And part of that means. Making a greater impact the world in a positive way. Are you ready? Let's go. 

  Hello, and welcome to Get Radical With Your Business. I am your host Heather Zeitzwolfe . I want you to know that you as an entrepreneur. A solo entrepreneur. You can make a difference. Governments; they're the ones that's supposed to be solving all the problems. Right? Well, they're slow due to red tape and budget restraints. And sure we don't have the same kind of budgets as these mega-corporations that can just toss around money but we can make our own impact that can have a ripple effect. By taking radical action through our business.

Just because we are solopreneurs does not mean that we can't impact change. . Like Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." He said, YOU, he didn't say "Monsanto" or "Dow Chemical." But maybe he should have.

Think about the impact that you can make. Even if you are on a tight budget, you can still make a positive impact.

Just look at the impact that Gretta Thunberg made when she was only 15 years old. 15. She was a, kid when she started protesting at school and having kids, protesting around climate change. When I was 15, you know what I was doing a 15, oh my God. I was like shopping at Claire's, buying jelly bracelets and listening to Duran Duran, and singing Hungry like the Wolf into my pretend microphone, that was my hairbrush. Yeah, I feel ashamed that that's what I was doing as a kid. And I wasn't out there protesting, but really seriously protesting, like, I didn't know anything about protesting to me. That was like what the uncool hippie parents did at the beginning of Family Ties or in my house, protesting was basically my dad yelling at the television during a ball game.

Gretta Thunberg definitely had a different upbringing than I did. But we can learn from her example.  So in 2018, when she was only 15, she skipped school to protest outside parliament for more action against climate change. Then she started getting  other fellow students and teachers involved. By November, 2018, more than 17,000 students in 24 countries started to take part in her Friday. School strikes.

And by March, 2019. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. And in May, 2019. She was named one of the world's most influential people by Time magazine.

Oh, my God. That just kind of blows my mind. It makes me think like, what the hell was I doing as a kid? But you know, the truth of the matter was I didn't know about protesting and all that kind of stuff. And so like, I never even thought about the impact that businesses make both positive and negative on the planet.

It never even crossed my mind until I went to business school. And in college, I had to take a class on business ethics.

As entrepreneurs. We have the same choice. We can do positive or negative things to the planet, the people, and our profits in the meantime.

Eldridge Cleaver said, "There is no more neutrality in the world.  You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem."

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. We can't just stand by and do nothing. But Where do we start? It can feel overwhelming. We can all have a positive impact, no matter what our budget is. Think about things that you can impact without having to spend a lot of money. that could mean things like working from home and not driving to appointments, or having a paperless office. There's so many ways that we can make a positive impact in the world. It's not going to cost us any extra  📍 money.

If we want to make a greater impact, it is much easier though. If we align our people planet and profit, triple bottom line. That way we'll have the time freedom and the money to make a greater impact.  

Now, I'm sure you've heard the phrase. It takes a village.  Just think of us. As a village of entrepreneurs, we're like the village people. Well, I am CA. Oh, whoa. See you. A  

okay. Yeah, you get the drift. Okay. YMCA? Yeah, village people. We could be like the village people. How cool is that? What do I mean by that? Okay. Well, uh, Y YMCA, it's an acronym. I came up with another acronym or K you ready? And this is how we're going to make a greater impact on our triple bottom line is through Y MCA, 📍   Y stands for you. It starts with you and your impact. How do you want to impact things? 

You it's all on you because you are the entrepreneur, the solopreneur. 

Y M M  we're talking about M M is mission. What is our mission? What w what do we value? What is our purpose? What do we want to do in this world? Our vision for the world. This may sound really corny, but I worked at a place that had their mission statement very loud and proud on their wall. It was in bold font and you could see it as soon as you walked into the office. And so everybody was constantly reminded what the mission of the business was, that was kind of like our north star. We understood. What it was that our boss was trying to accomplish with this business. It told our customers when they came into the office, what we were trying to accomplish. It gave us guidance in what we were doing. And , we felt like we could make an impact because we understood what was important. 

On the flip side, I worked for a company where their website was super generic. they had pictures on the website that was like of people that was supposed to be the staff. And they were just like stock photos. There was nobody that looked like the staff that was on that website. And there was no mission statement, no purpose statement, no values, nothing like that was on the website. And so I asked my boss about it and I was like, "Hey. Where's the mission statement?" And they were like, "well, we don't have a mission statement. "I was like, "what?" I couldn't believe it after being in a place that had it loud and proud on the wall. And now I'm at a place that doesn't even have one. Let alone not putting one on their website, to me that was just shocking. And you know, it was no wonder that they got no leads from their website because. 

Their website just seemed super generic. Nobody knew what they stood for. It was like They only got leads from referrals.  As business owners, we should be loud and proud about what we believe in as well. We need to let the world know what it is that we stand for. 

Because the truth of the matter is people want to spend money with the companies that share their same values or same ethics.  I encourage you to really develop. A clear mission, your vision. And know what your values are and be loud and proud on your website about it. And you can even talk about it on social media. Okay. So that's why   M. See. What does C stands for C stands for clarity. Well, if you listen to my last episode, I talked a lot about making sure that you look at your numbers. So we said  what you track and look at and you can impact. So this is where clarity around your business is so important because. 

If we want to have an impact on the planet and people, we have to have the profit to support it and we have to have the efficiencies in our business.  That gives us time freedom so we can volunteer. We can take time off.  We can. I hire people at living wages. We can. .  Go to the vendors that we choose. They may cost more, but we believe in their ethics and we have the money to  📍 pay them.  

And if you want to know more about how you can bring more clarity to your numbers, I encourage you to listen to my last podcast episode about getting off the  cashflow roller coaster. 


All right. So Y M C  A, A stands for action taking action. We need to take action if we want to make an impact.  action can be as small as giving a monthly donation to a charity that you really believe into volunteering your time. You can get involved with organizations such as 1% for the Planet or B1 G1. And you can set aside a certain amount of money that goes towards different efforts around the world.  There's so many different ways that you can help out, because like we talked about the world is kind of a messed up place. So, uh, your help is needed in many, many areas. you can even help the environment by just turning off the lights. You can be more energy efficient. Reusing and recycling. There's so many things that we can do. you don't have to necessarily donate your money or volunteer. Those are great things, but you can do things like do a beach cleanup or do a cleanup in your neighborhood. There's so many things that you can get involved with that don't cost money. 

I've interviewed some really great people on this podcast that have run purpose driven businesses, and I'll drop some links in the show notes so that you can listen to some of those older episodes with companies that are making a difference in the world. 

Like planting trees every time that they get a new client. I mean, there's so many clever ways that you can make an impact in the world.  I encourage you to be. Like Gretta Thunberg, and get out there and make an impact. 

Let's just go back over what I talked about. 

Around the triple bottom line, people, planet and profits. So it's so important that we are making money. So that way we can support our efforts. But even if you are on a tight budget, you can still make an impact. It's just,  if, you  have higher profits in your business, you can make a bigger impact financially. 

And also have more time freedom towards volunteering. So we have the Y MCA. Why. You, you can get involved and do this. M. Mission your mission. What is your mission? Make sure you're loud and proud about it. Say it on social media and make sure that people know about it. Because people want to buy.  From companies. Entrepreneurs that share the same values and ethics as them. . We vote with our dollars. Remember the power of that. All right. Y M C clarity have clarity around what you're doing. Clarity around your numbers, your time. how you want to impact the world. 

Have clarity on that. What is it that you can do?   Is it through your decisions through hiring? Is it your decisions through which vendors you choose? All of that? And then. A take action. B Gretta Thunberg take action.  If you want more clarity. 

In your business. I encourage you to check out the get radical profit growth accelerator.  This is a supportive environment that will hold you accountable.  It's a no shame approach towards money and finance and business. And we're all there to support one another. You don't have to do this alone. 

Yes, we are solopreneurs. But remember. It takes a village of village of entrepreneurs. And if you want to be a village, people like me, come join my village. All right. I hope to see you in the business incubator, get radical profit growth accelerator. And if you want to check it out, all you have to do is just send me an email at heather@GetRadBiz.com. That's heather@getredbiz.com. drop me an email and I will let you in, I'll give you some dates and you could come check it out and you can come play in our incubator and give me a chance to support you. All right, go out there and be the change you want to see in the world.