Starting Your SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE Business

Welcome to Success Story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host, Scott D. Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network, as well as the Blue Wire podcast network. Now, the HubSpot podcast network has incredible shows, like the Martech podcast hosted by Benjamin Shapiro. The Martech podcast is all about maximum value in 30 minutes or less. The Martech podcast shares stories from world-class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success all in your lunch break. If you like any of these topics, you're going to love the Martech podcast. Some of the topics are zeroing in on the ideal product price point, identifying loyalty plays for smart marketers, finding the line between sales and marketing and SaaS, extending the lifetime value of your customer. If these are topics that are interesting to you, go check out the Martech podcast hosted by Ben Shapiro, wherever you get your podcasts. What's going on, Scott here? Welcome back. Today, I'm going to be talking about socially responsible businesses. Now, like most of the topics that I cover on here, it's stuff that comes from some of the incredible guests that I have on my show, which leads to a larger discussion on the topic. So today, I'm going to talk about socially responsible businesses. I've had this conversation a few times with different guests. It's something that I feel very passionately for. And I think it's something that we have to talk about a little bit because it's a buzzword that keeps flying around and nobody knows how to actually do anything about it. When you say to somebody, or when somebody says to you, I want to be a socially responsible or socially conscious entrepreneur. What the hell does that mean? How do you actually do it? How do you think about socially responsible entrepreneurship when building a business is already difficult enough? So if you've ever heard the phrase, people don't buy products, they buy feelings, it's accurate. This is something that matters. So to understand how to build a socially responsible business is important. Now, the future of business is all about giving customers what they want. Nothing changed there. It's not just about selling a product or service, but it's about giving customers a feeling that they're doing something for the good of the world. More and more customers are in search of businesses that can demonstrate social responsibility. And let's face it with the state of the world in 2022. I think that everything sort of calls for a little bit more TLC, especially in the business community, the environment is suffering, the economy is struggling, and social inequality is on the rise. Everybody is stressed out, but it's not all doom and gloom, because if you are building a business, you can model some of the businesses that are doing great things that are beginning to make headway in the social responsibility arena. Now, this conversation and this video and this podcast, wherever you're consuming it, this all came from a conversation that I had with a CEO and founder of one of these types of businesses that has focused on social responsibility. They've done it properly. So hopefully this will give you some tips on how you can incorporate some more social responsibility into your business. So let me give you some context. One of the most recent episodes of the success story podcast in my show, I had the privilege of speaking with Paul Shapiro. He is the founder and CEO of the Better Meat Company. Here's a brief bio on Paul. He's the author of the National Best Seller Clean Meat, how growing meat without animals will revolutionize dinner in the world. He is a CEO of the Better Meat Co, a socially responsible and cruelty free animal free meat company. He is a four-time TEDx speaker. He's the host of the Business for Good Podcast. If that wasn't enough, he's published articles in the Washington Post, Scientific American, Fortune and many other notable publications. Paul grew up with the love of animals. He has always confronted the ethical dilemma of meat consumption. After 20 years of working in the non-profit space as a lobbyist and advocate for animals, he became increasingly interested in the role that food technology could play in helping solve some of the world's most pressing problems like climate change and global hunger. And this is what eventually led him to start the Better Meat Company, a company that creates delicious, healthy and humane meat alternatives that are better for both people and the planet. And obviously if you do want to listen to the whole podcast, go check it out, successstartpodcast.com, go find the one with Paul Shapiro and you can go listen to the whole podcast. So I'm going to unpack why we need social-responsible businesses in 2022 and how Paul's company is a perfect example. And I want to caveat that I love to cover Paul's company. I love what he's doing. I actually eat a ton of meat, but I need to put that out there because just because you eat a ton of meat or perhaps you're not interested in meat alternatives doesn't mean you can't respect the fact that we need more socially responsible businesses to create solutions that could potentially improve our reality. Perhaps what Paul's doing may make it so that parts of the world that don't have access to the type of abundance that we have in North America can eat better. We can feed people globally. These are things and problems that Paul's company is solving for that you may not think of immediately when you think about meat alternatives, but there's a lot of other reasons why we have to focus on building socially responsible businesses because not everybody has it as good as we have it right here in North America. So Paul's company, the Better Meat Co is an excellent example of a business that is both socially and environmentally responsible. Using the power of fermentation and harnessing the nutrients offered by a micro protein, the Better Meat Co is able to create healthy, sustainable, and ethical products that actually taste like meat. And in doing so, Paul's mission is to lighten the burden that animal agriculture places on the environment while also helping to improve the treatment of animals. With an increase in awareness of the detrimental issues our planet is facing, it's never been more important for a business to consider their social responsibility. And he gave me, Paul gave me a compelling reason as to why 2022 is a year for businesses to step up and become more socially responsible. To quote Paul, think about the fact that there are nearly 8 billion of us walking around on the planet today and we're going to have another 2 billion added to the planet in the next 30 years. We're not going to be farming on the moon, we're not going to be farming Mars, we have one planet to farm right and that's Earth and it's not getting any bigger. Earth is finite and as such we are all responsible for looking after its resources, but businesses don't have to focus on animal agriculture like Better Meat Co, there are so many other global issues that need our attention, such as climate change and its impact on the environment, sourcing sustainable materials and products, the ethical treatment of employees, community engagement and giving back and the list goes on and on. Typically businesses hold more economic and social influence than individuals and by stepping into a more socially responsible role as a CEO or as a stakeholder, somebody who makes decisions in a business, you can make an enormous impact on the issues affecting your local space and even national and international issues. Now let's look at social responsibility from a business perspective. The concept of corporate social responsibility or CSR isn't just about doing the right thing, it's also an excellent strategy from a business point of view, which is why the corporate world has begun to see a noticeable shift towards the decade of purpose. Now what is the decade of purpose? In the 2000s business leaders were primarily focused on connection in the 2010s convenience and now in the 2020s they have focused more so on how to make a positive impact on society. This is partially due to the emergence of more sustainably minded people stepping into leadership roles in the past decade, but the same can't be true for all businesses, not every businesses turned over the leadership so why does sudden change? Simply put, purpose-driven businesses are more successful. Take a look at these facts and figures. According to Cone Communications and Echo Research, 90% of shoppers globally would switch to socially responsible brands and 76% of consumers would decline doing business with an unethical brand. Nielsen IQ reports that 55% of consumers will pay extra for products that contribute to a good cause and 61% of investors favor companies that can demonstrate their corporate social responsibility efforts according to AFLAC. Not only that, but CSR is becoming almost essential for sourcing and securing top talent. Millennials in particular are drawn to purpose-driven businesses, and many will turn down job offers from a company that doesn't have a social conscious, especially one that seems unethical. According to Cone Communications 2016, and we're in 2022 now, so you can only imagine how those numbers have progressed. But Cone Communications 2016 study on millennial employment engagement. Here's some more interesting stats. 64% of millennials take CSR into serious consideration when deciding where to work and will not take a job unless a company demonstrates strong CSR values. 83% will be more loyal to their company if it helps them take on more social responsibility as part of their role as compared to 70% of the US average. And 88% find their jobs more fulfilling if they are able to contribute to alleviating social and environmental issues. Clearly, consumers and employees alike are looking for businesses with heart. So what does it take to start your own socially responsible business? That's the big question that we're trying to answer. Let's turn back to Paul Shapiro of the Better Me Co for some expert advice on how he began his ethically responsible business. So starting your purpose-driven and socially responsible business is no easy feat. But when Paul began putting his vision into action, he wasn't an expert in the field by any means. He'd written books about the concept of technology's role in sustainable food production, but he was starting a business, not just preaching about the topic. Still, Better Me Co ended up a resounding success. So how did he do it? Well, let's see what Paul has to say and we can observe from his success. So first, start with a vision. You can't help to achieve anything if you don't have a clear idea of what you're working on. Paul's vision for the Better Me Co was to create meat products that were tasty for people, yet caused no harm to animals, the environment or society. There was a clear vision and purpose behind the company, and it was communicated effectively to both employees and customers. To quote Paul, I had a decision to make, he said in the interview, I had just written a book and he was going on tour to talk about great entrepreneurs who I thought would end up saving the world. And so I thought I could continue to simply write about the people who I thought were going to save and solve the problem, or I could become one of them myself and I chose the latter path. Clearly, Paul had a vision and you need one too. So if you want to start a socially responsible business, what's your vision? What's the problem you're trying to solve? How can your business make a positive impact on this world? Next step, after your vision, surround yourself with the right people. So although, Paul clearly was a go-getter, he didn't have entrepreneurial experience in the beginning of his career as a CEO. However, he found a clever way to remedy this. He surrounded himself with people who had the knowledge he needed. Paul researched other meat alternative companies in order to learn more about fermentation and fungi-based micro proteins, but the majority of people he surrounded himself with as it turns out weren't experts in his field at all. They were just motivated individuals who shared the same passion for making chain. If you read my book Clean Meat, he mentioned, one of the things you notice is that many of the people who I talk about in the book are not people who are seasoned entrepreneurs, or people who have PhDs or other incredible credentials. Many of the entrepreneurs are people who just wanted to make a difference. When you're starting your own socially responsible business, follow Paul's lead and find like-minded individuals who share your same values and your same goals. This will help you create a supportive community, one that can offer advice, mentorship, and resources when needed. As Jim Rohn once famously said, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you want to start a successful purpose-driven business, then it's important to surround yourself with people who will reaffirm your vision and help you achieve your goal. Next, read up on case studies, immerse yourself, get inspired. So when you're first starting out in your mission to build a socially responsible business, you're full of energy ideas and adrenaline. That's normal. It can be tempting to barge ahead without taking the time to do the research into the thing that you actually want to learn how to do and learn from those who have come before you. Remember, although you can gain a lot from studying the successes and failures of others, you will eventually have to put it into practice. So you do want to spend a little bit of time while you have the luxury of time to research people that have done it before. So in the interview, Paul spoke about highly successful startup that inspired him at the beginning of his journey. Perfect day. Perfect day creates dairy milk without the need for cows using yeast or ferment sugars from plants. The company's product at Shells in 2018 and they already began being stocked in major grocery stores like Kroger in Safeway. Looking into businesses that have found success with a social conscience gave Paul the push he needed to start his own venture. Those stories about mere mortals who were making this happen were inspirational to me because I thought hey, if these guys can do it, maybe I can too. And they have done a phenomenal job running their company and I hope to have a fraction of the success that they're having. So if you are somebody who resists learning from others and you're too egocentric and you want to figure out everything yourself, I mean, that's a horrible way to go into any business or any startup. I would say that if you are driven by your own merit or you have competitive feelings towards other businesses with a social conscious, you need to really check yourself and you really need to humble yourself because that will be the biggest leverage point as early on, early stage, socially responsible entrepreneur. It's important to learn how much you can learn from those who've done it before. Soak up their successes, their failures, their lessons learned to help make your own journey smoother. And then lastly, conduct a ton of industry research. So you have to dive right into the thing that you want to figure out. You're feeling inspired. You've surrounded yourself with like-minded individuals. So where do you go from here? This is where we get into the nuts of the bolts of launching your own socially responsible business starting with industry research. So industry research is a little bit different than market research in that you're looking to answer the following questions. What are the current industry trends? What are the key players in the industry? What are the major challenges and opportunities facing the industry? Rather than looking at the figures of your specific product or service, you're looking at the trends in the industry as a whole and trying to fit and work out how your business can fit into that. You're trying to find the problems that your product or service can solve for. For example, Paul's industry is one that has evolved exponentially in the last few years. The better Miko was born out of a realization that traditional meat industry was broken or it wasn't really keeping up with the times. And that was a huge opportunity to create a more sustainable, ethical, and profitable business model. But there was more industry research to be done within that specific niche. So to quote Paul, when you go back about five years or so, you get companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat who are trying to make products for die-hard carnivores, something that really mimics the meat experience. So all of a sudden, you have this huge universe of omnivores who are happy to eat plant-based every once in a while, especially if it still tastes the same as meat. And those companies really paved a new pathway. So like Paul, your industry will have an entire landscape that you have to understand before starting your socially responsible business. Who are the major players? What challenges do they face? What new technologies or ideas or trends are emerging in this space? You have to understand that socially responsible businesses usually are paving the way for something. So the environment is much more dynamic than if you're going into a legacy industry. Not always, but just keep it up in mind. By understanding the industry as a whole and how fast it's evolving and understanding all the nuances and the players in the industry, you can start to see how your business can actually make a difference, which is the goal. You don't just want to create something that's already there that's serving a purpose that's already being served. You want to create something that's actually making a difference. So final thoughts on launching a business that makes a difference. There are obviously a ton of steps that you need to take in order to launch a successful business, but Paul's experience and advice provide for a great starting point for those who are looking to make a difference with their business. Let's run through a quick recap. So first, it's important to have a clear idea of what you want your business to achieve and how it will make a difference in the world. This can help inform all other aspects of your business from branding to marketing to operations to hiring. Once you have that vision in place, it's important to surround yourself with people who share your values and can help turn that vision into a reality. Next, learn from others who have started similar businesses and find out what worked and what didn't for them. And then finally, conduct a thorough analysis of the industry as a whole. You want to enter in terms of emerging trends, opportunities and challenges with social responsibility. Keep in mind that it's not just a start-ups who can make a difference. Established businesses can also make a huge impact by making small tweaks in their operation. There are plenty of resources and organizations that can help you get started. So if you are feeling inspired to start your own socially responsible business, do not feel like it's just too much of an effort to go down that pathway because you can build a successful business while still being ethically and socially responsible and that truly has very tangible business benefits. So anyways, I hope you got a little bit from this. I hope it inspired you to go do some research and to go build that thing that is socially responsible that is making the world slightly better because God forbid if there is a time that we need people like you, it is definitely right now. So if you like this video, if you like this podcast, definitely please, please, please hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, leave a comment somewhere on YouTube on wherever DM me with any other topics you want me to cover. I'll cover any sort of business topics. I hope this was valuable. Have a great week. We'll speak again soon. Cheers.