Hey Prosperity Seekers,
I have some questions for you – Why did you start your business? Can you remember what its purpose was back then? Have you stayed true to that purpose? Honestly?
Don’t feel bad if your answer to the last question is No.
Most of us quickly forget our purpose in our branding and get caught up in “building” our business. But today, I have a guest who helps entrepreneurs close that gap and keep their purpose at the forefront so they can make a difference AND money.
I’m talking with Lorraine Schuchart, a disruptive brand strategist, award-winning writer, national speaker, and host of The Prosper Project podcast. Lorraine is also an accredited PR strategist with more than 30 years of experience in the field.
Her agency Prosper for Purpose helps changemakers build brands that impact the world and the bottom line. Her company holds the prestigious B Corp Certification, meeting the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability.
She has a ton of value to share.
Join us for this episode to find out how to make a profit and still stay true to your purpose as an entrepreneur.
Let’s jump in!
Doing Well by Doing Good
Today, we’re talking about prosperity, your purpose, passion, branding, and incorporating all that into your business. When thinking about this topic, I couldn’t help asking my guest what prosperity means to her. And she has a beautiful definition of prosperity:
Prosperity means doing well by doing good.
Isn’t that a beautiful way of interpreting the concept!?
You’re prospering through delivering on your purpose. No matter whether it’s happening through your business or volunteer work, you’re gaining because of what you’re doing. It is a financial gain, but it’s also building the life you want and feeling energized by your work.
It’s very important to understand this in the times when a lot of us get caught up in the financial aspect of prosperity. We all know wealthy people who wouldn’t fit the idea of being prosperous. They got a lot of money, but everything else in their life is falling apart.
And that’s just not a definition of prosperity. To me, prosperity is all about being able to make a difference and an impact for good. You bless your life as you bless others’ lives in that whole process of prosperity.
That’s precisely Lorraine’s mission. When starting her business, she wanted to do well by doing good (by helping other people). Before that, she spent more than 20 years going back and forth between nonprofit and for-profit work.
They say, “If you want to make a difference, go into a nonprofit. If you want to make $1, go into a for-profit.” When Lorraine left a nonprofit job 20 years ago and went to for-profit, she made three times as much.
However, as she kept getting called back to a nonprofit’s mission, she was trying to find a way to do both. So, Lorraine decided to become an entrepreneur.
Purpose Is the Foundation of Everything
Her agency helps entrepreneurs, businesses, and nonprofits create change by equipping them with stories and narratives to change hearts and minds.
They are working with clients who have a burning desire to create an impact, but they’re not sure how to create messaging that resonates with the people they need to bring along with them.
I’ve always been thrilled by the idea that we don’t have to choose one over the other. I love that beautiful bridge between those two – you CAN make a difference AND money. And my guest is one of those people who prove that on a daily basis.
Basically, she explains to her clients why the purpose is the key to everything. The funny thing is that everyone knows that when starting their business. When you ask entrepreneurs what made them start their business, you never hear, “I wanted to make money.”
Of course, they want money, but it’s never the guiding force. However, once they start their business, most business owners never talk about that purpose again. Usually, one can’t find their mission or any of the reasons for starting the business on their websites or marketing material.
So what Lorraine does is start from the point of a narrative brand because it’s the essence. As she puts it, that is a spool of thread that sits at the core of your business – once you get it, you just pull that thread into everything you’re doing.
That narrative feeds your content and helps you decide who you want to hire or partner with. It’s really the foundation of everything. But, we just get so caught up in what other people tell us we should be doing that we forget to articulate the change we’re trying to create.
When the Purpose Is Lost…
Your narrative brand is the story about you starting your business, and it typically doesn’t change. (If you are not the founder, then it’s about the evolution – how the original vision is being carried forward.)
Unfortunately, we lose the purpose quickly because we’re focused on building the business. So we disassociate the purpose from it, thinking that piece doesn’t matter to anyone but us. However, that mission matters the most, and we must understand how important it is to articulate that.
This is a real-world example of how we forego the feminine, focusing so much on the masculine. And if the purpose isn’t driving, then we lose sight, so all of that masculine part of building quickly gets really heavy and daunting.
If we forget the purpose and vision behind our business, we get lost in building it, and then we’re like, “Why isn’t this working?” That’s why we should never forget:
- why we’re building our business
- who we’re building it for
- who we’re trying to reach
… And Regained
Once you reconnect with our purpose, things definitely change. You’re more likely to let go of things that don’t matter.
Also, after rewriting the brand narrative, you’re saying, “Here’s what I stand for. And if you disagree with my values, that’s OK. We’re not meant to be together at this part of our journey.”
Lorraine says she started applying this in her third year of business. When she got clear that she would work with changemakers, who wanted to have some kind of positive impact, she was prepared to have fewer clients.
But what happened was people started finding her because they WANTED to work with her BECAUSE of that mission. We think that we’re moving away from more, but what we’re doing is moving towards better.
And that’s the most beautiful part of leading with our feminine and being focused on how we FEEL.
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Visit Lorraine’s website and grab her freebie Perfect Your Pitch: Your Go-To Guide for Getting Publicity.
You’ll also get a ton of value from reading her amazing blog.
Follow Lorraine on Instagram.
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