Welcome, good people of the blogosphere! Today, we’re gonna talk about how you might inadvertently screw up your business if you neglect to be forward thinking with your actions. If you’re ready, grab some coffee or tea, and let’s dive in!
There are a few things every business needs in order to succeed:
- Customers
- Lenders
- Amazing Employees
- A Solid Presence
- Morals
Customers can come from all over the world and vary widely in their beliefs and basic tenants. Some will stick with a brand no matter what, but a trend that’s growing is that people want to give their business to companies with a message people can stand behind. Take, for example, Bombas. Every purchase made helps someone else who’s in need. People love the message and pay a bit more for the product because it’s doing some good in the world.
This is especially prevalent in Millennials. If a company treats them right or does some good, they’ll stick with that company through the hard times. This leads to the next point: Morals.
If your company’s morals are thrown out the window, or you engage in something highly controversial and choose the wrong side of the issue, those customers will abandon you faster than a snowman melts in July in Florida. Just take a look at JK Rowling. She’s done many philanthropic things in her life, donated millions to charity, but when she spoke about her opinion on transgenders, people dropped her, refusing to engage in anything else she produces. They were horrified at her stance and beliefs. Read her open letter about the issue here.
So, keep in mind that no matter how much good you do, you can still become a target if you stand on the wrong side of an issue. Get yourself educated about the people you’re selling to. Listen to their point of view. You might find that you’re simply ill-educated on the matter. You might not, but the willingness to listen will make a lot of difference.
Your stance can also have an impact on your employees. If they don’t agree with a big decision you make for your company, those folks might start to feel like they can’t work for you. Amazing employees come with strong moral codes (that’s part of why they’re amazing), and if your company acts in a way that conflicts with that code, you’ll lose loyalty. Those actions may even lead to loss of top talent.
Those moral codes will come in handy when you’re engaging with the public, too. Your presence, both online and in person, should be solid. Your company should have straight edges people can see and an appealing visage that makes those customers want to engage with you and keep you as a provider of goods or services. Of course, this brings to mind things like lenders, for example. Those folks your company depends on getting services from have as much right to refuse to do business with you as your customers have to refuse to buy from you.
This is one of the things not many people realize: Your lenders and service providers have the option to refuse to do business with you. Much like the supermarket that refused to make a cake for a child named Adolf Hitler Campbell, your business can be denied access to things based on the service provider’s preferences vs your moral code or actions.
Your actions as an individual can lead those lenders to refuse to do business with your company any longer. Social media platforms can remove all your accounts because they don’t want their image associated with yours. Companies that manufactured your merchandise can refuse to continue to do so. People around the world (because the world is always watching) can refuse to order from you, watch your films, or stay at your hotel if it has your name on it.
Once the dust settles, and all these companies and customers have time to evaluate your actions and compare those to long-held company morals, you run the risk of getting unplugged faster than a TV on fire.
With your public image damaged, your employees unhappy, your lenders running away, your manufacturers rolling the rock out of the way and running from the cave, and your morals being held under a microscope, you’d need to do some serious reconfiguring and damage control if you plan to keep your business afloat. Your failure to maintain a public image that aligns with the moral code of a vast majority of the population of the world could be your downfall.
This, dear people of the blogosphere, is how you can screw the pooch for your businesses. If recovery is at all possible, you need to eat a little humble pie and admit that mistakes were made. Unless you don’t mind going down with a ship you fired a torpedo at. Just be sure you’re on deck, in your uniform, with your head up high.
So, watch your business Ps and Qs, and be sure you have the articles listed at the beginning of this post that combine to make success. That way, you don’t end up at the bottom of the barrel with the sludge.
If you’d like more insights like these, sign up for our monthly mailing list!
Contributor
