Convert Or Go Out Of Business: How purpose-driven companies will take over the economy

You probably don’t know of any corporations whose mission statements explicitly say they want to make as much money as possible at the expense of others and the rest of society. But that is just what many businesses do when they utilize unsustainable practices like underpaying workers, degrading the environment, and wasting resources.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As Pope Francis put it during his visit to the United States in 2015, “Harnessing the spirit of enterprise is an essential element of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive, and sustainable…business is a noble vocation directed to producing wealth and improving the world.”

In other words, when it comes to business, purpose is key.

We’re all looking to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Purpose is something that rallies people in a way that profit never will. So how do you step up as a leader and power your business with purpose?

The secret is aligning your company’s business model with your core values.

Identify customers’ values as well as your own.

In mapping out your company’s values, it’s not enough to only think about your personal standards; you also need to consider those of your clients. In the case of my company, Gravity Payments, I spent several years talking with small-business owners and trying to understand their pain points. Eventually, I noticed a common thread tying those conversations together: bad faith. Many small-business owners felt they were being lied to, cheated, and ripped off by people who promised better prices and service but didn’t deliver either one. It made them skeptical of any business that offered them the world—and, over time, it gave them the impression that an entire industry was shady.

They wanted honesty and transparency, and I wanted to change their perception of my sector.

So I made honesty and transparency the foundation of my company. Eventually, that drew clients to us. They were able to connect with us in a way they hadn’t been able to connect with other payment processors. This focus on honesty and transparency continues to pay off: on average, we keep our customers much longer than our competitors.

Seek out the best people most aligned with your mission.

If your team isn’t buying into your objectives, your clients will undoubtedly know. At Gravity, we hire for fit rather than experience. We want people with a strong sense of ownership, pride, and responsibility who go above and beyond and fix whatever needs to be fixed. We want people who think like the business owners we serve.

To uncover these traits, we start with multi-hour interviews by different team members. As our potential hires tell their stories, we find out if they fit our culture and if they’re the kind of workers who will stay up late answering phone calls in their pajamas from merchants during emergencies, cancel a date to help a client whose terminals are down, or drive out of their way to drop off receipt paper. We want to know if they’re the kind of people who will bring our mission to life on a daily basis.

Find a unique way to hold yourselves accountable.

Historically, profit is the main—and often the only—scorecard for business. But if purpose is your goal, the quest for profit needs to be combined with some measure of how your team is living up to your company’s values.

Ways to assess this include individual feedback sessions, weekly company-wide surveys, and annual team polls. At Gravity, we use TINYpulse, a service that allows each team member to provide anonymous feedback on how those in leadership positions are serving the company, according to our values.

One way I’ve been able to hold myself accountable is by incorporating a new wage structure at my company. The moment I discovered I could afford to pay my employees a minimum annual salary of $70,000 was the moment I put my character to the ultimate test. Was I going to sacrifice profit to ensure my team’s basic needs were met? I consulted with a few people but ultimately knew it was a moral imperative. A few weeks later, I made the announcement.

It’s the best money I’ve ever spent.

One simple action—holding ourselves accountable to our purpose—has made all the difference in our success and, most importantly, has bettered the lives of our team. Not only has our new wage policy unleashed our employees to fulfill their full potential by removing financial worry from their lives, but it has also ensured they are now able to afford reliable transportation and decent homes, live closer to the office, spend more time with their families, pay off debts, and responsibly start families of their own.

My hope is that these decisions at Gravity, and our subsequent business success, will create a ripple effect that will positively impact the lives of others. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, we all want to be part of something bigger. For my part, I want to create a world where values-based companies take over the economy. I don’t mind if existing companies convert, but I want to put the ones that don’t out of business.

When I’m 70, I want to say I was part of the movement that reshaped the economy to a point where business stopped being about making the most money possible and became about purpose, service, and making a difference.