Chapter 10
Your conscious marketing action plan
I wrote this book to raise awareness about the harmful state of most marketing today. It's an appeal for you to consider how you might reinvent your marketing in a new, conscious way. The Conscious Marketing Cycle and other concepts in this book are supported by stories of companies already applying this thinking (albeit unwittingly).
I'm hoping by now that you've scribbled notes all over the book, earmarked pages, shared ideas with your people, been inspired to learn more and perhaps started to take some action.
Just getting started on putting these ideas into practice can be daunting, so this chapter offers some specific ideas on how you can integrate conscious marketing principles into your business, and gives you a map you can follow.
Things you can do to take action now
Start a conscious marketing action group
Invite your business buddies to work with you on a regular basis, say monthly. Study the book and the resources listed in the next section. Ask a different person each week to present one of the ideas and stories in this book and to share with the group what they are doing in their own business. Invite everyone to discuss their ideas, the problems they face and action they need to take. Keep everyone accountable for taking action.
Engage your current networks
Perhaps you already belong to a networking group or you host your own events or conferences and feel like you've covered the old-school marketing topics to death? Why not introduce conscious marketing to your people and work with the content and case studies in this book? Invite me to speak or run a workshop for you in the flesh or via Google Hangout.
Find yourself a marketing buddy
Swimming against the tide of conformity can often be a lonesome journey. Know someone in your industry or a complementary industry dealing with the same issues? Why not get together regularly to brainstorm ideas, develop a plan and keep each other accountable?
Get yourself a mentor
There are no accredited conscious marketing mentors (yet); however, there are many conscious companies already practising it. Study the companies and the leaders you admire. Perhaps they (or someone in their company) would be willing to mentor you. Perhaps you already know people in companies who are doing this? Make a request for them to mentor you or contact us about it. If you don't ask, you don't get!
Create your own ‘advisory board'
For many businesses a team of advisers can be very useful. I'm personally not an advocate of traditional and conservative boards as we currently experience them. I love boards that include people from every stakeholder group, from staff to customers to suppliers and professional advisers. If you love this book and want to practise its principles in your business, how can you engage your board in the conversation?
Be observant
Conscious and unconscious business and marketing practices are taking place all around us. Keep your eyes open and take notice of the good, the bad and the downright distressing. Observe what you love, what makes you feel good and what makes you feel bad. Your greatest inspiration will come from observation and intuition. Keep a journal handy and jot down ideas as you go about your day.
Hold a staff meeting
If you're working in a marketing division or are a business owner with a team of people, why not hold a team meeting to discuss the concepts introduced in this book. The book was written so you could share these stories. Pick the parts most relevant to your company, discuss them and see what ideas you can come up with. Meet regularly to keep people accountable.
Ask your customers
Ever wondered what your customers really think of your business and marketing approach? Before revamping the lot, take the time to ask your customers. What do they love? What don't they love? How could you improve the products, services and experience you offer? Do this research really, really well and you could find yourself with customers for life.
Do the B Impact Assessment
See where you are now and how far you have to go by using the B Impact Assessment tool. Assess how your company performs against dozens of examples of best practice on employee, community and environmental impact. This will give you a great gauge on the areas you can start to take action on and improve right now. Once you've done that, if you think you'd be right to become a Certified B Corporation, go for it. Many of the case studies in this book are Certified B Corps, so get inspired by them.
Join the Slow School community
If you're keen for a totally new way of learning with like-minded conscious businesspeople, then you might like what's happening at Slow School. Join our practical classes, short-courses, dinners and special events to experience conscious marketing in action. Slow School is the place for experiential learning, deep human connections and opportunities for collaboration.
Join the Conscious Capitalism movement
Conscious Capitalism chapters are springing up all over the world, from New York City to Arizona to Chile, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia. Read the book Conscious Capitalism, join a chapter and get connected with other like-minded businesspeople on the same personal and professional journey. You are not alone!
Develop daily habits
Building a conscious business is not for the faint-hearted. It requires a commitment to your personal growth through the use of tools like meditation, journaling, yoga, other fitness and health activities, reading, time spent with nature and with family and friends, and joining like-minded communities. Develop a daily practice. (My daily morning ritual is lemon in hot water while journaling, a 30-minute walk or run, 15 minutes of yoga/stretching, 10 minutes of meditation and prayer. These tools have provided me with many answers to many questions. What are your daily habits?)
Start working on your manifesto and vision board
Who do you need to be to change what you do and have what you want? Your manifesto is a declaration of how you wish to behave, while a vision board is a declaration of what you want to have. Having what you want is not possible without a change in behaviour. Write your own manifesto. If you're not great at writing, say it straight first and find someone else to say it great for you. There are many tools and courses to help with vision boarding for business (and it might even be on the Slow School agenda!).
Join a co-working space
There are now more than 125 co-working spaces in Australia and thousands around the globe with members from both the corporate and small business worlds. I'd thoroughly recommend you consider spending some time in a co-working space. These places are hotbeds of creativity where ideas are generated and deep connections are made. I'm a member and avid fan of Hub Australia, which has co-working spaces in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne and partners in over 40 other cities across the world. And I've personally worked at Hubud, a co-working space in Ubud, Bali, and also The Hub in San Francisco. Most of these spaces offer the opportunity for you to trial the space as well as access great social and learning events.
Build conscious connections
Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. If you want a conscious business that practises conscious marketing, you may need to reassess the business (and personal) relationships currently dominating your life. Take a stock-take of those relationships or people that are not currently having a positive effect on you. Don't try to change them, just be aware. By changing yourself, either these people will change too or your relationship with them will change. At the same time, seek out relationships with others who inspire you and who are on the path you want to be on.
Become a dedicated learner
I've written a lot about learning in this book. The reality is, you won't change your behaviour or have what you want if you're not dedicated to learning. Formal tertiary qualifications are one thing; informal, self-directed, passionate and experiential learning is quite another (and is the future of learning). Avoid destructive learning that doesn't serve (for example, the mainstream media). Develop a positive learning plan for yourself. Go to a short-course, attend a dinner, watch a TED talk each day, read one business book a month, join a conscious business club.
Now you have some ideas to set you on your path, the Conscious Marketing Map (table 10.1, overleaf) presents a loose action plan that summarises all the things you need to consider while you reinvent your business and your marketing. Don't worry that some areas cut across each other.
Table 10.1: the Conscious Marketing Map
| PERSONAL (YOU) | PURPOSE (WHY) | PRODUCT (WHAT) | PEOPLE (WHO) | PROMOTION (HOW) |
| Ongoing | Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 | Stage 4 |
| What personal work do you need to do to make the business dream a reality? Who do you need to be, to change what you do and have what you want? | Why does your business exist? How do you make a difference? What is your purpose and vision? What do you stand for? What are the business objectives? | What products or services are you delivering to the world that fulfils this purpose? How do you make them so compelling that people simply want to buy and spread the word? | Who needs to be engaged and nurtured in the process of delivering your product to the world? How do you do it? What are the terms of engagement? | What marketing and promotions do you need to do to help spread the word and get people buying and talking about your product? |
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Task: Option 1 (to be done individually or as a team)
An interesting way to use the map is to score yourself and your business on each of the listed items. This is a useful thing to do with your staff and other stakeholders, as their perception of how well your company is faring may well be very different from yours. It can become a great tool for discussion and help you identify the priority areas for attention moving forward. Grab a pen and write your answers next to each point.
- How would you rate your current performance on each point (between 1 and 10, where 1 = really poor and 10 = outstanding, or NA — not applicable)?
- Next ask yourself, ‘What would I like my performance to be in the future (between 1 and 10, where 1 = really poor and 10 = outstanding, or NA — not applicable)? This will tell you how important each point is to you.
- Next to this write the number 10 (the maximum score). So, for example, it might look like this: ‘1. Changing habits 3/8/10'.
- Total each of the scores and compare against the maximum possible score of 580. Calculate your current and future desired performance as a percentage of 580.
- Next, measure the gap between your performance and the performance you seek for each point. If the gap is 5 or more it suggests this area is a priority for you. If, for example, you've given point 25: Pricing on value a score of just 1 but would like it to be an 8, then this becomes a priority.
- On a separate sheet of paper write down why there's such a gap and come up with three things you can do now to start to reduce it. Less is more here. No doubt you and your team will have 20 different ideas on how you can improve things, but really you only need one to get started. Taking a small step in the right direction is better than having hundreds of clever ideas never executed. Remember, action precedes clarity.
Task: Option 2 (to be done with your team)
Another great way to use the Conscious Marketing Map is to play the ‘What's working? What's not working?' game. After your people have read the book, gather them together and hand them the map and a pad of small sticky notes. Ask them to take 10 minutes to write down all the things that are working in the business (this may include things not listed on the map). Then ask them to spend 10 minutes writing down all the things that are not working in the business. Ensure there's only one point on each sticky note.
Once you've gathered everyone's sticky notes, categorise them according to one of the 5 P's and identify the most urgent issues that need to be addressed. You can then work out a plan of action on how to address these things.
No doubt you or your team will have some other ideas that you can use to facilitate discussion and action. If you don't have the facilitation skills or think it might be better facilitated by a third party, look for a qualified person (or contact me to see what I might suggest).
This chapter has offered you some useful tools to help you integrate conscious marketing into your business. If you feel you have a long way to go, don't be deterred. We all do, including the companies showcased in this book. No one is perfect. Indeed, who wants to be perfect anyway? Take one action each day and see just how far you will have come in a week, a month, a year and a decade from now. One thing is certain: business as usual and doing nothing new are not options!