9 Do Good

I am sure that for you, starting a business is not all about making money. Of course you want to make a livelihood and support your family and starting a business can definitely help do that. Who am I kidding? Starting a business might just make you a millionaire. But I know for sure that starting a business doesn't only appeal to you simply because of that.

I don't see my business as a money-making machine; I see it as the most powerful way in which I can make an impact on the world. I often imagine myself getting to the end of my life, hopefully as an old man, looking back at everything I have done. I want to feel proud. Proud of what I have created, of the decisions I've made and, most importantly, of the impact I've had on the people I've been lucky enough to share my life with. Setting up a company is exciting because of the lifestyle, the opportunity to do what you love and the chance to do good in your community. I'm sure you can imagine how much fun it will be, how much of an adventure you're going to have. There's something immensely satisfying about turning your ideas into a reality and creating something worthwhile, something that touches people's lives.

Your Chance to Change the World

So, how are you going to change the world? This probably sounds daunting and you might not have thought that starting your business could have such a big impact. Well, whether you've set out to or not, simply by setting up your business you're going to do a huge amount of good. Probably the biggest impact you will have is going to be by creating a product that people enjoy; if you put a smile on the faces of hundreds of customers every week, that has to be a good thing, right?

Businesses and entrepreneurs are the most powerful force in the world. I know that sounds like a bold thing to say, but I really believe it. If I thought that I could have a bigger impact on the world by doing something other than starting my own company, I'd be doing it.

Entrepreneurs have always been at the root of all human progress. They came up with all of the little ideas and innovations that collectively we call civilization. Without the tink-erers and traders, risk takers and marketers, inventors and garden shed eccentrics, there would be nothing. No television, no cars, no light bulbs, no jobs, no taxes, no education, no healthcare, no government—nothing.

In the modern age, entrepreneurs are the only people who can change the world. It will be entrepreneurs who solve our environmental problems. Entrepreneurs will feed the poor and liberate the populations of countries that aren't free. They'll find a way to make live-saving drugs available to people who can't afford them and, by them making the world a smaller place through technology and free media, we'll hopefully one day live on a much more peaceful planet.

Almost certainly, one of the proudest moments on your entrepreneurial journey will be the day you take on your first employee. You might be giving them their first job or taking them out of unemployment to come and work with you. You're giving them an income to support their family with and a purpose, a reason to get up in the mornings. Employing people does a huge amount of good; it literally changes people's lives.

Every time you make a sale, you'll be paying tax in one way or another. Taxes pay for schools, hospitals and aid to people in the developing world. You're making a contribution to society, and the more successful your business is, the bigger that contribution will be. Although I wouldn't try to pretend that I love writing a big fat cheque to the government at the end of the year, I do feel a sense of pride when I imagine what that money could be paying for. It is wealth that I have created that otherwise the government wouldn't have had and society would have gone without.

Small businesses are by far the biggest employers in the world, creating almost all new jobs and the lion's share of all of the wealth and taxes in society. It isn't big businesses that make the world go around, it's small ones run by entrepreneurs like you and me.

The Business of Doing Good

You're probably thinking, ‘That's all well and good, but what about sweatshops and exploitation, scam artists and entrepreneurs who sell junk food to kids?' You'd be right to point out that not all entrepreneurs set out wanting to do good. Some merely see an opportunity to make a fast buck by selling stolen goods or scamming someone vulnerable.

In reality, entrepreneurs are just people; some people have good intentions and some of them don't. The businesses they start are a reflection of their values, their priorities and their interpretation of fairness. I'm sure that you will be one of the entrepreneurs who start a business with the right intentions.

You'll be in good company. Some of the most amazing business success stories from throughout history are those of the entrepreneurs who started companies not with an aim to get rich, but with an aim to make the world a better place.

Hundreds of years ago, companies were started by people like the Quakers, who had aims of improving the lives of those in their community. Since they served their customers and employees with integrity, they were very well trusted organizations, at a time when crime and dishonesty were rife.

The companies founded by the Quakers and other similar entrepreneurs became vastly successful because of their long-term thinking. The likes of Cadbury's chocolate, Clark's shoes and Barclays bank are still household names today, hundreds of years after they were founded.

When a company is trusted, respected and people know that it is based on morally sound principles, it tends to be loved by its people, its suppliers and, most importantly, its customers.

Business as Protest

In the modern age, companies such as The Body Shop, Patagonia, Ben and Jerry's and Innocent drinks have become hugely successful by voicing strong ethical values on particular issues. This strong moral grounding is the reason they are loved by the people who work for them and everyone who buys their products. At times, they have used their marketing materials, their packaging and their reputation to protest against issues in society that they feel passionate about.

I've mentioned a number of entrepreneurs throughout this book who have been an inspiration. The late Anita Roddick, who started The Body Shop, has been a hero to me. In its early days, The Body Shop's adverts spoke more about political issues than they did about its products. They would champion women's rights, protest against animal testing and raise awareness of exploitation in the third world. In a way that almost nobody else has, Roddick showed that it is possible to build a hugely successful business while remaining true to your values. By using the business as a platform for protest and as a mouthpiece for a movement, The Body Shop continues to make consumers aware of the terrible practices of an entire industry.

Ben & Jerry's

Another business that I think has been a leading light in the world of ethical business is Ben & Jerry's. Started by two friends, not surprisingly named Ben and Jerry, in Vermont in 1978, it has grown into a massive business. Along the way, it has protested about the amount the US government spends on war with stickers on the lids of its ice cream, showing a pie chart of how that dwarves spending on education and healthcare. It has also championed the cause of gay marriage with a special ‘Hubby-Hubby’ flavour.

One of the most inspiring things the company has done has been to source ingredients from social enterprises, like the Grayston bakery. Started by a ‘Jewish-buddhist-former-nuclear-physicist-monk’ called Bernie Glassman, the bakery employs those who are economically disenfranchised. They are people who otherwise wouldn't have a lot of hope finding a job and making a life for themselves.

Ben & Jerry's also sources Brazil nuts from a company called Community Products Inc, which buys Brazil nuts from the indigenous communities of the Amazon rainforest. The idea behind this is to create an economic reason for the rainforest to exist, to make it harder for loggers to move in and destroy it for ever.

By sourcing ingredients from companies like this, Ben & Jerry's has contributed to making a lot of people's lives better. The political messages it prints on the lids of its products don't have anything to do with ice cream but, by reaching millions of people and causing a bit of a stir, it might just help to make a change.

Selling out

Ben and Jerry's was bought by the publicly listed Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilever in 2000. Other ethical businesses have taken this route too, with The Body Shop being taken over by cosmetics company L'Oréal and Innocent majority owned by Coca-Cola. You might say that companies like this are sell-outs, because they are now a part of the very companies that they set out to campaign against.

I actually think it is fantastic news that all of these companies have become hugely more commercially successful on an international level. The bigger and more profitable they are, the more good they can do.

They have proven that ethical business isn't a harebrained idea dreamed up by a bunch of hippies. It is now taken seriously by Wall Street and is a movement that employs millions of people. It is quite feasible for your business to grow and grow, while maintaining its values and standing up for what you believe in at the same time. One day, you could become part of a bigger company or your shares could be publicly traded.

Being part of a larger company makes it a lot easier for these ethical businesses to grow their brands around the world, taking advantage of the connections of the company that bought them. They can also become vastly more competitive by making gains from the buying power and efficiency of being part of a larger organization.

Ethical business makes good commercial sense: people want to buy products that are ethically produced, they want to work for and invest in businesses that treat people fairly and, in the long run, nobody is going to make much money if we destroy the environment.

Three Bottom Lines

Values-led companies, like the ones I have been writing about, measure their success using more yardsticks than simply profits. Some of them refer to having ‘three bottom lines’—profit, community and environmental sustainability, and making an impact on their people. They take each as seriously as the others and recognize that, in the long run, their consumers will reward them for these values.

I feel as though most businesses operate as if they are in a war zone. They try to squeeze their suppliers and rip off their customers, treating their employees badly along the way. This is not a happy picture, not a way to create anything worthwhile or meaningful.

Business should be love. Love for what it is you are trying to achieve, love for your customers and your people, and love for your suppliers. You might think this sounds ridiculous, but imagine if you ripped people off on a daily basis, lied and cheated, cut corners and didn't treat the people around you fairly—you wouldn't get very far at all. You'd soon have no friends and maybe even worse.

In business you should be fair to everyone around you and enter into relationships with suppliers, customers and employees in the expectation that they will last for years. You should be honest with your customers about the benefits of your products; don't exaggerate or lie about them because, sooner or later, you'll get caught out. Don't squeeze your suppliers for every last penny because, when things are tough for you, they won't have much sympathy. Most importantly, treat your employees with respect, because without their support and loyalty, you're toast.

If you create a company that is an enjoyable and a fair place to work, that supports its local community and goes about business in an ethical way, there's a fair chance that customers and healthy profits will follow.

Profits

In a traditional company, making money is the only goal. In fact, it is a legal requirement of a publicly listed company to have maximizing profit as its priority; it is a machine that has to deliver as much of a return to its shareholders as possible. In the eyes of the system, if a company spent its energy on doing something else, it would be doing its investors a disservice.

Big companies aren't human, although they're run by people. They don't have feelings or morals and only the law can tell them what is right or wrong. In countries where they can, companies sell cigarettes to children, cause unimaginable environmental destruction and, given half the chance, bribe and corrupt governments.

There isn't such a thing as ‘enough’ for a public company. They have a hunger for growth that drives the capitalist machine, that lobbies for cheaper and cheaper prices, less and less regulation and more and more freedom to mistreat people, animals and the environment.

JD Rockefeller, an American oil tycoon and one of the wealthiest men in all history, famously described what he wanted from the ideal employee: ‘He must be able to glide over every moral restraint with almost childlike disregard and has, amongst other positive qualities, no scruples what-soever and be willing to kill of thousands of victims—without a murmur.’

Despite all of this, I don't think that making money is a bad thing. I'd be deluded if I thought there was a better way to motivate people to come up with ideas, create jobs and improve our lives than giving them a chance to make a buck. But what is bad is when companies want to make money at the cost of everything else, with no regard for what is right and wrong.

I think that it is possible to run a profitable company and maintain your values, stand up for what you believe in and treat people ethically.

Community and Environmental Sustainability

Independent companies, owned by entrepreneurs, are far more human. They are free to spend their energies and profits on what they like: protesting, supporting charities, employing disenfranchised youth or buying their ingredients from ethical sources.

Perhaps when you are setting your commercial goals for your business, you should also think about how you would like to make an impact on the world. What issues do you feel strongly about in society? What is great is that this can be personal to you and doesn't have to have anything to do with what you're selling. If an ice-cream company can protest about war, you can make a noise about whatever you feel strongly about too.

Set yourself a goal, ideally one that can be measured. Perhaps you want to raise £10,000 for a charity that is close to your heart, or cut the amount of waste you send to landfill by half. When you have a goal to focus on, it makes it so much easier to do good; otherwise your efforts tend to get a bit wishy-washy.

By measuring your success in this way, using more measurements than profit alone, everything becomes a great deal more satisfying. You can see the impact you're having on your community through the smiles on people's faces or the letters of thanks you receive, and that definitely feels just as much like success as money in the bank.

What I think is starting to happen is that the movement of ethical businesses who are embracing this way of thinking is transforming the conventions of business. Some of them are being listed on the stock market and being bought by publicly listed companies, hopefully changing the whole game. It is becoming possible for a company that isn't just motivated by making money still to be hugely profitable and to grow into a well-loved, international brand.

Impact on People

Great people are attracted to work for ethical companies because they want to be part of something that is about more than money. Being part of a company that has meaning gives people a sense of pride and motivates them to work hard at making the company a success.

When you take someone on to work with you, you're inviting them to take part in your journey. It might not be clear what lies ahead or what opportunities are going to pop up along the way. You're going to have to be sure that everyone working with you understands your ambitions, but more importantly that you understand theirs.

How can you help the people working with you to achieve their dreams and ambitions for their own career? You should help them to gain the skills and experience they need to get to where they are trying to go. Their own dream might be to set up a company of their own, or to move on to work somewhere else; you simply have to embrace this.

If you offer the people in your business the chance to develop and grow, to travel, learn new things and express themselves, they will be as motivated as you are. Hopefully, you can help them to feel that they too are doing what they were born to do!

For me, starting my company is not the most important thing in my life; my family, friends and the impact that I can have on society are all far more meaningful for me. And I think that those are values that are shared by most people, but maybe even more so by people of my generation and the type of people who work at SuperJam.

Nobody wants to work for a company that is unscrupulous or immoral or that makes other people's lives miserable. The companies that will prosper are those that embrace this; they will be moral, treat their employees fairly and place an emphasis on the importance of doing good.

I run SuperJam with the aim of building a company that challenges the status quo of an industry that has been around for hundreds of years. I get a kick from reinventing a product and creating something that hundreds of thousands of people enjoy and appreciate on their toast every morning.

Setting up a company is more about the adventure and the challenge than about trying to make heaps of money. Building something beautiful and taking pride from what you have created is what it's about for me.

I guess you need to imagine yourself on your deathbed looking back at everything you've done in life. Will you feel proud of it? Will you feel like you really did everything you wanted to do, that you gave it your best shot?

Nobody gets to their deathbed and wishes they spent more time in the office. It is important to keep everything in perspective; your business should never be the most important thing in your life. And making money definitely shouldn't be your top priority.

Often people ask me: ‘How do you motivate yourself to stick at it?’ the only way you can get motivated about doing anything in life is if you feel in your gut that it is right. You have to feel that it is the right thing to be doing with your life, that you are doing what you were born to do.

A Cup of Tea and a Laugh

Of course, even though making money isn't what motivates me, SuperJam is a successful company that I run in a very commercially minded way. What's exciting for me is that, with no investors or anyone else above me, I am free to invest the profits from the company in whatever way I like.

For me, the most satisfying way to spend the profits is on charitable causes that are close to my heart.

When my grandmother originally made jam, she would make jam, scones and cakes and take them with her on visits to all of the lonely elderly people in her area. These were people who were living alone or in care homes. Nobody else visited them very much and, in some ways, nobody else cared about them.

It was something that my gran felt, and still does feel, very strongly about and every time we went to see her, she would drag my brother and I with her to visit the elderly people. While she made lunch for them, my brother would play his guitar and I would tell them stories of how I wanted to set up my own business one day. One particular lady, Mary, would joke that I was going to get into ‘monkey business’, having forgotten she had made the same joke every time we had visited her over the years.

As kids we didn't really understand the boredom that these people faced and couldn't quite appreciate why they would cry when we left. Although we were pretty young, we knew there was something sad about them having the exact same conversation with us every time we visited, since they could barely remember anything for longer than a few minutes. As I got older, it became something that I, too, felt strongly about and as the business took off, I felt I was in a position to do something about it.

By no means was I going to come up with the solution to this massive problem; the highest rate of suicide is among women over the age of 70 and more than a million elderly people in the UK spend Christmas Day on their own. Nevertheless, I wanted to do something about the problem of elderly people being lonely.

I began by speaking with local councillors and community groups and it became clear that the biggest thing lacking in many elderly people's lives was the opportunity to socialize out of their own house or care home.

In April 2007, we started running tea parties in local community halls in my home town of Edinburgh. We would have live music, dancing, pots of tea and, of course, scones and SuperJam. It was a very simple concept but it quickly flourished. A year later, we had run over 100 events in Scotland, England and Wales, with the biggest events attracting over 500 guests!

Many the guests wanted to contribute to the project, by bringing along home baking or knitting tea cosies for the teapots. Soon we were having tea cosies sent in from all over the country and we began featuring them on our website. We have a ‘Tea Cosy of the Week’ competition, where the winner is sent a few cases of jam. Over time, the cosies have become more and more elaborate and creative—some are in the shape of people, animals or fruits.

Knitting has become one of the main activities of the SuperJam Tea Parties and, a few months after setting up the project, we ran a massive nationwide ‘knitathon’. Guests at 100 or so subsequent tea parties were asked to knit squares. These were then sewn together to make more than 100 blankets for disabled Indian orphans.

SuperJam Tea Parties is a project that I am really ambitious about. Even though we now run events nationwide and thousands of elderly people come along, I still want it to become bigger and better over the coming years.

I'm spurred on to grow the project by the feedback from the elderly guests, and the number of young people, students and companies who have got in touch, wanting to get involved. Some times the guests have had so much fun that they cry at the end of the afternoon. Most touchingly, one elderly gentleman told me that he ‘felt like a person again’ after coming along to a few of the events. He had been given the opportunity to socialize and make new friends, something he hadn't done in a long time.

Remember Why You're Doing This

It is moments like these that never let me forget why I started this business in the first place. Having a sense of purpose, some kind of mental picture of where we're trying to get to, is the energy that fuels us through life. It might be material, wanting to live in a nice house with nice things. But mostly we will have a desire to create something, make the people around us happy, be respected for building something worthwhile and having a positive impact on the world, making it a better place.

The key in all of this, as I touched on at the very start of the book, is asking yourself why. Why start a business at all?

A lot of the time, people behave one way in their personal lives and differently in business or at work. They have a different set of values in each place: buying free-range eggs at home but using battery ones in their restaurant, giving money to the homeless on a personal level but not responding to letters from charies that ask for help from their company.

I really think that an important point in life and in business is always to be true to what you believe in. A business should not be a machine, driven only by financial goals. It is a group of people who have come together to create value and meaning and hopefully to put something good out into the world.

Doing ‘good’ isn't necessarily about setting up a charity or giving away your profits to good causes. You do good simply by creating products that are worthwhile, that provide something of real value to people—making their lives a little better. You do good by creating jobs, giving other people a purpose in their lives. Of course, you can do a lot of good by creating a great place to work, making people happy and helping them to fulfil their own ambitions.

If you do good, giving something to people that they value, they will love you and your company for it. Your products will have meaning for them and they'll want to help you succeed. If you have a well-loved brand and a loyal customer base, you're going to be well placed to grow your business to even headier heights.