October 30th, 2014
Forget Win-Win…Start thinking Win-Win-Win!
Occasionally an idea comes along that just makes so much sense. Usually it’s something so simple you can’t believe nobody’s thought of it already. Micro-giving is one of those ideas. Now, if your idea of business is more about what you can get rather than what you can give, don’t worry – this blog is particularly for you.
So, what is micro-giving? Basically, it’s making small but frequent donations to good causes. And what relevance does that have for someone in business? Well, if used carefully and sensitively, you can create not just a win-win situation but a win-win-win situation.
Here’s how…
Imagine you run a coffee shop. You could probably afford to lose 1p per cup of coffee sold – especially if it meant you could sell more. With micro-giving you promise (in your advertising, shop window etc) to provide clean drinking water for a day to someone in need (in Africa for example) for every cup of coffee sold.
The result?
– Your customer can feel a sense of extra pleasure –their action in buying from you has had a good outcome above and beyond the coffee they bought.
– The charity, and the people they help have benefited massively, through your donation.
– Your business will benefit too – you’ll sell more coffee and you’ll be perceived as a business with a sense of ethics and principles.
So, a win-win-win situation.
We use it ourselves to try to encourage clients to do some of the little things we’d like them to do. We really value getting customer feed back on how we’re doing. To try to encourage people to spend a few seconds completing our feedback form, we promise to pay for a child to be treated for Malaria. The result is a far greater number of responses to our survey. Of course, there’s a fine balance between making someone feel good about what they’ve done…and making them feel guilty about not doing something. We try to keep our request to do something limited to things that are simple and easy – so completing our survey only takes a few seconds – or liking our Facebook page is just a couple of mouse clicks.
You’ll find there’s an application for any and every business.
We use B1G1 to facilitate and make our giving really easy for us to do. By having a system in place to record the activities – and then having an easy way to make good your promise – the whole thing works a treat.
Want to give it a try? Then just send me an email and I’ll make sure something amazing happens! Email me here.
Jonathan Ford & Co advise a wide range of individuals owner managed businesses on how to legitimately manage their tax affairs. For a free consultation call 0151 426 4512.
