Balancing profit with purpose in business is a challenge faced by many leaders. To provide insights, we’ve gathered fifteen responses from CEOs, Founders, and other professionals. From aligning services with your purpose to curating content to help the audience, discover how these leaders harmonize financial success with their company’s mission.
- Improve Efficiency and Workplace Safety
- Integrate and Sustain Purposeful Practices
- Invest in Mission-Aligned Technologies
- Prioritize Ethical Recruitment and Development
- Offer Affordable Services and Scholarships
- Create Value for Stakeholders and the Community
- Adopt a Values-Driven Approach
- Practice Conscious Capitalism
- Adhere to Ethical Standards and Engage the Community
- Align Incentives for a Win-Win Scenario
- Harmonize Business Objectives With Ideals
- Focus On Sustainability as the Business Grows
- Invest in Energy-Efficient Technologies
- Offer Affordable Products, Enhance Customer Experience
- Curate Content to Help the Audience
Improve Efficiency and Workplace Safety
From the beginning, I have maintained a balance between profit and purpose in my small business by setting up the business structure to facilitate that goal. My purpose as a business consultant is to help other businesses improve their efficiency and workplace safety, and the services I offer align with that objective. Profits are maintained by minimizing overhead and maintaining a flexible service list to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. Therefore, as I am successful in offering consulting services, profit and purpose come hand-in-hand.
Jasmin Gildert, President, Ariadne Hazard Communication and Engineering Services, LLC
Integrate and Sustain Purposeful Practices
Balancing profit with purpose in a business is a dynamic challenge that requires careful consideration and a commitment to long-term sustainability.
Integrate Purpose into Strategy: It’s essential to weave purpose into every facet of your business strategy. Consider how your products or services can contribute positively to society, the environment, or the community. For instance, you might adopt eco-friendly practices, support local initiatives, or allocate a portion of profits to charitable causes.
Sustainable Practices: Implement sustainable business practices that align with your purpose. Reduce waste, minimize your environmental footprint, and make responsible sourcing choices. Customers increasingly favor businesses that are environmentally conscious, and these practices can lead to long-term cost savings.
Mohamed Hashi, President, Ivy Cleans
Invest in Mission-Aligned Technologies
At Vision Detection Systems LLC, our core mission is crime prevention, and we’ve always believed that purpose should drive profit, not the other way around. Balancing profit with purpose means investing in innovative technologies that genuinely make a difference in safety and security. It’s about ensuring that our solutions effectively address real-world challenges. While profit is essential for any sustainable business, it should reflect the value we provide to our clients and communities.
Every decision we make, from R&D to partnerships, is weighed against our commitment to making the world a safer place. As a result, our success isn’t just measured in financial returns, but in the positive impact and peace of mind we bring to our clients. When purpose leads, profit naturally follows, and that’s been our guiding principle since day one.
Joe Kruk, Founder, Vision Detection Systems LLC
Prioritize Ethical Recruitment and Development
At EchoGlobal, we believe that sustainable growth can only be achieved when financial success is harmonized with a meaningful purpose. To achieve this delicate equilibrium, we focus on several key strategies. First, we prioritize ethical recruitment practices. We are committed to matching top tech talent with companies where they can thrive, ensuring that both our clients and candidates benefit from our services. Second, we invest in the professional development of our team members, empowering them to provide the best possible service. Happy and motivated employees are essential to fulfilling our purpose. Finally, we give back to the tech community through mentorship programs and initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion. By doing so, we ensure that our profit is not just a means to an end, but a catalyst for positive change in the tech industry. Balancing these elements allows us to drive profits while staying true to our purpose of enhancing the tech world.
Lou Reverchuk, Co-Founder and CEO, EchoGlobal
Offer Affordable Services and Scholarships
As an education startup, our purpose is central to our everyday business functions. However, at the end of the day, we are a for-profit company that wants to grow and successfully earn money. One way to balance the two is to think of ways that the two can actually be aligned. I found that my company could accomplish both at once by offering affordable prices for our tutoring services and using extra income for scholarships. Our affordable prices and scholarship offers have created a loyal customer base. Profit and purpose have positively fed back into each other.
Adam Shlomi, Founder, SoFlo Tutors
Create Value for Stakeholders and the Community
Balancing profit with purpose is a nuanced endeavor. Our strategy intertwines financial goals with our mission to create value for both stakeholders and the community. First, we invest in ethical practices and community initiatives, which, although they may have upfront costs, build a reputable brand that attracts loyal customers, ultimately driving profits. Second, we foster a culture of purpose among employees, ensuring they understand how their roles contribute to our broader mission. This enhances productivity and job satisfaction, positively impacting the bottom line. We engage in transparent communication with shareholders about our purpose-driven strategies and their long-term financial benefits, thus aligning profit with purpose. By measuring success not just through financial metrics, but also societal impact, we create a sustainable business model that upholds our values while ensuring financial viability, demonstrating that profit and purpose can coexist and complement each other.
Vivek Attri, Owner, silentnews
Adopt a Values-Driven Approach
I prioritize purpose by defining a clear mission and set of values that guide decision-making. This mission serves as a compass, ensuring that every business action aligns with our broader purpose. While profitability is essential for sustainability, it is viewed as a means to an end—supporting the pursuit of our higher purpose rather than being the sole focus.
Loren Nelson, Co-Founder, H Superstore
Practice Conscious Capitalism
Balancing profit with purpose is vital in our book services and publishing business, achieved through “Conscious Capitalism.” This approach intertwines profitability with a positive impact. For example, our “Read & Flourish” initiative donates a book to underserved communities for every ten sold, promoting literacy and expanding our market. We invest in eco-friendly printing technologies and support authors advocating sustainability, aligning with environmentally conscious readers. Conscious Capitalism ensures our business not only generates profit but also contributes significantly to community and environmental welfare, creating a brand that is both financially successful and socially responsible in the literary landscape.
Vikrant Shaurya, CEO, Authors On Mission
Adhere to Ethical Standards and Engage the Community
Balancing profit and purpose is a fundamental priority in my dentistry. It begins with a mission and a set of values that are congruent with our commitment to positively impacting our community and the dental industry. We adhere to the highest ethical standards in all aspects of our business, ensuring that our dental services are transparent, equitable, and patient-centered. Investing in human capital is vital. We provide a pleasant work atmosphere, fair pay, and growth opportunities for our employees. Happy, motivated colleagues help us achieve our mission. Community engagement also matters. We take part in community outreach and dental health education. This improves society and our reputation.
We also reduce waste, use eco-friendly methods, and minimize our environmental impact. We frequently evaluate our business operations to ensure they meet our goal and are profitable. Our long-term prosperity and meaningful effect in our sector and community depend on balancing profit with purpose.
Dr. Jennifer Silver, CEO, Owner, and Dentist, Macleod Trail Dental
Align Incentives for a Win-Win Scenario
In our industry, there are a ton of people in it for the money, and they should be—that is who they are responsible to. For example, a large insurance carrier is a publicly traded company; their responsibility is to their shareholders, not to their covered participants (i.e., businesses and their employees). This creates misaligned incentives. What we do instead is bring the incentives into alignment. Meaning, if you are a business owner and want to create a great benefits package and control costs, we do that by bringing the pieces of the puzzle together that allow you to do that.
Always follow the money. In our puzzle pieces, we help clients have control through transparency, and making sure everyone is on the same page. If the goal is to take the best care of employees possible, while making sure we’re not wasting money, it’s simple when you have the right people/partners in place. Aligning incentives allows us all to work toward common goals and creates a win-win-win.
Emily Evans, Benefits Consultant, The Benefit Doctor LLC
Harmonize Business Objectives With Ideals
In my experience, profits and purpose are not conflicting ideas; they can harmoniously coexist. The key lies in aligning your business objectives with your ideals. As a job-board owner, I find meaning in helping job seekers find a better job, and my profits are made whenever a recruiter gets a job application. Therefore, every time someone submits an application, it is a mutually beneficial scenario for both my bottom line and my sense of purpose.
Nathan Brunner, CEO, Salarship
Focus On Sustainability as the Business Grows
As my business is a small start-up, I’m trying to integrate purpose and profit as my business grows. Personally, sustainability and the environment are of major concern, so through my business, I hope to support this purpose as I scale. For example, I am a business partner of One Tree Planted, and my finances are with a sustainable bank. It’s not a lot, but hopefully, this will resonate strongly with customers who appreciate businesses with a heart, and I can create a lasting positive impact.
Katharine Gallagher, Professional Growth Specialist of Education, Career, Recruitment, Productivity, Business, katharinegallagher.com
Invest in Energy-Efficient Technologies
At Glice, sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, and this focus allows us to balance profit and purpose. One way we achieve this is by investing in cutting-edge, energy-efficient technologies for our rinks. While these technologies may require an upfront cost, they significantly reduce our long-term operational expenses by minimizing energy consumption. This boosts profitability and simultaneously aligns with our purpose of reducing our environmental footprint.
This commitment to sustainability also attracts eco-conscious customers and partners, reinforcing our brand’s purpose while ensuring a healthy bottom line. In these ways, we successfully maintain a harmonious balance between profit and our eco-friendly purpose.
Viktor Meier, CEO, Glice
Offer Affordable Products, Enhance Customer Experience
As a managing director of Cheap Surf Gear, I balance profit with purpose by offering cost-effective surf equipment to our customers. It’s incredibly satisfying to see your company grow while also keeping the values and goals it initially established. The essence of producing affordable, discounted surf gear, alongside achieving revenue, enriches the entire process. Not only does it result in notable sales figures, but it also enhances our customers’ overall experience. In doing so, I ensure that our company’s ongoing efforts align with our values, goals, and objectives, which balance profit with purpose.
Sam D’Cruz, Managing Director, Cheap Surf Gear
Curate Content to Help the Audience
For us, profit and purpose go hand in hand. Our purpose drives our business and its profits. Our marketing is purpose-driven; we need to get the awareness out there that our product can solve problems. All of our content is curated to help our audience. We answer their most asked questions on our blog. Our emails put our most helpful content into our community’s inbox. We share customer stories through our advertising on socials or on Google. We also have a highly engaged Facebook group where our customers amplify our messaging with their success stories and help each other. If you lead with your true purpose, profits will follow as long as your intentions are truly good and your product works.
Tom Sanderson, Co-Founder, Kineon
