The corporate philanthropy space has grown at an exponential rate in recent years, with $8.3 trillion given by the biggest companies last year. The fact is that philanthropy can do a lot to boost your business’s sales. If you want to be extremely generous, you have the potential to make a lot of money. This is not a movement that has grown because people believe they have to give back.
Using hard data from the moneyball method of selling, businesses have discovered customers are actively looking for businesses that want to give back.
So how does philanthropy help to grow your business quickly?
Building Respect and Reputation
The best places to work tend to be those who give back to the needy. Gaining a reputation for being a great company can improve your sales because when a company has a good reputation people assume they produce quality products. It almost acts as a seal of approval.
To become an authority in your field, you need to take the lead and you need to do something others aren’t doing. Giving back to charity will enable you to build up that profile as a company that’s proactive in its giving. A good reputation in the community is something you can never buy. It can only happen through your actions.
Make Your Place a Better One
So how does making your community a better place lead to more sales?
To market your brand, you need to understand profit is not enough. Giving back will improve your image in the eyes of the locality you’re operating in. And the same will apply to any employees you happen to have on your team. Fixing up a local park or funding a school scholarship will benefit the community, but in the long-term, it will boost sales.
That boost doesn’t only come from your online reputation. Instead, it will come from the promotional content you have on social media and your website.
Whenever you perform a philanthropic act, you have the chance to promote it. Post a blog, publish some photos on Facebook, and talk about how others have been helped by what you’ve done. Indirectly this is making sales because people are going to look at you and think ‘that’s a company I want to work with’.
Gain Respect to Get the Best Talent
Employees don’t want to think they’re working for a greedy tyrant who only cares about money. They want to feel like they’re doing something important. Even though an employee may be working on generating leads for your sales team, they’d like to think they’re changing the world.
To gain respect, give back to the community. Part with some of that profit and show that you’re about more than making a lot of money to pay for a new car.
Gaining respect will allow you to command better talent. The hottest talent doesn’t care only about the salary you place on the table. They want to change the world. Giving back and providing a passionate work environment will make people work harder, bring in better talent, and ultimately lead to more sales.
Build Connections with Others
Philanthropy will bring you into contact with others who share the same vision as you. They may or may not be related directly to your industry. Philanthropy can be your pathway to power through introducing you to others who can help you going forward.
The richest people in our society tend to be the ones donating to charities. Associate yourself with the same people and the chances are you’re going to make connections. Business is about who you know not what you know, so coming into contact with other successful people could be the gateway to further successes going forward.
You don’t know until you try.
How Do You Start Giving Back
Giving back requires you to think beyond profit in the short-term. You have to consider how giving to a certain organization or cause is going to benefit you going forward. The easiest way to guarantee a return in the long-term is to give to a cause associated with your line of work.
This is better for marketing purposes because you can guarantee your customers are going to be interested in this. Make sure you make a commitment to the cause and collaborate with it on a consistent basis. People have short memories, so you need to keep reminding them about your efforts.
Philanthropy is a marketing ploy, and a powerful one at that. Which cause will your company give back to?