Just do it on Purpose - Yanik Silver (Author, Entrepreneur, & Adventurer)

Yanik Silver is a serial entrepreneur, a best-selling author, and an adventure junkie. His story and his businesses have been featured in multiple publications and with good reason; he’s a fascinating guy with a great message. In his Paper Napkin Wisdom Yanik shares with us what he believes is the key to a successful business. Yanik says that you need to create and align your business with your true essence and calling, there ought to be a core impact there. Though he admits it is not strictly necessary, Yanik is adamant that it is a necessary element if you wish to take your business for the next level. He believes that in six or seven years, perhaps sooner, companies that are not built on a core impact that comes from their business leaders will be at a distinct disadvantage in the marketplace. A business is always a reflection of the founder, says Yanik. As such, it only makes sense to center the values of the business based on your own. What’s your cause? What is your impact? What is your reason for existing as a business, beyond making money? These questions, and the answers to them, are surrounded by impact. Yanik breaks Impact down into three words: Culture, Community, and Creation. Yanik defines Culture, Community, and Creation like this: Culture is the bigger meaning behind what your people are doing. It’s a painted picture of why you’re all there and it is the guiding force through which your team grows and learns together. Community is about your customers. It’s something you build through the language your company uses and the rituals you create. For example, ingraining your company with a cause that has a local or global impact; studies have shown that customers are more likely to buy a product if it associates with an organization that has an impact. It makes your customer feel like there is an element of teamwork there, which is essential to customer loyalty. If you can get your customers to be your biggest cheerleaders, you’ve got a tribe of beloved brand builders. Creation is the product or service itself. Though these three elements appear to be simple, it’s important that they are fulfilled authentically rather than superficially. Yanik talks about companies that fill the above elements really well, like Toms who have a program called One for One, meaning that for every pair of shoes or glasses bought the company gives a pair of shoes or provides assistance in restoring the eyesight of one person. He contrasts this with an ill conceived effort by KFC to raise money for breast cancer with pink buckets of chicken.Though the sentiment was commendable, it wasn’t an authentic fit and didn’t have an impact at all comparable to that of companies like Toms. The best part is he says that all the trends show that customers are preferring "Firms of Endearment" over ordinary transactions. Why wouldn't they? This element of giving back, or ‘giving forward’ as Yanik prefers to call it, is intrinsic to the entrepreneurial spirit in so many ways. As we’ve said before on Paper Napkin, as leaders we have a call to serve. What is your service going to be? How are you going to answer that call? “I get rich by enriching others,” says Yanik and it’s such a true and powerful statement. When we enrich our communities, be they local or global, we’re helping ourselves and those around us much in a cyclical way. It’s like planting a tree; yes you enrich the soil but the tree provides you with oxygen. With this sort of baked in impact in our businesses we can, as Yanik says, take our companies from transactional to transformational to transcending business as usual. That’s something we should all be aiming for, how will you transcend the traditional and move to exceptional? Listen to my conversation with Yanik here: