In this 15th episode of Ethical Leaders LIVE, I welcomed client and fellow world-changer, Rob Huge to the show.

I suppose I don’t talk often enough about the fact that businesses that prioritize ethics, humanity, the environment, and simply doing more good than harm to our planet by existing is working - working well!

You see, when we think about the way the world of business works, yes it is true that corporations & big powerful entities drive decisions and make the impact on global levels to either help or destroy our planet and the people inside of it. But who gives these entities the power?

Consumer trends, motivations, and values is among the first few steps to really understand when creating any marketing plan. Without knowing what society looks like and how it fits into the world of business, you will have a very hard time speaking to, engaging with, and being relevant to people who will be part of your business community as consumers, referrers, or just advocates of your movement.

Each Wednesday, I encourage us all to participate in #WorldViewWednesday to continue to expand our viewpoint around society. Have challenging arguments to really listen to the other side. Read books & do some research on projects or topic areas you find most interesting to dive into. Learn something new! Get out of your own way, and break some old habits of a belief system that limits your own perspective.

I like to think - there are nearly 8 billion people on the planet- we truly know NOTHING!

Furthermore, if you are looking at the way consumers are behaving and what they truly value, I believe it is social issues. Especially if you are marketing to the highly influential groups such as Gen Z and Millenials- they absolutely LOVE businesses with a great triple bottom line, or B Corporation certified businesses.

I found this lovely resource to give you some sharable, or tweetable, quotes to dive further into the mindset and values of these groups and how doing good in your business is actually the way to go.

As your mission-driven marketing planner, I encourage you to start reflecting on some of these statics and facts and ask yourself, “what is the opportunity for me?”

We want to always be innovating and looking ahead. I invite you to do so with a conversation with me- let’s chat about what is possible for your brand and how you can bring more good into the world!

Welcome to Sunday Intentions | May 10th Intention 

in·ten·tion

/inˈten(t)SH(ə)n/

a thing intended; an aim or plan

Finally; a little less chaos.  

I’ve started to shift my own plan on what regular, more juicy content I’ve need to show up for you with. I want to share with you after a two-month pause from sending emails, blogs, or doing any writing at all. It was SO needed.

March 16th may have otherwise felt like January 1st all over again with an opportunity to create a whole new business plan in this entirely new world. 

Maybe it comes as a surprise to you that your marketing planner here wants to give you more of a PLAN for the week to help shape your marketing- hmm, I think this feels about right! What do you think? 

If marketing is a call for “more,” than the plan to get more starts with having a purpose for what “more” is. Each week, we will be adding to the theory of what exactly more is defined as for our own selves. 

Why being intentional matters in marketing

The 7 years of marketing for companies other than my own, the idea of having this obligatory department called, “marketing” was always deemed to drive MORE as a quantitative thing. Never a qualitative thing.

The problem with my work started before I even began a single strategy, shared a post, or sent out a communication piece. There was always something missing from the start.

WIth The MKTG Brand, I decided that the beginning of all marketing needed a powerful start. A plan. And to lead with a powerful purpose. This made it incredibly difficult to feel any sense of satisfaction from even the most successful marketing campaigns created. It was a complete disconnect of purpose, plan, & execution. I do not want this for you!

As I am a completely different marketing strategist than I’ve been, using mission-driven marketing really is all about being more focused on creating a community & building alignment with qualities of human interaction & purpose. 

Being intentional with your marketing, your business, and the purpose on this planet is my goal for you to work toward as a process to shape the life you want to lead. 

Thus, this series is brought to you to kick-off Sunday Intentions from here on out.

I intend to lead you more with ways to get your mindset right about growth, how to approach growth efficiently, and to feel good about growing every step of the way using marketing that connects more than just a customer & transaction together. 

This week’s intention begins with your reflection: 

State your relationship with intentions- have you tried using them before?
Do they work for you?
Are you open to using this shift in the world in a pandemic to center back into yourself to follow your own intentions more closely? 

Intention for the Week 5.10.2020

This week, I will notice & embrace my deep purpose in my business & pay attention to where it's strongest, and where it's most weak in my day-to-day communication with the rest of the world

Live an intentional & purpose-driven week ahead,

Dana

The good old saying that talks about “we always want what we don’t have” is starting to really drive me nuts. It literally will make you insane if you focus on everything you do not have, the things you lack, and what has been taken away from you.

I’m not going to try to put this lightly

but the Corona Virus changed our entire everything- This shit has been difficult. I spent most of last week freaking out about the plan going awry- and this past week focusing on redeveloping everything for myself and my clients. I’m exhausted. I’m really excited. And I’m ready to keep going.

One thing I am finally able to process at this moment is what good I can appreciate from it all. It’s taken us all on a journey and our reactions, emotions, energy (extroverts- I FEEEEEL you so much right now), and shift in all of the planning we’ve ever done up until now has been a wild ride.

For the enneagram 8’s, the human design 5/2’s and the social extroverts (all like me)- I want to tell you that we need to slow down and take the grip off the steering wheel. Like- just relax.

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Two weeks ago, my husband and I had our last dine-out meal to celebrate his brother’s 26th birthday. The birthday where you get kicked off your parent’s insurance plan. The last meal where we were mid-course and the news came in that all Chicago/ Illinois restaurants were going to have their dine-in closed for the time being until who knows when.

It was a bit strange talking about this with the culinary artists/performers at Benihana right around us that had to have their game face on and couldn’t respond to the fact their entire next three weeks were going to be completely different. They may not even have their job- they definitely were going to wake up in a new world. But this is a weird time in our world, in this life, to have these conversations.

Now, mind you out, 50% of our table were aged & to be considered “at-risk” for this spreading virus and I had this eerie feeling that we actually might meet out for the last time in a while to keep them safe.

At that moment, I realized that instead of valuing this time and celebrating, this stupid ping on our phones and newsflash changed an enjoyable time to a feeling of such fear and scarcity. I had been focused so much on what was about to be taken away- all else was hard to grasp. This was just the beginning.

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The rest of the week happened and things got worse before they got better. You can relate, huh? You remember the week of March 16th, right?

I am so glad we can move past this unknown now, but I learned a few things about my values that I have not really taken into account as much before.

1. Relaxation can be a thing - and no one needs to guilt you for it, including yourself.

2. Your business can be gone in seconds- life is so much more than work - so imagine how you can diversify your mission outside of what you do for your clients/customers.

3. What the hell - I make marketing plans but never create a “plan B” for stuff- new service offering being added to the business!!

4. Human is what we are- things happen and this is life. Let’s keep moving forward and adapt.

A few positives came out of the world & economy being shut down as it relates to what’s going on at The MKTG Brand:

• (This NEVER happens) but we was gifted an additional 6 months of time to make my #MKTGRetreat even more amazing and to market it to new people and give some people on the fence a bit more time to decide if they are coming or not. My gas pedal has been to the floor on this- and I’m so glad I can take my foot off a bit from selling.

• I didn’t want to say, “I told you so ANYWHERE” but with you intimately here- all of the mission-driven marketing, human-to-human messaging, and focusing on diversifying your marketing touch-points finally showing up as an urgency now - I hope it is not too late for some of you who have been following me and not taken action with these principles. I’m just so glad to see this being tangible and I’m able to help!!

• Working from home is something I’ve mastered years ago- this was nothing new-ish

• My husband and I don’t have kids, yet, so it felt business as usual for the most part with our routine

• More people and their mother are taking this time to focus on marketing & how to create all of the content with these extra opportunities to virtually connect- so I’ve been extremely busy

• Most importantly- all of the pressure I put on myself and from others seemed to have been lifted because we all got the slap of reality that life is so short and we should be slowing down to prioritize a bit more.

Creating these graphics was just a little peek at what I’ve been up to in terms of creating my own content and new website additions. I hope you get excited about what you’ve already started to see in Your Ethical Business Group, my Instagram profile, and some upcoming posts happening this week.

What have you been through the last two weeks? How can you find the silver lining in it all and stop focusing on what is gone or what we are about to lose? What is it that you need the most to keep “normal” as enjoyable as you can make it in these moments during lockdown & economic catastrophe?