The Power of Purpose: How ‘Make Your Mark’ Drives our Agency
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” There are many ways we find fulfillment in life: through our families and friends, our passions, our continued learning, and—yes—our work. The reality is, many of us will spend a significant amount of our lives working, and if we’re lucky, that work will be aligned with a greater purpose.
Who wants to sit down to work every day and think: Wait, why am I doing this?
The Power of Purpose
Every day, we’re counseling startups on how to lead with strong positioning, tell a good story, and communicate the “why.” Having a purpose behind anything you do in life is like the rudder in a boat. In business, it’s especially hard to “steer the ship,” stand out from the crowd, or rally your troops, without one. Having a clearly defined purpose is crucial as a North Star to guide decision making, inspire a team, and ‘speak’ to prospects. When times are tough, it’s also a way to vet difficult decisions. I don’t have a single new business conversation or interview without sharing either our business purpose at Offleash or our core values: Integrity first. Be bold. All in.
The Genesis of Make Your Mark
We involved the entire team in building our purpose statement and core values, and we revisit it now and then to ensure it still ‘fits.’ At an offsite in 2018, we crowdsourced our core values and our purpose, coming up with a simple yet straightforward three-word statement: Make Your Mark. It isn’t just about what we do. We make a mark on the world for our clients, colleagues, and community. Our purpose statement helps us never lose sight of who we are, what we do, and most importantly, our why. We’ve always been a business with a soul, we’ve always been more than a team (and yes, we’ve used the word family), and we’ve always stayed committed to giving back where we can in ways big and small.
Creating a Purpose-Driven Business
The hardest part is the start. Businesses often get caught up in the process, especially if a purpose isn’t feeling authentic. That’s the thing about purpose. It’s your raison d’etre so it shouldn’t be so hard, but getting the words just right can be. I recommend asking your key stakeholders (in our case, our team and clients!) to weigh in, as they know you best and they also want to be part of something bigger. The simplest place to start is asking “Why?” This way, you’ll land on an authentic purpose statement that’s both defensible and differentiated. In our case, it wasn’t just the services we deliver for companies, it was more about the outcomes. We do it because…why? To help companies make their mark. We work here…why? To make our mark on the world, and to create a good life for ourselves and our families. We exist…why? At the simplest level, we hire good people who do good work and who want to do good in the world. The last part of any purpose exercise is get to the point faster. Take out the filler. Less is more.
Putting Purpose Into Practice
In three simple words, “Make Your Mark” allows me to talk to a new client about making their mark on an industry, or to a new colleague about how we can work together to make their mark on the world, and feel good about how we are tapping our collective talents, time, and money to give back by supporting causes near to our hearts. It’s really important to talk about your purpose often and to lead and live by example. When we look back at measuring our work, we talk about whether or not we’ve made a mark. Our logo design is, in fact, a mark. When our clients want to enter a new market, or launch a crazy out-of-the-box campaign, or adopt 100 elephants, we’re first in line with the “why”! Go Offleash, and make your mark.
Make Your Mark on the Future
Our purpose is driving our future, too. We’re working hard to make an outsized mark on a traditional industry by taking a fresh approach to public relations, constantly rolling out new services, staying true to our core values while unbound by convention, and having both the chops AND the fun along the way. Purpose, like brand, is an evolution. A purpose statement represents not only a company’s aspirations (the name Offleash itself was aspirational!) but also creates shared language and commitments across the team for what you stand for.