Written by: Belinda Sue Kiser, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Is your business success based on how it makes a positive impact, or is your success based on how much money your business makes? As an entrepreneur, we hope our business is successful, but how is this measured? Which is it, how much money it makes, or by the positive impact it is making? Sometimes, the two go hand and hand, and sometimes it does not. It is very possible you can make a positive impact and never make a dime. But keeping the doors open will not happen without the money flowing. It is a business, and we go into business to make money… Right?
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own." ~ Benjamin Disraeli
(Let me take a moment to define ‘Making Money.’ Since this can differ between each other’s definitions, let us go with any extra funds that are made after all overhead expenses are meant/profits.)
In all fairness, it is up to you how you define success and what your goals are for the business you have started. It is all about your perspective. You cannot achieve your mission statement without funds. So, are we ever satisfied with one or the other? Or do we need both at the same time to be successful? The answer to both these questions is yes.
Let me just say if you started a business to just make money this article is not for you. If you have in your heart a need to make a positive impact and the money is secondary, yes, please read on. But before you do, please take a moment, and ask yourself which is it, Positive Impact or Making Money? Because after what I learned, I wish someone would have asked me this question. Because I may have approached my business in a better frame of mind and reacted to problems in a different manner. If I had answered this question honestly from the start.
I hate to break it to you, but many good businesses fail because they lack funds, and all their good intentions/positive impacts will fall to the waste side. When this happens, it hurts everyone. This is a fact and incredibly sad. The large majority of small businesses, especially in rural areas, open to help their local communities. They rarely achieve the funds they need to maintain their mission statement, never mind making expenses. Sometimes it takes years for a small business to show profits and they struggle the whole time to make the business work.
Five years ago, I retired to my hometown of Green Spring, WV in the US. Now when I say this town is little, I mean extraordinarily little… 120 people little. Though…we have a two-hundred-year history as a railroad town and though you would not see it now. We were a phenomenally successful community in the early 1900s. We had it all, anything a small town could want, a school, churches, a number of strong businesses, including a remarkably busy train station. But due to some severe hardships the town faced over the years, it began to die, and today is a mere ghost of a town.
I have to say, the area my hometown is in is absolutely the prettiest place I think I have been. Not saying much, I am far from worldly, but I am proud of this area of West Virginia where I come from. So, returning after being gone over two decades, Green Spring was nowhere near how I remembered it. We lost all means to buy essentials and now have to travel ten miles to get anything of importance, like milk, bread, and eggs. There was no place to buy a candy bar, never mind a cold drink. As long as I can remember, this was never the case.
Out of a need to support my dying hometown, I decided I would try to research, document, and write a book on our history. Preserve whatever past I can find. This research opened doors and I learned things about this town that truly shocked me. But most of all, it gave me purpose and drive to want to see better in Green Spring. I believed in my heart I could bring back some of what we have lost or try at least. From all I learned about our two-hundred-year history, it is worth saving and protecting.
I have several generations of family from here. Many of the original Green Spring locals still reside here, but that generation is dying out quickly. With the younger generation moving away permanently left little behind. I am the last of the Dean line and with the dying out of our families here, so is our history.
So, I created a plan to make a positive impact in saving a dying town. But I still needed a way that would fund it long-term, and that was where my problems began with 120 sound locals with an average income from Social Security and government resources. Saving my community through this small population was not going to happen. I needed to be far more creative than this.
One thing this life journey has taught me about was human nature in small towns and the cold hard facts about the nature of the business world as a whole. Both can be extremely difficult to navigate. Most of us go into entrepreneurship to fill a need. Which you hope does become prosperous. But is there a time you let go of the purpose and go steadfast on focusing on making money?
Yes! If you make more money, you can do more things... I get that.
But the truth in ‘that’ is not always what it seems. What comes with more money comes more spending. Many times, or unless you have a great selling product, many good businesses will fold or struggle terribly because the money is not there to pay the bills, never mind have any profits. So, you can make a strong impact and have no money to show for it. The stress from this can be crippling.
A healthy business should flow and feed off each facet of the business as a whole. Filling a need can promise better local sponsorship, but it rarely holds long-term and can change on a dime. You cannot always depend on sponsors/donations to support you. This kind of funding is very fragile. Whatever a business is selling needs to have the staying power to fuel the business financially long term. A good mission statement is essential but having a sound means to fund it is even more important.
Thinking your mission statement alone is enough to keep the funds flowing is a bit naïve. Because mark my words in time this will be challenged.
One of the things I learned through my research on Green Spring. Though we had extensive history, no one knew it. With a dying community, this history was lost and truly, little was preserved. I spent three years and countless hours documenting what I could find and show. It was through this research I learned how amazing this town truly was. Its two-hundred-year history is rich and full of amazing facts about this area. Now I needed to find a way to get this information out to those who can support our goals. No one cares if no one knows.
Because I knew 120 poor locals were not in a position to make the changes we needed. I had to find ways to produce the funds to move this town in the direction of substantial growth. It had to be creative, especially with the economy like it is. It would take much more money than we can raise locally through bake sales and small fundraisers. It was going to take something far bigger financially and long term to make the impact I wanted for this community.
Yes, I am fully aware this is a grand goal and one of the hardest things I will ever try to accomplish. But I was never one to shy away from a challenge.
We needed a new business in Green Spring that could build our economy. What we needed as a community was to bring back a general store. A place we can buy essentials again. But building a general store from the ground up was going to take work and bunches of money. We, above all… needed a place to buy essentials for starters. So, this became our focus…Now achieving this financially will be the difficult part.
Once upon a time, a mentor told me… “Use what you already have and build off it.” So, I took our best assets, and that is exactly what I did. I created the Green Spring Kitchen and Thrift. Then I took the Green Spring Kitchen and created our own products, homemade candy, canned goods, and bakery items, all from local recipes from Green Spring. I also created a genuinely nice community cookbook from old family recipes. I, in bed, in it our history, some fun tidbits about the recipe and the owner as a part of the book. Build our brand from this, and we will market it. This would be our financial foundation to fund our mission statement. Sounds good, huh? But until we make money off this plan, it is only an idea.
Now I spend my time offering our products to the world and marketing them anywhere I can. Praying this is enough to drive a funnel of money into my organization so I can keep my mission statement going. Sounds easy enough, right? Maybe. Starting off with an innovative idea is great but this is work and let no one tell you this is anything but easy. The marketing side of this can be brutal. Usually, it is who has the most money to invest in PR that attracts the most attention. “Here we go back to money.”
One thing I need to say. If you are trying to make a positive impact in some way with your business, go and register it as a non-profit. This will help open doors and gain sponsorships by opening large funding resources, such as government grants.
Though registering your business as a non-profit can support funding, it guarantees nothing. The arduous work is still on your shoulders to bear. This action alone will help relieve some stress trying to get funds and will help you tap into resources non-profits need too. There are many financial gains to having a non-profit, which are greatly beneficial.
I registered my business while I was structuring the organization. But these actions can be done anywhere you are in your business… at any time. In fact, the non-profit sector can be of significant help if your intent is to make an impact. There are many non-profit organizations, and networking with them can be essential to your success for a number of good reasons. Free Nonprofit Web Development, Hosting, & Marketing Guidance (onlineimpacts.org)
There is a number of ways to run a non-profit. But when you have a healthy mission statement for a positive impact, you want to be open to any funding that crosses your path. This can be significate to your business when other funding sources you have may have started drying up, such as private donations.
Again, this is work and there is major competition out there for these types of programs. The longer your business stays afloat, the better chances you have to achieve these resources. But once again…Nothing is guaranteed, but that is why only some of us become entrepreneurs. We like challenges. It is shown the more experience you have in the business world, the better your chance for success when working in the non-profit sector.
To build a business from an idea and see it come to fruition is one of the best feelings there is. But when you are trying to make positive changes for whatever reason, well…this is what legacies are made from. We have one chance to make our mark on the world. I choose to save my hometown or at least make the best effort I can. Doing this at 65 may be a little risky, but it has been in the working for three years now. I will not be afraid to try to make a difference at any age. On a positive note, my age does give me far more wisdom to make the harder choices.
Every step of my business has been carefully planned. Taking three years to build what I hope will be a sound financial foundation. Now we have come to a point... we can market what we have created, which was one of my reasons for becoming an Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine. This platform is perfect for reaching the masses with my mission statement, especially with like-minded people.
You see this is not my first non-profit. In the early 1990s, I opened a non-profit transitional housing program to support homeless women and children coming out of a crisis, called The Circle of Hope. I was much more “inexperienced” in life and business in general. That non-profit took off too fast, and with my first government grant of 10k brought with it multiple outside problems I did not see coming.
My health plummeted from the stress of managing a major business and dealing with the vultures that came. The bigger you get, the more the vultures swarm. My plate became full fast and when the money started to slow down, I was not prepared mentally to manage this challenge and I freaked.
Because of this, my health took a turn for the worse, and I could not manage my health and the business. So, I had to make the tough decision to let the business go. Lesson learned. Now thirty years later, can I be better prepared for the craziness? I am definitely older and, I hope, a bit wiser.
So, which is it? A positive impact or making money? Can you have both? I am currently trying to. I need to have both. But balancing the issues that come with this is forever stressful. I am wanting my impact to make an impact, and this will only happen if I can draw the financial resources to make it happen. But money does take second place.
Do not get me wrong, I want my expenses paid and to be able to move forward with my goals. That can only come if I can show more profit over my expenses. What I learned is this takes time and loads of patience, planning, and implementing with a ‘strong risk management plan’ in place for when trouble happens, and it will.
What I have set currently in place with the Green Spring Kitchen should provide a funnel of money over the long term, or I hope. Yes, it may take a while. But no one I know goes into something like this for the short term. Nothing that needs to last comes quickly. If it does, this is a warning signal.
But the bottom line is your business must be run as a business, and this means I need to treat it as such despite what the mission statement may be. Running a business means making money. So instead of trying to manage this hand and hand, I set off making sure the money-making part of this venture is established first. Then I can concentrate on making that impact with my financial base in place.
I have learned you need to provide a service you think people will pay for and make it something ongoing. I gave my business a marketable commodity, a few in fact that can flow money into our mission statement on going. This is accomplished by selling our candy and cookbooks. Both are easily marketable products that I can market and sell outside my local community.
The thing about running a non-profit or any business you built to make an impact, you learn to keep the doors open no matter what. If something does not work, you are the boss, do not be afraid to shake things up. Every new business goes through changes, and being willing to re-evaluate what works and what does not is the key to success. More times than not, the path your business takes to be successful is not always the vision you pictured.
So, which is it, making money or making an impact? As I have tried to show in this article, it is nice when they both flow together, but what happens when they do not? Do you freak, shut the doors, and give up? I hope not. Wanting to make a positive impact is work, and most of this work is based on the funds you can bring to the table. So, what happens when the funds begin to dry up? You regroup, you seek out options, and you make changes, and you keep this up until something works or changes your situation for the better.
Because if your passion is strong, making that impact is what is really important and with the money, you will figure this out because this is what hardcore entrepreneurs do. The money will come and go, and it is always feast or famine. But your mission statement will always be constant and will be the beating heart of your organization. How you fuel it will always be a challenge. 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Business » WealthVipe
Closing note: Anyone who wants to buy candy or a cookbook, just text me, and I will be happy to make it happen, for more information: 1- 304 359 5685 or GSLWBC@oulook.com
Belinda Sue Kiser, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Belinda Kiser has a passion for many things in her life. Her writing and poetry bring great joy. But her most rewarding passion is the non-profit organization she created to save her hometown in Green Spring, WV. With goals to bring new commerce and economic growth to her community, she started the Green Spring Kitchen and Thrift. Part of this organization's mission is the advocacy work she does locally to help preserve the future of a local historical landmark that is a lifeline to her hometown. Her motto. Making Green Spring Better-One Step at a Time is the driving force that keeps Belinda striving to make changes that will enhance the local's lives of a dying Railroad community with a 200-year rich history. Her dream to see her community thriving is her main focus.
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