How we should react when economy slows down.
When the global financial market is in turmoil the first thing most people think of doing is holding onto things and cutting expenditure. And they automatically assume (because the newspapers tell them) that everyone is acting that way.
Everyone ISN`T responding in that manner. There are many people and many ventures that flourish, whether the economy is down or not. And if you are wondering why it is so, the solution is available there where it is often likely to be overlooked. It will be a good idea to search for the answer together.
When a ‘down’ current comes, no matter what it is, the most effective solution is to rise above it. When we go with the down current we sink with the tide and have to wait, suffocating, until the tide changes.
The fact is that when we know our strength and can hold sway over ourselves, we can rise above the mundane and not worry about what is going on all around. Let us visualise it properly.
‘Go-getters’ or ‘Go-givers’
Imagine a scenario where we want to have more – better profits, a higher salary, more leave, better liberty, and wider chances.
When we have a desire for an object, our first tendency is to straightaway go and have it. That just makes us ‘Go-getters’. And a ‘go-getter’ is surely a self-motivated person, an activist and a natural leader. Such a vision is a proven way to succeed in life as we have heard. Still, there is some sort of a snag. When this plan is brought into play, the results are somewhat surprising though in a way it is foreseeable as well.
The gist of the matter is that after ‘getting’ and ‘possessing’ it we tend to ‘get rid of’ it. We might actually jettison it or might become apathetic to the whole idea.
Then our interest swings to something else. This continuous swaying of interest is the biggest issue; the widening interests becoming a never-ending circle of desires so that we are never satisfied with what we have. It becomes a sort of junk food dependency!
So what if we turned our ‘desire to get’ into a desire to provide?
Most of you are aware that the act of providing gives a sense of fulfillment. This ensues from gratefulness and not from panic or avarice. A person can go on providing more and receive more and know full satisfaction in the voyage of life.
Our generous and giving attitude creates generous and giving customers and team members while our price consciousness and ‘getting attitude’ attracts precisely those types of customers and team members. And they’re the very ones we don’t want!
Creative capitalism
Many businesses see this now. They are now starting to give more and more in various ways. There’s a veritable ‘sea-change’ going on as more people ‘get’ the role that giving can play in their business. Bill Gates is a class example. In a July 2008 lead article in TIME Magazine he referred to it as ‘Creative Capitalism’.
He explained that helping others might be the fine deciding point that could persuade people to prefer one product to another.
What he’s actually saying is that when a company links its business to giving in some way, that company and its products become more attractive to customers. It takes us way, way above what’s been called ‘the sea of sameness’.
Creative Capitalism is the idea of taking things a step higher than the destination at which one would have originally chosen to make the compromise. When we can leverage our visions and initiatives in a way that helps and promotes the needs of the global society, we are conserving things, efforts and abilities in trying to win pro tem. Then we begin fashioning genuine success for us as well as for supporting our global financial system.
The charm of effective giving
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the phrase that’s often used to describe giving back at a corporate level. It’s becoming almost a required part of corporate business practice. Yet when it’s done out of a sense of obligation or with the intent to just make ourselves look good, people eventually get what it is. It still is a temporary strategy.
Business ventures and people who ‘donate’ become popular. The zeal and sincerity that prods them to act is recognized by the people with whom they interact. This response is on top of what is spun by way of the company’s public relation efforts.
What is likely to be the upshot if some of the capital meant for marketing is apportioned for contributions?
Giving creates something bigger than who we are. Giving creates inspiration. Inspiration can only be created when it resonates with the people whom we want to inspire. And we get inspired when we are involved in the experience. It is not just about hearing the nice stories of others. It’s actually participating in those stories. After all, we all want to feel good in life by making a contribution-to our family and friends, to our company and to our community.
Transaction-based giving causes it to happen on its own
The facility for contributing became so much simpler because of a programme (or one can say a ‘development’) called Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One). Buy1GIVE1 is the heart of transaction-based giving. Transaction-based giving revolutionises things. Let us use our creativity and analyse how.
How wonderful is the situation where every time someone buys an ice cream, a child somewhere in an underprivileged country gets a cup of milk?
Equally exemplary would be the situation where whenever someone subscribes to a magazine, a tree would instantly get planted in a barren patch in another continent? Or, if every time one eats a hamburger another would instantly get at least a handful of rice?
Or let’s say you’re being coached in your business. How interesting would it be to know that a child was educated for one month as a direct result (and by the way, all it cost the coaching company to do that was 60 cents per day).
Where a motivational speaker at a conference is connected with a charity, part of his income might go to helping kids who have speech problems due to facial defects. It will be a matter of great satisfaction for the participants at the conference to know that their very participation is helping a deserving cause.
Imagine the perfect scenario where transaction-based giving can be applied in one’s own special manner to correspond with the available products and services to include every member of the group and customers. It is possible.
The actual winning economy
Business ventures, on a global basis, have already internalized the efficacy of this transaction-based giving. A case in point is TESCO, one of the foremost supermarket chains of UK. The company’s programme ensures that a Kenyan child gets a school uniform when someone buys a pair of school trousers from them.
Volvic is a Mineral Water Company that launched its scheme of transaction-based giving program last year. They help the cause of making wells in Africa. They call the scheme Buy1 GIVE 10 as it helps in generating a flow of 10 litres of water in the well, by every single litre of water they sell.
Middle level and comparatively small enterprises are now in the forefront in widening this global giving phenomenon through Creative Capitalism. Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com), a Singapore-based Social Enterprise came up with an effective strategy which has turned this transaction-based giving into a movement that anyone who wants can participate in.
Buy1GIVE1 is the heart of a most powerfully persuasive transaction-based giving globally, correlating business ventures of all sizes to any noble cause anywhere. It is weaving a universal society of business givers and for SME`s, Buy1GIVE1 links up businesses, their clients AND charity requirements in a most passionate and mutually satisfactory manner. The whole thing is completely automated.
Any person can become a citizen of this phenomenon of global giving merely by getting a Buy1GIVE1 `VISA` directly off the Buy1GIVE1 site at www.b1g1.com. Those who have their own enterprise can become a B1G1 Business through applying online and selecting the charity and the primary service or product for launching the giving. Buy1GIVE1 forwards the entire contribution amount to their international Worthy Cause Partners (more than 528 projects are available for members to choose from) thereby making their contributions highly productive.
Have you considered?
* One half of the world’s population -which is about three billion people-does not have a daily income of even two dollars.
* Even when the new millennium dawned there were still almost a billion people who were illiterate.
* Poverty and malnutrition robs the lives of 20 children every minute, 30,000 every day, and 210,000 children every week, as per UNICEF records.
* A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water; and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
* Medical aid is not available for one billion people of the world population.
* 63,000 square miles of rainforests are destroyed each year.
Statistic From Global Issues
Buy1GIVE1 Businesses- scrutinize these examples
* Buy1BUILD1 (www.sunsplashhomes.com, www.arkgroup.com.au)
* Instruction to Instruction (www.kipmcgrath.com.au)
* Medical treatment helping in medical aid (www.primanora.com)
* Phone card to communication (www.ultimatecomms.com)
* Meditation to restoration (www.meditate.com.au)
* Shedding pounds to providing food for children (www.bodychain.com)
* Blind installation to lighting up schools (www.blindscouture.com.au)
* Socks for protecting feet from frostbite (www.socksforhappypeople.com)
* Coaching to train social entrepreneurs (www.b1g1forcoaches.com)
* And for full details, just log on to www.b1g1.com.
Unearthing what we are looking for-Nature’s eternal secret
So let’s let us return to the starting point-turbulent economics and managing to get what we need. The needs are in fact not all that knotty. They are just a group of three words that begin with the letter S – strong bonds, solidarity and society.
When we can team up rather than break up and thus create a perfect way to combine resources rather than carry away from one another, we will perceive that there is so much more profusion and so many reserves present on the planet. And when we build relationships, not just with one another but with our innate selves, we understand something infinitely beautiful-that we’re all ONE. Then we realise how simple it is to form an international society from something as commonplace as giving.
The secret was always alive in nature
In the wild, all types of insects cross-fertilize plants to create fruits and flowers of endless varieties benefitting men and animals alike. The perfect give and take pattern was there even before civilizations started.
Failures are said to be stepping stones to success. In the same way we can turn setbacks into advantages. In reality we should be thankful for the current situation that is helping us to move ahead.
And when a person chooses to donate now itself, in spite of the financial crisis, he will feel more contended. And with this contentment he will find a hope that is rekindled anew, which will ring a bell on how the ebb and flow of things can change. Today’s charity might be that which will reverse the flow.
Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing. Visit the Uber Article Directory to get a totally unique version of this article for reprint.
