How to Build a Mission Driven Business that Customers Will Love

Ever wondered what makes some businesses so successful while others struggle to make a sale? It’s fairly simple – a powerful brand mission. Having a clear mission statement can improve your chances of success on the market and make it easier for your audience to connect with you. But don’t just take our word for it – hear what our today’s guest has to say about mission-driven businesses.

Sarah is currently the CEO of Grace’s Goodness Organics, a wellness company selling organic vegetable sipping broths that nourish the body and feed the soul. During her career, Sarah had the opportunity to help both large and small brands to achieve strong sales and improve visibility. Prior to Grace’s Goodness, Sarah was the CEO of Bhakti, the #1 selling chai in the natural channel. A CEO for the second time now, she’s passionate about building mission-driven businesses and helping them scale. Sarah comes from a marketing background and according to her, it was precisely her marketing experience that trained her to excel at both CEO roles.

Sarah believes that brands can be a force for change. At Grace’s Goodness Organics, her team focuses on exactly that – changing the way people eat and live.

In this episode of the Think Business With Tyler podcast, we talk about how brands can make this world a better place through their products, why it’s important to surround yourself with mission-driven employees, the importance of monitoring your cash flow, and how to excel at any job you take on.

Guest-At-A-Glance

 

💡 Name: Sarah Bird

💡 What she does: She’s the CEO of Grace’s Goodness Organics.

💡 Noteworthy: As a Senior Executive, she has had the opportunity to help both large and small CPG companies build brands that achieve strong sales, market-leading status, and profitability. This is her second CEO role.

💡 Key Quote: “There’s nothing like the satisfaction of wearing all those hats and rolling up your sleeves and just knowing your business intimately.”

💡 Where to find Sarah: LinkedIn

 

Key Insights

 

Brands can be a force for good. After working in several different industries and going from a non-healthy space to now a plant-based space, Sarah realized the power that brands can have over their customers. Brands can help build a better world by providing customers with better, healthier choices. According to Sarah, they can be a force for good and change the way people eat. “Then I realized how much that fueled me and how important it was for me to have that kind of impact to work on brands that are focused on a greater good. So as I’ve thought about my moves since then, that’s absolutely the first filter, is it a brand that really is focused on a greater good, and something that resonates with me.”

Surround yourself with passionate and driven people. Every business needs passionate employees, but passion is all the more important when you’re trying to expand a small business looking. Sarah talks about their small, yet powerful team of employees that head together towards the same goal. Their key to success? Clarity of vision. Everyone on the team knows exactly where the business is headed and shares the same vision. Sarah also says she’d always hire and try to keep people with fire in their belly. “I’d rather have somebody who’s got a fire in the belly, and just a real passion for what they do and strong skills versus someone who’s maybe even more seasoned, but isn’t going to have that fire in the belly. So to me that that passion for what they do and willingness to have long arms and just do whatever is needed is really important.”

It’s important to regularly monitor your cash flow. One of the most important things that a business owner or a CEO has to do is to regularly track and manage the business’s cash flow. From understanding upcoming expenses to projecting future sales, there are many things to consider when monitoring your cash flow. Sarah thinks it’s absolutely vital to be strategic (and careful, for that matter) about where you’re spending your money. She shares a bit about her cash flow management process. “I do have a cash flow model that I live by and so every Sunday night or Monday morning I’m updating it with what the expenses have been for the prior week just because I’m very mindful of running lean and I’m wanting to make literally every penny count.”

Find what you’re passionate about and go get it! Backed by her long and impressive career, Sarah shares a valuable tip with us. Whether you’re fresh out of college or already an experienced professional, it’s important to seek that fire in your belly. That’s the ultimate secret to success. Here’s what Sarah says to wrap up our episode for today. “Be passionate, find what you’re passionate about, and just lean into that because you’re going to exceed or excel if you are doing what you love to do.”

Top Quotes

 

“I wish I had that army behind me to get things done. But there’s nothing like the satisfaction of wearing all those hats and rolling up your sleeves and just knowing your business intimately.”

“If the person is is a strong performer, the goal is to find a way to keep them in the organization. So to your point, instead of being broad, they need to go deep and figure out what the person’s passion is and where do they excel, and then see if there’s a way to kind of channel them to be an expert in a given area.”

“As long as I’m clear with them on what it is we’re trying to do, and that I have the board support with what we’re trying to do, then while they may not love every step of the way, we’ll get there. And I’m very collaborative in terms of how I’ve worked. And so I hope that I always feel they’ve been heard. And at the end of the day, someone’s gonna make the call.”

“Being plant power is very much part of the DNA of this business, it will always be doing things that are vegan.”

“He talks about the importance of growth hacking. And so I think, especially in a small company, where you’ve got the budget, make sure you’re testing and learning all the time, a lot of trial balloons, learn quickly, fail quickly. And then keep pivoting until you find out what really works. And so I think having a growth hacker mindset is super important for smaller brands.”

Links

Get 20% off a purchase of any 6 or 18 pack on https://gracesgoodness.com/collections/shop with code: ThinkTyler20

sarah@gracesgoodness.com

Grace’s Goodness Organics Facebook

Grace’s Goodness Organics Instagram