COVID-19. It’s the defining word on everyone’s lips at the moment. At the very least, it’s the obvious prompt for “…well what do we do now?” questions. It’s a fair bet that many of those questions don’t have immediate answers. In the midst of such monumental upheaval, where do you even begin? These are times a new hashtag won’t improve.
These times necessitate Purpose.
Purpose, lived with passion and conviction, illuminates the path forward through any challenge. To quote Roy Spence: “Purpose trumps everything else—strategy, tactics, mission and vision. If you start with purpose, everything else falls into place.” Or in this case, everything falls back into place. Experience has shown us that times like these are when smart companies double down on their core purpose, mission and values.
For brands, existing with purpose is about making a positive contribution to a good world. If we can talk about ourselves for a moment, it’s something that we’ve been living for a long time here at 20nine. We’ve woven purpose into all of the work, communication and new product innovation we’ve done with clients.
…and as it happens, we’ve just done it for ourselves too. We took our own advice, so to speak and decided it was time to reinforce our brand with a strong grounding in our purpose. To truly align with what we believe in, 20nine is now a purpose-first brand consultancy.
After months of soul-searching, fact-finding, truth-telling and deep discovery, our purpose articulates our true intent:
To energize positive change in brands, people and organizations. We inspire people and communities to “do what you believe in and believe in what you do.”
Right now, when uncertainty seems to be the only constant, knowing, and acting on, our purpose is amazingly comforting. It’s the checklist we need to make sure we’re on the right track, that we’re relevant, and doing something good in the world with every decision. There’s only one box on this checklist:
Are we doing what we say we believe in?
And if the answer is yes, carry on. If it’s not… find a way to check the box.
Of course this is all very easy when you have a clear purpose. If the answer to that question isn’t yes, or no, but “well what do we even believe in?”, there’s probably nothing more important than discovering, defining and articulating your Purpose.
It’s our belief that when you know who you are and why you’re here, the unknown isn’t as scary. Let us know if you’d like to talk more about it.
The Purpose First Virtual Workshop helps you and your company’s leadership team align your brand’s core purpose, vision, mission and values with the needs of your core customers to help your brand lean into uncertainty with greater confidence, and advance the business forward even in these unprecedented times.
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