Build for their lives | Meaning is your unfair advantage
A crisis in hope, meaning, and belonging is your opportunity to grow
Here’s the bad news:
Americans are experiencing an unprecedented crisis of purpose, hope, and loneliness, and it’s killing them.
Deaths of despair and drug addiction have surged since 2000, particularly among white men. It’s happening because we’re isolated, we don’t believe the future can get better, and we killed god a century ago, so our lives are meaningless.
80% of Americans do not expect life for their children’s generation to be better.
47% of Americans report their relationships with others aren't meaningful.
58% of Americans reported that they sometimes or always feel like no one knows them well.
It’s not just a technology issue, a mental health issue, or a politics or economics issue.
The managerial mindset is the cause. Kruptos summarizes this well:
“Technique” is the word that Jacque Ellul used to describe this way of thinking in order to distinguish it from the machines and systems themselves. Those are the artifacts created by this way of thinking.
What defines this pattern of thought? Its two main characteristics are “abstraction” and “rationalization.” Abstraction is that process whereby you take something that is rooted in the physical, experienced within the culture and spirit of a community, its living history and social dynamics, and you then examine it, break it down into its constituent parts and analyze it, turning it into something that is conceptual. The rationalization process then takes the next step and is able to refine this set of abstract concepts into a system that can be worked on, discussed, argued over without ever having to actually the do the thing which is being discussed.
Something which was once intuitive, organic, grounded in what is real, is now a thing of language and numbers. This abstract, rationalized process can then in theory be transported through time and space and applied in any situation regardless of persons or culture.
Bottom line: The more mechanical and technical our world becomes, the more hopeless and isolated people feel. Everything is an exchange. Everything is a system. Everything is soulless. Everything is functional.
What you can do about it:
If you can take off the managerialism hat for one second and think in human instead of in spreadsheet, you can meet a massive need.
The meaning, hope, and purpose crisis represents an opportunity to do business in a way that meets people where they are and offers meaning instead of empty promises.
It’s your opportunity to have 0% turnover team turnover next year
It’s your opportunity to raise revenues by 10-25%
It’s your opportunity to earn loyal followers who will do business with you at a premium and tell all their friends about you.
These are just a few stats that show the opportunity that’s here:
77% of consumers say they have stronger emotional bonds to Purpose-driven companies.
27% of customers say belonging to a brand influences their decision to do business with the brand.
But all of that is only available to you if you can think in intangibles. If you can offer a sense of purpose and connection to your audience.
Here are a few ideas on how to do that:
Giving outrageously overly elaborate gifts
🗡️ We give clients swords along with a letter about the sword’s name story at the end of major engagements. They never forget it.
Creating unusual experiences
😭 The first time a team member makes a client cry because they are overcome at how seen and cared for they feel by a brand delivery or values discovery process, we give them a vial called "client tears."
💰 Our brand is medieval, so at the end of the year, we give bonus checks in a literal burlap bag of pennies with a letter outlining their achievements.
🎤 Words < 🎉 Experiences
Encouraging vulnerability
Our business was decimated by the lockdowns in 2020.
I didn’t act like I had it all together.
Instead, I called an all-hands meeting, led our team in prayer, and laid out the situation realistically. Part of my job as the CEO was to identify risk and to work to mitigate it. I’d overexposed us to risk, and now we were suffering for it. I said I was sorry and just as scared as everyone else. I said I didn’t know how we’d get through it, but I knew we could move mountains if we banded together.
I closed it out with a passionate reading of Henry V's St. Crispan's Day speech.
Within a few short months, we'd banded together, identified a new audience, productized our offer, built a new marketing and sales funnel, and replaced our lost clients. It certainly was a turning point for our company and for me.
Vulnerability was key to that transformation.
Building a meaningful brand
That doesn’t just mean design; it means standing for something meaningful in the world and building every experience around this.
For Sherwood Fellows, our core concept is “We take market share from the big guys, and give it to the underdogs.” We work with the small, the unlikely, and the unseen, and we help them punch above their weight class. We also hire people who don’t fit the ordinary marketing agency approach.
This gives us a thorough line in everything we do. This concept gives meaning to our culture and our work.
In conclusion, be a force for good. It's not just good for society but for your bottom line.
If you need help figuring this out, we can help. Drop us a line at sherwoodfellows.com
If I received a sword from a vendor, in addition to a Blu-Ray copy of the 1977 Ridley Scott masterpiece "The Duellists" they would receive my loyalty.