What Does Corporate Social Responsibility Mean for Business?

.   4.  Finally, your business is engaging. The adoption of sustainable and CSR best practices is a team sport. It involves your work associates. Most especially it involves your current and targeted customers. Engagement leads to conversation which leads to trust which results in a loyal customer. CSR and sustainability best practices enable a rich and highly credible communication platform with the customer. While advertising will win awareness it is the engagement with customers on their quest for finding both value and values that creates the type of brand equity that keeps customers coming back to your store, website or Facebook page. It is the path to being able to charge more than your competitors because your customers think you are worth it. Increase sales in 90 days These four steps may appear daunting but they are not. I have worked with business leaders and owners who began this process and achieved milestone sales results within 90 days. That is evidence of how hungry customers are for solutions. This sales path is a process, not a destination. It is a process for your customers as they educate themselves on what CSR and sustainability really means to them. It is a process for your company as each successful step builds momentum for the adoption of an even more ambitious, but proven, sustainability best practice. Start this revenue growth path by focusing on what you think is your most important customer market segment. Figure out their top three CSR and sustainability issues (the best way of doing so is to ask them). Then work with your associates and key stakeholders on how to become the superior solution for at least one of the three key customer issues. Doing so will increase your current customers’ loyalty. Doing so will win new customers. And this will be achieved even if you have to raise your prices a little because the solution you are solving is that valuable to your customers. Try it and enjoy winning new customers, growing revenues and protecting your profit margins from competitors’ price wars. Related articles: 5 Steps to Winning a Green Supply Chain Contract Earth Day Debate & Debrief: Sustainability and Fossil Fuels- Two Perspectives The Hispanic Edge in Green Business