The Competitive Advantage Most Companies Are Missing, with Sarah Harris

Sarah Harris:

We were trained and taught maybe not to do that. Don’t bring your whole self. You bring the part of you that’s efficient and productive, and you speak in your high command voice and you get things done. And probably in large part because of some of the transformation happening around us.

It forces us to live in a new paradigm and be more whole, more of who we are fully. What we’re realizing is that that actually is good for people and good for business and good for the planet and good for our communities.

I think business leaders and brands who do that and do it consistently and well, they shine and they attract. They attract talent, customers, loyalty, everything that we would want to have.

Blake Schofield:

Real leadership. Real life. Real impact. No more choosing between your career and your life. Here you’ll find honest conversations, science-backed strategies, and inspiring stories to help you thrive at work and truly enjoy your life outside of it. 

I’m your host, Blake, and I’m honored to help you create more impact with ease.

Blake Schofield (00:07.97)

On this episode of Impact with Ease, I interview my friend Sarah Harris. She partners with mission-driven leaders to align purpose with strategy and turn impact into a powerful growth engine. For 20 years, she’s designed social impact platforms and purpose-driven campaigns that deliver measurable results, driving growth for major communication brands and mission-focused organizations alike. 

Today, through Accelerate Impact, she guides organizations to realize the upside of operating strategies that connect purpose to profit and storytelling that earns both financial and social returns. Beyond client work, Sarah serves in board leadership and strategic advisory roles with social venture partners. The most rewarding part of her work is inspiring people individually and as teams to step into their full potential. 

I’m excited for you to dive into this conversation as Sarah and I connect how consumer expectations and business are really shifting into the importance of understanding consumer business impact and how you can do great business and also do good at the same time. We talk about how doing good and aligning between mission, values, and purpose is critical for business success and leadership success today and in the future. And I’m excited for you to join us.

Blake Schofield (00:01.341)

Sarah, thank you so much for spending a little bit of your afternoon with me today.

Sarah Harris (00:06.466)

Thank you, Blake. I’m so excited to be joining you this afternoon.

Blake Schofield (00:10.619)

Me too. This is, I guess, our second official meeting, but I knew from our very first conversation that we share some similar experiences as well as some similar passions around using our business and our careers to do good in the world. And so I’m excited to be able to have you share some of your knowledge with me and with the listeners today. With that said, can you share a little bit about who you are and your background and how you ended up doing the work that you do today?

Sarah Harris (00:46.19)

Absolutely. I am delighted to share and hopefully inspire other people to realize how much good we can all do just in our lives and in our careers. And I feel really fortunate. I came out of school with this idea of wanting to be in media, but wanting to do good in the world at the same time. And through some early service trips really had my eyes open to sort of looking at the business world in a very different way.

And when I came back and started my full-time career, I was offered a job in a sales department of a traditional like advertising supported media entity. And I said to them, know, I really only want to do nonprofit campaigns and campaigns that are making the world a better place. And they said, frankly, you can do whatever you’d like as long as you can drive revenue in this company. We would love to have you here.

And that was really the beginning of how I can find a way to help a business make money and do good at the same time. And fortunately, I was sort of coming of age in my career during those early days of cause marketing, back when it was the YoPlay lids to save lives. And people were doing a lot of different campaigns that were moving consumers to choose different products in the marketplace. And that was a place for me. Like I fell into the advertising industry, into commercial media and helped them find new clients that wanted to promote good things in the world. And in our own way, we started making money and doing good. 

So that’s how I got started in this. And then, fast forward many years, maybe decades later, and I have been able to have a very purposeful career where I’ve always been doing work that I love and finding ways to help organizations think creatively about what do you do as a business?

How do you do that in a way that creates real value in all directions? And just at my core, I know we’re gonna talk a lot about this. I think we as humans are designed for that. And if we think creatively, we can engineer that into our businesses and into our organizations.

Blake Schofield (02:51.141)

I completely agree. So you started out in advertising and then at some point you shifted to becoming a business owner and doing this on your own and with your team. I’m interested in what were your experiences, what led you to make that transition? What were you experiencing and feeling? And then ultimately, how did you come to the realization that you wanted to make that shift?

Sarah Harris (03:16.993)

Yeah, big question. So I was growing up in advertising in this early cause marketing world and businesses were moving from aligning with a cause to being a little bit more authentic to ultimately becoming more purpose driven. And I was fortunate to really turn that idea into a sort of an intrapreneur and created a new in-house agency in this company and had so much fun living this example that you could make money into good. 

Later went in-house into another social impact CSR role and stood up a first ever impact strategy. And that whole part of my career, which I just sort of bookmark as like the first half of my career, I was in big corporate and retrofitting large, older organizations with ways that you could be more responsible and that you could in fact make money and do good. And really the pivot for me was seeing the world around me, more people, more customers wanting to align their purchases with their values, more businesses wanting to be sustainable and responsible and sort of take a stand on different issues. 

And I thought, why, why sort of retrofit these older organizations if the marketplace is moving in that direction? Why don’t I take my skills and my experience and perspective and really partner with mission focused leadership teams and help them speed up the good that they’re doing in the world. And that was the beginning of Accelerate Impact. And that is where I am today.

Blake Schofield (04:51.401)

That’s awesome. And it’s a fun thing when I think when you see or have a vision and you’re ahead of that trend. I mean, as somebody that’s me naturally, I’m constantly ahead of things. But then you start to see that shift happen where, you know, maybe when you started your career, your perspective about that was kind of unique or not mainstay. And then you saw the market start to shift that way.

Obviously we’re in, I think, probably one of the most tumultuous and the fastest paced changes happening from a marketplace than I think any of us have seen in our lifetime. I’m interested in your perspective on that, that evolution of what’s happening with business and consumer expectations around business. What are your thoughts about that? Where do you see that now? Where do you see it going?

Sarah Harris (05:49.085)

My gosh, I’m glad we have all day to talk about these issues because there’s so much there to pull at. I think we’re in a radical moment of transformation where everything around us, the ground underneath us, the world around us, the technology we’re using to communicate with each other, like everything is kind of up for grabs and really shape shifting around us. And I think that’s making many people feel very uncertain and uneasy.

And in the midst of that, business owners and brands and leaders who are super clear on who they are and why they are here and how they are showing up, I think are the ones that are gonna be a stable force for good in the midst of an ever-changing environment. 

And it sounds so simple and I think it’s totally true that being clear on your values, allow you to stand strong no matter what is happening around you and consumers and employees and investors, people gravitate to that stability and clarity of purpose and sort of centrality of like who you are and how you’re going to show up in the world. And they’re attracted to that. so, I mean, ultimately, I think that is what we will see the leaders emerge as the people and the organizations they have always been. They will be sort of the, I hate to use the word winners because that implies that there’s like a winner and loser, but they will be the ones that outperform as we move ahead.

Blake Schofield (07:20.425)

I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s been really interesting. I started my career out in HR way back several decades ago. And I look today at like how much more challenging HR is than it ever used to be. Between the technology, but not even that, the expectations of employees in terms of how they’re treated, the visibility that anybody could get on social media if they feel like they were mistreated and publicly say those things about their employer and their experience.

Blake Schofield (07:59.624)

A lot of ethical questions around how business is done and what are business responsibilities versus individual responsibilities. And in a lot of ways to your point, I think these are good. These are things maybe we haven’t really wrestled with, but are forcing us to wrestle and make some decisions about who we are and what we value. 

And so when you talk about creating clarity, and I think often safety behind saying this is who we are as a business. This is what we stand for in terms of how we treat our employees, our value systems, how we treat our customers, the impact we want to make in this world, in a world that feels chaotic, where everything is changing. I think that each one of us is being asked to choose what our values are and where are we putting and aligning our time and energy behind that. 

And 20 years ago, we didn’t expect companies to do good. I mean, I remember when I started this work in coaching and there were so many people I’d work with that said, I want to do meaningful work, but you can’t get paid to do meaningful work. Because that’s what it was like back then. And it’s just not the case anymore.

Sarah Harris (09:15.436)

Correct. Yeah. I agree with you and I’m so thankful that that’s the case. I do find people all the time who still sort of feel that it is siloed and especially business leaders, they need kind of some encouragement of, no, no, you can be bold about who you are and what your values and principles are and it’s actually gonna pay off for you better than trying to read the tea leaves and pay attention to all the trends and sort of keep up with all the latest things.

Rather than follow where others are going, be who you are and stand firm in that. And I do think especially the next generation coming in, they have come in much more with a blended mindset of, I only want to work with a purpose-driven company. I only want to do work that really matters. And I’m going to work on my own time and my own schedule, my own rhythm. So there is a sort of a new wave coming in that’s much more integrated in their thinking. And I’m thankful for that. 

I think the more we are able to you know, operate as a whole human in all the areas of our life and operate our organizations, not only with a sort of myopic view of a single, you know, reason to be of shareholder value, but really think community about all of your stakeholders and creating value in all directions. It really is better for everyone and more sustainable as a way of operating.

Blake Schofield (10:43.299)

And the data has shown for decades, the stays have shown that to be true, that when you create an environment where people have the flexibility to adjust things as they need to feel safe and have positive relationships in the workforce, that they’re more loyal, that they do better work, which ultimately creates better shareholder value, more growth, and the ability, as you say, to outperform the market.

Sarah Harris (11:10.86)

You’re exactly right. It really does unlock creativity and teamwork and a deeper commitment of loyalty to the brand. All these good things that we work so hard to create. It’s so simple. If we do the right thing and show up consistently for our customers and our communities and our employees, look, here they are standing with us too in the midst of change and growth and all kinds of things.

Blake Schofield (11:35.719)

Your simple message of, you you can do business and do good. I love that. When you first shared it with me, I was like, that’s such a beautiful, simplistic message. And yet I think so many companies struggle to do that. What do you think are the biggest barriers or belief systems that stand in people’s way of understanding how to do both?

Sarah Harris (11:57.76)

I love that you say belief systems because I think that’s the biggest barrier is imagining that it’s possible. And if you can imagine that it is possible to make money and do good, suddenly your mind is open to all kinds of creative ways that you can do it. So I think the first of all, imagining that and believing that, and then just looking at your team and your business and your organization and looking for those opportunities.

But I think it is something that hasn’t necessarily been modeled for decades and decades and decades. I mean, I’ve been living in that industry, so I feel like we’re sort of old on that continuum, but all the time organizations are having epiphanies of realizing that there are more stakeholders to answer to and that there are different ways of operating that can be good in all directions. And then they’re seeing the value that gets created when they do it. So, I mean, to me, I think the biggest barrier is probably the mindset and the belief and realizing that you can. 

And then the second is just gonna be the tangible, like, how do I do it? Like, give me an example of a case study or a business model or a framework that I can use so that I can, I want to do that. Help me go from aspiration to actuality.

Blake Schofield (13:13.066)

Hmm, I love that. So not to put you on the spot, but can you an example of maybe either how you’ve done that before or a company that’s done that well.

Sarah Harris (13:23.625)

Yeah, I have so many examples. The one that is so true to me because I got to be in the driver’s seat of experiencing it was the early days of building the in-house agency called Insight that went, it literally had opened up a new market of customers who wanted to, ultimately they ended up buying advertising in a traditional media company. But the reason that they were doing it was because they were supporting various causes that they cared about, and they wanted to connect their CSR platform with customers so that customers would support the brands aligned with their values. 

And so just seeing that, I would call that sort of exhibit A, open up a new market that takes what you already do great as a business and allows you to serve more and different customers that are doing good in the world. That is like the first most tangible way that I think a lot of businesses can think about it.

I mean, a harder example is a pivot. If you realize like, wait, I’m in business A and the opportunity is in business B, but if I go to B, I could be a more responsible business and I could maybe have longer growth horizon for my platform. And a great example of that is CVS Health that I’ve watched for a long time. They’ve been doing this pivot for more than 10 years, maybe 15 years but they had the epiphany of, sell a lot of tobacco, but we are a pharmacy company. How do we square these two very, you know, opposed to things that we’re doing? 

And I commend their leadership team, and this probably was 15 years ago, when they said, we have to stop selling tobacco products if we’re gonna be authentic as a health company, and if we’re gonna be trusted as your neighborhood pharmacy, and the place you can go to solve your health needs. And so they stopped carrying tobacco.

And that cost them, I think it was a couple billion dollars of revenue by cutting out that product category. But ultimately that allowed them to expand into like Minute Clinic offerings. They’ve now, I think, partnered with a health insurance company and they have really embraced this purpose of helping you on your path to better health. And it’s credible because they’ve made some of those hard choices along the way. So those are just two quick examples, a new market or total pivot if you realize what you’re doing is incongruent. And then there’s just tremendous growth on the other side of that.

Blake Schofield (15:50.731)

I love those examples because what I know to be true, spending 18 years in corporate retail is that the market will always evolve. The consumer will always evolve. And so every single business or business owner at some point in time has to start thinking more broadly and more holistically about what’s happening. Just recently, I was having a conversation with somebody that I brought up. It was a different example, but it reminded me of Kodak. Kodak used to completely own the business share.

Blake Schofield (16:31.85)

But they looked so narrowly at their business that when digital cameras came, they didn’t see it as competition at all because they didn’t really understand what business they were in. They were really in the business of preserving memories, but they thought they were in the film business. They were not. Consumers didn’t see it as the film business. Their consumer, right, saw it as a way to preserve those memories. 

Blake Schofield (17:01.128)

I’ve seen so often over and over again that companies get so myopic about how they’re looking at business or how they’re serving consumers and they then therefore create huge risk in their organization and or become extinct because they haven’t kept up with a consumer. so one of the things I really value about the work that you do is I can see the intersection behind it all, right?

Business used to be about shareholder value and profit and how do we drive those things? And those were the key things. But as a society, we’ve started really saying, what is the place of business? And where does business serve and what’s their responsibility to, not just their shareholders, but their employees and their consumers? 

Blake Schofield (17:56.991)

And we are seeing a rising expectation that business is showing up in ethical ways and goodness gracious if you don’t look at what’s happening right now in society we’re like all of the things a lot of things that have been hidden that are highly unethical that have been done are starting to really come to the surface. 

And so when I look at the heart of what we’re talking about, which is how do I get to what are my values and what are we doing? What’s the intention behind this business? What are the values behind this business? What’s the second or third or fourth order consequences of the choices that we are making in business? And how does that impact really our footprint and everything that we’re touching? 

I think it’s going to be even more critical now and in the future than it ever has been. You know, when we had Toms and some of these businesses show up and do this, it was like, can that work? And you see it does. You can see so much from some of them, when you look at just values-based fundraising, social fundraising, there’s huge momentum behind those when people share the same values, and that’s not distinctively different than business. I think we just haven’t always connected things together.

Sarah Harris (19:16.585)

I feel like in my experience for a long time, we were trained and taught maybe not to do that. Don’t bring your whole self. You bring the part of you that’s efficient and productive, and you speak in your high command voice and you get things done. There’s sort of a macro and a micro sense, sort of the perceived expectation of how you win in business and how you conduct yourselves and how you go about doing things. 

And thankfully, and probably in large part because of some of the transformation happening around us. And even just if you go back, like the breakthrough of social media, the evolution of the internet, the clear emergence of AI, disrupting things, like all of these disruptions are COVID several years ago. I mean, it forces us to live in a new paradigm and be more whole, more of who we are fully. And what we’re realizing is that that actually is good for people and good for business and good for the planet and good for our communities. 

It’s kind of good all the way around. But it’s not necessarily the starting place when we organize society to be vulnerable in that way and to show up as your full authentic self. But I think business leaders and brands who do that and do it consistently and well, they shine and they attract. They attract talent, customers, loyalty, everything that we would want to have.

Blake Schofield (20:46.437)

And the employees inside those organizations are so clear on the mission and the values that when the challenges come for work, there’s a lot less stress and cognitive dissonance because they know the lens of which to make decisions by, right? This is how you scale organizations and is when the organization lives and breathes those values so that the decisions become much easier and much more aligned. It’s interesting hearing you say that because for the last nine years, I’ve been working with you know, leaders who have been suffering from not being as fulfilled in their career or going through cycles of burnout or feel like they’re sacrificing their health or their family and don’t want to sacrifice their income to do work that they’re passionate about. 

And what I consistently saw and what I’ve consistently been teaching aligns with the framework of what you’re talking about. So I know this to be true. So many people don’t really understand that by not being clear on their highest value and what they need to be fulfilled in their work and how they work best to create that highest value, they’re putting themselves and the organization at a huge disservice. By just thinking like, have to be, I have to fit in every type. I mean, I’ve had people say to me like, I work just as well in a startup as I do a large traditional organization. I’m like, no, you don’t.

All that does is tell me you actually don’t understand how you work best because those are very different environments that require different skill sets and different ways of working. And so I think we had a way of working which was like to your point, separate who you are from your work and you should just be equally, you should be equally as good as everything and you can fit in any organization.

Blake Schofield (22:39.407)

And what I’ve seen is that misalignment when you have somebody working on a team that’s working against how they’re naturally wired, they’re two to three times less productive and physically they’ve tracked, have more stress and less fulfillment in their work. When you start thinking about that from an organization, what I consistently see with my clients is when you’re clear on what is my highest value, what am I looking for, how do I work best? 

You actually become the lead candidate for the role because that connection is so clear. Like this is the perfect person for our culture and our organization. And so it’s an individual employee thing and it’s also an organizational thing because the clarity behind that to your point draws the right people and the right people with that shared mission and value. You don’t have the same level of friction. You have a continuity and a momentum that helps push you forward in new ways. 

And so I still think this is a place as a society, we get into scarcity mode believing that, if we say this is who I am and what fits or doesn’t fit, that there not gonna be enough opportunity. But we often forget we don’t need to work at every single company. We don’t need every single consumer that exists. And by being more specific behind who we’re for and why, we get so much stronger over results because we’re pulling in the right people.

Sarah Harris (24:10.889)

I think you’re exactly right. It’s hard to, you know, sometimes say that because it feels like you’re letting go of opportunity or it feels like maybe you’re ruling things out. But that clarity does allow you to figure out whether it’s a job in the right fit or if you’re a business leader and you’re trying to figure out what issue do we speak out on? Like people are often asking, should we speak out about this or should we take a stand on that?

It’s not for me to advise on what you should or shouldn’t be speaking out on, but it goes back to what is your purpose? And are you clear about the brand voice? What is authentic to you? whether it’s where you’re going to work or what issue you’re going to stand for or the purpose of your organization, the more clear you can be about what it is and why, the easier all of those decisions are. And I think this is the work that you do. 

The better you feel about it the more likely you are to be thriving as a person and an organization because you’re completely sort of in the flow with your values and with who you are as a person.

Blake Schofield (25:19.466)

Well, and it’s interesting, like I said, the time that we are in in society. So, you know, I lived in Minneapolis for five and a half years when I worked for Target organization, Target Corporation. have clients there. I have good friends there. And so with all the unrest that’s been happening in Minneapolis, it’s been really interesting to watch how different organizations are responding to what’s happening.

And what I always look at and understand is that I think, again, often the dots aren’t connected is you really have to understand how your employees feel and what they need. And when you get out of sync with that, you are creating, in the current moment, invisible risk that will show up and impact your business in pretty negative ways. 

Burnout, fulfillment, purpose. values, feeling heard and having some advocacy and some ability to impact how you’re doing the work matter significantly to career pathing, engaged or disengaged employees, turnover, and what ultimately is a huge cost of loss of organizational value and knowledge. And as we know, hiring is challenging. 40 % of hires don’t make it past a year.

So when you start looking at doing business and being clear in values, I see a really important link and I’ll give you the example of what I’m seeing. I have a dear friend and old coworker that works at Target and has been very vocal in how disappointed she has been in their lack of taking a stand on what’s happening in Minneapolis. 

They are one of the largest companies there, they have more capability to do some things to protect their employees than a lot of smaller companies. And they’ve had some very specific instances that have happened to their employees while on the job. And they’ve remained pretty silent, it appears, externally, but also internally. And as I’ve seen her commentary, and she’s been involved in trying to get that change,

Blake Schofield (27:45.493)

Here’s what I know to be true about this work: she’s not the only one sitting in the organization saying, thought this is what we valued and I feel unsafe and I feel that the employees are unsafe. And now I’m in an organization that I don’t feel like is aligned with my values, aligned with how I think things should show up. And so the reality is she, and many of the other employees sitting inside that organization today that feel that way, the minute things settle, are going to leave. 

And the company has likely not spent the time to attach that risk to them choosing not to stand in their values and them choosing not to find a way to fully engage their team behind the mission and value and why are we taking the stand we’re taking or not. And so when you talk about doing good and doing business. 

I think they’re so heavily linked, but we often haven’t stopped to understand that those decisions we’re making around business are absolutely impacting our top line, our bottom line, our team, our ability to grow, all of those things you can’t separate because every single person that works for you, every single person that buys your service or your goods has a value system and has a belief about your brand and your company, what they think that means and whether they feel great about associating themselves with it or not.

Sarah Harris (29:19.63)

I agree wholeheartedly. listening to you describe that example, it really makes clear for me that whether we’re in an employee-employer relationship or a customer relationship or a business leader, we’re all in relationship with each other in so many different ways. 

And like any relationship, you want to be heard and seen and you want to be understood and you’re choosing relationships that are aligned with your values and who you are as a person. And hopefully, you know, people around you in all kinds of ways that are helping you be the best version of yourself, whatever level you want to interpret that. And I think that’s what businesses miss a lot of times. 

Like you said about Kodak, they’re so focused on the product or the service or the mechanism of delivery or the scale trajectory and sort of where we need to be with our unit economics. And we get lost sometimes in the process of what we’re doing and we forget that it’s people. And then it’s the relationship that makes all of it work and be valuable and be sustainable for the long haul. There’s a great book. I don’t know if you are familiar with the Infinite Game.

I think it’s a Simon Sinek book. Maybe we spoke about this before, but he describes the infinite game of if we think about business relationships or just relationships in general, as you’re pouring, you’re doing the right thing. You’re standing up for people. You’re pouring value into all of your different stakeholders and relationships. And then you almost cannot outrun when all of those people and stakeholders pour all of that value back into you as a person and as a business and it creates this beautiful infinite loop. 

And then we can operate our businesses in theory for infinity because you’re creating value in every direction and there is no sort of negative harm or unseen risk that’s ultimately gonna catch up and cause a big loss or even sink your business. So I think it’s a great framework to remind us all that these are relationships that make everything go round and we all need to be active participants in keeping those healthy relationships.

Blake Schofield (31:39.114)

100%. Let me ask you, we’ll kind of take a little bit of a diversion. What tips would you have for business owners or leaders on how they can get started thinking about doing good while doing business?

Sarah Harris (31:55.471)

I love that question and we’ve talked about it, but just to underscore for ease of everyone’s memory and takeaway, the best way to get started is being clear on your purpose. Why are you here individually and then why are you here as a brand? And I think people do well if you give them simple frameworks. So, and I’m a simple person. So the framework that I use is really finding the intersection of what are you best in the world at doing? What do your customers or your employees or your stakeholders, what do they expect from you? And then what does the world around you need? 

And if you put those three things together and you can make three little lists, like we’re great at this, our customers expect this, our community needs this, find a way to connect those three dots and your purpose will become very clear to you very, very quickly.

And I think that’s the place to get started because as we’ve said, once you’re clear on why you’re here and you can articulate, this is our purpose. This is why this organization matters to us, to our customers, to our community, then you can start to take action in a really aligned way. And it sort of ignites this virtuous cycle that we’re describing that allows you to be in a healthy relationship with everyone.

Blake Schofield (33:20.81)

I love the simplicity behind that. And I also see so many places where that could be applied even on a yearly basis as you’re starting to look at where, what have we learned and how do we continue to move forward? How do we continue to evolve? think one of the biggest things I always noticed when I was in corporate retail is a heavy reliance on last year.

And it’s easy because we want to repeat the things we know are working and our brains are wired to repeat the things we’ve done. But without enough testing of newness or enough innovation, every business dies.

And so I love this simple lens that you came back with because whether it is you’re looking to do more good or it is I’m looking at the business and saying like, let’s look again and say from what we know today, have expectations shifted. Are there things coming that are telling us that we may need to be testing or moving some things forward in a different way so that we don’t get caught by surprise or we’re not behind, but we’re really moving the business forward. 

Today that’s more important than ever because we used to be able to rely on a lot of history and that history now is not nearly as accurate or impactful as it’s been in the past. Things are just changing too fast to rely on that in the same way we have before, I think.

Sarah Harris (34:58.981)

Yeah, no, I think things are moving quickly and people need to be able to react quickly and having, I like how you’re saying, just a quick refresher, an annual review and take what is helpful from last year, quickly apply it to what we know today and make the decision for today. Like what is our best next step as of what we know today? Because tomorrow is gonna change, but today we can make the best decision that we can by being clear and just execute against what we know and continue, like you said, to look forward so that you don’t wake up and realize that you have not been aware of an invisible risk or so that you don’t wake up and realize that you’ve been operating your business in an industry that is evolving or in a way that’s sort of counter to who you want to be as a brand as you move forward.

Blake Schofield (35:55.272)

One of the things I’ve always loved about marketing and particularly ad agencies is the ability to look at a business or a brand and create one so compelling and streamlined message that it could be a jingle or a phrase that’s repeated, but it’s so sticky that you can’t miss it. 

It’s funny because I think everyone knows that that’s in business of like, that’s what marketing or an ad agency does. And I think we are evolving to a space where, the way we’ve looked at needs to be more encompassing of what a brand values and what they stand for in the same way. Because to your point, that draws in the right consumer, it draws in the right employees, it keeps a synergy and a momentum moving. And ultimately, to me at the heart of that is really impact storytelling.

It always has been in one way or another. So I’m interested in your perspective because as a marketer at the end of the day, it is all about stories and being able to communicate that effectively. How do you look at that for companies that want to do good? And what are the important elements somebody should know about how to be impactful in their storytelling?

Sarah Harris (37:23.791)

Where you started with that is, think, an important point to underline that memorable things stick and they can become movements. And a lot of brands in the past have come up with great slogans and that’s fabulous and they are memorable. Today’s leading brands, especially purpose-driven brands, are doing a really good job of articulating their purpose and doing so in a way that’s very aspirational.

And that is, I think, part of what ignites hope and possibility and belief in consumers and it attracts them, it invites them in. Like, I want to be a part of the organization that’s doing X, Y, Z. For example, I love Nike has a purpose statement of unite the world through sport. Makes a lot of sense. They’re going to sell a lot of athletic products connected to that, but they’re serving this higher purpose for humanity of unite the world through sport. 

So I think that’s first of all, just having that aspirational purpose to what you’re doing is a helpful starting place for brands. But then if you don’t do the storytelling around it, you miss the chance to capture hearts and minds and invite people to come with you on that journey. And I use the framework with clients a lot. We’ve got to meet people where they are, help them think or believe differently, we need to a slight nudge to get them to think or believe something different than what they have done before. 

And then we’ve got to make it super easy for them to support your brand or to take action to do the thing that you need them to do to become a customer. And I put it under the hopefully memorable phrase of engage people, inspire belief and insight action as a way to help people remember the marketing and the storytelling. There’s a lot to it.

But if we can just remember we’ve got to meet people where they are, go to them, help them think or believe slightly differently, and then just make it easy to do the thing that we’re encouraging them to do, we’re going to win more hearts and minds. We’re going to attract employees and customers and ultimately shine in achieving our purpose as an organization.

Blake Schofield (39:41.962)

So good. I love your simple frameworks. As somebody who dives into all the details, I have such an appreciation for people who can get up 50,000 feet and go, it’s just one sentence. It’s just one thing.

Sarah Harris (40:00.387)

It really, I mean, I know it sounds very simple. I think it’s very fun to try to take complex things and sort of back it into simplicity. And if we want to build a movement and we want people to come with us on a journey, it has to be super clear, like we’ve said, and it has to be easy for them to do it. And the aspirational part of your purpose or your vision of where you’re going is important because it helps people believe in something greater than where they are today. So it sort of prones them to.

I’m open to considering a new idea. I’m open to maybe taking action to do something about this thing that I believe in. And then if you just make it very easy for them, the next thing you know, they’re coming with you and you’ve started a movement and hopefully it’s a movement for good in the world around you.

Blake Schofield (40:49.426)

If there’s anything we need more of today, it’s that, it’s hope for a better future. It’s the ability to band together and create the positive change that we want because the world is changing one way or another. And every single one of us is part of that. Every single one of us has a part to play and an impact to make. So thank you.

Sarah Harris (41:10.402)

One quick thought just like while we’re on this and zooming out and looking at the world around us, if we, you said something earlier about like the scarcity mindset and I do think there’s a healthy choice for leaders to be aware that they are making every day of it’s a zero sum, know, scarce world or in its abundant world and there’s plenty of everything for everyone, everything that we need. So just choosing that. 

But then underneath that comes the frame of how you communicate. And so often messages are framed, particularly today, in fear. It’s scarcity and then fear. And fear is a really powerful motivator. And people do a lot of things in response when they feel unsafe. But the alternative is to frame it in an abundant mindset and then inspire hope and help people believe in something better. And it really, like as leaders, we need to be very conscious about the word choice and the framing and the call to action and the marketing. Like the actual words that we use help ignite hope and possibility and the best of ourselves or put us into a fight or flight or fear mode. And then, I mean, you will get results but it is a very different motivator for action.

Blake Schofield (42:36.265)

Yeah, that’s such a great point. And I can say from my lens and the work that I do and the experiences I’ve had, and then now working with hundreds of leaders across all industries, here’s what I know to be true. When people are in fight or flight operating from fear or high stress, you lose 30 % of your thinking capacity. 

On your best day, you only have 70 % of your capacity, which means if you’re in an organization that is very heavily fear-laden or you are in a lot of fear, anxiety, because of whatever is going on, you actually can’t access your best thinking. Not only that, but your frontal cortex, which is your creative and problem-solving part of your brain, shuts down. So you get into a mode where you maybe are black or white. You can see two options where there might actually be 50 options of choices.

And so it’s a really interesting dynamic because old school believed that people would do their best work if they were in fear and that’s how we needed to run things. But all of the data has proven that to be 100 % untrue. And so I look at a company, you know, I’m here in Seattle, Amazon is here, and Jeff Bezos has openly said he wants people to be fearful every single day that they’re going to lose their job.

That is the culture he is intentionally creating inside Amazon. And interestingly enough, they tried to recruit me and I said, absolutely not. And I have not talked to one person in depth who works at Amazon who is functioning well from a health standpoint. And in fact, I’ve had a number of people who have left the organization with essentially like almost PTSD from the level of stress and anxiety carried over a length of a period of time. 

And so you look at an organization like that and you think, well, they’re winning. But at what cost? At what cost to the employees and at what cost to turnover? People cannot produce their best work when they’re in fear and they can’t sustain that.

Blake Schofield (44:51.593)

So the cost that you are having losing people and having to replace people that could have been great if the environment was set up so that they could think at their best and they could be inspired versus having to drive things through fear. These are the things that like scientifically have been proven to be true. And I think the more we gain awareness about mental health, about burnout, about stress and anxiety, about learning how to navigate uncertainty, which as humans, we aren’t built to do. 

So we have to learn and develop that skill. I think more and more employees are going to start saying, I don’t want to work inside those organizations that put me in those types of circumstances. It doesn’t align with my value system. doesn’t align with the life I want to lead. And for me, I’m very excited to see that movement happening.

Because the companies that understand these principles and inspire people to be and operate at their best, in my opinion, should be the ones that are winning.

Sarah Harris (46:02.533)

You’re here. Totally agree with you. And I don’t I’m not on the inside track of HR at a brand like Patagonia. But I have a feeling that recruitment is in their favor because they’re they’re the opposite of what you’re describing. They’re they’re super clear about their purpose. They are definitely sort of here for the greater good. And they’re attracting people who are at the top of their game and who love their purpose of being here for our home planet. 

And as a result, they’ve developed a great brand. They certainly have a price premium in the marketplace. And they have designed their business model, in fact, to perpetually throw good back into the world around us. So they’re contrasting business models out there for sure and as individuals we’re fortunate we get to align our values with those that suit us and pour all of our energies into them and hopefully live a purposeful life and career at the same time.

Blake Schofield (47:04.743)

Agreed. was interesting. actually saw some of the Patagonia stuff recently and to your point, what they say is their value is actually also how they’re showing up right now in what’s happening in society. It’s the same message. It’s the same value system and that authentic through line I think creates to your point more loyalty of like, yep, they say that they believe in this and their actions align with that consistently.

I know what to expect. know what I’m getting. I know that we’re in agreement and alignment. And like I said, I believe that’s going to become even more important with how chaotic things are. people need to feel like they are in alignment and working for something that matters.

Sarah Harris (47:55.738)

And ironically, the brands that are doing that, to your point, they’re steady and stable and they’re like the thing people can trust when everything else around you feels like it’s shifting.

Blake Schofield (48:07.787)

Well, thank you so much. We’re almost out of time. And as I expected, this conversation went very fast.

Sarah Harris (48:14.693)

Indeed it did. This was very fun and I think we could keep going for a whole other episode very easily.

Blake Schofield (48:20.999)

I know I do too. Well, with that said, is there anything I didn’t ask you that you wish I would have, or is there anything you’d just like to close out our time together by sharing?

Sarah Harris (48:32.057)

Hmm. The thing that feels important and timely is to tap us all on the shoulder and remind us all that we have more to give than we realize. And if we give ourselves an abundant mindset and creative space, we can do our best work individually. But as business owners and leaders, we can in fact design business models and new markets of opportunity and even some strategic pivots that would allow us to make money and do good. So I guess I wanna leave people with the inspiration and the hope that it doesn’t matter. So like where you are in your career, what industry you’re in or where you are in the business cycle, these principles work, give them a try.

Blake Schofield (49:23.849)

I love that. And Sarah, if someone is listening, is like, I’d love to learn more about Sarah and the work she does and follow her. How can they find you?

Sarah Harris (49:32.675)

You can of course find me on LinkedIn, Sarah Harris, and you can also find us on our website, accelerateimpactconsulting.com.

Blake Schofield (49:42.645)

Thank you so much for sharing your time, your wisdom and your perspective with me and with the audience today.

Sarah Harris (49:49.391)

Thank you, Blake. This was a blast. I appreciate it.

Blake Schofield: 

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