In recent years, a new approach to entrepreneurship has been evolving which is often referred to as Conscious Business.
According to Wikipedia, “Conscious businesses subscribe to a Triple Bottom Line model of success. They aim to provide positive value in the domains of people, planet, and profit.”
Although I was aware of corporate social responsibility and values-based investing, I didn’t know that Conscious Business was a thing – especially among individual business owners – until I met Kathy Mason.
Kathy has been an entrepreneur for most of her career. Today she runs a digital marketing agency and is the host of the Conscious Business Zone podcast.
Since being introduced the concept, I’ve been doing some research on Conscious Business and find that it appeals to me and is in alignment with most of my existing business values and principles.
But I can see where some businesspeople might feel that the approach is too “soft” and not well-suited to the dog-eat-dog world of competitive business.
In this episode you get a chance to meet Kathy Mason, learn more about Conscious Business, and decide whether it has anything to offer you and your company.
Learn more about Kathy’s agency: https://masonworksmarketing.com/
Watch Kathy’s video podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KathyMasonLove
What follows is a computer-generated transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
Frank Felker 00:22
Thank you, Dude Walker. Yes indeed, I am Frank Felker. Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise. My guest today is Kathy Mason, of Mason Works Marketing and the host of the Conscious Business Zone podcast. Kathy Mason, welcome to the program.
Kathy Mason 00:38
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Frank.
Frank Felker 00:41
I’m very excited that you’re here, Kathy, we’re going to talk today about conscious business, which I will admit I didn’t know was a thing. Now there’s a famous person in the news recently, these days who might say, you know, a lot of people don’t know that. And when they just discovered that there’s something they didn’t know was going on. I don’t think that’s quite the case. I think there’s a lot of people who know about conscious business, but I was not among them. So I found out when you interviewed me about my online course, how to hire and keep great people, that I might actually be a conscious businessperson already. And I and I just didn’t know it. So I want to start with a definition of conscious business that I found on Wikipedia. And then I’m going to pepper you with questions about what all this means to a real-life businessperson like yourself. So let me start with that. on Wikipedia, I found this conscious business is where it is its conscious business, conscious businesses subscribe to a triple bottom line model of success. They aim to provide positive value in the domains of people, planet, and profit. So what I take that to mean, and then I will ask you for your take on it is that not only are they looking to generate profit and value for the company in themselves, but they also want their business and their business activities to generate value for other people and the planet? Does that sound? Right? What what’s your take on what conscious business is? Kathy?
Kathy Mason 02:15
Well, I, I, you had already, let me know that you’re going to ask me this question. So I started to wonder about it because I have a varied description about it, depending on
Frank Felker 02:35
that’s great, at least it’s not like a baby coming in. And a walker,
Kathy Mason 02:40
depending on actually who I’m speaking with. Because a lot of businesses already understand the principle, which is very much like the indigenous people. If you look at the American Indians, they always said to make decisions that when you made your decision, it will affect seven generations. And when you look at life through the that way to make decisions, you look at a whole different way of dealing with people. You look at your employees, as customers, internal customers, and your external customers as partners. So it’s a pretty different way of looking at business, where it’s a, instead of a hierarchical model, which is a traditional business model, where the CEOs at the top, a lot of conscious businesses are a circle. And because everyone has input in everyone is value. I believe that that’s the way society is going. That right now we’re seeing the apex of change, that’s going to be prominent in this new decade, that we’re, it’s already started, where the predominance will not be on greed and corporate structure, it’s going to be on contribution, and collaboration. And I think our education system is going to change our monetary system, the whole thing is in flux right now. And conscious business is going to be something that you assume people are doing,
Frank Felker 04:32
rather than being surprised when you see it. Well, that that certainly seems like we’re going in that direction. And that may be the case one day, but you know, you have a lot of old white guys like myself who just heard about this. And a lot of other people I’m sure as well, or even people who may have heard of it, but think it’s you know, a lot of hoo-hah that they really don’t want to get involved with. So I think one descriptive or instructive way that we can move forward with this conversation is for me to sort of play devil’s advocate about it. Now, as I mentioned, I found out, I’m actually completely in favor of what I’ve learned about it so far. But the way I was trained in Business School, and the things that I’ve seen over time, are antithetical to this, and, and, of course, have not always worked so well. So let me start at a very fundamental level, when I was in Business School, one of the things we were taught is that the object, the objective of the corporation, is to maximize profits. And what you’re talking about here sounds expensive. It sounds like you know, I’m not going to be able to dump my wastewater in the river. And you know, I’m going to have to be by fair trade supplies, and I’m going to have to, you know, deal legitimately with all of my clients and employees, how in the world am I going to make a living? How am I going to make a profit under these conditions? Kathy?
Kathy Mason 05:57
Okay, so I, I do understand the question. But I think the question really is, how do you want to live?
Frank Felker 06:09
Oh, wow, what a great answer. That was,
Kathy Mason 06:12
I believe that the future holds a different paradigm of education and engagement with others. The way we want to live is we want to live in harmony with nature, and with others, we want to a peaceful world to leave our grandchildren and great grandchildren. And what we’ve got right now is business’s war. And I don’t believe that that’s what’s going to survive in the next decade, I think we’re not very far away from things totally re-structuring. And part of that is going to happen because of the free energy that is going to be available. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie thrive to that out. But I highly recommend you look at that. What’s happening is that there’s all sorts of technology that’s going to instead of the AI fear that it’s going to take over and cyborgs you’re going to control your life, AI is actually going to be an equalizer. And what you’re seeing right now with the with what’s happening with the lockdown is we’re seeing these people that are online, speaking up, coming up with brilliant new ideas. And because of the availability of online marketing, and online visibility, their voice can be heard and shared. So I think we’re in brand new times we’re conscious businesses will be the norm. One of the things I want you to know about is that when this first came to me was about 10 years ago, I was doing a marketing plan for humanity’s team, which has over 70,000 members worldwide. It’s a group that was started by Neale Donald Walsh, the author of conversations with God and is headed by Steve Fierro. And he asked me to do their marketing plan. Then it took over a year went to Greece went to Portugal with them. And we came up with a plan that included conscious business is part of a way to trance transform the earth. And business is the ideal way to create these new systems because business touches everyone’s lives. So they actually have on their website, they have a conscious business declaration, you can sign it, it’s in, I don’t know five languages. There’s also magazines now called conscious business magazines that are now online. So I think you’re going to see even though conscious business, some may be new to you. There’s a whole chapter of people. Now the other thing in the 80s I think late 80s, early 90s there was a book that was written and I’m kind of I don’t know that I’m going to remember the author’s name, but it was about cultural creatives. Have you heard of that? cultural creatives? Okay, so this book, it’s like a doorstop. It’s this wide. It’s read cover. Cultural creatives are a new marketing category, I guess. That is not your standard demographic category. The standard demographic is by how many kids you have, how much income you make, what whether you have a house or not. kind of car, you drive all of those things which show your interest in your preferences, what cultural creatives did is they started a new way to identify interests, which is what social media has done so well. That’s what one of the benefits of marketing on Facebook is the interest side with cultural creatives have done is said that people are passionate about their interests. And what you’re seeing is cultural creatives, mostly our conscious business oriented, and it’s a huge part of the population. It’s growing every year. I I’m sorry, I don’t remember the author’s name, sorry about it, because he deserves a lot of credit.
Frank Felker 10:48
You’ve done a great job of painting the big picture. And, you know, making it clear that I’m way behind the curve on this. I’m not surprised. But in any event, what I what I’m kind of want to dig down to, though is, what does it mean, on a day-to-day basis for a business owner that’s watching or listening to us right now? And, you know, I break down business operations from a variety of areas, but one that I’m sure everybody would agree is a critical success area is managing people. What How does conscious business impact hiring and managing people? Okay,
Kathy Mason 11:30
well, I think what the best way for you to understand the technique or the systems to use for conscious business is to think of team and I, for the past 20 years, in corporate America team has been the model for getting anything done, it’s been the model where there might be a team lead, but most of the people on the team are all at the same level. And in fact, you could actually do a circle and put the leader in the center. And then everyone else is at the same level rather than a pyramid again. So if you look at that model, and then you just expand it into these different areas of the corporate model, you’ll see that when people have meetings, and everyone has to come to the meeting, with what they promised to perform on, and they have to come the next week with that same list and explain how far they got along, got on the list. And the whole team is depending on that performance, it’s a different thing, then someone just gave me something and I’m a victim of that mom. This is this is about being empowered and really involved in what you do, and care and passionate. That’s why I brought up the cultural creatives. I mean, this is a different way of being vibrantly alive and excited about what you do rather than feel like you’re forced, you’ve got the golden handcuffs, right?
Frank Felker 13:16
Well, and also then requires the manager to show trust and respect. or whoever’s in the center of the circle, I don’t know what we’re going to call that person. And that’s something that I talked about in in my course, and also other guests that I’ve had on. And that’s kind of a whole new way of thinking. You know, the standard x style of management is the beatings will continue until morale improves. That’s pretty much gone the way the dodo bird, but it’s still a lot of people, especially smaller business owners, who default to that because they really don’t know what else to do. But you know, you made me think of something Have you I read a book once called Delivering Happiness by Tony Shea, the not the founder, but longtime CEO of Zappos, are you familiar with Zappos, his hiring and management approach?
Kathy Mason 14:04
I’m not I don’t know that much read him, except that they are definitely a conscious business.
Frank Felker 14:10
Yes. And they do a couple of interesting things like much like you talked about, they eliminated virtually all of the hierarchy. There’s not really an organizational chart, if there is, it’s all horizontal, as you mentioned, and they do another very interesting thing is after, you know, there’s always a rub during the onboarding process with a new employee, or they you know, after 90 days, are they a productive member? Are they you know, did they get it is the energy flowing the right way. And what they do at Zappos, or they did that he described in the book is after 90 days, they offer the employee $3,000 to quit. And if they don’t quit, if they loved the job so much and they feel so plugged in, that they would turn down $3,000 they’re a keeper. And so as you might have something you might be interested, it’s unfortunate Tony Hsieh Recently, I had a tragic death. But I’ll tell you that book was very influential to me. Yeah, so let’s talk about another type of another angle of business and how this might impact it. You run a marketing agency, Mason works marketing. So you know a lot about it. And I happen to know that you’re quite competitive, which, you know, some one part of me sort of feels like, Well, you know, I get what do you say you, you enjoy the game, and you love to win? And so somehow that sort of seems to run counter to what we’re talking about, but obviously, it doesn’t, because you’re so sincere. How does conscious business? Or how does a conscious business market their wares?
Kathy Mason 15:41
Well, in most cases, the aspect that I enjoy is helping people see their path. Just like anyone who does branding or specialization, a lot of times that people that come to me are very good at what they do. But they may not know how to communicate what they do, or how to self-actualize it, how to bring it into form, how to create products and services that are ideal for their client or build a passive income stream with online courses. So for the past 20 years, I’ve been working with companies, and some are large corporations, I’ve worked with telecom ever with all sorts of different companies. But right now, most of the people I’m working with are people that want to get online and really have a huge message, they have a compelling offer, and a huge message and a thing in their offering will actually help seven generations from now. Hmm, and so I, when I say I want to win, I want to win for them. I’m not really in competition with anyone but myself. Which probably sounds strange. But that’s the way I look at it is that my job is to help them brand figure out their strategy. And, and really be self-aware of what their huge gift is, and how to share it. And then the implementation part. And then I saw I have three parts, the strategy, implementation and publish to end publicists, slash publishing divisions. And they all kind of feed into each other. Not everyone wants to write a book. But almost everyone that I work with is their remarkable leaders and teachers, their remarkable change agents.
Frank Felker 17:49
So, you know, it’s funny that you just said that, because my next question was going to be, if we choose to go the conscious business path, are we going to find that we’re attracting different clients than we had been previously? I mean, it sounds as though you’re so clear about what you do and who you help and, and who you’re looking for, as a client, that there’s an energy to that and people are attracted to you. Is that a fair statement?
Kathy Mason 18:17
I did. It’s magnetism. That’s what the intent is, is that like attracts like, and resonance. So I believe that in these times of change, people are looking for leaders they can trust. And that will guide them to the new the new paradigm that we’re building right now. And there’s so much flux right now, that by connecting by your resonance, if you want to call it that, and it and resonance and values is going to make a difference, you’re going to huge changes, honestly, in the next 10 years in this 10-year period. And people it’s going to be more about trust than anything.
Frank Felker 19:09
You know, I think I could not agree with you more about the change. And we’ve seen so much change in the last 10 years and it seems to be accelerating. And it appears as though the COVID Coronavirus pandemic has accelerated a lot of changes that were already happening like people no longer commuting to work at an office building and instead working from home, and a lot of other things that are happening, some of which are really causing a lot of pain for a lot of people. I heard something many years ago, that it’s always the transition part. That’s the most painful of change. It’s not so much on the one side of the transition or once you get to the other side of the transition. It’s when you’re right in the middle of it, the mess of it. Where the most pain is I once heard it express that. You’ve got to go through the red one. To get back to the cool blue, what? How can someone use conscious business principles to help them not only survive through this transitionary? period but thrive?
Kathy Mason 20:12
Perfect question. Thank you for this question. Focus on your customer focus on the gift that you offer. What I suggest highly suggest is that you use an avatar sheet, which will identify your ideal client. And usually on the avatar sheets that I’ve seen words that we use in our process. On the right-hand side, you have goals, dreams, desires. And then at the bottom of the page, you’ll have challenges, needs, these are for your client, your ideal frustrations,
Kathy Mason 20:55
if you focus on fulfilling that right hand side, that you stand up, and if you have a solution that could help your ideal client, reduce their frustration, reduce their pain in any way, if you put all your effort into that you will succeed. It’s so easy to publish a book now to publish a PDF online to do Facebook live shows like mine, it’s so easy, you just have to know that your service, your service, is going to make a difference. And have that as a reward. It’s not really money comes later. But you’re not, you’re not doing this for money. I’m not doing this for money. This is this is for helping the greater good.
Frank Felker 21:56
Now, you just mentioned avatar sheet, I have two questions for you about that. You told us what’s on the right side of the sheet, what’s on the left side of the sheet?
Kathy Mason 22:03
Okay. Okay, on the left side of the sheet, is the I actually asked my customers to be very specific about who they’re talking to, a lot of people will say, Well, I want to work with a woman, let’s call her Marge. And she’s 4555. And, and she’s got this or that. So I painstakingly asked him to please pick one. Because when you’re in communication on your website, or in any your social media activities, you can really only talk to one person at that time. So you want to Marge, you better figure out if you’re just 50 years old. And then right below that information is also what all her interests are. So that would be whether she’s a Sierra Club member, what blog she might read, what travel information she follows whether she’s what how she eats. So it’s more about her lifestyle preferences, and what information she consumes. So that’s all on the left-hand side is so profiling the person, the perfect customer, your ideal customer in the left-hand side, and on the right-hand side is what are their challenges? What is it that they desire and dream of that there’s blocked to that you might be hard to serve?
Frank Felker 23:36
That’s great. Now, is that something that she’d like that something we could get from your website? Or where can we find that?
Kathy Mason 23:44
I guess I could make it available. I usually use it in my mindful marketing magnetism. One on one group,
Frank Felker 23:53
is it something maybe we could just run a Google search on and find?
Kathy Mason 23:57
Probably good, but probably not as good of one? So maybe, like, I’d be glad to figure out a way to get your
Frank Felker 24:05
I was just thinking is, you know, I’ve been posting up your URL, and I will do so some more that people could just you have a contact us or contact me page. Yeah. Right. They could just write in and ask you for that. Would that be alright.
Kathy Mason 24:20
Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Or at Kathy at Mason works. marketing.com be happy to share that avatar. Yeah. She would have to you have to do it. I mean, it’s one of these simple tools that whenever I do a marketing plan, people go Oh, I’ve done that before. Oh, I already know that. But it’s so valuable to have you done it, Frank.
Frank Felker 24:52
Yes, I have a very specific avatar. But I’ve only done the right side of the sheet. And so I think that’s the you know, I learned Something very important for me just send very valuable. I want to talk a little bit about the clothing business that you had. You’re in Boulder, Colorado. And, you know, when you and I were talking about my course, I was talking about that managers and business owners need to trust and respect. And also realize that the people working for them are that people, not employees, and they have lives outside of work. And it’s important for you to engage with the whole person. You told me about a couple of things that you did, and that you had low turnover and some really quality people that stick stuck with you. Can you speak to that for a couple minutes?
Kathy Mason 25:40
I owned a clothing store called the bugle, which I had for 16 years in downtown Boulder. I was on a bunch of board of directors and everything so it, it was an amazing experience. I worked there for five years, and then bought it from the previous owner. And every day I was at that store, I used to say this was my store, I do this and that ended up I was able to buy it. By the second the first year I bought it, we tripled the business. The second year, we went from 250,000 to 750,000. And then the second year we went to a million. And we were doing the same numbers as Nordstrom per square foot in our in our space 10 employees, including a full-time tailor. And, and it was a fairly small square footage. So having that many people, some were part timers, but most of them were full timers in a small space was really interesting. But what we did inside of the business that helped it grow so much as there was a lot of coaching and mentoring to the employees, each employee had a monthly it wasn’t a quota, it was a kind of a game they could play because it was things where people want to earn extra clothing, they, they want they want the money to buy extra clothes. So what we did is we set it up so that they could if they beat their own numbers, they could get more clothes for free. on it,
Frank Felker 27:34
I can see where that would be a really strong incentive.
Kathy Mason 27:37
It was fun. It was fun. The other thing is the people I got were just amazing. There was just such a lucky I want to say lucky, but I guess it was it was inspired by somehow the people that we got like to play with each other and help each other. So if like for instance, if someone came in and they were grumpy, we would play a game of to see if we could turn them around and make them happy by the time they left. Or if one person was having trouble selling. We sold suits. We sold men and ladies. I was the first woman in the US. Dona haberdashery on a men’s clothing group back in the 70s, late 70s 80s, early 80s. So anyway, that what we would do is we kind of play games to help each other. The other thing we did was for the customers, we had a thing called the executive Club, which was fashioned after frequent flyer club, okay, and that to a million because we kept track of everything that people had bought. And we’re able to tell them when something new came in, that would work with what they already their preferences, or in some cases if they needed new blue shirts or white shirts, since it was meant traditional men’s and traditional women’s clothing. There are a lot of IBM corporate type people that we’re addressing. So yeah, now those people are working from home, but that’s right.
Frank Felker 29:19
Yeah, I mentioned that’s a tough business to be in right now.
Kathy Mason 29:23
Well, I’m not sure that people understand the quality that that we’re offering now.
Frank Felker 29:30
That they just mean that people don’t need to dress up. And they don’t need to buy any new clothes, but I don’t want to go too much further down the rabbit hole on that one from here. That’s right, exactly right. So the sales are cut in half. Although I guess jackets are more expensive than slacks. But you know, I’ve wanted to reiterate something you just said which is if I can tie two loose strings together, you implement At this conscious business approach, and you literally quadrupled the sales of the company in two years. So I would answer my own question by saying, well, it appears so it can have a beneficial effect on your business. And I’ve seen other companies where they have so much turnover with the staff because they’re both really poor at hiring. They don’t onboard, they don’t train, they don’t mentor, like you talked about. They don’t make it fun at work. They don’t try to build a team. And as a result, that is what really costs them money. And it sounds as though if I can put words in your mouth that this is actually a better way all the way around for a business owner to operate, because it’s less stress on them. And it actually is going to be more successful. Is that sound like something you might say?
Kathy Mason 30:49
Yes. The other thing I would like to add to what you’re saying is that the clarity of values, when you are very clear on your values, and what values you want your company to hit, to show to demonstrate to hold dear, and you attract other people to help you implement those values in products and services, then you have the recipe for success. If you hire people that do not have the same values that they won’t stay, you’ll have a lot of turnover. Hmm.
Frank Felker 31:28
Yeah, that’s important. Well, Kathy, we’re just about out of time. Is there. First off, let me ask you, what’s the best way if somebody has been watching, and they want to talk to you about your marketing services, or they want to connect with your podcast? Or they just want to ask you more about conscious business? What’s the best way for them to try to connect with you?
Kathy Mason 31:50
Well, I would say either on low I’m on most of the social media sites, I am very active on Facebook. So if you face it, Facebook Messenger me is one way, emailing me and Kathy at Mason works. marketing.com is another way, going to Mason works. marketing.com is another way. But I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Twitter. I’m on YouTube. So I so I think they’ll be able to find me. Help. I think that this is really an exciting time, rather than a scary time. And I’m hoping to be not Pollyanna, but optimistic for people to find something that they really care about, too to work with. This is a time for a lot of people are starting small businesses with their own skills. And it’s wide open, if you will, thank you could speak to that with people need want to teach and teach online, you could speak to a lot to that, to the success and the credibility of that.
Frank Felker 33:09
Well, and I try to speak about that whenever I can. And you certainly gave me the opportunity to on your podcast. Before we go Kathy, is there some question I have not asked you, or some point that you’d like to share before we go?
Kathy Mason 33:24
Well, I would love for people to start to think about their choices. And conscious choices is really what I believe is the path that we are all going on. We are not victims of what’s happening right now. We can make conscious choices and make a better life for ourselves, our families, and our world. And so I just want to encourage all of you to start looking at your choices, looking at where you feel victimized and see what you can do to change that.
Frank Felker 34:07
Kathy Mason, thank you so much for joining me today.
Kathy Mason 34:11
Thank you, Frank. This is great, happy holidays. Thank you, Kathy.
Frank Felker 34:16
Thanks again to Kathy and thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker sand, I’ll see you on the radio.
Dude Walker 34:26
Happily serving as your ladle in the punchbowl of profits. Here’s Radio Free Enterprise with Frank Felker.
