49. A serial entrepreneur who knows how to do good as a business (f. Brent Freeman)
Is it possible to do good for the world while doing good business? ☀️ Entrepreneur, public speaker, and client Brent Freeman knows it’s true! In this episode, we talk through the ins and outs of social entrepreneurship and how to structure your business to make impact. No matter your income, you’ll be inspired by Brent’s wisdom to make the world a better place—one good act at a time.
Episode transcription
Lauren:
Hello and welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Lauren.
Phil:
And I’m Phil
Lauren:
Isn't saying that part the worst?
Phil:
No I like it. We’ve definitely switched things up today for good. Oh, how about that for a segue.
Lauren:
I am impressed! Bravo, my friend.
Phil:
Now, since you're in charge of this episode, please elaborate on the segue that I threw at you
Lauren:
Today, our guest is, not only a client of ours, but he's a really, he's a savvy businessman and he's really focused on not only being good at business, but doing good for the world. Our guests Brent, has built businesses from scratch and made so much success in his lifetime. But everything that he does is thinking about the world around him. And part of his area of expertise is guiding entrepreneurs and businesses so that they can make business decisions that also have a philanthropic twist. Wouldn't you say, Phil?
Phil:
Yes, exactly. And that is a perspective that is, well, at least it's new to me and that's why I was so excited to have him on, to not talk at a high level how companies can be more charitable. We all know we can and we should be. But how in smaller steps, more tangible ways, it's something we can integrate day to day to become better. That's what I love about this conversation with Brent.
Lauren:
Yeah, and I think that people who are feeling like uninspired with their brand or feel like they're kind of in a business rut, we'll find this episode very invigorating because it'll help you find a greater purpose for your business.
Phil:
100% well, should we do it since you're in charge, I'll let you decide. Should we do it? Should we listen?
Lauren:
Let's start our episode with Brent. I was inspired by you. Okay, let's do it.
Phil:
I am super happy to have my new and dear new friend Brent on the phone. Brent, hello. You are in San Francisco if I'm going to guess.
Brent:
Yep, sunny San Francisco, as it pours rain here.
Phil:
Well, okay, don”t. Yeah, I was going to say don't brag because I'm in rainy London. It's like I feel like any kind of moment of sun, like you should stand by the window and just stare up into the sky, like relish the moment. Speaking of sunshine, get ready for this segue. When you and I connected on the phone for the first time, which was only a few weeks ago, you are that little ray of sunshine. I thought we went onto this phone call and we didn't even, I love that we both were the same. We didn't get on the phone to like accomplish something, a business deal, a particular like negotiation. It was none of that.
It was a dear friend, a mutual friend actually that Lauren is great friends with as well. Her friend Dom said, you guys need to meet and talk. And that's what we did. And I said to you, we need you on this podcast because in a matter of minutes you inspired me to take inventory of my business and go, what am I doing beyond generating business and keeping clients happy and doing a job that I love, that's good for me, but what am I doing in my business that's good for other people? That was a serious point of inspiration for me. So that's the conversation I want to have with you today. How we can do good without having to spend millions of dollars in order to accomplish it. We're not Toms shoes. So what are so you know, ways that we can get creative with this. How does that sound?
Brent:
That sounds awesome. And thank you for the kind where the, I agree. It was wonderful chatting and honored to be on the podcast today. So thanks for having me.
Phil:
Well, I want to kind of just tell people a very short version of your journey that has landed you in this moment of realizing that it's not just about money. Can you kind of just take us on a very brief version of that journey, to how you've arrived at this moment now, knowing that it's not just about money. And a lot of entrepreneurs seem to focus on that. Don't they?
Brent:
Yeah, yeah. Well, money is important and makes the world go round, but we get caught up in cause of chase for money for its own sake. But oftentimes we forget why we're doing that. And so, you know, in my journey it started, uh, when I lost my mom to cancer when I was about six and a half years old and kind of had my world shook out of a, as a young kid that every day is a gift that we're not promised that by destination. Right? And so the journey really matters. Fast forward to my entrepreneurial career. I started my first business at the age of 21 and I was graduating college with a ton of student loan debt, which a lot of people can resonate with these days and I had always done philanthropy work on the side but like the American Cancer Society and I was really passionate about giving back and teaching and helping mentor kids and things like that.
And then I had this pension to start businesses. And those two worlds are separate and it's kind of traditionally how we've had that world be. The business world, and then you have the philanthropy world, nonprofit world and those you know are kind of at odds. A lot of people have taken the kind of old school model of make a ton of money then give back and use it as just the tax deduction and reduce your taxes and things like that. Or even if there is an altruistic motive behind it, it's been kind of a separate thing.
And in my entrepreneurial journey, my first company, I Chased the money, the commodities trading business, and long story short, made a ton of money, then lost a ton of money and realized that in the money making process, that it was a pretty hollow empty experience when I achieved that quote unquote success.
And then when I looked around at all the successful people that had all the money, I realized they were pretty unhappy humans and pretty documented too actually. And uh, they had all the physical things and the toys and planes and yachts and millions and millions of dollars, but they didn't have the one thing that mattered to me, which was, which was happiness and a sense of purpose.
And so the global financial crisis killed that business then I had the opportunity through failure to reinvent myself and I jumped into the digital marketing world. And, I had met the founder of Toms when he started, when I was in college and was always inspired by this melding of the two worlds of philanthropy and entrepreneurship into one. I set out on a journey to really reinvent my entrepreneurial career to prove to the world that you can make a difference and a profit at the same time. Those two don't have to be mutually exclusive.
You don't have to pillage resources and people and take advantage of things to make a ton of money and then hope one day you can be a philanthropist and give back. But rather you can do good along the way, and the journey. I launched the online marketplace platform for those brands and built that up, learned a lot. Now I run a digital marketing incubator for online subscriptions brand, where we focus on helping these brands grow and scale their businesses online and integrate social good into what they do. We call it embedding cause into your cogs. And that's, that's kind of the high level.
Phil:
Beautiful. Let's talk about embedding cause in your cogs at a level that feels approachable for a small business or an entrepreneur, just getting started out there is this kind of, maybe it's a myth that you have to be making lots of money to give lots of money back. So let's, let me, let me give you the challenge of a business that makes no more than $300,000 a year. Super small business. What are some things that they could start doing to give back for good.
Brent:
Great question. First and foremost, it starts with the founder if they're passionate about what the cause is, but they want to integrate. And that really it has to be authentic because consumers sift out if it's just for marketing or if it's an authentic ploy to get attention. And so first and foremost, it starts with an authentic desire to use your business to create social change. Millennials, especially these days in Gen Z, it is part of their consumer buying behaviors. So it's not just a nice to have to make me feel that as a business owner, but it actually drives consumer purchases. And there's been tons of studies done where about 95% of millennials when presented with two products of equal value and service and one has the cause, they'll, they'll choose the cause oriented one. So it's not just good for the world, it's good for business as well.
Um, and it has to be authentic. So the way that I would describe the integration for a small is look at what you're passionate about as a founder, what you believe in and want to make a difference in, and then look at your business and hopefully there's continuity between what you're passionate about and what your business does. So for example, if you run a food company, let's say you run a local restaurant or something like that, well, let's say you're really passionate about cancer research, right? And those two can seem, um, at odds, right?
But one of the ways that you can do it is you could say, well, maybe there's a way for us to, once a week or once a month, be able to donate meals to people who are going through chemotherapy or people or help families who just lost a loved one from cancer. There could be local organizations that you can partner with to volunteer your time, your skills, and your resources to help give back.
Another way that people can do it, in that scenario, they could say, well, you know, I really feel passionate about cancer, but that feels like there's a disconnect between our products and what we want to do.
I don't know how many people know, but there's a really big problem in the US around hunger what they call food insecurity. Um, over 40 million Americans, I believe every year go hungry, 29 million of those are kids and Feeding America is the largest nonprofit food organization. And for every dollar that is donated, they're able to provide about 10 meals, right? And they're so efficient in their distribution, that every dollar goes a really long way. So another way that an organization could do is they could say, hey, for every meal we sell at our restaurant, we're going to donate a dollar to Feeding America. And that could provide 10 meals to those in need.
You can say, well, how do you know? How did that make sense that, you know, 10 cents can actually provide a meal. It's audited by the IRS on a website. They're that efficient with their impact.
And so there are multiple ways to integrate cause into your service based upon what type of business you have. But the most important thing is that it has to make financial sense for you in a business because if you give too much of your profits, give too much of your service and you're not focused on the core engine of your business, it's going to become burdensome.
So what we highly recommend is integrating the cause in a sustainable way. Just like you can't sell your product without sourcing materials or in the restaurant’s case without buying ingredients, you couldn't sell your product without having this be a part of it. It should be part of your cost of goods sold. So as you scale the for profit side of your business, so does your impact.
And another great way for everybody to do this in a really turnkey manner, there's an organization in Los Angeles called Pledgeling and what Pledgeling does is they create the nonprofit partnerships on the back end, help you do the research for the unit impacted how much a $1.25 cents could make in terms of impact with the organization. And then do the accountability tracking and they do all of the social good behind brands like Ebite and Discovery Channel and Tinder and a bunch of others as well as a bunch of small brands and they are really turn key method to integrating this for small businesses.
Phil:
Wow.
Lauren:
What a cool business. That's really cool.
Phil:
I didn't know about them. This is really cool. I'm on their website right now and it's super impressive and, just very easy to understand.
Brent:
It's turnkey. And this used to be something that we did manually for many years and then a lot of companies struggled with. And Pledgeling has been a, um, they're a totally disruptive model to allow small businesses to be able to, at the literally turnkey integrate impact into their businesses.
Lauren:
I have a question about that, kind of that line that you mentioned about making sure that it's financially sustainable when you're trying to do good. So a lot of our listeners are recent graduates, like I've got a graphic designer in mind right now while I ask this, and this graphic designer graduated about three years ago and he's really not sure where his next dollar is coming from. He's doing well enough to, you know, pay the bills and make rent and save a little bit. But he works a lot because he doesn't really know where the money's coming from next. So in that circumstance, like where do you draw that line and how would this designer know when it's time to do good or integrate good acts into his work?
Brent:
So I think that's a great question. I think the most important thing is that you don't want to integrate it in a way that doesn't allow you to pay bills or is not something that you want to force anyone to integrate. But if they're passionate about a cause and a concept and want to use their business to create impact, integrating it from the beginning is actually the best and easiest way to do it because it just becomes a part of who you are, what your service is and how customers know you. And it actually can be kind of a competitive advantage. It can become the reason why the behind people will hire you. You could be the mouthpiece that they use to talk about your product and service to other people and it's just a part of who you are and what you're building as a brand.
So I always recommend if it’s authentic and something that they believe in and are passionate about that they integrate as soon as they can in a sustainable way. And so for this graphic designer, it could be a $10 donation, it could be $100 on this could be his time, right? It could be. It really depends on the individual circumstance. The sustainable side of it, to be clear, what we're talking about is harnessing a for profit business model to create social impact and embedding the cause into that business model.
So as you scale your core business, so does your social impact and it's not this dual profit and having to manage both, it's scaling the for profit side of the business and so does your social impact because it's embedded into what you do.
Phil:
Right. I love it. That's a mindset almost, right? Like, sorry to interrupt you, but I am now connecting the dots. It's a mindset. It's not, this is an optional thing that I'm doing on the side because I'm nice and because I'm passionate because it's important to me. It needs to be equal. Equal in your mind with I need to make money to pay the bills to pay my employees.
Brent:
Yeah. So the way that I describe it is you that have cause marketing which is very important and does a lot of good, right? Cause marketing is like breast cancer awareness month, right? Which um, you know, everything turns pink and can focus on other great organizations. But breast cancer doesn't go away after October. Right? Right. And marketing cause marketing again does a lot of good but has slighted beginning dates of when the campaign start and end. Cause integration. You build in the social good into the DNA and culture and the product of your business is who you are. You can't be what your brand is without it. Toms is the primary example. Patagonia is another fantastic example, right? If you take away the environmental focus from the how to go in your brand, it is not Patagonia. And, and that's what we're talking about.
It's about building it into the DNA and the culture of your core product, service and business. And because as you grow in scale, especially if you take on investors and all that kind of stuff, it's very, it'd be very easy to say, oh, times are tough. We gotta strip this out and you know, we'll do that when we can afford it. We have to focus on the business first.
But when you build it into the DNA company, you can't strip it out. It is who you are. It is what you're doing. And it's just as important as buying your materials and selling products. And that's why it has to be sustainable financially.
Lauren:
I love it. I love it. Are there any examples that you've personally been part of where you've seen this mindset of social responsibility, transform and improve though over all business?
Brent:
Yeah. So I think it's really important to understand when we, when I was running my marketplace for social good brand, we had a thousand brands under management and the thing I can tell you is that people won't buy just for social good. They need to, they're first going to want to buy a product that they love and want and that they can afford and that is attractive to them. The social good becomes kind of what keeps them coming back and builds the brand affinity, but it's not the reason why they buy it.
And so when we, one of the brands I’m the co founder of, is a brand called Yoga Club, which is women's athletic apparel subscription, right? And for about $80 a month or per quarter and you get a full brand name outfit, three items delivered to your doorstep. Whereas like one pair of yoga pants at the retail costs you $120 you get this awesome stuff delivered, curated from your personal style.
And when you were starting this brand, I was really focused on how can we use this subscription recurring revenue business model that we knew women would love, deliver a high quality product to also create social impact that was authentic with the brand and the mission. And what we did is we integrated a, uh, we donate a yoga class and meditation class basically to low income at risk elementary school kids for every box that we ship. And we partnered with Pledgeling to help us with this.
And we worked with an organization in Los Angeles called La is Best and we provide both financial as well as resources, curriculum team, all of that. And physically go into the schools to teach meditation and yoga to basically like 8,9 and 10 year olds who are in pretty tough, challenging circumstances in an after school program. And we've been able to donate over 100,000 classes worth, and help them build out their curriculum.
And so what that's doing is it's taking the core mission of the brand for every box we sell, another class gets donated and so more boxes that we sell, the more classes we're able to provide. Right. And single handedly, we've been able to fund this yoga program. So that's one example of when I was intimately involved in and helps set up from the beginning and Pledgeling was a critical piece in helping us find La is Best and it's a, it's the DNA of the brand, it's who we are and it's not something that will ever go away.
Lauren:
I love it. I love it so much. It's like I'm really inspired right now.
Phil:
Me Too. This is how I felt after I talked to this guy and that's why I'm like this needs to be more than just an individual conversation. I have a fun exercise for the three of us to do because Brent, you've really made it clear how anyone can incorporate this into their business. Not model, not after they've had success from the minute they start from the minute they start in business and pursue for profit business, they can incorporate this from the beginning. And if you haven't done that, you should consider incorporating it right away.
So I want to make this super clear to people how easy it is and in ways that don't always involve a lot of money. So what I thought we could do, I wasn't prepared to do this because I just got this crazy idea. I'm literally going to pull up our podcast in iTunes. Okay, here we go. Brand Therapy and I'm gonna call right at random and it won't just be, you guys can do this too. I want to look at our past gas by job title and I think we should creatively brainstorm something that that person could do to give back. What do we think? Do you guys like this idea?
Lauren:
I love it. Let's do it. Okay.
Phil:
Getting crazy. Okay. So I’ll pull the first one and then Lauren, you can pull the next one. And then whoever gets the idea first, just chime in with the idea. The first one, episode 27, we spoke to a mommy blogger who wanted to change her brand. So what could a mommy blogger do to give back?
Brent:
Okay, so, uh, mommy bloggers can give back in multiple ways. So social entrepreneurship doesn't necessarily have to be a Tom's buy one get one. It can be how you treat your employees. It can be how you structure your company to make it an amazing work place. So first thing that comes to mind is creating a, uh, a space of the mommy blogger. If you're big enough where you're content producers and, uh, are all full time moms and part time workers, right? And giving them the ability to work remote, flexible mental life to both raise their family and contribute. That's one way internally to be socially conscious.
Externally another way. could be to utilize their content to shine light on, um, a nonprofit organization that need their attention. So maybe giving some of the remnant advertising space to nonprofits that need their attention to raise funds or, and depending upon their actual, a lot of mommy bloggers like CPA campaign. They can take a like say they get $10 per sale for something that they promote per item or something like that. Take a portion about a dollar and donate to an orphan fund or some sort of like in the boys and girls club or some sort of organization that helps. Single mothers organizations, something along those lines. So that's top of mind kind of ripping how I would think about it in 30 seconds.
Phil:
I love it. And to build on that idea, we often talk about like with content planning, assigning content topics on your Instagram. So looking at your feed and two rows of three, um, you know, if you want to hear more now you can listen to a past episode. But for example, through just through content, not even through spending money but your time and your platform, you could dedicate one of those content types to non-for-profits letting people know about what exists and not just the obvious ones we all know about as a reminder, but maybe some that are smaller and need a lot of help where a single dollar or $10 donation it makes a huge difference.
Brent:
The key here, Phil is thinking about it, not just in terms of marketing wants and doing a campaign. It's integrating it into how you operate and do your business. So that's a great, brilliant idea. If a mommy blogger were to do that, my suggestion would be to authentically do that. So customers and followers and people who are at a readership, they can know what to expect every time in that area. And it's part of the brand experience. Always.
Phil:
Beautiful. That example I think applies to a lot of the guests we had Lauren will continue this brainstorm on what people could do and in the last part of this show, just to be respectful of Brent's time, but wow. Wow. How actionable has this conversation been? Thank you so much Brent for this. I'm all jazzed up.
Brent:
Well, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah, I mean this is something clearly I'm passionate about, but I think what you know, I'd want to leave your ego listeners up is just understanding that it starts with small steps and if you are passionate and authentic about wanting to integrate this in and just don't know where to get started and need some kind of help, pledgeling.com is going to be your fastest, quickest way to do it. They're just a great group of people, extremely passionate about this. I've used them personally for my businesses and it really kind of takes the scary out of the cause integration across the board. And, uh, you know, I think nothing matters other than just getting started and building it into who you are, how customers and, and the world and experiences your brand in a sustainable way. And then making sure it's sustainable, not too much. So that way you, you know, you can be tended to strip it out in the future, but um, then girl the crop out of your business cause then so does your social impact.
Phil:
Beautiful. Thank you so much for this, for hanging out with us on brand therapy. And how can people find you online or keep in touch with you, keep tabs on you? Where should they go?
Brent:
Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. That's kind of the fastest professional way or they're there, they can email me. Um, honestly I'm, I'm totally down for that. I get a ton of emails a day, but I usually respond within a week it's just brent@stealthventurelabs.com. That's going to be the fastest and quickest way to reach me. And if anyone has thoughts or questions or anything around this topic, more than happy to chat.
Phil:
Amazing. Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much for this really inspiring conversation and we will catch up with you soon.
