IMPACTFUL: Part 6 – The easiest way to transform your results and the world

If you’ve ever run a business, you already know the drill: we set targets because we ‘have’ to.

Sales targets, profit targets, cash targets, referral targets… and all the rest.

And yet, for all the time we spend setting them, most traditional targets don’t actually work. They fall flat. They don’t inspire anyone - not our teams, not our customers, and if we are really honest, not even us most of the time.

But if a target doesn’t energise people, how on earth is it supposed to be achieved?

That question is exactly what drove me to write the very short book ‘Better Business Targets’ (which Paul Dunn describes as ‘brilliant’ on the dust cover, and you can download below for free as a gift from B1G1).

I wanted to create a simple, practical way to make targets not just clearer and much easier to achieve… but also much more meaningful. Something that helps you, helps your team, and also helps the wider world. And the good news is, it’s surprisingly easy.

The bottom line is that businesses do far better when their targets also do good. Not in a vague, fluffy ‘we’re good people’ way, but in a measurable, trackable, emotionally powerful way.

When your targets sit in what I call the ‘WHY sweet spot’ - where they’re good for your business, your team, customers, suppliers, contacts and the world - something magical happens. People lean in. They care more. They bring more energy, ideas, and goodwill than money could ever buy.

A SIMPLE EXAMPLE

To show how simple this can be, I use a case study in the book- a tale of two coffee shops that are next door to each other and look completely identical. Same coffee, same price, same friendly baristas.

But one shop uses traditional targets (‘make £1m profit’), and the other reframes that target into something bigger: ‘provide 1 million days of help for people in need.’ Not by charging customers more - but by linking every cup of coffee to something meaningful, like a day of clean water or a meal for a child. And by letting customers choose which impact is created through a quick QR scan while they wait for their coffee to be made.

Every time I’ve shared this example - over 3,000 times now - more than 99% of people say they would buy their coffee from the shop with the 1 million days of help ‘Global Impact Target’. Not because the coffee tastes better, but because it feels better. It creates a moment of joy. A sense of connection.

4 EASY STEPS

The heart of the book is a simple four-step framework:

STEP 1 - Start with your traditional target (eg £1m profit).

STEP 2 - Map it to a relatable non-financial equivalent (eg 1 million cups of coffee).

STEP 3 - Link that to a Global Impact (eg one day of help for every cup sold).

STEP 4 - Express it as a Global Impact Target (‘We aim to provide 1 million days of help to people in need around the world’).

And suddenly your targets inspire people, generate a real buzz and galvanise action.

Not only does this approach work for any business, of any size, with any budget. But B1G1 make it incredibly easy and affordable too.

And by aligning the needs of your business with the needs of the world in this way, you are also tapping in to the huge body of evidence that lead Sir Richard Branson to famously conclude that ‘doing good is good for business’.

You’ll create a business with impact and kindness baked in to its strategy, it’s culture, its brand story, its financials and its very core.

A business people want to buy from, work for and cheer on.

And a business that feels a whole lot better to lead.

If the idea of all of that excites you as much as it excites me, please accept my short book as a gift to help you make it happen.

IMPACTFUL is a blog series by B1G1 member Steve Pipe. You can connect and download Better Business Targets and all his other B1G1-related books as our gift, and see why we named him B1G1’s first Global Impact Envoy here.