Today, while I attended the North Shore Business Forum, I had the pleasure to listen to the success story of Tom Gould, owner of Treadwell’s World Famous Ice Cream in Peabody, MA. Since I love ice cream I knew of this company prior to hearing Tom speak, but his inspiring story of how he purchased the business in 2000 and worked with his family to continue the “Treadwell Tradition” of delicious ice cream, generous portion sizes, extraordinary service and a mission to give back to the community that created today’s topic for my Purple Diamond’s business and marketing blog. When you give to others, you receive!
As a business owner, you work long hours and you have very little time for outside activities and groups. Many businesses are approached weekly by local groups to financially help their cause by advertising in their booklet or being a sponsor for an event or just giving a donation. How do you know how much to give of your time and resources? Should you give? One of the keys to the success of Treadwell’s World Famous Ice Cream is that they believe in helping the youth in their community. Though Tom and his family all work long hours they make time to help the schools in the area and many non-profit organizations. They understand that when you give to others it comes back in so many positive ways.
So, what can your business offer to others? If you do not have the resources at this time to give money, could you help out physically in some way? I presently serve on 2 Board of Directors in my community and my way of giving to others is to jump in and actively help on fund raisers for the non-profits. I also help with getting new members and try to show up and pitch in on clean-up for many of the events. Volunteering locally not only helps the organization you are volunteering with, but it indirectly helps you and your business. People do recognize the ones who are there to help and when they can give back in some way by referring business to you or being a customer themselves, they often do. However, the idea of volunteering is not really about what you will receive in return. If this is the only reason you would help out a non-profit then you are better off not participating. The last thing your business needs is bad publicity that could come from you being a reluctant volunteer or someone who is looking to get something back for your time. Generosity must be genuine and from the heart. When you give to others or help their business or organization in some way without thought to what it will do for your business, you open the doors to people recognizing that you are a person of integrity and generosity… 2 characteristics that most people appreciate when they are choosing who to do business with. Take a page from Treadwell’s success story and recognize that offering a second scoop of kindness to help the people around you will make life sweeter for all of us.
All my best to your success!
~Charlene
