25. Why Giving Back Is the Best Business Strategy You're Not Using | Business Strategy

This past weekend, Ginny's team paddled a Viking boat down the Trent River, took third place, won Most Spirited, and handed both prize checks to local organizations. That story is the starting point for a conversation every local service business owner needs to hear.

In this episode, Ginny walks through what community involvement actually looks like at every stage of building a service business, from Base Camp all the way to Camp Four, and why the businesses that show up consistently and generously are the ones that earn the deepest community trust. You will hear why name recognition and trust are not the same thing, why waiting until you have more resources is the wrong move, and how something as simple as a $45 raft race entry can build the kind of visibility that no ad budget can buy. Ginny also shares how Cavalry Appliance Service has woven giving back into their team culture through sponsorships, an Angel Tree, and mentoring a local family toward homeownership.

This episode is for the local service business owner who wants to build something their community genuinely counts on. Whether you own one truck or a growing team, the posture of generosity is available to you right now.

You do not need a big platform. You need intention, and intention is free.

Thanks for listening to The Outcome Academy Podcast.

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Transcript

This past weekend, our team paddled a Viking boat down the Trent River, took third place, won Most Spirited, and then handed both of our prize checks to a canine unit and a family services organization. I want to talk to you today about why that is one of the best things we do for our business and why we would do it even if it weren't. 

Welcome to the Outcome Academy Podcast. I'm Ginny Seeley. I'm a business strategist and longtime process improvement expert. I also co-own an appliance service business and a co-working space with my husband, Joe. So, I understand what it looks like to juggle growth, leadership, family, and big dreams all at once.

If you're a service-based entrepreneur or executive who wants to stop putting out fires, work on your business, and build momentum with systems, smart marketing, and practical tech, you are in exactly the right place.

Well, hello, hello, and welcome back to the Outcome Academy Podcast. I am still riding the high from this past weekend, and I knew I had to record this episode while the energy was fresh because what I want to talk to you about today is something that's been on my heart for a while.

We're going to talk about community. Specifically, we're going to talk about what it looks like to use your business as a vehicle for giving back and why that is one of the most powerful things you can do, both for the people around you and for the long-term health of your business.

Now, I want to be upfront with you about something before we go any further because it really matters to me. The reason Joe and I do this is not because it's good for our business. We do it because we believe that everything we have, including this business, is a gift to us from God.

And when you believe that, the question isn't whether to give back. The question is: How can you give back?

The marketing benefit is real, and I'm definitely going to talk about that today because that's important for you to understand. But doing good and doing well in business are not mutually exclusive. What I want you to know is that's where we're coming from because that context changes the whole conversation.

It's not about having this as a growth hack. It's a way of life for us that happens to be really good for our business, too. It's how we raised our kids. It's just who we are as a family. It feels awesome to use your time, your talents, and your gifts to give back to others.

Now that we're business owners, for the past five years, it's just extended into that part of our life as well.

Okay, so let me tell you all about this past weekend.

This was our third year participating in the Trent River Raft Race here in New Bern. This is something really fun and awesome that our Chamber of Commerce puts on.

If you're not a local, this is exactly what it sounds like. Teams build rafts, they get in the water, and they race down the Trent River while the community cheers from the riverbank. It's one of those events that just makes you absolutely love where you live.

There are three categories in the Trent River Raft Race. The first category is the Anything That Floats category, and that's what we entered the last couple of years. Then there's the Paddle category. That's where we were this year. Then there's the Pedal category, where people design rafts so they can pedal their way to victory. It's really fun.

So, the first two years, we showed up with what has become a bit of a legend in our little corner of New Bern: our refrigerator raft.

This was Will, our technician's, wild idea a couple of years ago. Then he had the nerve to get COVID when it was time for us to go out on the river for the first time in our raft made of two refrigerators end-to-end that somehow floated amazingly well, somehow moved down the river, and everybody loved it. It was super fun.

So that was the Anything That Floats category, which kind of tells you everything you need to know about our team's personality. All in good fun, and it is an amazing team-building event, too.

So this year, we leveled it up. Last year, the refrigerator raft kind of took a beating, and we knew we were not going to be able to put that one back in the water. So we gave it some thought about where we would go with this year's raft.

We considered some of the high-end, elite brands that we work on, and we arrived at a Viking raft because there is a brand called Viking.

This year, we built the Viking boat from scratch. When I say "we," I kind of mean mostly Joe. A real, actual Viking boat.

That kind of pushed us into the Paddle Division, which is a little harder to win because there are some very sleek paddle boats in that category that are kind of made of kayaks and things like that. So they can zoom down the river a lot faster than our big Viking boat.

But it's not all about winning for speed.

Although I am proud to tell you that we took third place, and we won the Most Spirited Award this year, too, because we dressed like Vikings. Logan designed a beautiful wolf's head to go on the front of our Viking ship to represent the Wolf brand of appliances as well.

So that was super fun.

The Most Spirited Award gave us another prize, so we ended up with two cash prizes, and then we gave both of them away.

One of them went to the Craven County Sheriff's Department K-9 Team, and that is what we have supported the last two years before this with our winnings.

The second one we decided to give to RCS, which is Religious Community Services right here in New Bern. That is a charity that we have partnered with many times now for their gala. We've worked with people who are housed there to try to mentor them.

We did not win something that we needed. We did not need those checks for our business to go on. But the organizations we gave them to can really use them to make a difference in our community.

And the community that watched us hand them over to those organizations saw something. They saw who we are and not just what we do.

Now, there's a tiny piece of me that has a little bit of a problem announcing that we were handing those checks over to somebody because we're actually called to do things that are charitable in secret and not really boast about what we're doing.

So I want to make it really clear here: we were not boasting. We enjoy giving back just in general, and we give back in many ways that we do not share with the community.

But the cool thing about doing something outward like that is it's inspiring and contagious.

So that's the spirit we shared this in when we gave the checks right back and said, "This one's for RCS, and this one's for the Sheriff's Department K-9 Unit."

We were sharing that because we want to inspire other people to do the same thing, especially because it's a Chamber of Commerce event and we're surrounded by countless other business owners in our community.

So if we can inspire and cause a little contagion in the giving-backness of our community, that is just fine with me.

There's a pattern I see in our small business world, and I want to name it out loud because it's costing people more than they realize.

Business owners wait.

They wait until they get more established to get involved. They wait until they have more margin. They wait until they have more time. They wait until they have something impressive enough to contribute.

In the meantime, they're building a business that the community knows about but doesn't really know the heart of.

There's a difference between name recognition and trust.

You can have somebody's attention without having their confidence.

And in a local service business like HVAC, appliance repair, plumbing, lawn care, or bookkeeping, trust is the whole game.

Think about it this way: when someone's air conditioner goes out in July and they need to call somebody, they have options.

They can call the company with the biggest ad. They can call whoever comes up first on Google. Or they can call the company whose team they saw out on the Trent River last weekend, laughing, paddling, and then handing their winnings to local organizations they care about.

When we're talking about local service-based businesses like the ones that I just named, oftentimes we're coming into somebody's home. We're coming into their private space.

So they feel most comfortable inviting somebody into their private space whom they have seen in the community cheerfully giving back.

And they also see them with their team having fun.

That's another little point that I want to take a quick diversion and talk about.

That is your Facebook feed, your Instagram feed, and your website.

Please don't make them boring.

Please don't make them a bunch of pictures of stock images and the inside of whatever you're working on.

Please make them your team members smiling, having fun, being out in the community, wearing their uniform, and looking like real people that customers can know, like, and trust.

Please don't use Blue Overalls Guy in your marketing.

Okay, that's the end of my TED Talk about that.

Let's get back to the subject at hand.

Who do you think gets the call when somebody wants someone in their home, in their books, or in their private stuff that they need help with?

And more importantly, who deserves it?

The business that earns deep community trust or the business that's the flashiest?

The one that shows up consistently and generously as themselves, or the person who is putting on a great face for the community with the biggest ads?

Who do you want to support in your community?

Who do you want to give your hard-earned money to?

So I want to walk you through what community investment can look like at the different stages of building your business.

Because I think one of the reasons people sometimes wait is because they assume it requires resources they don't have yet—mainly money.

When you're beginning your business, you don't have a lot of expendable cash.

I want to make it really clear that it doesn't require a whole lot of cash.

What it requires is intention, and intention is absolutely free.

I've organized these ideas the same way I organize everything else for you: by altitude.

Because what you can give changes as you make your way up the mountain, but the posture of generosity can be present from day one.

You are probably familiar by now with the Business Mountain Framework, but I'm just going to review it because sometimes people get a little lost in the camps.

The Business Mountain Framework is something that we invented here at Outcome Academy to describe the journey of owning a business.

If we think about our business as a mountain that we're climbing—specifically a mountain that is 8,000 meters high, like some of the rarest mountains in the world—it takes perseverance, planning, teamwork, and grit to make it to the top of that mountain.

You get there by going through camps.

At Base Camp, you're laying your foundation.

This is mostly the planning stage, but you're doing some really important things to set yourself up for success when you start your business.

We call Camp One the Starting Camp.

This is when you primarily do everything by yourself.

You don't really have a team yet.

You're answering the phone, doing your bookkeeping, paying your bills, handling your marketing, and delivering whatever service you provide in your business.

You are the business at Camp One.

At Camp Two, you start to build out your team.

Camp Two is when you might have somebody answering the phone for you, but ideally you have another person who can deliver the service you provide in your business.

So if you happen to be an appliance technician like my Joe, this is when you hire Will as your first technician so that you can step away from your business for a few days and still make money.

That's Camp Two.

At Camp Three, you're starting to build a much bigger team, and you start hiring managers and leaders to lead all the people you've brought onto your team.

So Camp Three is called Scaling.

In Camp Four, you're positioning your business for sale.

Think about making it into a clonable or franchisable business, or one that you can transfer to somebody else and it doesn't need you at all to be alive and well.

By the time you leave Camp Four and reach the summit, you're an investor.

Okay, so that sums up the camps.

Now let's take a look at what giving and community involvement can look like at the various stages of business.

Like I said, at Base Camp, you're laying your foundation.

You're figuring out your legal structure, your brand, your systems, your values—and that last word is the key one.

This is the stage where you decide, on paper and in your heart, what kind of business you're going to run.

I would encourage every single Base Camp business owner to include community and service as a named value before you ever write your first check or show up at your first volunteer event.

Let it be intentional from the beginning.

It can look however it looks for you—whatever feels right in your heart and your faith.

Whatever that looks like for you, I just want this to feel right for you and how you show up in your world.

Start paying attention to what is happening in your community.

Start following some of the local nonprofits.

Go to a community event just to see what's out there.

You're not expected to invest much yet, but at Base Camp you should be looking around, paying attention, and deciding who you want to be and how you want to show up in your community once you are in business.

At Camp One, your most valuable resource is your time and your presence.

And both of those are powerful.

And guess what? Yes, your time costs something, but not directly.

You don't actually have to be writing a check to make an impact.

Show up to those grand openings for other small businesses.

It costs you absolutely nothing, and it means the world to the owner standing up there hoping someone will walk through the door.

And a little secret: most of the time, grand openings are open to everybody because the businesses want exposure.

So you don't even have to write a check to join an organization to come to a grand opening for a business.

You can volunteer somewhere that matters to you or, if you have a small team, something that matters to your team.

Our team members volunteer at the animal shelter, we serve at our church, and we show up for local scout troops.

These are not business development activities. These are expressions of who we are as people, and people notice that.

At this point, at Camp One, if you wanted to do something small and make a financial contribution, there are ways you can do this.

You can do a small ad in a local sports program or a theater playbill.

This is something like $50 to $150.

Your name is in the hands of all the parents in that auditorium.

So think about where your ideal customers are hanging out, too.

What kinds of things are they doing in the community that you can sponsor and show up for?

You could enter a community event.

The raft race that I was telling you about only costs $45 to register.

Yes, we invested more than that in building the boat, feeding our team, and doing fun things to prepare for the raft race.

But the return on that investment is community visibility and team culture.

And that's something you can't really put a dollar amount on.

I've talked to you before about some of the predatory marketing that's out there.

People want you to spend thousands of dollars on things during Camp One.

And I'm telling you, I'll tell you all the time, and I'll die on this hill: that's not something you should be spending thousands of dollars on in Camp One.

But showing up for your community and spending a couple hundred dollars here and there? That's money well spent.

Another thing you can do is, if you have a skill, teach it for free.

I just finished teaching a session at the New Bern Chamber of Commerce about how to use AI tools in small business.

Joe teaches at the community college.

We're not doing that one for the small stipend they give him.

We're doing it because we have something useful to share, and there are people in our community who need it.

That is Camp One-level giving: time, presence, and small but meaningful financial investments.

At Camp Two, you have a team, and that changes everything because now your giving can become a culture in your organization.

This is where we started sponsoring a table at the RCS Gala each year.

RCS stands for Religious Community Services, and it's an organization here in New Bern that serves families in crisis: hot meals, emergency shelter, transitional housing, and a path toward stability.

We sponsor a table at their gala.

We show up as a team, we get dressed up, and we sit in that room and are reminded of why the work we do matters.

We also started the Angel Tree a few years ago.

Last Christmas, our Angel Tree collected pajamas and coats for each child being housed at RCS at that time.

I want you to picture that for a moment.

Not a generic toy drive. Not a check.

Pajamas and coats for specific kiddos who are living in transitional housing with their families during the holiday season.

Our team pulls those names off that tree, they go shopping, and they build something together that is bigger than a paycheck.

And by the way, we put that tree right in the front of our Highland Business Center and co-working space.

Even our members there were able to contribute and give back to the community.

That just tells you that you don't even have to sponsor everything yourself.

All you have to do is find a way to organize something and get other people excited about giving back.

And that's really fun.

Just think about the impact you can make when you get other people involved.

This past year, Joe and I had the opportunity to partner with our bookkeeper, Jessica, to mentor a young family in our community—a mom, a dad, and two kids—on their path toward homeownership.

Walking alongside someone as they work toward that kind of stability is one of the most quietly meaningful things we have ever done.

This is what Camp Two giving looks like.

Your team is involved.

Your giving is recurring.

You're showing up as an organization, not just as individuals.

At Camp Three, you have the visibility and the resources to become a recognized community partner.

Sponsoring a local team at the league level? That's pretty cool.

Becoming a title sponsor for a community event, giving even a little bit more money, and getting your logo a little bigger at that organization? That's pretty cool.

You could fund a scholarship.

You could sit on a nonprofit board.

This is where your business name starts to appear on things like banners, programs, and plaques.

Not because you're chasing recognition, but because you've been consistently present and people want to honor that.

And at Camp Four, I'm just going to be really honest with you.

Joe and I aren't there yet.

We're somewhere between Camp Two and Camp Three and actively climbing.

But I can see what it looks like from here.

This could be something like organizing your own charitable events, establishing something in your family name, and building a legacy that your business funds and your community counts on year after year.

That's our vision.

And here's the thing I want you to hear.

We've been building toward that vision for five years, not because we planned a giving strategy, but because we asked ourselves over and over again:

How can we use what God has given us to serve the people around us?

And then we just kept answering that question, little by little, time and time again.

I want to go back to something I said at the beginning because I think it's really important.

The marketing benefit of community involvement is real.

I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't exist.

When your community sees your team on the river laughing, competing, and handing their winnings to organizations that serve hurting families, they remember that.

When a family drives past your van and recognizes your name from an Angel Tree at their kids' school or from the K-9 Unit story in the local paper, they're going to remember that.

When a potential customer is choosing between you and a cheaper competitor, and they've watched you show up for five years in this community—not just to get business, not just to be a business owner and make money, but to be a real neighbor who contributes and gives back—they're going to choose you.

That's not manipulation.

That is integrity becoming visible.

Here's the reframe I want to leave you with today.

BNI, which we've talked about before—Business Networking International—is an organization that we're a part of to network with other business owners.

They have a pretty cool saying.

It's called Givers Gain.

And I love that.

It's true.

But I want to take it one step further.

We do not give to gain.

We give because we have already been given so much.

The business, the team, the community, and the opportunity to even have a business—all of that is a gift.

And when you hold it that way, generosity stops feeling like a strategy and starts feeling like a response.

It starts feeling like exactly the next thing that you're supposed to do.

When you're being blessed, you can't help but pour over that blessing from yourself to other people.

The most trustworthy businesses in any community are the ones where the owner's values show up in how they spend their time and their money, not just in what they post on social media.

People can tell the difference between a business that writes a check for the photo opportunity and a business that really cares.

Your community is paying attention, and they will reward the real thing.

So here's what I want to ask you this week.

Not what you're going to sponsor.

Not what event you're going to enter.

Just this:

What do you actually care about?

Because that's the starting point.

It's not creating a budget to give back.

It's not marketing on your calendar.

It's your values.

If you've not done that work yet—if your mission, vision, and values are still a blank page or a vague idea—that's exactly what the Brand Builder Blueprint does in the very first module to help you.

It is the foundational work, and it's where community investment becomes intentional instead of accidental.

You can find it at outcomeacademy.com/brandbuilder.

And if you're already clear on your values and you're just waiting for permission to start, consider this your permission.

You do not need a big budget.

You do not need a Camp Three or Camp Four platform.

You need $45, a team that is willing to build a Viking boat, and a community that is waiting for someone to show up and care.

Go be that business.

Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.