Relationships and Capitalism: How Purpose and Profit Can Work Together

In the following interview segment, Doug Levy, author and CEO of MEplusYOU, explains how caring more can actually make you more successful. The full interview with Doug Levy can be seen HERE, in which he discusses his new book, Can't Buy Me Like. In the book, Levy tackles the changing marketing space, believing that companies must either adapt or continue to put blind faith in increasingly ineffective advertising. Levy also explains a new era that we've entered, dubbed the 'relationship era', and describes how this will change marketing for all companies, big and small.

Brendan: You're also on the board of Conscious Capitalism. Let's talk about how this fits in with that movement. Obviously, big companies -- Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFM), Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV), you mentioned Panera -- are active in that movement.

If you had to boil it down, maybe purpose over profit, how does this book and the Relationship Era fit into Conscious Capitalism?

Doug: To boil down Conscious Capitalism, certainly there's an orientation around purpose. There's also an orientation around profit ...

Brendan: You have to have profit, right?

Doug: You have to have profit, and in fact profit is not an end unto itself. It's the result of sustainable relationships. The companies that get that tend to have the greatest level of profit.

This book, Can't Buy Me Like, maps it directly to the principles of Conscious Capitalism; the idea that when you start with that clarity of what you believe and what you stand for, great things happen. You have loyal customers, you have engaged employees, you have happy investors. That's really the essence of what we're talking about.

In fact, this book is the application of the principles of Conscious Capitalism, specifically to the relationship between a company and a customer.