Be a Conversation Starter with a Cause

Be a leader of a conversation where it counts, don’t just make noise for conversation’s sake.

I bet you are probably saying you are not a bigshot CEO, or you don’t own shares in whatever, or you don’t have lots of followers, or you feel no one can hear you, you are talking into the internet’s ear but all you get back is an echo.

Yep, I have said that about my writing in the past. Who will listen to me? Who am I to raise my voice? Who will associate with my little, insignificant life? I keep getting rejected from publishing houses and magazines, don’t I get the hint?

Live and learn, learn to choose your wording wisely, learn to choose your battles and be ready to stand up for what you believe in and the respect will follow (because that should be our ultimate goal, not comments, not shares, and not a pot of gold at the end of the marketing rainbow). Be respected, whether you are a brand, an employer, an employee, a company owner, a writer, a mother, a father… you name it, earn that respect.

But with so much going on, so many outlets for us to pour our thought-process into — or out of — how do you know which conversation to start? How do you know which one is closely aligned enough with what you do or what you think to really stand out? How do you know which one will cut through the deafening bombing of social media feeds to really stand out — and not just stand out, but be heard, and be continued?

Step 1, as I see it, no matter if you are selling something, if you are hiring someone, if you are just finding your way through the landscape of whatever it is before you, choose something that is close to your heart and will resonate with everyone.

Step 2, again as I see it, don’t be afraid to speak up and don’t be afraid to collaborate with others to get your point across. No one is an island, and that works on multiple levels. We need one another to make any sense of this funny, old world; we can’t have a conversation alone and expect to get any kind of response; we don’t know it all and we don’t have access to everyone, so we need to work with others who may be specialists in their fields and we may need to let others spread the word for us — and that is done because they also believe in our conversation.

Step 3, from what I have seen, make the conversation bigger than you. I live in Cyprus where the world of chocolate is not so big. We have sweltering weather for about nine months of the year, meaning we really only get to see chocolates on shelves for three months of the year. The rest of the time they are safely away in fridges where they are safe from melting. If they are on show, we quickly pass them and go for the ice-cream to cool down most of the time. What does this have to do with being a leader in a conversation? It has lots to do with it.

A few weeks again, when the weather with nice and cool, I was at the supermarket. Shelves and shelves full of chocolate. All the usual suspects, all the nutty, minty, orange, lime, you name it flavours, all out there on display and my eye was stuck on one I had never seen before. It was Tony’s Chocolonely. The packaging got me, the font on the packaging — that really does take me back to my childhood and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — and just the pure difference between this bold name against the rest. I dared to go closer to the shelf for a better look — even the smell of chocolates goes right to my hips — and there was what appeared to be a sticker on the wrapper with a broken chain on it saying ‘together we make chocolate 100% slave free.” Did that make me buy the chocolate? No, my insulin problem has me staying away from anything remotely sweet these days, but I did leave the supermarket with that woooowwwwww feeling.

I became a follower on LinkedIn and visited the chocolate maker’s website. It really is a brand that is not only different, it believes in making a difference. And if you think it is just a gimmick to get sales, think again. The company got 66,099 people to sign a petition to ask the EU commission to hold companies accountable for human rights violations and, therefore, help end illegal child labour. Now the commission is drafting a proposal that will make companies within the European market screen their entire supply chain for abuses and Tony’s Chocolonely is cheering all the way to make the law a reality and asking us to join in (https://bit.ly/3Irp7G6).

Plus, we all talk about transparency and truth and being honest in our marketing — as we were taught in the ethics section of our marketing courses — but how many companies really do not hide things under the corporate table? I can’t vouch for every company, but given the facts that Tony’s Chocolonley has recently put forward, I can say the company is as transparent as glass (or white, sugar glass in this case). The company recently came clear with the details of its Ghana and Cote D’lvoire cocoa supply chain, on which 1,700 cases of child labour have been found. Finding these cases, according to the company, means that change can happen as “only then can we work with the families to address the problem.”

This conversation matters. Equality and fairness matters. Being able to provide children with an actual childhood matters. Using your brand, your name, your belief to make the world a more equal place for all of us, is not a marketing strategy, it is a human strategy and one we should all respect.

I know which chocolates I will be getting my kids for Easter, which ones will you be going for?