Protecting Your Personal Values
The other day I was reading about a controversy inspired by the CEO of Salesforce. It was the usual “I once supported the values of the former president but now I support the values of the current president” kind of nonsense that owners and executives of large companies often (always?) spout in order to make sure politicians don’t do anything that will hurt their businesses and to make sure they get as much gravy as they can from said politicians.
Many (most?) business owners/executives let their businesses drive their values. If the current administration will reward Position A on any value-related spectrum, then the business will adopt that position as their own. If the current administration changes their mind and adopts Position B, then the business will adopt Position B as well.
We’ve seen this happen time and time again.
Your Integrity Comes First
But that’s not how it should work, especially for those of us who run small businesses or are freelancing. Our values should drive our businesses, not the other way around. If we value transparency, we should be transparent, even if the current administration does not value transparency.
Inclusiveness, reliability, trustworthiness—these are all values that shouldn’t change just because you could earn more money by changing them.
In the abstract, this is fairly easy to say and to believe in, but in the particular it is a little harder to do.
Diversification Is Protection
Let’s suppose your goal is to work with business clients who have a strong DEI culture and you land a major client that shares this value. What do you do when they decide to abandon their DEI programs? What if they’re your main or only client?
One reason I have always preferred to be freelance rather than on staff is so that I can ride out changing currents without letting clients (business) drive my values. I’ve never had just one client. I’ve never had one client take up so much of my business that losing them would mean I couldn’t pay the rent.
You have to be careful about letting one client or one client type take up too much of your bandwidth, because then you may end up faced with a choice between your values and paying the rent. That is not a choice anyone wants to have to make.
I’m a big believer in niches because it’s the easiest way to market. But you have to be diversified either within your niche or by having multiple niches. For example, in addition to running Club Ed (one niche), I edit fiction manuscripts, mostly romance (another niche). But I have both publisher clients and individual clients within this romance-editing niche. And I can lose any of those clients without being in danger of not being able to pay the rent. It might sting a little but it won’t ever come down to a choice between my values and my livelihood.
Diversification within your niche and having more than one niche can protect you against all kinds of business downturns, but the main reason I advocate for it is so that you can continue to do business according to your values, and not according to someone else’s.
