Why Building Trust Is My Most Effective Tool for Building My Business

culture, behind the scenes

Why Building Trust Is My Most Effective Tool for Building My Business

B Corp Collaborations Create Friendships and Amplify Positive Impact

written byhhadmindate published Jun 21, 2019 content type quick tip

One of the greatest benefits of being a member of the Certified B Corporation, 1% For The Planet, and Social Venture Circle communities is the ease of creating deep, trusting relationships. Some of my closest friends and collaborators are people and companies I have met as members of these “business as a force for good” movements.

Over the years I have forged some incredibly strong friendships within these communities —friendships that led to collaborations, which led to intentional positive impact. Gagan J. Levy, CEO of Guru, is one of these friends. I remember meeting him at one of the legendary Hospitality Sweet after-parties late one night of the Social Venture Circle gathering in 2016 in Philadelphia.

Our paths crossed a number of times as we both ran in similar circles. I remember chatting with Gagan poolside at some hotel after a night of impact films that we at Hemmings House screened with B Lab for the 2019 B Corp Champions Retreat in Los Angeles. We said something like, “When are we gonna do something together?” Well, it didn’t take long for us to follow up and act on that question, and we immediately saw an opportunity to help share the Guru story and their brand values as a first kick at the collaboration can!

Guru is a fellow B Corp that works with some of the world’s leading conscious brands. These business leaders are truly living their values by building companies not only to make money, but to make intentional positive social, environmental, and even spiritual change. My team at Hemmings House always gets excited to work with brands that care. It made sense for us to produce a film for Guru so we could see how we each work, and build trust. Before a marketing agency brings in a third-party creative partner (like Hemmings House) to help serve their clients, an incredible amount of trust has to be formed. As a result, we all jumped at the opportunity to do this first collaboration to help share Guru’s values and brand story in hopes that we could earn their trust and produce more with them down the road.

When we were noodling around some ideas, we considered doing a micro documentary, creating a short film about building legacy, or making an animation. Immediately the animation style felt like the right approach because it really allows us to express our creativity in ways that our live-action films just cannot.

I had a vision for a classic psychedelic animation. Something with a nod to The Beatles classic film, Yellow Submarine, with the colour and character of so many cartoons I watched as a kid. Using a psychedelic style to tell a corporate story can be a risky play. But Gagan and his team were all on board and trusted the proposed psychedelic aesthetic approach. As an aside, Guru is the agency of record for MAPS, a global leader in psychedelic research. This helped us have the confidence to know that we were taking the appropriate approach in presenting the Guru brand as a hyper-creative agency. Gagan and his team trusted the direction, and our teams began to create collaboratively. We brought in the incredible Steve Blacker to animate the creative. Dave Anderson from Village Sound composed the soundtrack.

To have such a creative collaboration between these teams reminds me of the power of trust. Gagan and I trusted each other because we hung out in similar circles that have shared values. Our trust deepened as we became aware of each other’s world-class work. Our trust deepened even further as we got to know each other as friends, and now as collaborators. Hemmings House has now engaged Guru to help us with our new brand strategy as we continue to grow beyond our borders.

Trust is a beautiful thing.