Do Good, Eat Well: Millennials and Voting with Your Dollars

“Value, is what I’m talkin’ ’bout, take two of these and walk it out.” – Andre 3000

If you’ve ever been to a sales seminar, workshop or even the old weekly meeting, then you’ve likely had a balding man yelling at you about the need to “build value.”  To be fair to the our red-faced friend, value is really important.  If people perceive it, either real or otherwise, they are generally willing to pay more for a product.  *Cough* Beanie Babies *Cough*

This is the key to profitability right?  The more value your customer sees, the more they are willing to pay and the higher your profit margins.  The trick is understanding what your customer values and why.

This is all much easier in the age of the internet.  We have mountains of data and metrics taken from surveys and social media to tell us the who, what, when, where and why of pretty much everything.  Deloitte’s latest study which, is backed up by Nielsen and Maru/Matchbox, show us exactly what’s motivating the largest generation since the dreaded Baby Boomers.

There are 76 million of us and growing.  Who are us?  People born from ’82 until around ’98.  So what drives us?  Why will Millennials pay more?

Not surprisingly, the key motivating factors are the ones you see pop up most often on social media.  People want to work with a company that shares their worldview and core values.  One that makes a high quality product which is good for or at least, doesn’t actively destroy the environment.  They also want companies to work on improving business practices, making them less exploitative and more transparent.  Millennials are tired of the runaround like: GMOs, Pink Slime and trade/business ideologies that strip mine the landscape both literally and figuratively.  We feel a certain obligation to help build and maintain the world we want to live in and perhaps even more important, pass on.

Millennials understand that business touches the global community and environment in a very direct way.  We are willing to pay more for stuff because we realize that sacrifices are made for the common good and we can vote with our dollars.

At Brojo Coffee Co it is our duty to help set the example.  We are uniquely positioned because the coffee business is so reliant on the environment and small rural businesses.  That’s why we only work with fair-trade coffee growers using sustainable farming methods.  We are also forming lasting partnerships with importers and local charities that share our core values.