So you want to have an inclusive business and make sure you’re doing it right, that’s great! You’re in the right place.
When business owners have an intention of adding inclusion to their business, a regular default is to start with adding inclusion from a front-facing/audience-facing approach. So they’ll add words, components, acknowledgments or symbols to their websites and social media profile to indicate that they are an inclusive business.
Unfortunately, this alone doesn’t mean a business is inclusive and it also increased the risk of a business being called out for being tokenistic or performative because the outside (front-facing part) or the business doesn’t match the inside of the business.
Many business owners who desire genuine inclusivity recognise this so they’ll often add inclusion to their business in the same direction as their client journey.
This process of adding inclusion in business opens the doors wide open to unintentionally causing harm to marginalised communities because your business isn’t ready on the inside to received them… And… makes it harder and more stressful for you as the business owner too. Before we get into that, let me define the customer journey process in 4 stages.
The 4 stages of a customer journey
- Front-facing/ Public stage – Website & social media profiles – They see your profile in a public way/window shopping way, sales pages etc.
- Lean in/ Follower stage – They become a social media follower, blog subscriber or join your email list
- Onboarding / 1:1 stage– They make an enquiry, book with you & complete a booking form or jump on a sales/clarity call with you, etc
- Delivery/ Transformative process stage – They experience your process to transformation via your framework, practices, methodology, or coaching methods.
If you’d rather watch the FB LIVE of me talking about this concept rather than reading about it in this blog, you can watch it HERE.
Front-facing Inclusion in Business Steps
As the name would suggest, adding inclusion in business starts at the front-facing stage of the customer journey and progresses through each stage as a customer would.
There are a few problems with adding inclusion to business in this way.
3 Problems with adding inclusion starting at the front-facing stage:
1- cultivating mistrust and perceptions of Tokenism and being Performative
You’re going to attract marginalised people into a space that’s not ready for them. This means they’ll feel unwelcome and unseen. They will not work with you if at any stage they feel like your front-facing image and message doesn’t align with what they are seeing at each stage of the customer journey. It breeds mistrust and gives a sense of tokenism and performativism, thus impacting your business reputation.
2- Increase potential for unintended harm & legal scrutiny
If your business space isn’t set up ready to receive or cater to the needs and nuances of marginalisation, they won’t feel safe and there’s a good chance they will be harmed in some way while in your business space. Not only is it a horrible thought to know your business has harmed another person but it also opens your business up for legal scrutiny too.
3- High-pressure, stressful and time-consuming for the business owners
It puts so much pressure on you to upgrade every part of your business in a rushed and high-pressure way. Waiting until a marginalised person enters your business space before upleveing the inclusion within it, is hugely stressful and time-consuming. There are so many facets, concepts, mindsets, and ways of doing business that are exclusionary by default that need to be updated to ensure safety and inclusivity. Having to do them quickly and under pressure can mean some are accidentally missed, or done poorly.
Adding Inclusion to Business with Reverse Engineering
On the flip side, if you reverse engineer inclusion in your business to start with your delivery process, frameworks, and strategies first, and then move on to onboarding and so forth, you get to enjoy the process and ensure you’re delivering quality inclusion at every stage of the customer journey before, you open the doors and opening start attracting marginalised people to your business through your front doors (aka the front-facing stage).
3 benefits of Reverse Engineering Inclusion in your business:
1- Marginalised people feel welcome and included along the whole journey
Because you have worked to add inclusion from the opposite end of the customer journey, marginalised people will feel like you’ve built the space with them in mind. They’ll feel welcomed, included, and considered. Your efforts to create an inclusive business from the inside out will mean that you’re not actively attracting marginalised people to your business until you’re sure you’ve created a space that they want to be in and feel safe to be in. This speaks volumes about your integrity as a business owner and ally to marginalised communities.
2- Reduced risk of causing unintentional harm
While business owners continue to learn about inclusion, and work to unpack their own privilege and biases, we cannot guarantee that unintentional harm won’t be used …. but…. with a reversed engineered approach to adding inclusion to business, you would have already set up processes, procedure and other ways to support the person who has been harmed, and yourself about what steps to take to amend, or mitigate the situation in a heart-centered and empathetic way.
3- Spaciousness and ease of growth development and adding practical inclusion upgrades to business
Inclusion is a personal and business development journey. Having the space to learn, unpack, process, and take action is something that’ll enable deeper understanding, as well as mindset & emotional support space for you as the business owner. It will mean you have the space and time to consider and implement inclusive business upgrades which leads to better quality inclusion, business excellence. Outside of that, it’ll allow you the ability to learn, process, and implement or innovate your business in inclusive ways on a timeline that feels easy for you. There is no pressure to get it done quickly. It’s done at your own pace and done to the best of your ability.
A final word about Reverse Engineering Inclusion:
In conclusion, can you see how adding inclusion to your business from a reverse-engineered way is:
- better and safer for the marginalised person
- better for you and your experience, and
- better for your business as a whole?
It’s great to be seen as inclusive in a front-facing way, but unless it’s backed by inclusion at the follower, the onboarding, and the delivery stage, it’s simply tokenism, and I know that’s not what you’re about.
Let’s make sure your business is inclusive and safe for marginalised people before we actively try to attract marginalised people to our business spaces. After all, our integrity to keep people safe in our business, and the quality of the services we provide are the most important things in our business.
If you liked this approach to inclusion in business, please let me know.
Questions are welcome, and if you want 1:1 support from me to reverse engineer inclusion in your business, please book a free 15-mintute clarity call with me HERE.
Until next time,
