Dec 9, 2022
Today's topic is Ethical Marketing and I'm speaking to Alica Karolina about it.
Alice is a brand coach + strategist and the founder of The Ethical Move, working with changemakers to find + use their voice. She believes making an impact in a changing world requires a new way of thinking and communicating — businesses that stand out tell stories of substance, share products that serve the world, and sell with integrity. It takes courage to fully trust oneself and leave the status quo behind. But if we stop looking outside for answers, we discover we already have the power, knowledge, and ability to make this world work for everyone.
In this episode, you'll learn about ethical marketing as well as...
- Ethics and how Alice defines it for her Ethical Move
- Whether marketing is unethical by default
- The unethical practices we've all being bombarded with daily
- How we can change those into ethical practices - and still sell.
- How the new economy can look like if it was up to us
- How you too can take the ethical pledge
- And so much more
Alice’s Resources
Connect with Alice on:
Sarah's Resources
(FREE) Sarah’s One Page Marketing Plan
(FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter
(FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto
(FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course
Marketing Like We're Human - Sarah's book
Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course
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Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com
Thanks for listening!
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Warmly,
Sarah
Imperfect Transcript of the show
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Sarah: [00:00:00] Hi Alice. So good to see you and hear
Alice: you. Thank you so much for having me
Sarah: here. Yeah, thank you. I think this is probably the only time that I get to chat in Swiss German on the podcast, even though it's before we hit record, but it's definitely the only time ever I get to speak in my mother tongue and dialect, and it's just.
I don't know. It just feels like home, so it's good to be home.
Alice: I know. Likewise, I feel exactly the same way. I actually spoke to some friends of mine back home, like via voice message just this morning to get into the groove of things. Cuz I have to remember my native tongue. , I love this.
Sarah: Hmm. Yeah. But obviously you are not in Switzerland.
, you are in, , Canada and not. Eastern side, but the western side. So even more complex to get to talk to each other. But I'm so delighted that you're here and it's kind of a funny story actually, the [00:01:00] way, , we met, or I guess like all of these stories online is just kind of sometimes serendipity, but, , you're the, the founder of the ethical, , move This movement has been mentioned to me a few times in the past and, and I had to look at the website and I was like, oh, that's great. Know what they're doing. , I told you that I think in a conversation it looked very, , so branded and then obviously you were a brand specialist.
So it all makes sense, but I, I thought, okay, there's like a company behind it, or like a huge team, so I didn't. Investigate further until it was mentioned to me again and have you, , taken. , it's not a pledge. What, what do you call it? The No, it is a pledge. Yeah. A pledge. Yeah. A pledge. Yeah. So have you taken the Ethical Pledge?
And I'm like, oh yeah, that thing I gotta, you know, look at it again. And so I did. And then I was really curious, , let me look who's behind it, and then mm-hmm. , you know, here we are, find out [00:02:00] that you are, , fellow Swiss and Swiss German, which is just, yeah. Really funny. So I'm delighted to be here.
Definitely very, very like-minded because you're, yeah. You're building something very similar to me and I'm just, , super excited about it. Yeah.
Alice: So likewise. I know. It's so cool to have, it's interesting to me as well, because we clearly have very similar mindsets around it, and it's unsurprising to me because of the sort of collaborative way that Switzerland works in a way, .
In politics in the way that we interact. I feel like because we're such a densely populated place as well, I feel like we are immediately enmeshed with other people whether we want to or not. , and so I feel like there's a lot more understanding and personal responsibility around the collective.
That's my, my experience anyway. So it, , it doesn't surprise me that we would have . This feeling of, hey, this could be done differently if we sort of [00:03:00] take the collective into account. , so yeah, it's cool to actually finally have this conversation with someone who gets it, . Yeah,
Sarah: yeah. No, it's, it's amazing.
I never thought of it that way, but it's true. I come from this hippie upbringing and I always just thought, well, That's why I'm community driven. , but you're right. If you think about the political, organization of Switzerland and, and the fact that we are sandwiched in between all these other countries and that we speak, you know, at least three languages, uh, fluently, , it does make it, yeah, kind of more like, you know, oriented towards the other.
Alice: yeah, in the good and the bad .
Sarah: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Right. Well, let's dive into the, the topic and, what I wanna unpack is your ethical move. And in that kind of starts with maybe defining ethics, because when you think about ethics, there. So many aspects to [00:04:00] ethics, and I'm just curious to know how you define it and what you understand by it.
Because the ethical move is, is yes, it's about ethics and business, but then it's also very specifically about marketing, from what I've seen on your website and from what I know now from the community. So tell us how you define ethics, right? For the
Alice: big, big guns. Hey, . Yeah, I, , I have to say I'm not an ethics major in any way.
I haven't studied it. I have studied marketing and sales in all their various forms. So for me, really it comes down to what I know to be called applied ethics, the way that we actually use, , the concepts. I would say a collective common good, , which comes from my understanding, there's, there's a few different viewpoints on this and I feel like people learn it differently in different countries and all the ways that they're [00:05:00] educated.
, But to me there was always a difference between morals and ethics in the sense that morals is very subjective and personal. And then ethics is, sort of collective and society driven and how do we interact, , with each other. So, , I find it's almost like a collective decision to. For the common good, if that makes sense.
Mm-hmm. . So all the various ways in which it shows up from the very personal to professional to all the different, , areas that it touches, which is basically everything that humans touch . , we have different ways that we apply ethics, , and I think that we sort of as a growing society, Humans, you know, taking over the planet.
we need to sort of take more of that into account, I think. And so the ethical move really was sort of a nod to, hey, what is a collective situation right now where we are all humans and our customers are our products, , our businesses are not just ways to make money, but also [00:06:00] very much have to do relationship and how we are human together and.
Sort of bringing business and all of that into the field of, hey, this is a place where we can also do good in the world. And it's not just, you know, politics or government that takes care of welfare, , you know, we are also responsible for that as citizens in, in our own selves, like as humans, but then also as citizens, as businesses, right?
Because legally we are required. Technically we are a citizen, , in our countries as businesses. And so really looking at what the responsibility of that means. So that's a bit of a broad, probably context, but Yeah,
Sarah: no, that, that makes total sense because I feel like yeah, ethics really has these different layers and it's like global layers.
Like, you know, you can even talk about environmental ethics. So you know, very in the psychic obviously, , and then. I guess down level would be governments and [00:07:00] countries, and then you're taking another level down. Then it's humans and, and you can talk about yeah. Humans in a workplace. , you can talk about the relationships between humans, so like gender ethics, I guess.
And then what, what you are talking, , specifically is. Yeah. It's almost like consumer and cus Yeah. Consumer ethics maybe as individuals, but also as entrepreneurs and, and business owners, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Again, it's, it's just so similar to what we're trying to do here with Humane Marketing.
It's like, yeah, let's, let's use marketing and let's use business as a liver for good. That's really what we're doing. Right? And then, And, and you come from this background in, in marketing and and sales as well. So I'm just curious to hear whether you think marketing has always been [00:08:00] unethical, like , has that always been the way it is or has it gotten worse over the last 10, 20 years?
Alice: A good question. I mean, marketing in itself is not unethical. I don't actually wanna eradicate marketing. That to me is not. The goal here, , even thinking, you know, our common experience of the Saturday market with everyone, you know, yelling about their wares and, , with the beautiful smell of fresh tomatoes.
And I just feel like market itself is not unethical. , just like the word influence is not unethical or ethical. They're neutral terms. I think what has happened is, Over the years, and I wanna go back even further, like in the early 19 hundreds, , people discovering psychology as a ways to do marketing.
So using psychological tricks to like, for the first time, discovering psychology being a thing, you know, obviously. And then, and then really sinking [00:09:00] into what can be done with it. How can we use it in order to sell our things? . , and then from there, just kind of like the extrapolation of that through suddenly having a mass market and then suddenly having mass media available.
, I think the, the possibilities to use it just grew and grew and grew. And I don't think we had, I mean, some people have a bit of an achy feeling about it, and I'm sure people in the fifties and sixties and seventies had moments of like, this might not be great. Or, or sort of like, There is a bit of a stench to it when you just sell for the purpose of selling or when you, you know, you work for a company that you know is harmful to people on the planet, , to sell their stuff.
, and even as marketers today, right? Most of our, probably most of our community members, most of the people in our, in our sphere experience, Marketing is something almost dirty, right? Something that we don't wanna do. However, in itself, it has just been tainted with [00:10:00] this idea that humans are a commodity, humans are a product, , and using sort of these tricks to bypass our humanity in order to sell things.
Selling more and more and more of things we don't naturally need, creating false needs, creating this, this unimaginably harmful feeling of not being enough. We're not having enough, which is just, it permeates everything, all of us, right, on either side of the spectrum, whether we are selling or being sold to.
We all have this experience of I must get as much as I can for as little as possible. whether it be effort or money or, you know, and so I think that the experience of marketing has become a lot more complex with the amount of, just sheer amount of people and ways to reach them.
And then it also has. Become more insidious because we know more about the brain and we [00:11:00] learn more about it and more studies are being done and how we can, you know, how we can use scent and how we can use music and how we can use different ways of influencing people, in, in a direction that is actually not based in their own conscious choice.
So in that way, it has become more unethical, but not because in itself it's unethical, but because we have lost sort of. Yeah, I do think we have lost touch in a lot of ways to, you know, what is actually good for us, you know, which in the heart of hearts, we're usually just like peace of mind, quiet, family life, you know, if we're getting right down to our true desires, it's usually not more stuff.
That's where I see it landing on a
Sarah: spectrum. Yeah. And I love this. When you said, we've, we've kind of started to bypass our humanity. That's exactly what's happening. , and I think. Maybe what, what I would add is also the use of technology has increased. Yeah. Uh, over the last, you know, maybe 10, 20 years.
And so [00:12:00] even more, we've lost touch with the human side of things because we realized all the things that we can use. All the technology that we can use to automate everything and more and more and more, right? Yeah. And so, yeah, it's totally that loss of humanity that made things unethical and that once you're in that cycle of greed for always more is really, really hard to break away from it, right?
Yeah. And I think that's why we're finding ourselves in this difficult transition. Your gut knows it's wrong to do certain things, but your brain is telling you, well, yeah, but it makes money. So, why would I stop it? Yeah. So yeah, I think that's the question. So how do we, you know, change those bad practices into ethical practices and, and still make money?
I guess, yeah, we [00:13:00] still do wanna make money, but, but maybe that's maybe the next conversation. Well do. We also need to change our approach to money, but first let's discuss how do we, how do we change those practices and, and still sell?
Alice: I think there's a misconception that ethical tactics, Ethical ways of using those tactics or flipping them on their heads, , somehow results in no sales, or less sales.
And yes, on a large, large scale, of course, if you, you know, stop using term prices or if you stop visually merchandising, if you stop, you know, yes, those were. Specifically the ways that, you know, stores are laid out and the way that we have these little trinkets by the cash register, like all of those things were specifically designed based on our, our brains, how they work.
So if you do take those away, [00:14:00] then yes, you would sell less. , But if we look at the very sort of, simple service, service based business, , with maybe a couple of services to sell, it's not gonna have that impact. It's probably more built on relationship than anything else. So using psychological tactics, in my opinion, undermines that relationship and undermines that trust.
So in, in my world, , the way I see it anyways, is,
If we start with trust and we start with honesty, and we start with relationship and truth, we actually gain a lot more in the long run. We might not sell in the immediate because it's not a high pressure situation, but people will always need to have their problems solved, and there will always be people with those answers.
So I feel. If we have a good product, whether it be a service or an actual product or anything else that you, that you sell, and you have like a really, a really clear message around it and you have, and you're aligned [00:15:00] with, you know, what you're actually trying to do in the world, then the people that need that will find you.
It's a pretty simple equation in my opinion. It's just, here's the thing, this is how much it costs. What do you. and the other person could say yes or no. And to me, especially in today's world where we talk about consent, , so much, and it's so important, obviously , for all the obvious reasons, why is consent not considered important in marketing and sales?
Because that's all we're doing is like, Hey, here's the facts, here's everything laid out for you. And now do you agree or do you not? And maybe you change your mind like. We're allowed to change our minds midway through a sales process. We're allowed to, you know, yes, it sucks on the other end, of course, we've all been there.
You know, we're this close to signing a contract, and then the person is like, nevermind, I can't do it. But in the end, We actually make a sale that is beneficial to both sides, and that will result in referrals, that will result in word of mouth, that will result in better [00:16:00] relationships down the road.
Recurring sales, which happens a lot that we just sort of forget in the frenzy of this, like corporate imitation. You know, we, we think that those rules are the only ways we can. , but it's, they're not, it's just how we've grown up. That's all. It's like, well, this is my parents' religion doesn't mean I have to adopt it.
, but we were grown, you know, we were grown into that and we were educated in that. So it makes complete sense that we would adopt them, and it makes complete sense that we would adopt the mindset that we can't sell outside of them, but we can. It's just we're not doing it. That's. . it's pretty simple in my opinion.
But then again, everybody has a business they need to take care of and I think that really getting down to what is your product and how do you sell it in a sense of like, what is actually the message and what are you, what is it within and who are you serving? That's more important than how can I best bypass their conscious choice,
Sarah: yeah. , so much in there, what I always say is like there's this huge gap now between.[00:17:00] The consciousness of the current consumer and, , how we still market to them, , like we did back in the sixties. So marketing hasn't changed, and yes, consciousness of the consumer has changed, like over the five, last five years.
A huge evolutionary jump, right? And yet we're still treating customers as if they're completely stupid and like they didn't know that we're actually tricking them. And, and so I, I feel like maybe the old way of marketing this pushy way will work for another maybe two, maybe five, who knows, maybe even 10 years.
Things are evolving even faster now. And so eventually customers will not buy with those, , manipulative things anymore. And so what are the companies are gonna do then? Well, if they don't change their strategies now and go with trust and relationships, well they're gonna, [00:18:00] they're gonna go, bankrupt in a few years.
And I think it's really, really important to realize that now, even though it's hard because they have to step out of that hustle. Mode. It really is a lot of unlearning and saying, okay, I'm gonna step out of the hustle mode because obviously these pushy methods, they do create sales and instant sales.
For now still. Right, but they don't create a sustainable business, that's the thing.
Alice: Yes. And I do wanna add to that. There are also more insidious ways being built into how to sell. Like we do have to remember that there's new technology for those who want to sell more, behind the scenes as well, like, Ways in which that technology really comes into play.
Like learning to read people's emotional cues on Zoom. Like that's one thing that is starting to become a problem where people are using that in high pressure sales situations, you know? Wow. So we do have to remember that, that [00:19:00] that technology is not resting. , the way to sell more at profit is, is it late stage?
Do they say, call it late stage capitalism or something? It, it is holding on for dear. Life. Like we have to remember that. So it's
Sarah: this collision between the two worlds, right? We see that in politics too. It's like the old power wants to grab on as much as they can and the new world is slowly developing.
But you're totally right. It's not gonna change just from one day to the
Alice: next. No. So we do have to, I do think we have a responsibility and this is why we exist. You and I, , and our teams. We have the responsibility to point to those things and say, Hey, zoom is doing this thing. Hey, there's dark patterns.
Hey, there's places in which we don't even know we're being tricked. Yes, we can identify when it's $99. We're like, yeah, that's a char price. We get it. Like people are starting to understand that that's a thing we've always known. It's not 99, you know? But the insidious behind it, there's still places that that can [00:20:00] go.
And so reminding ourselves and, and sort of like, it'll be a daily practice of doing it differently because it will keep. Doing the thing, and we will keep having to, you know, stay grounded and not participate, which is so hard, even for me. I mean, I feel like you and I have studied this stuff for so long, right?
It's just I can't handle it. I need to like step away from the computer, like put that away for 24 hours. It's a thing that I really need to practice. So, yeah.
Sarah: but that, but that's exactly why we're both creating communities, right? Because you exactly, there's, there's also not enough examples.
Of this more humane or ethical ways. And, and so if you don't see the example, well you're gonna follow what the big gurus tell you to do, which is Yeah, which is just the same old thing. So once people see more of the ethical marketing, the humane marketing, that's when they have a new. Kind of not, we [00:21:00] don't wanna be gurus, that's for sure.
But they have a new example to follow and say, oh, it does work that way as well. , and what I talk a lot about in marketing, like we're human, is like, well, you have to figure out what works for you. Not just, you know, find a new guru and follow them. It's like, no, you have to bring all of you to, to your marketing.
And so yeah, these communities are so important.
Alice: And I think that's exactly the point. And that's what I feel like my, my point to all of my work in all the ways , not even just the ethical move, but also in my branding work is how can I get you to listen in as opposed to out? What is the way that I can establish a really strong voice from within that you don't need to continuously participate in what is being told, , because the narrative isn't healthy for anyone.
And. I mean the current narrative. And so taking up that space and changing that is also part of it, right? Going back inside and going back to listen to what we really want and what our desires are and what, you know, what's good for our loved ones. [00:22:00] Yeah. Remembering that day in and day out because we are so inundated with those messages of, like what our bodies are supposed to look like and what our minds are supposed to look like and how productive we supposed to be, and all the things in which we We're not enough. We're not perfect. We're not, we're not perfect. We're never gonna make it. And no matter how many times we learn about, the, the perfect body doesn't exist, we know that, calories are a sham. We know that like all these things still, somehow I look at the calorie tag in a grocery store, like, what is it?
I know it's bogus. Anyway, it just, we just have to keep grounding ourselves within ourselves and within our communities.
Sarah: Why we do what we do. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and before I hinted at the definition of success and that maybe we also need to work on that, right? And, and so that's part of it, that is that work on the being.
And so how do you do that with maybe with. Your clients in, in branding because I really feel like, whether we're [00:23:00] branding now or we're marketing or we're selling, it all comes back to first figuring out who we are and it's, it's just so sometimes really difficult for people to understand that.
We're now marketing, but we're doing personal development first before we ever go out into, you know, creating a brand or, or, or market or anything like that. So how do you work with
Alice: clients on that? That's exactly it. I think the, that's the part of branding that I enjoy the most anyways. the other side of it, you know, how do you sell better?
How do you market better? How do you message better? That to me is almost, has gotten a bit tired, I feel. The identity piece is such a strong core anchoring that kind of makes everything else make. Continuously and reliably and sustainably. , because otherwise you just put blown around in the winds of change, right?
Like it's constantly moving and having a really strong, rooted, grounded knowledge of yourself [00:24:00] and what you care about. , that is huge. And I also think, I mean, definition of success , is probably one of the bigger ones and it always, it gets talked about so much and I feel like we. This idea that it's, well, it's not, it's not this, it has to be this, you know, it's not like we know it's not money, so what else is it?
Or we know it's not, you know, and still we obviously have desires that live within us and there's something that I've recently learned, , from many sources around desire, which is to like trust them and that they are inherent and they don't change. They are who we. . Like, we can't, we can't, there's no choice in our desires.
And so what I've been practicing just based on this, is just tracking my desires, like writing them down every day. Mm-hmm. , what are my desires? Love, affection, laughter, joy. Mm-hmm. , freedom, peace. Like whatever it is that in the day, on the day and the moment that I'm writing it is [00:25:00] like my deepest desire in that moment.
Writing it down and trusting that that is where I wanna go. And I feel like since then, The way that I look at what I actually want has completely changed, and I do think there's a difference between what I want and what I desire in the sense that desire is sort of innate and what I want can be very shifty and weird sometimes, you know, it could one
Sarah: day.
Could it be that what you want is also maybe more material? , little bit.
Alice: It could be. It's more in the moment. I think my desire feels more like something that is like in the core from who I am, you know? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I noticed this the most when I was recently, like, I checked myself because I.
Counting my hours for the week, you know, I, I track my hours for everything that I do, just so I know where I'm placing my time. And then at the end of the week, because of my sort of neurodiversity, because I have ADHD and complex ptsd, and there's lots of like ways in which I was always told that I was either lazy or not doing enough or whatever, you know, like the millions of ways that we are [00:26:00] being told were not enough again.
I noticed myself wanting to get to a really high number at the end of the week of like collective hours worked, and I'm like, oh, only 30. Like I didn't do, , I should be. And then I checked myself for like the first time and went, why am I trying to get more hours out of me? Like, what is this I wrote down this morning.
My desire is freedom to like lay in the sun in the middle of the day. Like that doesn't actually work with working more. So I had a moment, like a real sort of like insight where I thought, what if I count the hours of pleasure and leisure instead , and count that as a win, you know, instead of how many hours I work.
And that really just, I feel like. Individually, obviously this works for me, but individually, everybody, like I wish everybody had the chance to just kind of go reverse that and kind of go, well, what's possible for me? And of course within that comes privilege, right? I am privileged enough that I can work 30 [00:27:00] hours and make a living.
, other people cannot. And that is also part of this definition of success, has to be. What do I need to do to make a living that doesn't necessarily have to be the same thing that makes me happy? It would be nice, but sometimes we have to, just go, okay, the world is what it is and I need to make money for it.
, but disentangling that from what we desire and how we wanna live our days, I guess. Yeah. Yeah,
Sarah: that was a bit of a tangent. . Yeah, no, it's, it's really good because cuz we are placing this, this conversation on the, the p of people and, and, you know, I should have called it humans, but, but that didn't start with a p so, so it is all about the being human and being human as an entrepreneur and having, yeah, having so much to unlearn really.
, that's what comes to mind. It's like, All these things that we think we should be doing, especially in marketing. Another thing that's kind of timely, because we're at the end of the year, is a goal setting, right? [00:28:00] So, , yeah, I'm thinking about goal setting, like we're human , and I know, uh, Tara McMullen just came up with a book about goal setting in, in a radically different way, and excited to read, read her book.
That is part of that pressure. It's like, oh, I only work 30 hours per week. I should be doing much more. I should have all these goals of how much income I'm gonna make next year and all of that. And yeah, we, we. Need to shift everything because, otherwise absolutely. We feel like we, , if we have these huge goals, numbers that we want to achieve, then obviously we're gonna fall into the trap of I have to market and I have to hustle and I have to sell so much.
It just, yeah, it goes hand in hand. Absolutely.
Alice: One of the things I learned from Tara is having a commitment first approach to the goals like, What are my commitments for the year? And then matching those goals to them. And then one thing I learned from Marie Collin, [00:29:00] who's our, , resident notion expert, , The idea of setting identity goals as well as smart goals, you know?
Mm-hmm. , like having goals around who I'm becoming or who I want to become, like, for her, it's like being a great facilitator of her course or things like that. And for me, it might be being a really good steward of this land and learning more about, you know, our aboriginal roots and so, what are identity goals that actually match, you know, who we are as humans.
And of course we have smart goals because we also have businesses with numbers. Like we also have goals that need to have a specific outcome, but maybe they can live parallel to these, sort of like more personal. Real goals that we have, and maybe they don't, they're not called goals anymore then, but I don't know.
I just feel like that might be a worthy exercise. Yeah,
Sarah: yeah, yeah. It's kind of like how I talk about the new business paradigm, and you call it the New Economy, is is that goal setting? That's in Terror . Oh, is [00:30:00] it? Okay. Yeah.
Alice: Yeah. Tara actually called it the New Economy because she said, We are gonna inform government.
We're the largest growing sector of small businesses online. , and that is the place we're going to. So the new economy is not just this like corporate, you know, these Bama, but all of us little ones. , and that is partially why I started following her and became part of her community, , because of.
Sort of outset of saying, Hey, we are that impactful. And it probably started a lot of the conversation around the ethical move as well. Because if we are the new economy, if we are basically what's gonna like the example of what's next, then we better, we better take the responsibility, right. You know, that we have with that and start acting as if, you know.
Yeah,
Sarah: yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so good. I love it. Anything else? We talked about goal setting, we talked about ethical marketing. What else fits in [00:31:00] that new economy,
Alice: for you? I think the biggest part that we keep forgetting, well, we might not forget, but we see it a bit of, , a bit of, as a checklist is, , our collective liberation.
I. Understanding that, well, other people might call it social justice or whatever you wanna call it. , we call it collective liberation because, well, first of all, liberation is the biggest word we can find for everyone to be free because as you know, many people have said the world is not free until we're all, all free, or the world doesn't work unless it works for everyone.
, so the understanding that we are in a big collective and that we are all working together on this and that we. Supposed to be alone. This is just a very western, northern, you know, capitalist mentality that we are on our own and we need to individually muddle our way through this. Rugged individualism has not helped us, and it is not how the global South usually operates either.
So [00:32:00] learning from people who are living collectively or being in collection, in collect. Really will inform how we can go forward. So that is also something that we practice in the ethical move. Like what is this consensus collective, community driven, way we can be together and we can learn together so that no one person is gonna tell us.
You know, I'm not the expert in ethical marketing. That's why I built a community. I'm not, that's why I have, you know, a team of nine people. I can't do this on my own, nor should I, because the collective is what's gonna get us to the next stage. , and like taking our time, slowing down, not just, you know, on the technology side of things.
Yes, sure. Unplug your phone at eight to 8:00 PM whatever, like, do your thing, but also understanding. It takes time to process things and it, and processing is important and nuance is important. And understanding each moment that we are aware of a change or aware of [00:33:00] something that is shifting within us to give ourselves grace and the people around us, grace, to go through those shifts and to have process take place so that.
We can come out the other end with like, okay, so I don't have all the answers yet, but I do have a sort of a sense of where I wanna go next and I'm gonna try some things and then see if the people around me agree. And then we keep going in this like very collective consensus based way and that hopefully will help the most marginalized.
In the way that it's supposed to help, not by us white saviors going down and building schools in Africa. Oh my gosh. I'm saying that in quotation marks cuz I just, philanthropy and I don't have a good time together, , . But this idea of, you know, what is a way that we can all be because we're all benefit, if the most marginalized among us benefits, then it works for all of us.
So yeah, that's basically the, the biggest underlying piece I think that we don't focus on enough in my. Yeah,
Sarah: yeah. Yeah. There's, there's so many [00:34:00] challenges that we need to focus on, and, and you're, you're right. I mean, we, we do have a responsibility to take and, you know, if we haven't taken it yet, it's about time.
, yeah,
Alice: absolutely. I think there's something in addition to that full circle to ethical marketing, which that's the part that I think that ethical market. Sometimes people misinterpret it as, you know, how can I sell better? How can I make it so that I don't feel icky about myself? But I really wanna bring it out and zoom it out and say, it is about the bottom of the supply chain.
It's about how we treat every single person within an organization or corporation. So this is about changing the way that the global crises are currently happening around environment and you know, displacement and war, and all the things that we can possibly look. All of those are impacted by how we sell and how we market.
So instead of looking at it just from our individual lens of how can I still sell things, which is also [00:35:00] important and just as valid and looking at, you know, the bigger picture that has, if we all, you know, spun in that direction, then maybe there's a way we can change things.
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really about taking responsibility but also giving back responsibility to the consumers because it really plays together.
Right. And that's what I feel like we've taken away, , a lot. Yeah. I agree. Thank you so much. We could go on and on and on for hours. I, I'm sure. But, , yeah, please tell listeners where they can start to, you know, take ownership, be responsible, take the pledge, tell us everything,
Alice: , so we can be found on the ethical move.org.
, we'd love your pledge. , it's basically a three part pledge that. Sets the sets the intention. It's an intention pledge. There are resources that we're sharing around how to change [00:36:00] tactics. And then of course there's a community which you're also part of, , which is where we actually work on this and we exchange things and we have workshops and, , events happening, , and where we all sort of get to have this collective discourse.
, and. I think the best place to start is just sort of taking stop, you know, like looking at what's in front of you, taking, making a touchpoint review maybe, or looking at what the first step could be and, and following what immediately comes to mind to take on. If it's like, oh, I wanna look at my pricing strategy and really understand what my pricing means and how I can maybe make it more, beneficial or a little sort of just better for the people who buy from me, maybe in other countries, or, just even that is a huge topic and understanding that it takes time. Like if that topic takes you half a year, then good for you. Mine's I'm still going , it's taken me a year so far, so really understanding that this is a lifelong journey and it's probably gonna go on beyond our lifetime.
So just keep, just
Sarah: [00:37:00] keep pushing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. , I'm so glad you didn't give us a, you know, three steps, . Nope. Here's the easy three steps. Like, yeah, I wish, I wish it was that easy,
Alice: right? No, it's not. And it's, and it's totally fine that it's not because it, we're all in the same boat together, or maybe not in the exact same boat, but we're on the same ocean like it just is.
A collective effort and the idea that we need to muddle through on our own, as you know, with your community is just, yeah, it's over. It's done. We're, we're done with that. Now I feel like we're, I think we're done with that. Yeah. We can stop being individuals on our own. Scared and lonely .
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for, for this collaboration because it is a collaboration, right?
It's a partnership and a, and I really appreciate having you on. So thank you so much. Thank.
Alice: Thank you so much. This was a great conversation. Thanks.