I manage a little allergy foods store called The Gluten Free Grocer. On Wednesday, it won Best New Business at the Bloom Her Businesswoman's Awards in Wellington. When Sarah (my boss) called me with the news I yelled so loud my flatmate thought something was wrong and came to check on me. I know it's an award from a small NZ woman's business magazine, but it is still a major achievement for a little company like ours.
I am extremely proud of this. Our team, excluding part time staff (and Brian, our super delivery man), consists of Mitch and Sarah (the owners) and me. It is an extremely small, niche business. We have no IT department, we have no marketing department, we have no warehouse. There are just three of us who wear many hats. We've all contributed ideas, extra time, love and devotion to this business. We've all had faith in it. And we’ve done this because we see on a daily basis how much a small community needs it.
My last full time position was with a small partnership that turned into a legal nightmare within a month of my starting there. I ended up in mediation to recover money owed to me (which I won). The court battle between partners has just finished now, almost three years later. Being a very honest person, when asked why I left my previous position I told interviewers the truth. This was during the beginning of the recession. After three months of interviewing for positions equivalent to the last, I gave up and worked part time at my local video shop whilst focusing on my artistic practice. When I decided I needed to return to full time work, I knew it had to be for an ethical business. My entire criteria for work changed. It was not about how much I had earned previously, but how I could do a job that actually meant something.
What this achievement has cemented for me is that you can succeed in business without solely focusing on the bottom line. When you invest in your customers through offering help, advice and support, your customers will invest in you. I love my job. Every day I wake up and I know that I might change someone’s life just by sharing information with them, and making them feel like they are not alone. Every day I honour the ethics that were passed on to me from Grandma and Granddad. I honour my great grandmother, who won a QSM for community service. I honour my mother, who works in elderly care for little more than minimum wage. I honour our kiwi heritage of looking after your neighbors, by looking after this community.
I am saddened to watch our current government compromise New Zealand’s ethics. I watch National sell America the right to change our policy just to have a movie made here. I watch them contemplate changing Auckland’s gambling laws for the sake of a convention centre – ignoring all that many South Auckland communities have worked hard for. I watch National begin deep water drilling for oil off the Canterbury basin, with no plan in place for spillage, and watch Mr Key defend our ‘100% Pure’ slogan at the same time. We know it’s all for the sake of ‘the bottom line’.
I have difficulty believing that selling our countries ethics is the only way to reduce our mountainous deficit. I watched this clip the other day, and although they are talking about the US economy, it is very relevant to us here in NZ. It reinforced for me that the current government is not doing the best it can for us.
New Zealand has the 6th biggest gap between our richest and poorest people. America is number 3, so we are similar in that way as well as our debt. This is not a new thing, but the current government has made changes to taxation which only broadens this gap. They have made these changes during a time of recession and soaring food and petrol prices. These changes do not only affect those in the lowest income brackets (we currently have one in six kiwi kids living under the poverty line) – but also affect the buying power of the middle classes. How can this be good for our nation’s morale or our economy?
Our government need to stop comparing and competing with other countries. I'm tired of hearing things like: 'Our highest earners tax bracket is on par with Australia'. We are not Australia. Our size and geographical location means that we cannot compete to be the cheapest, but we can be the best within our niche. Sarah and Mitch created our award winning business with almost no capital. They focused on the skills of our team and the resources available to them to create a unique environment. We cannot be the cheapest – we are a small, specialty store with minimal buying power in a small, island nation – but we can offer a friendly smile, advice, recipes and support to the community who support us.
Our government need to recognise that our nation is a niche. They need to stop compromising our unique morality we have spent lifetimes building. Instead of oil drilling, we should be focused on creating the best environmental policy in the world. If we really invested in our ‘100% Pure’ slogan, we’d see a flow on effect in our tourism industry. Our government need to start demonstrating some compassion. They need to stop demonising the poor and jobless. They need to acknowledge and unleash the power of our middle class. They need to recognise that you can create something out of nothing through consistency, honesty, patience and persistence.
Winning this award gives me a little glimmer of hope during what feels to me to be a very dark time for our country. I hope that others will see that there are many ways to define success aside from ‘the bottom line’. I hope the government will recognise that compromising our nations ethics does not look good to potential 'customers' or 'investors'. I hope the government will recognise that they need to invest in us. All of us.
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