Evergreen Citizen Steve Butcher sees the future in transparency for business
May 2005 | Evergreen Citizen
That’s the Ticket
Steve Butcher sells business ‘not-just-for-profit’ model
By Miryam Gordon
He’s the quintessential entrepreneur, with ideas, plans, goals and dreams spilling out from a man in a hurry. What distinguishes Steve Butcher is his belief that corporate America needs to adopt the "not-just-for-profit" ethical business model.
"Business is notorious for facing ethical dilemmas and not making good choices," says Butcher. His solution is to show businesses how including ethical treatment of employees and customers is not just good, but better, for business. He does that as a business consultant.
To underscore his point, Steve created a new business that exemplifies his ideals. Seattle-based Brown Paper Tickets (www.brownpapertickets.com) is a national ticketing agency where transparency is king.
“The ticketing industry is rife with hidden fees, setup fees, percentages of gross sales and contractual penalty clauses,” says Butcher. Penalties are charged to businesses both when not enough tickets are sold and if too many tickets are sold. Consumers face handling and mailing fees not shown to the ticket buyer until the very last step of the sale.
"We started out by listing all the things (other ticketing agencies have) done poorly or wrong and asked ourselves what was possible to do right," Butcher explains.
Butcher and his Brown Paper Tickets partners decided they could make enough money to succeed even with transparent pricing. They decided not to charge venues for the event listing. They decided to charge a flat $.99 per ticket and 2.5 percent of the sale price.
They don’t include penalties for success or failure to the event venue and the fee structure is always the same. It doesn’t matter what kind of event or how popular it is.
"You could hold a beer and pizza party or small fundraiser at your house and have people pay $5 a person to you through our website," declares Steve.
Evergreen Monthly: How can business make an "ethical profit?”
Butcher: We ran business models to determine adequate profit. A fair profit is where your employees have health insurance, your vendors make a fair profit, too, and your customers are treated fairly. If everyone feels treated fairly and openly, then it’s a successful transaction.
EM: What difference would it make if the "not-just-for-profit" model were used?
Butcher: Corporations run the world. They are super-citizens that cross borders. They need a reward system to change their business model. Government could, for instance, encourage medical insurance companies to cut their own costs and pass savings along, so more businesses could insure their employees. Subsidies could be created for companies that can show they are "carbon neutral" to encourage better air quality. Currently, oil [production] makes the most profit and gets the most subsidy.
A "not-just-for-profit" category of business licensing could be created by states so that taxes, fees and accounting rules could encourage businesses to register as NJFP, just like they can register as "sole proprietor" or "C-Corp."
EM: Does making a fair profit mean not getting rich?
Butcher: I have no problem with people making billions if it’s done in an ethical way.
Miryam Gordon is a contributing writer and Events editor for Evergreen Monthly.
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