What Is a Trauma-Sensitive Business Owner -and why should you become one?
What IS a Trauma-Sensitive Business Owner
Over the last few years, the term trauma has become a buzzword, migrating over from the healing and wellness spaces into more business and corporate environments.
You may have heard people say they are trauma-informed, sensitive, or aware- and may also be wondering what it means. or why it matters to you as an entrepreneur and/or business owner.
Our team at the Institute for Trauma & Psychological Safety fully believes that we should care about trauma as business owners.
We are all business owners ourselves and have worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs in developing trauma-sensitive approaches to their businesses.
Why is it Important to Bring Trauma Understanding into your Business?
Every person that we interact with daily as business owners has had at least one traumatic experience in their life, and those past experiences impact how we show up in the present and make decisions for the future.
Trauma has an enormous negative effect on us as individuals and on humanity at large because it leads to constriction, restriction, and/or disconnection in 3 main areas of life:
Our relationship with ourselves
Our relationships with other people
Our relationship with the world (and beyond)
And it is really hard to do business when we don’t feel free, capable, and connected with the humans around us.
In this article, we’ll define trauma, explain the differences in terms, and make a case for how being a trauma-sensitive business owner can have a massively positive impact on your marketing, sales, finances, and operations- both in the moment and over time.
What is Trauma?
Trauma can be defined in many ways. Some people define trauma as “a serious or significant experience that is likely to have profound negative consequences for the average human”.
These traumatic events can be physical, such as a car accident or serious injury, or more psychological, like the sudden death of a loved one. Many events have both physical and psychological consequences, such as the loss of one’s business after the betrayal or deception of a business partner.
Others define trauma not as the event itself, but as the “aftermath” of the event. There is growing evidence that even small or seemingly insignificant experiences can have serious negative consequences for people, especially when those events happen while we are young or feel helpless and/or immobilized.
Examples of less recognized traumas include laying in bed as a child and hearing your parents argue about money every night, or facing harsh criticism from a loved one if you tried your best to win a competition and did not succeed. We often write these little traumas off as “not a big deal”, but they have a cumulative effect over time, shaping how we show up in the world.
Both of the above definitions of trauma support what happens physiologically in the body when trauma occurs- our bodies sense something is dangerous, and jump into defense mode, releasing chemicals and preparing us to try to survive the threat. Our bodies also divert energy to only support necessary systems, leading to decreased logical thought, more “reactive” behavior, and potential dissociation (decreased communication between our conscious brain and our body/environment).
At the Institute, we take a holistic approach to trauma, defining it as “the ineffective catabolism of hormones/neurotransmitters during a perceived threatening situation, followed by incomplete nervous system processing of the event. This leads to negative changes in how the human interacts with their self, other people, and the world at large”.
Put simply- When we are unable to clear the threat-induced chemicals from our bodies, nor develop a clear and accurate memory of the emotions, sensations, and thoughts we have around the event, that is when we become “traumatized”.
Trauma Awareness, Sensitivity & Responsiveness
As business owners, we can adopt a trauma-informed approach to our interactions with ourselves by developing capability at 3 “levels”:
Trauma Awareness: Knowing what trauma is, and how it is caused.
Trauma Responsiveness: Consistently embodying a curious and intentional response to humans who have experienced trauma (including ourselves)
Trauma Sensitivity: Recognizing how past trauma can affect us + others in the present moment, and understanding how trauma responses present in a variety of settings.
Feeling confident in our ability to be aware, responsive, and sensitive to both our own and others’ trauma experiences can profoundly impact the success of the 4 core areas of businesses.
How Being Trauma-Sensitive Improves Your Business
MARKETING
Business owners can struggle to get visible, share their offers, and communicate and collaborate with others due to past painful experiences of being rejected or misunderstood. Many people have received unwanted attention or felt shame when they made a public mistake, and so being the face of their business or promoting their work can feel scary and or repulsive. Finding ways to market your business that feel good for our nervous systems makes us more likely to share about the work we are doing!
From the customer perspective, humans are inundated with advertising that uses scarcity and fear to try to spur them to action. Engaging with marketing that does not poke their pain points or capitalize on their anxieties is rare, so many customers approach trauma-sensitive marketing with hesitancy and skepticism. However, after they realize that your intentional, regulated marketing style matches how you operate within your business, your ads will feel like a breath of fresh air for your soon-to-be clients.
One of the most common pieces of feedback our business clients get as they implement trauma-sensitive marketing is how many of their customers actively go LOOKING for their business’s content on social media and beyond because it feels so good for the customers to read/watch.
SALES
One of the most common requests we get from the business owners in our programs is support in feeling more regulated and confident in their sales conversations. They often feel scared to come across as “spammy” or transactional, based on previous training or coaching.
Understanding how your own past painful experiences influence others and receiving money for your provision of goods/services is critical as a business owner. If the techniques you are using to sell remind you (even subconsciously) of past trauma, you will likely approach selling in a dysregulated way, and not see the results you desire.
From the buyer’s perspective, many customers avoid having sales conversations due to previous experiences of being pushed or cajoled into making a misaligned purchase, not receiving what they paid for, and/or the fear of being judged or rejected if they say no to the salesperson.
Learning how to help our customers feel safer and more comfortable sharing their hesitations or questions is one of the most effective ways to increase sales conversations and acquire new business. Plus, customers who feel “seen and heard” by the salesperson are more likely to be repeat customers and/or refer their connections to the business!
OPERATIONS
Ever feel overwhelmed by your to-do list, and end up scrolling on social media instead of checking off the items that need to be done? While it’s not always the case, feeling overwhelmed and/or afraid to complete tasks in your business can be related to past trauma!
Many of our business clients are neurodivergent (studies show that humans with ADHD are 3x more likely to start a business than our neurotypical counterparts). Many of these clients were previously told that “something was wrong with them” when they tried and failed to work a typical 9-5 schedule or to consistently stay focused on the task at hand.
Being shamed for asking too many questions, not being a good “team player”, and/or not following arbitrary rules are all common past painful experiences for entrepreneurs. However, when people leave these dysregulating workplaces and open up businesses for themselves, they unknowingly bring misaligned operational strategies with them!
Instead of being “bad bosses” to ourselves, we can take a trauma-sensitive approach to how we set up our business operations. Finding what works best for our individual brains and bodies can have incredible effects, including boosting productivity, increasing job satisfaction, and increasing our efficiency!
In regards to your customers and clients, they can also feel overwhelmed or anxious about investing in our offers, particularly when they have their own trauma around asking questions or ensuring they understand the details of their purchase. As a business owner, you can put intentionality into how you set up the customer journey to make it as comfortable and flexible as possible for our customers' nervous systems. Potential customers are way more likely to become lifelong customers if they know they will be treated with kindness and respect after they have purchased, instead of being treated as just another transaction.
FINANCE
Money and finance is one of the most trauma-filled areas of business. Both business owners and customers often have a long list of past painful experiences around spending, receiving, saving, losing, and/or earning money. Shame and avoidance are also highly prevalent in most financial conversations and transactions (whether directly or in the background).
How we choose to price our offers, share (or hide) the true cost of our products, set up payment methods and plans, manage our finances, pay ourselves and our team members, and/or borrow money can all be sources of dysregulation for both ourselves and our potential customers.
Being aware of how money conversations can be affected by our past traumas is a huge first step in shifting into a more regulated approach to money, for both you and the people with whom you do business.
As you are able to stay connected and regulated with yourself more, you will have a clearer and more enjoyable experience in managing your finances and supporting your clients through their hesitations around purchasing.
What are the Next Steps to Becoming a Trauma-Sensitive Business Owner?
Now that you are a bit more aware of what trauma is, what it means to be trauma-sensitive, and how trauma sensitivity can benefit you and your business, what’s next?
While you can definitely learn more about trauma sensitivity on your own, we want to make the next step of your journey toward being a trauma-sensitive business owner simple and easy for you.
You can start by joining us in our upcoming free workshop, Your Business Gets to Bloom on Thursday, March 21, 2024, from 12-3 pm EST (replay available). We’ll be in the workshop together, helping you shift your approach to your business so it feels better for YOU as the owner!
OR if you’re ready to hop into understanding more about trauma sensitivity and how to infuse it into your business at a deeper level, check out our upcoming 3-day virtual event, A Pleasure Doing Business, happening April 26-28, 2024.
We hope to see you at either event (or both!!!)