Why did you go into business in the first place? If you can answer this question first, your direction forward will be clear. The answer will be a great place to start in creating your own story.
People do love stories as highlighted in a recent post by Danny Brown on Apples recent release of the new iPhone. Every one of us who has gone into business, did it for a reason. Some of us for the hope of making money. Some, for more emotional, more passionate reasons. Our prospects and customers can sense the difference.
The distinction is critical. The reason simple. People who buy our products or hire us for services base their decisions not only on rational thoughts or analysis, but also with emotions. We put heavy weight on our emotions. We make decisions from the our limbic brains. Our emotional center.
As Simon Sinek points outs in his blog , Start With The Why, and his “Golden Circle” Most companies build and promote themselves on that “What.” and the “How” Even our conversation reinforces this. We ask, “ What do you do?” We answer, “ I’m a Doctor” or, “I’m a builder.” Less often do we ask ourselves, “Why?” We are even less likely to answer with, “ I feel deep compassion with someone who is ill and I feel a deep need to help them heal.” ( You can Watch Simon Sinek’s talk on the introduction to the golden circle on TED.)
As human beings we relate to each other from that emotional center. We relate through emotions. We have intuitions, we sense whether we trust each other or not. We feel. Those feelings carry a lot more weight then we realize in the buying decision process. We make decisions based on how we will feel with the outcome. If that new iPhone helps us connect to those feelings, we not only want the phone, but how we feel with it.
Why did you go into business in the first place?
Take a look at this video from Apple and ask yourself, “ Why am I in business?” The successful business today and into the future are those who can answer this question, and act on it with their whole being. If you are passionate about the why, then how we do it will be better, and what we do, evern more so. Most importantly that passion will pervade everything you do. Your clients and customers will know it.
