Simon Sinek literally wrote the book on ‘why’ and he did a great job. But for many business leaders why is the hardest question to answer.
When I talk to business leaders; business owners; founders of businesses, they often say “I can’t remember why I started” or “I started to make money” or “I started this business for so many reasons”, or “I bought it, no idea why it started”.
But these have missed the point. ‘Why’ should be about organisational purpose. What problem does the organisation solve. What’s the driving passion in the organisation? Why as in organisational purpose is not about you, the business leader. It is about your organisation and what it does for your customer. It is about why your organisation exists. Not your personal goals, not your retirement fund, not why you do what you do but why your organisation exists, it’s purpose.
We know the power of why we know that Why is really important for your brand, employees and customers to understand. But how do we identify our organisational purpose?
To properly identify our purpose we have to start thinking about our customers in more detail. What problems did they experience that we solved for them? Without fully understanding this it’s very difficult to understand your purpose and why your organisation exists. Professionals in marketing are always talking about an avatar or a perfect customer, completely missing the part about what problem they need solved and why they might consider it a problem, how much it hurts and whether they even want to change that.
Fortunately, I’ve always been clear about mine, I started a sales training organisation because I was tired of the 60 year old mantras that never worked being repeated over and over again. Digital marketing is successful because business has rejected this failed sales model. ‘It’s a numbers game” (it is but not what you might think) “over come objections” (invalidate feelings), “Close, close, close. Ask for the business” (setup for another objection). My organisational purpose or my why is to change the focus back to the customers and only deliver what they need and want to change. With the customer front and centre, and with a bit of preparation, selling becomes a joint problem solving task where you develop a business case with your customer. I believe this customer focus, much lauded but widely papered over in sales training, marketing organisations and all too often by digital advertising agency’s, is what’s missing from the now very broken sales model. Hence my ‘Why’.
If you are struggling with your ‘why’ or organisational purpose and want to know more, please contact me or comment below.
