What’s your WHY? People don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it…
A bottle of Diet Coke is essentially fizzy flavoured water. The hunky man is the bonus, but it’s essential still a flavoured drink. I haven’t drunk Diet Coke for 20 years, but I still LOVE the Diet Coke ads, and I fall for the magic. It reminds of a time when I was working in a 9-5 job and life was a little more mundane and ordinary.
Somehow by drinking a bottle of bubbles, I’d tap into the magic of the “break” and suddenly some hot man would appear and make life less ordinary… I know, I’m dreaming, but I’ve fallen for the Diet Coke dream, and I’m still thinking about it 15 years after I stopped drinking Diet Coke.
It’s all about the branding. It’s that MAGIC quality why we love or hate certain brands. When we identify with the story of a brand, we fall in love with them…
I hate Spanx – they make me sweat, and they make me feel lumpy and bumpy, but I adore their founder and inventor, Sara Blakely. She makes me want to be a better entrepreneur and I love her energy, and her story. In case you don’t know her story, she cut up a pair of pantyhose (tights) and created the spanx prototype when she wanted to suck in her tummy. She eventually found a manufacturer who thought she was crazy, and she showed vision and courage the way she sold her brand (while still doing her day job). She makes me want to be a better entrepreneur, and she seems funny, and likeable, and supportive, and the kind of woman you want to KNOW!!! So I find myself buying Spanx even when I don’t really wear Spanx.
Why am I telling you this…. We don’t buy things, we buy brands, and we buy people and their stories.
So you might say that you don’t have a story… you might think that you don’t have a tale of daring-do entrepreneurial adventure, or the rags to riches tale of promise. Think about your brand, and your story. How did you make it happen, and WHY did you make it happen?
As Simon Sinek in his wonderful TED Talk says, “What’s your WHY?”
Don’t think about what you sell, think about WHY you sell it.
- What’s your purpose?
- What’s your belief?
- What’s your cause?
Whether you’re Sara Blakely wanting to help women feel better about themselves or Toms Shoes for giving a pair of shoes to chlldren in Africa for every pair you buy… These brand stories help you connect, and want to keep connecting.
START PUTTING YOUR WHY INTO PRACTICE
Start journaling with your brand story, and then start writing it… tweak it and hone it on your website, and on your copy…. Start writing it in your emails, and your marketing messaging. Practice saying it for those all important presentations, and stage appearances, or on Facebook lives.
Get comfortable with your story. Know who you are, and feel comfortable talking about your BRAND story for a 60 second “elevator pitch”.
People won’t buy what you do, they’ll buy why you do it.
What drives you to do what you love? And if you don’t love what you do, then when are you going to start doing something that you love? Start telling your brand story.
THINGS TO CONSIDER…
- My purpose is to…
- My mission is to…
- My why is to…
- What drives me is…
