What is your purpose?
The Golden Circle is an inspiring model and concept that challenges the status quo. Developed by Simon Sinek in 2009, it has been used as a guide for anyone to vastly improve their life, leadership, corporate culture, hiring process, product development, sales, and marketing. It defines loyalty and dictates how to create enough momentum to turn an idea into a social movement.
As we face turmoil, many realise how strong tides and winds can quickly affect your life or your business. Nothing fun about it. What stands between these individuals or enterprises who still strive regardless of the conditions, and those who may not, is often linked to their capacities to move forward. It is this intrinsic motivation for the cause or the belief they stand for, that can make or break them.
Understanding your own purpose is an essential question to be addressed, and the sooner you do, the better. Unfortunately, most will choose not to, simply because it’s easier to follow others and the current trends. This compliant reactive posture often leads to having disappointing lives and/or failed businesses.
So let’s address what we stand for together, so that you can unleash your true powers. This practice is effective, and it can transcend your life or business with increased meaning and authenticity to propel you forward and prepare you for the long run.
If you look at the golden circle in more detail, you can see three circles:
- Why? – Describes the mission and core belief of a business, organisation, or of an individual. It’s why the business exists or your actual reason for being. An essential start when strategizing.
- How? – Illustrates the way in which your ‘WHY’ is most often achieved. It’s how the business or person fulfills their core belief.
- What? – Describes the activities of the entity. It’s what the company or person does to fulfill their core belief. It’s an action, a belief, a product or service that you offer to others or to the market.
When you have determined your WHY and clearly defined your HOWs you may have an accompanying sense that you carry an important mission that is going to leave a positive impact on this world. This is often the most powerful feeling of being alive. All masterpieces that were created in this world began with a WHY, and so should your life.
A strong life WHY helps you clarify your purpose out of life and helps you focus and push yourself. If you establish your life WHY correctly, it should serve you as a roadmap, helping you make your dreams and passions a reality. Your life’s WHY and HOWs are your best compass to help you live a full life.
However, having only a WHY isn’t enough. If your WHY isn’t powered with specific HOWs and WHATs, as well as a strong commitment to your strategy and tactics, then your WHY is merely an illusion.
When you identify your big WHY, ask yourself, “Why would you fight for it? Why you? Why do you care? Why does it matter?”
When these answers are clear, you have a powerful WHY and you become more passionate, more innovative, and more progressive in your marketing and communication. You have one more important reason for waking up in the morning.
The implications of defining The Golden Circle reach far beyond what one can imagine.
At a corporate level, think about the typical challenges that you often face ...
- Why can’t you sell more? Your product is good, your teams are motivated, and you know that people need what you propose.
- Why are your competitors, big and small, able to pull customers away from you?
- How can you inspire greater loyalty and engagement among your customers and employees?
- How can you achieve and sustain large amounts of success for years on end?
- How can you define an ideal and clear persona that can be used to reach your key target segments?
- Why is it so complex to formulate a clear consistent marketing strategy that sustainably addresses what you stand for, who you truly are and what you believe?
Now let’s look at some of the benefits associated with having a clear Golden Circle ...
- When companies cannot articulate their WHY, the price, features, and quality of their product/service become the only forms of differentiation. Starting with your WHY can be a great way to justify a higher price point or overcome shortcomings.
- Your buyers know and believe in your mission. This helps create the framework for long-lasting and meaningful relationships that increase customer lifetime value.
- Purpose and values are easy to identify with and creates personal connections.
- Simplify your marketing copy and next time you're writing an email, a blog post, or a landing page, start your writing with WHY.
- A majority of B2B decisions are made before speaking with sales. As a result, it’s critical to position yourself to stand out in order to create sales opportunities.
- Start clearly defining your ideal customer profiles and personas. Then, create messages that specifically target those companies and roles. Finally, engage their teams across all channels - both online and offline.
- Millennials are quickly coming into positions where they will influence B2B buying decisions. Doing business with companies that share their values and beliefs matter most.
- Starting with WHY helps vendors establish trust and clearly differentiate the value in their offering.
- Creating trust and starting with WHY can be cornerstones for B2B businesses in 2020 and beyond.
The WHY is the soul of any business or person. This is your purpose, your belief, the reason WHY you exist, WHY you’re doing what you’re doing now. Businesses and people need to understand WHY it is we do what we do.
With that understanding, you can tell a compelling story to your audience of prospects and clients that will help them be driven emotionally by your message, converting them into life-long customers.
"The goal is not to sell to people who need what you have,
the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe." - Simon Sinek
Let’s look at some examples from the business world to learn in detail why having a powerful WHY is so important.
For the past 6 years, everyday I drive my Ford Escape XL 1987. Why is it that I drive a Ford you might ask? Simple, Ford's slogan "Go further". They challenge their statement by building bad-ass vehicles. Vehicles that push the limits for your miles per gallon. They expertly produce the build of their product from years and years of testing. And are able to handle any on and off road experiences.
Ford’s Why, How and What are:
- Why: We inspire people to “Go Further”
- How: We use and develop cutting edge technologies
- What: We build vehicles that suit your needs and driving desires
As a result, Ford has some of the most robust and best selling cars and trucks out there. The company inspired leadership demonstrates their WHY in everything they do. Employees, clients, and partners embrace it, it is exemplified within everything the company does both externally and internally.
WHY is a belief, HOW is the action you take to realize that belief and WHAT is the result of those actions. Of course for the golden circles to work, you have to be consistent in what you say and do.
Are you consistent in what you say and what you do?
Let’s also look at Airbnb as an example. By creating an online platform where travellers can rent a spare room from an Airbnb host, it allows people to interact in a way they previously couldn’t. People can rent anything from a couch to a castle in 8000 cities around the world, and while you’re staying in someone else’s home, you are essentially immersed in the local life.
Airbnb’s Why, How and What are:
- Why: Because travelling can and should be so much more than just staying at a hotel.
- How: Create an environment where guests can immerse themselves within a culture and connect with local people of various backgrounds during their travels.
- What: Provides a platform for individuals to rent out their lodging for travellers to stay.
Do you see now why knowing your Golden Circle can make such a difference?
On an individual level, let us consider the inspiring case of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for whom music was everything. His WHY could have been phrased as, “To compose outstanding classical music so that it can transcend the test of time”. He also knew HOW he wanted his own music to be composed and played: It had to be for an orchestra, preferably in an opera, a symphony or a concerto. Centuries later, his legacy remains.
"There are few Mozarts, but we all have an intrinsic purpose to serve,
something we are born with, our mission is to find it."
People that inspire, leaders, and companies of all sizes think, act, and communicate from the inside out. Companies as large as Apple and Google apply these principles in every aspect of their business. Smaller companies like mine or yours should also be using these principles in everything that we do and this is where I can help you find it. We as individuals should all strive towards a life that is meaningful and full of purpose.
