Hi there 👋
I had some great feedback about my last two newsletters. Thank you for that! 🙏 If you appreciate, don’t hesitate to leave a comment, like or share.
In today’s edition I’m talking about how we, as marketers and entrepreneurs, can rely on our beliefs to promote our brand, find an audience and build a community of loyal customers.
We all want that, right?
I’ll assume you already heard about the author and world famous speaker Simon Sinek but you didn’t read his most famous book (yet).
His book “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” was released in 2009. It has soon become a global best seller. 🤓
I discovered him a few years ago with this video on Youtube (or was it on ted.com ?) 👇
It’s a TED Talk he gave in 2011 in Maastricht, The Netherlands.
TED (for Technology, Entertainment and Design) events are organized worldwide and welcome the most talented and inspirational speakers that are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas.
I found his talk stunning and inspiring, and decided to immediately buy Start With Why. It took me only a night to read it.
It changed my view on the profond reasons that push people to buy products from certain brands like Nike or Tesla, and why these are different from most brands.
The Golden Circle
The Golden Circle is a very simple concept to map an organization’s strategy.
It has 3 parts:
WHAT: The “what” describes what companies do, what they sell, their products and/or services
HOW: The “how” describes how companies do what they do, what differentiates them from their competitors, what makes them special, their value proposition or USP.
WHY: The “Why” describes a company’s mission, its purpose, the core reason why it exists (which is not making profits).
How to use the golden circle to find and inspire your audience?
According to Simon Sinek, most brands think, act and communicate from the outside in.
When they strategize, they think in terms of products. “What new product are we going to put on the market?”
When they promote, they talk about their products, then about their differentiators and almost never about their why. Most of them don’t even know it.
In his talk, Simon Sinek gives the example of Apple as a brand doing differently.
He tells that brands like Apple are different because they think, act and communicate with their why as a starting point and this concept is clearly defined.
Here is Apple’s Golden Circle:
WHY: In everything we do, we challenge the status quo. We believe in what we do and in a different way of thinking.
HOW: By creating products with a beautiful design, easy to use and user-friendly.
WHAT: We sell computers, smartphones, tablets, TV appliances and software.
Apple’s computers are not better than other companies computer’s but they represent a way of thinking. They are appealing to people who believe what Apple believes, to people that believe in challenging the status quo.
Do you remember their famous commercial “1984” that was aired during the Super Bowl and announcing the Macintosh? It was directed by Ridley Scott. 😲
Look at this girl “challenging the status quo”.
They don’t show the product.
They don’t talk about features.
They just talk to who we are.
This ad says “if you’re like her, you’re like Apple. The Macintosh is made for you”.
You get it.
Your audience, your most likely (future) customers, are those people that believe in your organization’s mission/why.
And we all believe in something: a cause, a purpose.
Share what you believe, the very reason why you created that company. Your audience will find you and you’ll find your audience.
The golden circle applied
Since I read this book and realized this, every time I have the occasion to do so, I use the Golden Circle framework to define a brand’s foundations.
I even teach my students at UCLouvain to start their branding and communication strategies with why, to build their messages and brand promise around it.
So, of course, I made the exercise for BCW.com (👈 that’s the business idea I want to test. Read more about it here) and here’s what it gives:
WHY: We believe that everybody’s tomorrow should be a little happier than today. We think that every little bit counts and that any cause making people, and especially children, happier should be supported.
HOW: We create moments of happiness for some that spread out to others.
WHAT: We sell 1-to-1 live video calls with celebrities.
I will be happy to read/hear what you think about this issue and I hope you find it valuable.
If you want to go deeper, read the book! You can find it here.
✌️
Fabee
PS: Sharing is caring. ❤️
Good Book, focus as the WHY ^^, Thanks for this refresh
I read it 2-3 years ago and this is indeed a great book. Not always easy nevertheless to apply it in a "traditional" industry. Maybe I should have a second thought about how to apply it in practice :-)