In his now famous TED Talk, Simon Sinek became known for his simple, yet powerful model that leaders and business owners around the globe now use. In his talk and book, he suggests those who “Start With Why” can inspire others to take action.
This is important for business owners trying to market their businesses and services. Uncovering “why” you do what you do will help you determine your vision and create a solid foundation to build and market your business.
Setting the Foundation
What is the purpose behind your business? Why did you start it? What inspired you? Tapping into the “why” behind it all can help you gain greater customer loyalty and build a more sustainable business.
Determining your “why” will also help you create your company’s vision. This vision will become your guiding light, impacting everything from your brand image to your social media marketing. Take Rhonda Allison for example, the vision is built around skin education, and it’s easy to see everything they do stems from that vision.
Be careful not to confuse vision with business goals. A vision is a clear, laser-focused, picture of what you want to do, where you want to be and why. There are a few questions you can ask yourself to determine your vision statement:
- Why did I start my business? What was the motivating factor, aside from making money?
- Who do I want to serve? Why?
- What type of resource do I want to be for my customers?
- Where do I want the business to eventually be?
- What 3 to 5 values are essential to my brand?
Creating your vision statement will help shape your marketing efforts and how you communicate to customers whether in person, email campaigns or in social networks.
Find Your Marketing Sweet Spot
What if you knew exactly what your potential clients wanted and you could use that intelligence to market to them in a way that compelled them to take action every time?
By finding your marketing sweet spot, you can. The marketing sweet spot is where your expertise and everything you have to offer intersects with your customer’s wants, interests and desires. You have expertise in skin care and your customer desires to have healthy, youthful skin. Beyond that, however, why do they have these desires and what solutions are they looking for?
Maybe they have a high school reunion or wedding coming up and they want to look stunning. Or maybe they are pregnant and battling new skin challenges? Perhaps they’ve started to notice the signs of aging and they are feeling self conscious about it.
Knowing these nuances of your client – why and how they purchase skin care and what they are looking for – will allow you to provide more value to them. This can be in the form of informative blog posts or a series of emails about how to prepare for a wedding day, or a downloadable guide on how to care for skin when you’re expecting, or even a one-on-one session with you about why skin ages and how to support youthful skin.
Providing value enables you to establish and build trust with clients, and makes conversations about purchasing services or products that much easier.
The only way to find your sweet spot is through research. Talk to current and prospective clients about what their top skin concerns are, what solutions they are looking for and why? You can do this in person (always recommended) or through a survey (the next best thing) like Typeform or Survey Monkey.
Remember, the more value you can provide your clients (and that is often in the form of education), the more trust and loyalty you will build with them.
Setting a solid foundation based on your “why” will get your marketing started on the right foot and help you build stronger customer relationships.