At TrizCom PR, we pride ourselves on being storytellers and firmly believe that every organization has a unique story to tell. In our professional experience, we’ve found storytelling to be the most impactful – generating the most placements and increased sales – when brands originate their communications efforts from their “why.”
Purpose-Driven Brand’s Why
What do I mean by your why, you may ask? I’m talking about the purpose of your brand. Your why should fuel your personal and professional drive. Why do you do what you do? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Why is what you do important to you? Why is it important to the people who use your products/services?
Simon Sinek’s popular TED Talk outlines a conceptual organizational diagram that he has coined The Golden Circle. Constructed of three rings, The Golden Circle demonstrates that brands have three layers to their business: their what, their how and, at their core, their why.
Why It’s Important
While it’s important for brands to understand and explain each of these components of their organization, the most critical layer of an organization is their why. In our decades of experience, we’ve discovered that brands are unable to maximize their full potential when they spend too much time communicating from the outer ring of the circle, focusing on what their product is or how it works without ever touching on their why – or their passion behind what they do. The problem is people do not buy what you do or how you do it – they buy why you do it.
Apple, as Sinek points out in his TED talk, is a perfect example of this. If Apple were to communicate from the outer ring in, as most brands do, their messaging would sound like this:
“We make great computers. They’re beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. Want to buy one?”
But here’s how Apple actually communicates:
THE WHY: “In everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo; we believe in thinking differently.”
THE HOW: “The way we challenge the status quo is by making products that are beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly.”
THE WHAT: “We just so happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?”
Developing your communications strategy from your why is not only critical to authentically creating loyalty and engagement with your external key audiences, but also internally within your own team. A recent Forbes report found that purpose-driven companies evolve faster than others. Not only does recent consumer data show that consumers are more loyal to purpose-driven brands, a PwC study also showed that millennials who had a strong connection to the purpose of their organization are 5.3 times more likely to stay.
So why is it that 68% of organizations admit that their why, or purpose, is not a component in the leadership decision-making processes? By doing so, 67% of their employees remain disengaged from work, factoring into their productivity and ultimately the organization’s ability to reach their full revenue potential.
Success comes not from selling people who need what you have, but from sharing your purpose with people who believe and buy into your why. After all, as Sinek cleverly notes at the end of his TED Talk, “Martin Luther King gave an ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, not an ‘I Have a Plan’ speech.”
Especially coming out of this pandemic, communicating your brand’s why is going to be more important than ever before. Discover the “why” of your business story. Let us help you find yours. Reach out to us for a free public relations consultation at https://www.trizcom.com/contact.
TrizCom Public Relations
972-247-1369
jo@trizcom.com
www.TrizCom.com
