By Lyndsey Hall
One of the main things to come out of our hugely successful 2014 conference was the idea that people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do what you do. Paul Dunn made reference to Simon Sinek’s book
The top of the pyramid is the most important tier; it forms the core of who you are and what you do. Each tier symbolises a significant part of your brand; what others think of when they hear your name, right down to your outward portrayal of your personality – your dress sense and appearance.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
Once you have thought long and hard about your core values; your fundamental beliefs; and what you are most known for (or WANT to be known for, as the case may be), you’ll have a clear picture of what is important to you – the WHY of who you are and what you do. You can directly link this to your business, for example, if you are a sole trader or own a small business where you are the front man, customers are buying YOU. Or you can design a second pyramid, this time using the values and beliefs that you want your business to portray; and that every single staff member, from the CEO right down to the delivery van driver, will represent on a daily basis.
Now you know what your WHY is, you can start shouting it from the rooftops! Update your website to include your ethos: for example, Knowles Warwick’s is ‘Helping you to achieve your dreams and ambitions’, because we don’t come to work every day to do accounts and write business plans, that’s just WHAT we do. The reason why we do it is to make our clients’ dreams of running their own business come true. You can see our company ethos on our website and on every piece of marketing we produce, because we’re proud to tell our potential customers why we are in the accounting and business advice game. Those entrepreneurs who read our ethos and think “that’s the kind of accountant I want, one who’ll work with me every step of the way and help me achieve my ambitions”, those are the right kind of customers for us.
Who is the RIGHT kind of customer for you?
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