What’s Your Why?

When we get into business, there is something that is driving us – it could be the need make a difference, to make a statement, to challenge the status quo or to showcase a new kind of offer, but as we go on, we can often forget our why or perhaps our why changes.

This is a question we ask our clients when we start working with them. Some are taken aback by the question as they haven’t really thought about it since they started, and they need to really think about the answer. I find this fascinating as your why and what you stand for as a brand is everything.

The best brands out there know their ethos and their mission. They know what they are and most definitely what they aren’t. The ones that are slightly ambiguous on this risk confusing their end consumer which can directly impact their business success.

So, I want to ask you what your why is – why do you do what you do? From a personal perspective, is it perhaps to gain more flexibility, more control, more financial independence?  From a professional standpoint, is it to stand out and make a difference or impact and influence a certain audience in a certain way?

It is really good to revisit this as, like everything, your business evolves and your why can shift. Your purpose and your objectives need reviewing regularly and check that they are aligned with your marketing output: are your objectives relayed in your social media or your general communications for example.

Brands that we really admire who we feel get their mission statements spot on include:  TED: Spread Ideas, Tesla: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, and Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

As you can see, these statements do what they say on the tin and represent the brand fully. You may think that TED’s two-word statement looks easy, but I bet there was a lot of thinking and debate to agree on those final words.

For us here at Fox&Bear ours is: We Tell Your Story. The emphasis on your is important as for us, our client is at the heart of all we do. It is their story that we are privileged to be able to tell digitally and we take that very seriously. We always host a brand session before we talk about design to really get to know the people, the brand story and very importantly, their why. This gives us incredibly valuable insight in order to represent their brand in the best possible way and, we’re pleased to say, with great results.

Telling stories is hugely powerful and can impact people quite profoundly, especially when you take the time to really immerse yourself in that story and what really makes that brand tick.