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Finding ‘who’ means unearthing your ‘what and why’

Marketing, Metaphor, million dollar message, one central truth, slogan, Tagline, value proposition, , , ,
Describing your who means you must unearth your what and why
To tell people who you are, you must understand your what and why Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash

Describing ‘who’ you are means unearthing your ‘what and why’

Telling someone you’re a lawyer or dentist tells me a little bit about your business.

It is who, with a very small ‘w’.

Such a generic description doesn’t reveal your heart and soul however.

Using a broad descriptor for your who doesn’t provide an opportunity to engage a stranger at a deeper level, because they can’t determine the real you.

Showing the inner who of your business can only be achieved by telling me your ‘what and why’.

In theory, ‘what’ should be comparatively simple.

But many businesses do a number of different things. The art and science is deciding on the one thing that best represents your offer.

Your ‘why’ is a trickier beast. It needs to be a an eyebrow raising reason for a customer to be intrigued enough to want to know more.

It takes some self-reflection, time, and perhaps a neutral outsider to mold your ‘what and why’ that resonates – both externally for, and just as importantly, internally in a business.

Get it right though, and nobody has any doubt about who you are.

If you’ve only got one chance to tell your story…

million dollar message, punchline, value proposition,

Restricting yourself to 10 words, tell me about your business.

Have you described why someone should be interested in your product or service?

Have you given me a what and a why?

Is part of the heart and soul of who you are evident along with your value proposition?

Does what you say sound fresh, because you’ve used familiar (though not overused) terms in a novel way?

If you’ve pulled this off by yourself, you’re magic.

However most of us, myself included, struggle mightily to unearth our own business story.

By ourself, we can’t sort the wood from the trees, spot the gem in the dross, narrow down to the one central truth of what I call your MIllion Dollar Message.

An outsider is (essentially) the only way to bring objectivity to revealing the essence of your first, most important story.

Writing 10,000 words is easy. Refining your story down to 10 words is arduous.

But get it right, and you’ve faceted the diamond of your story crown.