Why do I create and manage websites? Because many years ago I fell in love with the playing-field-levelling technology of the internet. I do it for small/micro businesses and for small non-profits to easily compete successfully on the internet with multi-million-dollar budgets from the big organisations.
I’m not interested in the large corporate projects with committees, lo-o-o-o-ong project timelines, hidden agendas, impact assessments, stakeholder engagement studies etc etc. They are high value but high aggro.
So my ‘Why’ leads straight to my Purpose - which is to help small businesses, small non-profits to succeed via the internet. As a great book has it, “Small is beautiful”.
Having a clear purpose in your business is invaluable.
- If you have a why, you have a purpose- and with a purpose, you know what you’re out to achieve. It focusses what you do, how you do it, what you do it with. And means you do it better.
- It keeps you authentic - if you care about what you do (ie. it’s more than just simply earning money to survive), your actual and potential customers will feel and recognise that. They’ll be more confident when buying from you.
- It keeps you on track - knowing why you do what you do will help you ‘stick to the plan’. It’s easy to add options, and say ‘Yes’ every time a customers asks for something slightly related, but if you keep your why in mind, you’ll know what will serve your aims and objectives and what won’t. You’ll make better business decisions, run more effectively, build a better business. Your why gives you direction.
How to find your why:
1: What drives you? - you get out of bed every day (give or take a Covid lockdown) and do your do. Is it simply what you know how to do, or is there more to it? What inspires you to keep going and want to stay in your industry other than money?
2: What about your business do you love? - when you talk to others about your business, what is it that you are most passionate about? It won’t be the hard description of what you actually do (eg. excavate ditches) but what’s behind doing that (eg. the satisfaction of protecting a town from flooding).
3: What problems do you want to solve for your customers? - whatever it is that you do, it’s going to be solving a problem. Maybe it’s as straightforward as offering a great place to eat. Maybe it’s stroking an ego. Maybe it’s a comfortable retirement. Identify the problem that people come to you to get fixed.
4: Follow your gut - your why is an emotional thing, not a dispassionate factual thing. This isn’t the same as your mission or your vision. It’s what leads to a mission, a vision. See if you can catch or recall those moments that make you happy to be doing what you do. What was that actually made you feel happy?
