The Why Behind What You Do

Today, my favorite person that I’ve never met (Michelle Golden), shared a video on Facebook featuring Simon Sinek, the author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. One of the key points of Simon’s talk is “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”.

In my mind, this is the exact idea we are driving at in Duct Tape Marketing when we talking about communication your Core Difference or your Remarkable Difference. Personally, I like “Remarkable Difference” better – I think it matches up with better with Simon’s thesis above.

One of the reasons I love what I do is that I get to meet business owners making remarkable differences all of the time and when I’m lucky, I get to work with them to help spread their story. Let me give you an example.

I was recently met Ray Reed via referral from my sales coach Dan Stalp. Ray is an insurance salesman. “What’s so remarkable about that?” you may ask. After all, there are about a bazillion (give or take a few million) of those guys, aren’t there?

Ray does something that I think is remarkable. He works with people who have been declined or rated for life insurance. These folks are usually declined because of medical conditions and sometimes because they work in hazardous jobs. I learned from Ray that it is very common for people, once they have been declined once, to believe that they are un-insurable, so they give up looking for coverage.

You can imagine how stressful it must be for folks with serious medical conditions who are looking to provide financial security for they family. Sure, other insurance people also sell similar coverage, but Ray specializes in solving this type of problem. He has even developed a special Reverse Underwriting Process that tells his customers what coverage they can get and how much it will cost before they ever have to visit a doctor for a medical exam. Ray’s “why” is he enjoys making a real difference in these people’s lives.

Here is another example. Dan Stalp, who I mentioned above, provides sales training here in the Kansas City area. “Sales training” isn’t all that remarkable, but that’s not what Dan really does. He uses sales training to help people make transformations in their lives – first by helping them set personal goals and then teaching them the behaviors, attitudes, and techniques they need to earn the income they need to help them achieve those goals.

I think Ray and Dan are both good examples of people who “get it” when it comes to Simon’s idea of “people don’t buy what you sell, they buy why you sell it”. And I don’t think it is a coincidence that Dan knew Ray and referred Ray to me. After all, birds of a feather flock together, right?

So what’s your “why” for doing what you do?