Simon Sinek is right - start with 'why', here's why

Simon Sinek is right - start with 'why', here's why

marketingmessaging

Simon Sinek is right. Your projects should start with ‘why’. If you don’t start with ‘why’ you’ll have a really hard time making something you care about.

What happens when you don’t start with why

This month I’ve been focusing on marketing.

A couple of weeks ago I came across a marketing idea that really resonated with me - the Dream 100.

The idea is that your customers are already congregating around existing influencers, keywords, forums, websites etc… If you can find those 100 people then you can market to their audiences and bam! customers.

Great, makes total sense. Get specific about influencers and I’ll have a solid marketing strategy I can execute against.

I got out a piece of paper, picked a business idea — Using AI to build landing pages — and… after an hour I had like 2 names on my list.

Oof! This wasn’t working. I didn’t feel excited and inspired. This felt like a slog. The problem was that the idea didn’t pop. There are billions of landing page builders, why should I offer another landing page service? And did I really care about landing pages? Maybe my business idea needed adjusting?

Adjusting the business idea by starting with topics of interest

Right, so let’s start writing lists based on books I’ve read and YouTube channels I’m interested in. From this, I got:

Engineering:

  • Sparkfun (Electronics Company)
  • Stuff Made Here (YouTube Channel)
  • Trelis Research (AI / ML)
  • Etc…

Marketing:

  • Perry Marshal
  • Russell Brunson
  • Chet Holmes
  • Etc…

And a bunch of other categories… but honestly, there was nowhere to go from here. So I like marketing and engineering, so what? If you don’t have a problem to solve ~ something to fix in these fields there’s no product to make and no business to build, so I thought to myself, “Walt, you need to gain some empathy and understanding for some of these customers. Maybe you should research and brainstorm problems and then find relevant influencers.”

Starting with problems

So the next day I started taking some of the categories I’d found in my research on personal interests and brainstorming problems (some of them my own and some of them based on research). It looked something like this.

My problems:

  • My license in the USA expired, I want to get one so that when I go back to the US I can drive around
  • I need a website for selling my services (service professionals)
  • We hired the wrong person and they’re horrible… they never deliver anything (engineering managers)
  • Etc…

Ok, here were some problems but they were all so random. There was no way for me to choose any of them. A few looked interesting, but something was missing. After some thought I concluded ~ maybe instead of starting with a random problem I should start with one of my personal ‘whys’.

Starting with ‘why’

In his book, Start with Why Simon Sinek had argued that leadership starts with answering the question ‘why’…

“Why does this book exist” “Why do the people in this company get up and go to work every day” “Why is this or that topic important”

This is different from what most companies do which is start with ‘what’ or maybe ‘how’.

  • We sell a 5gb MP3 player (what - Creative) vs. 1000 Songs in your pocket (why you should care - Apple)
  • For The People (Kamala Harris’ campaign slogan — maybe what?) vs America is Broken and I want to make it great again (why Donald Trump)

Why is about making a claim, taking a stance, standing for something, fighting for something worth fighting for.

So I tried writing out a few of my own ‘whys’ and it was great.

  • I believe that making a little bit of progress each day (through practice and habit building) leads to incredible things
  • I believe that we live in an age of addictive technology and that it doesn’t have to be this way - technology should help you focus, not steal your time and mental energy
  • I believe gratitude, friendship, and teamwork > criticism, isolation and strength
  • Etc…

These are all things I can get behind. Each one has energy behind it each why has limitless problems worth solving and communities and influencers to work with.

It works - a quick test that proves it

Here’s a quick test I did with one that illustrates the point.

Idea: Technology can help you focus instead of steal your focus

Empathy for customers (me brainstorming about the conversation that is going on inside their head):

  • I feel like YouTube is eating my life
  • I want to be able to read a book
  • I want to feel productive but I aimlessly surfed the web instead…

Each of these statements are related to the bigger topic (Technology being de-focusing). Earlier when I was brainstorming problems without a ‘why’ my problems were all over the place. Here they all support the high-level why.

Influencers:

  • Simon Sinek - he constantly talks about deep focus, distraction etc…
  • James Clear - he talks about habit building and how cues can trigger actions (tech companies use cues to get people to watch YouTube and therefore watch ads)
  • Nir Ayel - he wrote the book Hooked in which he talked about how to build an addictive product and Indistractable in which he talked about how to avoid getting hooked
  • Judith Grisel - she wrote the book ‘Never Enough’ about substance abuse and how an artifical high (maybe generated by using mood-improving technology) will inevitably lead to a low

Thinking back on the projects I felt motivated by, they all started with a strong sense of ‘why’.

So it works. Start with why and you’ll be able to identify your target customers and target influencers which will allow you to build a solid marketing plan and messaging which will allow you to put together a compelling product.

An aside

Incidentally during this work I ran a thought experiment - why did Donald Trump’s messaging work while Kamala Harris’ messaging didn’t?

I came to the conclusion that Trump has a ‘why’ while Kamala doesn’t.

Trump said, “I think America is broken and I am running because I want to fix it”. It’s broken this way, that way, this other way… blah blah blah blah blah.

In contrast Kamala’s message was confusing. Her core message kept changing.

For a while it was “Joy” then “We’re not going back” then “When we fight, we win” then “I’m different from biden” then when people were confused (what is she going to do exactly?) “tax cuts for the middle class”, finally “Trump is dangerous”.

She never told us why we should pick her for the job. In the end people said, “Ok, I don’t know what you’re about Kamala, I guess I’ll vote for Trump since he’s the only one who makes any sense”.

I’ll keep you posted as I try out more experiments.