Understanding Your Reasoned Motivation – Your Why
Motivation is that force, or energy, that drives you and your business forward. Owning a business is rewarding but also challenging. During the challenging times, you will want to reflect on what we call your Reasoned Motivation or your why to stay motivated and keep your eyes on the prize. Sharing your Why can also get others to better understand your intent and increase their interest in doing business with you. In my best-selling book Amplify Your Business, we cover this topic is the last of four items you should aim to address in Level 0 of marketing.
The Importance of Understanding the Why You Do What You Do:
Why you do what you do is really important both to you and your potential customers.
If you communicate you are building a business solely “To make a lot of money” then that will not inspire many people to join your cause. Even worse it won’t really inspire you when times are tough because money alone can not buy happiness. There are countless numbers of unhappy rich people to prove my point.
If you communicate you are building a business with an intent to “Ensure families in your have the resources available to lead a healthy and save lifestyle” you will inspire others to join your cause, you can enjoy a deeper sense of fulfillment in your work and you can still make a lot of money in the process.
Ted Speaker, Simon Senik shared how some of the greatest companies, begin with the Why they do what they do, to differentiate from competitors and provide a more compelling business experience and culture.
“People Don’t Buy What You Do, They Buy Why You Do What You Do” – Simon Sinek
The Need for Two Reasoned Motivations
There may be a need to define two Reasoned Motivations, one for you personally and one for your business.
Your personal Why you do what you do depends on you and your needs. Why are you doing what you do? It may tie right back in to your Clear Objective of what you’re ultimately trying to achieve.
My Inspired Mission is to inspire and empower one hundred thousand entrepreneurs to thrive in life. My Why is that I aim to contribute to the improvement of society and believe when people have direction or feel valued they not only feel fulfilled themselves, they can inspire others in the process. I also want to set a great example for my two boys. In my case my Personal Why aligns with my Business Why. This is because my Personal Why includes offering value to the people I serve.
In another example, let’s say that your Personal Why is “to own a lot of property and high end material possessions” because that is how you best feel fulfilled. This may inspiring to you but may be a disconnect with your business because it doesn’t express why your business is doing what it does that will benefit others.
Communicating that you want to own more things to potential customers won’t earn any brownie points. In this case there is a need to define a Business Why.
If your business developed software applications, the Why may be “to provide simple, effective solutions to save people time and increase efficiency“.
This Why clearly defines a better understanding to your customers and how it benefits them.
For a merchant your Why may be to “Help people save money and live better lives“.
When people understand your business’s primary intent is to offer value to them then they will be much more likely to support it or do business with it.
Leveraging Your Business’s Why for Marketing Your Business
Ultimately this exercise in defining your Whys are to inspire you and your customers. Hubspot provided this great example of marketing copy for a content rich download.
Look at the following examples below:
“Check out our new ebook, 7 Ways to Generate Leads with Social Media. We’ll show you the seven most effective ways to use social media to generate leads for your business.”
OR
“In the past decade, social media has become a very powerful tool for businesses. More and more businesses are adopting social media strategies to fuel their lead generation. In our new ebook, we’ll show you the seven most effective ways to use social media for your business. Check out 7 Ways to Generate Leads with Social Media.”
The second paragraph proved to gets people to take more action. This because it leads with the Why answering the question Why should I care about this. People need to either care about what you do, why you do it or how you can help them in some way, if you don’t communicate one of these you are going to miss the chance to earn their business.
Understand your Reasoned Motivation why you do what you do to keep you motivated and inspired and communicate your business’s why to let potential customers know why they should care. If they happen to be the same, great, if not take the time to write them out.
What is Your Reasoned Motivation?
Why Do You Do What You Do?
