It's Not About You

I've got bad news for some of the entrepreneurs out there. Success in business is not about you. It's about your customers.

Two weeks ago I shared a video from Simon Sinek which illustrated that people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And they don't care about your profit formula, business model, need to put your kids through college, or your desire to be financially independent.

Just this week I was working with a client on their go-to-market struggle. We were having a conversation about their "why," and my client made a valuable observation. He said, "That's part of our problem. We're real clear on why this [business] is good for us, but we don't really know why it matters to them; we don't know that the world would be worse off if we didn't exist."

It's not enough to merely articulate your why; great companies believe their why. If you don't believe that your business and your offerings really matter, it's going to be difficult to impossible to influence your market.

Here's the bottom line: Sustainable profits are the byproduct of doing something important for your customers. Profits are the result, not the cause. Never confuse the two!