Start with ‘why’: Power your business with purpose

Launching a business with a great product or service, attentive customer care and competitive pricing is one thing. Connecting with an audience, inspiring their loyalty and achieving sustained growth is a whole different set of challenges. But what’s the secret ingredient that makes some businesses leaders of their tribe, roaring proudly at the top of the food chain, and leaves others struggling through the tangled undergrowth, fighting to be heard?

The answer lies in one small word: why.

Why does your ‘why’ matter?

Knowing your business’s central purpose – your ‘why’ – is essential for setting yourself apart from your competitors and inspiring loyalty from your audience. Because customers don’t just buy a product or service, they buy into values and beliefs. They look for the ethos that powers a business. Consider these research findings by Accenture:

• 62% of consumers report that their purchasing decisions are influenced by a company’s ethical values and authenticity
• 63% of surveyed global consumers prefer to purchase products and services from companies that stand for a purpose that reflects their own values and beliefs, and will avoid companies that don’t

Further evidence to back this up comes from Zeno Group’s 2020 Strength of Purpose study. When consumers think a brand has a strong purpose, they are:

• 4 times more likely to purchase from the company
• 4.5 times more likely to champion the company and recommend it to friends and family
• 4.1 times more likely to trust the company

Your ‘why’ isn’t just nice to have; it’s your competitive advantage.

Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle

Simon Sinek is a writer, speaker and business leader who began his career at advertising agencies Ogilvy and Euro RSCG (now Havas Creative). His 2010 TED Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, is one of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time. Sinek devised the Golden Circle, an idea that has revolutionised how we think about business strategy. By flipping the way most companies work, the Golden Circle provides a model for embedding your ‘why’ into the DNA of your business and building outwards from there. It’s not just fluffy corporate speak; it’s a strategy with claws and teeth.

Here’s how it works. Most companies work from the outside in:

• What they do: Their products / services
• How they do it: Their process and differentiators
• Why they do it: Their purpose and beliefs

But the most successful and inspiring organisations reverse this order; they start with why, and work outwards.

Copyright: Simon Sinek

How to find your why: Start from the inside out

Before you can communicate your purpose, you need to set it out clearly. So, how do you establish your why?

1) Ask yourself the following questions:

• What change do you want to see in the world?
• What would be lost if your company didn’t exist?
• What problem in your industry drives you to action?

Look at mission statements from some of the world’s most recognised and trusted brands. Whether they’re driven by a desire to inform, entertain, connect people or inspire them, their ‘why’ is clear in their mission statement.

2) Align your what and your how

Once you’ve identified your why, everything else should flow naturally:

• Your ‘how’ becomes the unique way you deliver on your purpose. It’s your methods, your values in action, your distinctive approach – the solution that only your business can bring
• Your ‘what’ is transformed from a list of services to an expression of your purpose and values

3) Test and refine

A robust business strategy isn’t set in stone. Regularly assess whether your actions align with your why:

• Do your marketing messages reflect your core purpose?
• Does your team believe in your values and ethos?
• Are you attracting customers who share your values?

Finding your why: A case study

When we worked with PermiServ, a permit printing and software provider specialising in garden waste services for local councils, a lot of our early work focused on really digging into their ‘why’. Not just the mechanics of what they did and how it worked, but why they did it. Very often, it came up as part of organic, day-to-day conversations: they existed to take the burden of managing garden waste away from councils, freeing up time and resources for other residents’ services. They were in business to make life easier for councils.

By establishing this purpose in simple language, we transformed PermiServ’s messaging, making it stronger, clearer and more targeted. We delivered a new website and a social media strategy, powered by a crystal-clear understanding of why they do what they do and who they do it for.

The results speak for themselves, particularly when evaluating the impact of their updated website. When we compared the period 1st June 2023 – 1st June 2024 to the same date range of the previous year, we saw:

• A 387% increase in clicks to the site from organic search
• Impressions increased by 272%
• Click-through rate (CTR) increased by 7.95%

We also saw an improvement in organic ranking for the keywords we tracked, achieving the top ten positions in Google for the following keywords:

• Garden waste permit printing
• Permit printing
• In-cab technology

Read the full PermiServ case study.

Why ‘why’ works: The marketing implications

When your business strategy starts with why, your marketing becomes fundamentally more effective:

• Brand positioning: You’re not another service provider – you’re a champion for a specific belief system
• Content creation: Instead of generic industry updates, you create content that advances your cause and educates your audience about issues you care about
• Customer relationships: You know exactly who you’re targeting, so transactions become partnerships with people who share your vision
• Employee advocacy: Your team doesn’t just work for you, they work with you towards a common goal

The ‘why’ trap: What to avoid

When working out your ‘why’, you’ll likely come up with a number of obvious reasons that your business exists. These are traps you want to avoid. Here’s what we mean:

• The generic trap. Vague statements like ‘we want to help businesses succeed’ don’t inspire anyone. Your why should be specific, personal, and emotionally resonant
  • How to avoid the generic trap: Interrogate what you mean when you come up with certain words and phrases, e.g. what does “succeed” mean in this context? How would you measure success?
• The profit trap. Your why cannot just be ‘to make money’. Profit is an outcome, not a purpose. It’s the fuel that allows you to pursue your real mission
  • How to avoid the profit trap: Take it as a given, then set it aside. We all want to make a profit; it’s how you do it that matters
• The jargon trap. Don’t muddle your mission statement with corporate jargon; your audience can spot it a mile off and it will put them off
  • How to avoid the jargon trap: When crafting your mission statement, start by thinking about how you’d explain your business to a friend who has no idea what you do for a living. Better yet, think about how you’d explain your business to a (pretty clever) nine-year-old

Implementing your why strategy

• Internal alignment: Start by making sure everyone in your team understands and believes in your why
• External communication. Your why should be clear in:
  • Website copy and about pages
  • Social media content
  • Enquiries and sales conversations
  • All client interactions
  • Partnership decisions
• Strategic decisions: Use your why as a filter for every major business decision. Does this opportunity advance our mission? Does this partnership align with our values?
• Measuring success beyond revenue. While financial metrics remain important, why-driven businesses track additional indicators:
  • Brand sentiment and emotional connection
  • Customer lifetime value and loyalty
  • Employee satisfaction and retention
  • Social or environmental impact metrics
  • Media coverage and thought leadership positioning

Developing a why-driven business strategy isn’t a one-off project; it’s an ongoing commitment to clarity and authenticity. The businesses that will thrive in the next decade won’t necessarily be those with the most cutting-edge products and services or the best prices; they’ll be those with their purpose clearly embedded in everything they do. Embracing this approach will set you on a path to becoming an apex predator: you’ll rule your jungle territory and roar louder than your competitors.

Start by carefully considering your true purpose. Challenge yourselves to go beyond surface-level motivations. What change do you want to create? What gets you up in the morning? Remember: people don’t buy what you do – they buy why you do it.

In a world of infinite options, you need to go beyond features and benefits and give your audience a clear, tangible reason to choose you.

Need help establishing and communicating your why? As your brand and messaging architects, we’ll drill down into what you do and why you do it, to craft campaigns your audience simply can’t resist – or forget. If you’re ready to ROAR louder, call the jungle today.