Start Marketing Success from the Inside Out

You’ve heard the truism, “Happiness is an inside job.” Marketing success is an inside job as well. 90% of business start-ups fail while they are busy looking outside themselves for their win.

We learn to look for increased funding, more visibility, less competition, improved market conditions, innovative technology and processes, and better workers – just as top business and marketing schools teach us. Of course, we’ve learned a lot of incorrect information over the past 50,000 years of human history. That’s nothing new.

Assumption Problems

Still, if 90% of start-ups fail, that is a pretty bad track record for a working theory. What could be worse? It is as if the 10% that succeed are doing so in spite of the prevailing business theory, instead of because of it! In science, a theory is only as solid as the assumptions at the foundation of it. It follows, then, that something must be amiss in the foundational assumptions.

Habitual assumptions die hard, regardless of whether they are good or bad. The reason that we stick with old ideas, even when they are no longer working for us (or in this case, NEVER worked for us) is that they are known to us. This is not strictly a fear of the unknown. When we repeat thoughts often, we literally wear a neuropathway, or “groove,” in our brain. The thought becomes our default thought, and is difficult to change.

The Importance of Purpose

As an entrepreneur, I understand about the neuropathways of entrepreneurs. We think first in terms of what we are offering – whether it is a service or a product or both. Yet, as Simon Sinek describes in his book and TEDTalk, Start With Why, that is not what people buy. People buy the ‘why,’ or as I refer to it, the Purpose. Purpose gives your product meaning, and it elevates your offering far above a commodity. Additionally, Purpose is organically generated from the inside of an organization. It cannot be manufactured and it cannot be faked. Purpose is like your organizational thumbprint, and you have one. The point is to make it a conscious one.

My organizational purpose is “Helping businesses thrive by knowing their purpose.” Apple’s purpose is “To think differently.” At a recent Assumption Audit, a client uncover their organizational purpose – “Leveraging our diversity to serve our community.” None of us mention our technology, event space, or speaking/marketing offerings in our Purpose. The offerings are the vehicle, not the reason we exist.

Determining your organizational Purpose, in a world where it seems a many adults give no credence to their individual purpose, is daunting. Over the next several blogs I will show how to claim your organizational Purpose. You will then learn what to do with your new insight, and discover how independent you can be from outside conditions.