I’m not going to lie. For the first year or so in my business, selling felt HARD. I’d jump on a call with a potential client, chat for 25 minutes (recognising that they would really benefit from working with me) but in the last 5 minutes, I’d squirm around and struggle to know how to find the words to actually make the sale.
Thankfully, many of the worst cases of greenwashing were named and shamed, and consumers have become far more educated and are willing to ask uncomfortable questions of brands. We're not as gullible as we used to be, and most of us know that just because a bar of chocolate says 'natural' on it doesn't it comes from ethical or sustainable sources.
But there's a new kid on the block. And it's called social good.
Here’s the thing: Figuring out your why isn’t easy. It’s not just a case of reverse engineering and coming up with something that would look good on a bumper sticker.
But holy smokes, once you’ve nailed it? Once you’ve connected to your why? Powerful stuff happens. I could talk all day about the benefits of knowing your why and infusing it into your business. But I want to touch on just one area today, aligning your business to your why, and using it as a compass moving forwards.
I didn’t go to university. Well, I guess I did, but only for 8 weeks, and then I decided it wasn’t a good fit for me & left for another adventure.
I look back at that decision now and am pretty stoked with it. Proud, in fact, that at age 18 I was able to tune into my gut instincts and realise that I had made the wrong choice. I remember the 3 years that followed really well. The majority of my friends were off at uni studying and I was finding the balance between working 7 days a week for 6 months every summer (surf coaching, personal training & bartending ) with the freedom & adventure of jumping on a plane every winter with nothing more than a backpack, my surfboards and a pretty small chunk of cash to keep me going.
Often, when we present our work to the world (another way to describe branding), we get super fixated on how we should look. We think about what people would want to see (haha, this always makes me laugh…. who the hell are these people we think about ?!).
So we create a polished, professional brand and wait for people to come running.
But here’s the thing: I’ve yet to meet a human being who can relate to a super polished, professional, one-dimensional brand. They lack personality. And to be totally honest, those kinds of brands are pretty freaking boring.
I’ve written before about rigidity in business. And how it has the potential to seriously impact your entrepreneurial journey. But I also know that it can be a super tricky lesson to learn. We invest so much into our work, that it can feel impossible not to become attached to it.
But becoming attached to an idea can be dangerous. I’ve seen it happen time and time again (and I’ve been guilty of doing it myself !).
This is the moment when my instincts starting questioning the integrity of the company. So I delved a bit deeper. I went to their testimonial page. There were 6 or so solid recommendations from entrepreneurs. So I googled them. Hmm…. nothing. Not a single thing online about any of these 6 people. No LinkedIn profiles, no Facebook, and absolutely nothing about the ‘businesses’ these entrepreneurs were running.
