Sharing the motivation behind why you do what you do is powerful. Do you know your WHY?  Here’s mine.

I want to help people make smart advertising and marketing choices.

Actually it’s bigger than that.

I want to help people achieve their dreams so they can feed not just their bellies, but their passions too.

Some of those dreams and passions are actual businesses and with my background, that’s often the area I can help the most.

So perhaps it’s a combination of those two statements that make up my why.

The THINKING ScLoHo

I recall several years ago a co-worker of mine was always trying to figure out how to make money online.  Mike was looking at creating websites that were similar to eBay at the time and he couldn’t figure out how to make it successful.

Another friend of mine, Tim, is very talented in graphic arts and he was looking to create and sell a custom advertising pop-up that he figured out that was pretty snazzy.  Problem was it was a few years behind the times and not what businesses wanted or for that matter, should want to create a positive online experience.

One more friend, I’ll call him Sam to protect his real identity, invested lots of money in buying custom domain names.  I don’t know how much money and don’t want to know but it was too much especially after he kept doing it after I told him that’s not a good investment.  His concept was to resell internet domain names to companies that would want them and in theory, it was a good idea, but…  The idea was too late.  Since Google and the other search engines continue to tweak themselves towards perfection, the domain name for your website is not as important as it was when Sam first had his idea.

What did Sam, Tim and Mike have in common?  Their why was to make money online.

That was as deep as they thought it through.

Making money is neither good or bad, money is merely the stuff we use to trade for other stuff we need or want.

The Bible says, well, let me quote Chris Brown from the Stewardship.com website:

1st Timothy chapter 6 verse 10, For the Love of Money is the root of All Evil. Raise your hand if you’ve heard this verse misquoted all the time as saying money is the root of all evil. I have! But it’s just not true. It’s the love of money that gets us in trouble. Our attitude toward money is the problem, not the money itself. Money is morally neutral.

It comes back to the motivation behind it all.  It’s all about the why.  Your why.

The SKEPTICAL ScLoHo

I once had a dentist as a client that offered new techniques and procedures and I was impressed.  At least I was initially.  Then he kept finding “problems” that no one else had found with my dental health, and each “problem” he found meant more and more expensive procedures.  My gut told me to get a second opinion and I did.

My current dentist could not find any of the “problems” my previous dentist warned me about and while he didn’t want to bad mouth the other guy, it was clear to me that the motivation behind my former dentist’s recommendations were his self-interests, not mine.  His why was wrong.

Most of the people I meet with who are in business are good people.  They have a good why that motivates them to do the right thing all the time.

Like I said earlier my why boils down to helping people make smart marketing and advertising decisions, because that is my area of expertise that I’ve learned over the years and continue to learn more and more every week.  I usually sign my emails with the signature, Here to help, and the phone number I give people to connect with me is a vanity number I selected years ago.  The last four digits spell HELP on a traditional phone keypad.

The HAPPY ScLoHo

Once you understand my why, and I understand your why, we can have a deeper and better relationship to help you accomplish your goals.  Want help?  Let’s talk.

PS:

This talk about What’s Your Why? was inspired by a couple of people recently.  In 2014, Shannon Allen of Federated Digital Solutions would share Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle TED Talk that goes into this concept. Here’s a link to the 5 minute version.   Oh, and here’s a link to a sales expert that I found when Googling Simon that has a few additional caveats when applying this concept.

David McBee of Simplifi, one of our internet vendor partners, recently talked about the concept in a webinar I watched this year.

And over the weekend, the Golden Circle message was included in the sermon at my church as part of the message delivered by Dr. Tom Ahlersmeyer (June 25, 2017).

I figured it was time for me to talk about it too.