Fiona Duncan-Steer, founder of RSViP Business Networking Agency, explores the ‘what’, the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ in business.
Many of you may be familiar with inspirational speaker and coach Simon Sinek, who has created not only a business, but a movement around the word ‘why’ – why do we do what we do? Encouraging us to dig deep and resurface our reasons for making the decisions that we make, ultimately leading to why we do the things that we do, whether it be within our careers or our personal lives. Since Simon’s famous Ted Talk, ‘How great leaders inspire action’, went viral on YouTube in 2009, many coaches and consultants, myself included, have used his teachings within our own practises – in particular his framework, he calls ‘The Golden Circle’, which essentially explores the idea that most people know and explain ‘what’ they do, most people know and relay ‘how they do it’, but rarely do people share ‘why’ they do what they do – hence the what, the how and the why.
Storytelling in business has become the clever marketer’s super-power. Gone are the days when people tolerated being ‘sold’ to. People want to buy from people they like, admire and relate to and this is where sharing your story – your why – comes into play. Simply by having a conversation, showing up as your true self and allowing someone a window into your world – even just a nugget, is enough to create intrigue and release all of those endorphins (the happy hormones that help to connect us as humans).
So, what we if took a step back for a moment and focused on the ‘how’?
We know ‘what’ we do and ‘why’ we do it, but do we truly know ‘how’ to do what we do as well as we could?
This is where self-awareness comes in and your ego is left at the door. It’s easy to become complacent in business when we have been doing what we do for a while. When the feedback we receive from our audience is consistent and there are no real challenges to overcome. Why would we change anything? This is when we should be using that wave of time to develop both ourselves, our processes and our offerings.
Asking ourselves important questions, such as; is what I still offer relevant? Can I diversify my offerings? Is now the time to expand and scale my business model? Am I happy with my current audience?
Monitoring progress and having regular reviews shows great leadership – even if you are a freelancer with no staff or team, this still applies to you. Being aware of your capabilities, your strengths, your weaknesses, for example, will help you to make all important decisions on where you best spend your time within the business and which areas of work you delegate to others.
Perhaps you’ve reached a time where you are ready to take it to the next level, to scale up, to take on new staff members, to move to a bigger office or to diversify your current business to offer other services.
Wherever you are at right now, I encourage you to focus on the ‘how’ for a while. To take some time to analyse and review what you know and figure out what you don’t – then go learn and apply it.
How do you do what you do?
Fiona Duncan-Steer www.fionaduncansteer.com www.rsvipnetwork.co.uk
