Mining Meaning

Businesses with technical products, typically founded and run by technical people, engineers, other domain experts, even when they’re successful to start, can run into a roadblock with meaning. Specifically the lack of meaning in their story. So they spend a lot of effort talking about their capabilities, what their product does, how it works. And the problem with that is that doesn’t give your prospects what they need, which is why it helps them and why it’s important to their problem and helping their, their business. So, some businesses like this try to solve this quickly, take a shortcut, I would say, by hiring a fancy agency, having the agency come up with some really fun words, good words, something that looks good, maybe even there’s a lot of focus on a logo or a visual identity. It’s really important that you take the time to do this right and to do it right. I believe you have to go through three steps.

Clarity
First, clarity. You need to stop before you get into the story itself, the words and the look you need to first make sure that you know what it is that you do. That is your reason for being. What is your business’s true story? What are you the only one in the world that can do? What motivates you? What’s your mission? What’s your goal? How does it help your client? And very specifically, who is that client?

Meaning
Once you know that, then you can define what it is that is meaningful about your mission for that very specific target client you have. Get really clear about what that meaning is for you and for them. 

Purpose
Once you do that, yes, now you can engage the agency to help you communicate it, but you’ve gained more than that because you have a core meaning that can translate into purpose, not only for your prospects and your customers, but for your employees, for your partners, for everyone that is a stakeholder in your business. And it can be a shared purpose because it’s tied to this core meaning that is the truth about your business and your prospects opportunities with you.

So take the long road here. It’s worth it to invest the time to start with clarifying your meaning. Get really clear on what that meaning is, and share it with your team and your prospects, and drive that action, powered by that meaning.