Is the goal of your business to fulfill needs in your customers’ lives or is it merely to “sell more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently?”1
If the latter is your main goal, you should probably stop reading and go share a New Coke with Sergio Zyman.
The reason our stories, messaging and marketing fall flat is that the people we want to serve are not motivated by our need to be seen, to be heard or to close a sale. People—your audience, customers and clients—are motivated by their need to be seen, heard and understood.
Bernadette Jiwa, The Right Story
Despite the amount of money companies spend on customer insights, most companies don’t value true insights.
Insights should tell you something new; they should change the way you think. Yet, most companies reward predictable results instead of game changers.1
On average, companies value “insights” that confirm what they’re already doing. At best, they want “insights” that only slightly modify what they’re already doing.
Close your eyes. Picture Steve Jobs.
Black mock turtleneck? Jeans? Sneakers?
Jobs designed his outfit to convey both his personal brand and the Apple brand of simplicity. But, it also had a second benefit: it simplified his life to focus on tasks that matter.
Cult Branding was founded on Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. Maslow’s hierarchy offers a simple framework for understanding customer behavior: humans have inherent needs that they try to fulfill—consciously or unconsciously—in everything they do.
Although Maslow’s hierarchy offers significant explanatory power, it does not provide a complete explanation of brand loyalty. A more complete explanation involves taking a step back from Maslow and understanding how humans react when something happens to them.
Every marketing company claims to have “the answer.” But, solutions to marketing problems aren’t simple 2+2=4 answers.
Solutions to marketing problems are like learning acting: Sanford Meisner, one of the greatest acting teachers of the 20th century, would sometimes expel students from his class, not because they were bad actors and didn’t have a chance in the field, but because he knew he wasn’t the right teacher for them.
If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. And the purpose must lie outside the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society, since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.
Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management
At some point in the past, you developed a marketing strategy to create customers and your marketing tactics worked well and they became a standard practice. The purpose of business hasn’t changed since then, but the environment has.
Focusing primarily on short-term goals can hinder long-term motivation because achieving short-term goals without an overarching purpose doesn’t result in lasting feelings of fulfillment.
When companies focus primarily on short-term goals, it’s usually because they don’t have a strong company vision. For them, what has to get done tomorrow is more important than what the company should become in the future.
When the goals are short-term, employee motivation comes in two forms:
Neither of these forms of motivation helps people grow towards being the best versions of themselves: they don’t help them self-actualize. These motivations only make them act out of necessity or perceived necessity.
Not only do they hinder employee growth, but they also lead to dysfunctional organizations: Most companies that focus on short-term goals force an extrinsic goal—like grow sales by 5%—on a person and the person will attempt to achieve it by convincing themselves that they are working to achieve some goal that is unrelated to the company’s goal—like a new Porsche. The person isn’t motivated by what the company seeks to achieve and the company’s actions show they don’t care about what the employee wants to achieve personally. This creates employees that don’t care about the success of the company and only care about achieving some reward that motivates them temporarily. And, it leads to a lack of shared goals among team members and discord in an organization.
Companies with long-term, purpose-driven visions can align themselves with the journeys the employees want to go on in their own lives and grow with the employees toward a shared goal.
This isn’t to say short-term goals aren’t important—they are because they create concrete things to work towards—but they must be motivated by a purpose-driven vision shared by the company and its employees.
Is your vision strong enough to motivate your employees? Are you hiring employees whose personal visions overlap with your long-term vision?
P.S. If you need help creating a company vision that will help create highly motivated employees, we’ve created The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Company Vision. Find out more by clicking here.
