Team Alpha 375

"The unread story is not a story; it is little back marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story."

Ursula K. LeGuin

The Powerful Tool That Can Build Your Business, Attract Employees, Partners, and Customers, and Turn Them All Into Raving Fans
By Rich Schefren

Today, I'm going to tell you about a powerful tool that you can use to build and grow your business.

It's not a tool you can buy... In fact, it's absolutely free.

When used properly, this tool will attract more customers to your business, foster in them a deeper bond to your business, and get them to spend more with you than ever before.

Even better, it will turn every customer you acquire into a raving fan who not only recommends your business to others... but also defends you to traducers.

At the very same time, this tool will create greater meaning, purpose, and commitment for everyone who works with or inside your business.

This tool is your Core Myth.

Your Core Myth defines what your business is all about. It's a story of passion, motivation, and the overcoming of obstacles. It's the narrative of what makes your business unique and what differentiates it from the rest of your market.

Your Core Myth is your business's story. But make no mistake -- it's no ordinary story.

Because when successfully created it will rally your employees, outsourcers, and freelancers to contribute more day in and day out. It will assist you in your efforts to recruit top talent to your team. Most important, it will give all your stakeholders (team members, customers, partners, and vendors) a deeper reason to believe in and desire to see your business succeed than any other single business-building concept.

You see, it's no coincidence that almost every big successful business has stories about its start-up period. And these stories take on the role of a legend in the hearts and minds of their customers and employees.

Remember... Big, successful businesses were at some point small businesses. They started in the same place -- but each one did things differently.

Some small businesses rapidly grow into big businesses. They do it, in part, by creating legends and myths about their business that convey excitement and enthusiasm, and turn everyone's commitment to the business into a meaningful cause that differentiates them from the rest of the pack.

Why the Core Myth Works

Almost everybody wakes up each morning in a world where they aren't quite sure what their bigger purpose is, or how they should be living. This fundamental uncertainty includes trivial lifestyle decisions like what clothes to wear and what to eat for breakfast... as well as important issues like which goals we should pursue, what impact we want to have on the world, and the overall purpose of our lives.

These uncertainties, great and small, create the ideal conditions to leverage your Core Myth to build your brand by giving everyone who works for you or buys from you greater certainty, meaning, and purpose in their lives.

In the study of branding, it's long been accepted that brands sell a "how to live" component with the actual item or service included. Brands that effectively exploit this ambiguity create packets of meaning -- in the form of stories -- that we can apply to our lives.

One of the older ways of looking at brand marketing that was developed in the 1950s -- and is still pervasively applied and believed in -- concerns attaching social meaning to products or services.

A graphic representation of what's going on here would look like this:

Branding was all about that middle box. The image your brand conveyed about its users.

For example:

• Marlboro cigarettes convey customers as rugged and manly...
• Mercedes conveys that customers have arrived financially and can afford the finer things in life...
• The Wall Street Journal conveys readers as educated, center-right, and upwardly mobile...

But, as I said earlier, most people are no longer sure about their goals and purpose and the meaning of their lives. Nowadays, the average person changes careers a minimum of five times and changes social relationships, homes, and social roles even more often. Which means most people are struggling to find meaningful ways to live.

Brands have now become surrogate traditions showing customers how to live. A graphic portrayal of this new model would look like this:

Because of that, the role of stories and myths has become central. Now they give the buyers themselves meaning. They become real, a template to guide our future actions.

Your Core Myth gives...

• Purpose to those who are purposeless
• Meaning to those who have no meaning
• A bigger goal to those lacking a big goal
• Direction to those who lack direction
• A mission to those who have no mission
• A cause to those who have no cause
• A sense of belonging to those who feel alone
• And so much more...

The Deeper Impact of Your Core Myth

This doesn't just apply to your customers. It also applies to every person who works for and with you and your business.

When you give your employees and partners a bigger purpose... a better reason to contribute... a compelling reason to give their work everything they've got each day... you give your business a huge advantage over every other business you will ever compete with.

Everyone on this planet -- your customers, partners, current and future employees -- wants to feel they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

If you don't provide that meaning, that sense of belonging... they will seek it elsewhere.

But if you DO give them a bigger purpose, more and more people will invest themselves in your brand because they believe in your business.

And once you've got a base of customers who believe in your business, you'll be able to charge higher prices than your competitors and still get a greater percentage of your ideal customers.

The research proves it. A recent Fast Company article states, "Research suggests that brands that engage consumers emotionally can command prices as much as 20% to 200% higher than competitor's and sell in far higher volumes."

Even better, your customers will become willing to help convince others to belong... which in today's digital marketplace has explosive power to grow your business fast.

Ultimately, through repeated exposure to your Core Myth, your customers will become advocates who believe so strongly in your business that they fiercely defend it against rivals.

Try to tell a Mac user that they have to trade it for a PC. Tell a Ford truck owner that he has to drive a Chevy. And we all remember what happened when Coke tried to change its formula.

The key objective in engineering your Core Myth is to create a belief system that attracts a community. That community can surround your products or services, your business, and your brand.

And when properly managed, your Core Myth will help you create a belief system that results in a group of evangelists committed to advocating for you through thick and thin. And it'll start with your team... pervade your customers... and attract more and more of your market with each passing day.

Don't Just Build a Business -- Create a Cause

Now, please understand, I don't mean to be heretical here. But in a world filled with conflict, confusion, and paradox, "I belong" is a powerful statement.

In fact, it's one of those invisible factors the best businesses in the world have that almost everyone misses. A sense of belonging in their team, their customers, and anyone else who comes into contact with it.

Even better, your Core Myth can turn your business into a cause. Something others can be swept up into, give their all for, and be rooting for day in and day out.

And that's the magical ingredient to building a business that continues to grow... where everyone invests their heart and soul into its success... A business that makes you proud to have played a role in it... So when you hand over the reins, you can step back and marvel at what you've been able to create.

I'll show you exactly how to create your Core Myth in a future essay. But to get started, you'll want to ask yourself some tough questions. Questions like...

• What's the bigger purpose of my business?
• What dreams did I hope to fulfill for my customers when I started my business?
• What are the beliefs and values my business is built on?
• Why would the world be worse off if my business didn't exist?
• Why should anyone invest their hearts and minds into making my business successful?

And remember this: The Core Myth is YOUR story. The story of why you started the company... The story of what you and your business are all about.

The Kind of Business Other Entrepreneurs Admire and Envy

Your business can be the type of business that, when other business owners get an insider's view of it, they walk away scratching their heads, asking themselves... How do they do it? How do they get their employees to care so much? How come their employees ALWAYS seem to go the extra mile without even being asked... while I have to nag and nag just to get my employees to do to their jobs? How do they attract customers who not only buy and buy frequently... but who also heartily endorse their business at every opportunity?

And these frustrated and struggling entrepreneurs will never know that the difference is simply a story just a few pages in length that sets your business apart from theirs.