Your brand should start with why
I use Simon Sinek's golden circle as the start for defining the foundations of a brand.
Why should anyone care about you or your business?
I recently shared the whole of my own brand document as an example of how a person can curate their personal brand.
And I want to break down some of the individual pages to discuss the topics that I like to include when working with a business to develop its brand guide.
Today, I want to talk about the page that comes first: The Golden Circle.
In Simon Sinek's famous TED Talk "Start with Why", the principles of Simon Sinek's golden circle are deeply grounded in the tenets of human decision-making. Simon observed patterns in the greatest leaders and codified them into principles that people and brands can turn to.
“Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your differentiating value proposition, your proprietary process, or a USP.
Very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. By why, I don’t mean to make a profit. That’s a result. It’s always a result. By ‘why’, I mean, what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning, and why should anyone care?”
This Golden Circle of why --> how --> what is where I start when helping a person or business build the document that communicates the foundations of their brand. And once we do this, it's pretty easy to build the visual brand (design language) to help people connect with that purpose.
