Maren Kate from Escapingthe9to5.com recommended the book Start with Why
by Simon Sinek on her site about a month ago and I’ll pretty much read anything she gives a good word to so I went out a bought it.
I’m really starting to enjoy books that are based on human psychology. Being able to understand why people do what they do is mind blowing because in the normal scheme of the world people’s choices make no sense. I mean, why do we buy certain products? What attracts us to a company or another person?
These are all interesting questions, but the other side of the story is intriguing as well. What this book really focuses on is how do we create a following and develop loyalty? As investors, this is so very important because we are always selling services to sellers, creating partnerships with other investors and people with money. We want them to choose us over anyone else. We want them to think of us when the time comes and this book can help you to make that happen.
All businesses function on 3 levels; What you do, How you do it and Why you do it. As Simon says though, “The problem is, most don’t even know that Why exists.”
Why You Do It
Why is the purpose, cause or belief. The Why is your driving motivation for action.
When starting a company or any type of journey the very first thing we should all figure out is Why we are doing it? This is critical and without a ‘why’ we are destined to fail. Why isn’t money. Money is a measuring stick to measure your success. ‘Why’ is the reason you do what you do and the reason you will attract people to you and keep their loyalty.
Being able to explain why you do something is not easy, in fact it’s almost impossible in most instances. Try explaining why you love your wife? Sure you can give examples of her features, but the true reason is the feeling you get when you are close to her. You can’t explain it, it’s just love. ‘Why’ is a feeling and we all know how hard it is to put your feelings into words.
How You Do It
How is the guiding principles. The Hows are the specific actions that are taken to realize your Why.
Once the ‘Why’ is in place, you can then focus on how you are going to accomplish it. I know I want a life of freedom from bosses, one of controlling my own day. To achieve this, one of my How’s is to invest in real estate. The way I go about investing is my ‘How’.
To put it simply, the Hows are your road map to the end goal. It’s the hiring people to help you purchase houses or finding sellers to take you up on your offers. The key to your How is to find people who align with your Why, people who believe in the same thing you do.
What You Do
What is the tangible proof, the results. The Whats are the tangible ways in which you bring your Why to life.
What investor’s do is Buy and Sell houses, this is our service. When trying to sell a service to someone many people make the mistake of trying to sell their product. They list the features, the benefits and the great price. We see this every day of our lives. This may breed short term success, it is very costly over the long haul.
Look at all the truly successful investors and you’ll see that they barely have to market anymore. The deals just seem to land in their laps. Why is this? It’s because they’ve created relationships based on their ‘Why’, not by selling people on their products.
Conclusion
This book was a real eye opener on why people are so loyal to certain products and services. A great example, that runs throughout this book, is Steve Jobs and Apple. People who buy Apple products will do so not because they are the cheapest or because they are the best, but because they agree with what apple represents. That may not make sense to you now, but read this book and it will for sure.
I really enjoyed this book and can, with out a doubt, use the Golden Circle concept in my real estate investing business. My only gripe with the book is that Simon kept going back to the Apple/Steve Jobs example to prove his point. Maybe that was because I’m a PC not a MAC kind of guy.
If you are interested in reading this book you can get it here…
Start with Why(affiliate link)
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