What is your why?
Every business has goals.
More leads. More sales. More visibility. More growth.
But before you think about campaigns, channels, tactics or resource there’s a more important question to answer:
“What is your why?”
Not the polished mission statement.
Not a line you stick on your website.
And definitely not “because we want to grow”.
Your real purpose.
Why your why matters
Your why is the foundation for every decision you make - inside and outside your business.
When it’s clear:
Your business becomes aligned
Your marketing becomes focused
Your messaging feels consistent
Your team understands what matters
Decisions are easier to make
When it isn’t, everything becomes reactive. Activity replaces strategy. Teams have competing priorities. And despite lots of effort, results fall short.
Your why isn’t just for customers
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is treating their why as a marketing exercise.
Your why isn’t just something customers should understand - your employees need to believe in it too.
If the people inside your business don’t know why you exist, it’s almost impossible to communicate it clearly outside. Messaging feels disconnected, culture drifts and marketing never quite lands.
Your team should be able to answer:
Why does this business exist?
What are we trying to achieve?
How does my role contribute to that goal?
When they can, alignment follows.
Consistency inside and out
Your internal and external messaging should tell the same story.
If you say one thing to customers but operate differently behind the scenes, it impacts the customer journey, people notice and trust erodes quickly. Employees disengage and customers sense when something feels off.
A strong why creates consistency:
Teams understand priorities
Behaviour matches brand promises
Marketing feels authentic, not forced
Culture and communication align naturally
Your why becomes a shared direction, not just a slogan.
The NASA cleaner story (and why it matters)
There’s a well-known story from NASA in the 1960s.
A visitor was touring the space centre and asked a cleaner what his job was.
He replied:
“I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
He didn’t describe his task - he described his contribution to the mission.
That’s the power of a clear why.
When people understand the bigger picture and how their role fits into it, work becomes meaningful. Engagement improves. Standards rise. And businesses move in the same direction.
What your why is (and isn’t)
Your why isn’t:
A list of services
A business objective
A tagline
Your why is:
The problem you exist to solve
The change you want to create for customers
The purpose that guides decisions
The reason people care about your business
It’s the anchor for your strategy, culture and marketing.
How to find your purpose
Start with a few honest questions:
Why did we start this business in the first place?
What problem do we solve better than anyone else?
What would our customers miss if we disappeared tomorrow?
If the answers feel vague or inconsistent, that’s a sign your why needs refining.
Why this matters for marketing
When your why is clear and genuinely understood:
Teams pull in the same direction
Customer experience improves
Marketing feels more focused
Messaging becomes easier to write
Employer brand strengthens
Your why shows up in how your business behaves - not just in what it says.
And that’s when marketing really starts to work.
Final thought
If your why only exists on your website, it’s not doing its job.
A strong why should guide strategy, shape culture, align teams and create consistency between what you say and what you do.
If your business feels disconnected, this is often the best place to start.
If defining your why feels harder than it should, that’s often a sign you need clarity before more activity. A short conversation can help you work out what will genuinely make a difference - without jumping straight into tactics.