Make Meaning: The Best Way to Better Your Business (Plus: Blog News)

A while back I attended a speech called ‘Let Story Guide You’ at the Willow Creek Community Church. The speaker, Donald Miller, made me think a lot about my life and my business. He told some funny stories and made his point, which was very simple:

Your life is your story. Would anyone want to read it?

As an entrepreneur, your business too is like a story and looking at it like this is the best way to create a better business. You have to make Meaning in your venture.

Making MEANING means creating a business that exists for the purpose of changing the world for the better.

I recently wrote an article titled the 22 Benefits of Owning a Business. It got some great feedback but one of it’s biggest criticisms was that I did not address the difficulty of running a business. One reader, Johnathan, said this in a comment:

Please remember that small business failure rates are huge - think 70% failing within 3 years in most Western economies.

His point was very true. Most businesses do fail. But failure is not just a statistic. There are reasons a lot of businesses fail. Businesses at the core should be entities to improve the world in some way. If you are in business just to make money, you are doing it for the wrong reason and are more likely to fail.

Whether it reaches the entire world, or a very targeted niche of people, your business should do something good.

Here are some ways (just to name a few) that Meaning will improve your business:

You will be more motivated. Money only goes so far. Once a person has enough money to live comfortably, whatever that amount is for them, they will be less motivated to make more. This lack of motivation is the downfall of a business. The owner needs to believe in the business on a higher level than dollars and cents.

You will have more direction. It is far easier to envision the future when you are looking at more than creating profits. Having Meaning gives you direction and makes it easier to establish goals—short term and long term.

Your team will be more motivated. Especially with startups, your employees need more than dollar signs to be motivated. The type of people you will have starting off know that the business will most likely fail and they will have to go to the next thing. To really make them believe in your success, you need to be able to demonstrate more than a paycheck. They need to believe in what you are doing.

You will create better products and/or services. If you are aiming to just make profit, you are going to look at your development in the same way. This mean less quality products that will only generate immediate profits. To have long term success, you need to be able to focus mostly on the quality, not just the cost.

You will have something to talk about. Recently I chatted with a Zen Problog reader who is the creator of The Now Watch. The way he told me about his creation was through addressing the meaning behind the Watch. If he had just said he had a fancy new watch, I would not have even replied to his email. Instead he told me why he created it and how it can inspire me. Giving people a reason to believe in your product is far more effective than giving them a coupon.

You will create a bond with your customers. People seek to have relationships with others like them. This is not just true personally, but with their relationships with businesses. If you show that you are working to better their lives, you will build a bond between you and the customer that will lead to long term sales relationships.

Your can charge more money. Why do you think Apple can get away with charging double what most other companies do for their products? They can because their bond with their customers and the quality of their products is driven by their vision, their meaning.

You can create a long term success for your business. If you really want to create a successful business that you will want to work at every day of your life, having a great Meaning is a must. You, your team, and your customers will bore quickly with sales sheets and profit increases. Having a strong belief that you are bettering the world somehow with what you do will create long lasting success instead of quick earnings and the inevitable downfall.

Why does your business exist? Would people want to read your story?

Photo by ^riza^

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In some side news, Zen Problog has reached a couple milestones.

1. We hit 15,000 visits from over 91 countries a couple days ago.
2. We now have a Google Page Rank of 4. That is great for a website that has been up for little under a month and a half.

I have also been experimenting with social and community sites. Join the Zen Problog community on My Blog Log, become a fan on Technorati, check out my profile on Linked In, and keep up to date with me on Twitter.

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