Starting with Why
Simon Sinek, the famous author and inspirational speaker, wrote the book “Start with Why” in 2009 and it has still been as relevant as ever.
In fact, we’ll say that it is even more relevant now.
There are more and more businesses sprouting in the same industry, doing essentially the same tasks.
The base tasks in this social media marketing industry are photography, videography, social media Ads…. You probably have heard about these during the countless cold calls that you receive.
And basically, everyone is trying to sell those same core services - with tweaks mainly in pricing.
Everyone is trying to push their packages to customers, attempting to convince them that they are the better choice because of clearer photos or by using past results.
There are a few issues with this strategy. Here are just 2 examples:
Diminishing Returns: As technology gets more advanced but also more commonplace (it’s not as inaccessible to purchase professional tools), hiring a “better” photographer who can snap “clearer” photos compared to others is probably not going to be noticed by users on social media platforms.
Subjective: Better is also subjective. Better need not be using a higher megapixel camera. It could be unique styles based on preference.
What most companies do is to compete on the How and What:
Here are some items of what most businesses will use to convince you to choose them:
What: Photography, Videography, Social Media Ads, etc.
How: Experience, price, one month free trial, etc.
And maybe as a customer, that’s enough to convince you to choose them.
But we want to go deeper - to help you understand WHY we do what we do - and if it resonates with your business.
We think that’s a more important angle to consider because we will be working together and we want to make sure that we are in line.
If we aren’t in line on this, then no matter how good our Hows and Whats are, there will be friction because our Whys are misaligned.
We will be shooting for you but for totally different reasons than why you hired us in the first place.
So, what is our why?
This took us awhile to understand. Because it’s easy to get caught in the daily works of taking content, editing them and fixing them for our clients.
This takes up a huge chunk of our time.
While we enjoy what we do, what we realised is that the most interesting part of our job happens even before the sale happens.
Our “sales” process hardly feels like us trying to sell customers anything.
We sit down for typically an hour to 2 hours and listen to our clients.
We want to understand everything about them, not just details relating to social media.
We ask questions about their business, their story, their goals, their challenges. We ask about them as a human - what their lives are like and most importantly, why they’re doing what they’re doing.
And we have heard fascinating stories.
Stories of struggles, of overcoming challenges, of going through heartbreak, of barely making it, of attaining success with sacrifice.
And that’s when it hit us: We want to tell the stories of our clients.
It’s not something we can pretend to be interested in. It’s something that we passionately want to do after hearing about their stories.
Many businesses look plain and homogenous from the front. But the stories illuminate them.
A coffee shop sells coffee - but behind it, is an owner passionate about letting consumers appreciate coffee more. An owner who cares about building a community. An owner that wants to partner with other F&B outlets to showcase their products too so that they can all grow together.
By telling the stories of our clients on social media, they will be able to give customers compelling reason to buy from them - people after all buy using emotion mostly.
Coffee is just coffee until you know that the cafe you’re buying from is also supporting other local bakeries or till you know that it the cafe buying it only buys sustainably farmed beans.
Cake is just cake until you know that you are supporting a young entrepreneur working their butts off.
Suddenly, you aren’t just buying coffee - you’re supporting a cause or supporting a business that means more than the product that it sells.
A cause. A mission. A story. The Why.
When you choose to work with Restive, taking good pictures and videos is definitely part of what you will get.
But what makes us different is how we use those pictures and videos to tell YOUR story.
And in platforms that are filled with beautiful photos of food, perhaps what is needed is for people to feel emotion again. To feel compelled to buy from you because of a “higher” reason.
Restive will help you capture that in the content and posts that we create.
And why is this the case? Because it is in our own Why as well - we are doing this because we are passionate to share your stories with the world through our lenses.
We want your customers and future customers to know exactly what they are purchasing when they buy from you.
