Your Business Creation Myth

With all the talk of USP, niche positioning, and your ‘features & benefits’, one thing that is often overlooked in the marketing cycle is what I am going to call your “Creation Myth”. All societies have them. Whether it is the Big Bang and evolution, or that a Christian God created the world in seven days, or that the earth is actually the back of a large cosmic turtle, or even that the world was sneezed out of a God’s nose (yes, that exists as well) - all societies have their Creation Myth, their story of where things come from.

What many companies don’t realize is that the creation myth is equally important to the business world. If you are an individual consultant, a professional services provider, or a Fortune 500, people still want to know where you came from, what you are doing here, and why. If you don’t have the answers to this (and the right answers) you have nothing, so - unless you have your creation myth on paper, I suggest you start now.
Think about it. There is the guy selling an herbal blood cleanser. You don’t know who he is, and for that matter you don’t know what an herbal blood cleanser is and why you would need it. If he just says “buy my herbs!” - do you?

But, if suddenly he is a man who was experiencing cronic fatigue, who just couldn’t keep his eyes open throughout the day, and in fact lost his job because of it.. And he know something was wrong. He got plenty of sleep but couldn’t keep his energy levels up, and he was developing skin problems, achy joints, and all sorts of issues. He tried everything - traditional Western doctors, accupuncture, he even went and saw a shaman in the rainforest of South America. And it was there that he was given a special herb that has ancient properties of cleansing the blood. Apparently his liver hadn’t been functioning at full tilt, but no one could figure it out until then, and this one miracle herb gave him new energy and a new lease on life. With his new found passion he was not only able to get a new job back, he in fact had the spark to start his own company and bring this special herb to you… try it today risk free!

Get the idea?

When I was running a one man web design show a few years back, I wasn’t just another guy who had taught himself web design. I was a young entrepeneur who had come upon some fantastic teachers who had given him the skills to never hold a real job in his entire adult life. No, he had never reported to work, he had always run his own show and was doing quite well at it. Not only that, but from his work with clients he had watched over 1,000 marketing tests in nearly 100 industries go to completion, and had unique knowledge about what made sales and what didn’t in the online world. I wasn’t just another web designer, I was THE web designer that knew how to produce a site that would bring in the cash and help you move towards a free, wealthy lifestlyle of the self employed (my main target market was the self employed individual.)

You may be thinking - wait a minute, this sounds like a USP to me, but take a look. There are significant differences, and important ones. My USP would have been “Not Just Designed, Designed for Profit!”. But my creation myth is much more complex than that - it gave my business a background, a personality, an ideology - even when I wasn’t the one doing the design any more.

What are you waiting for - if you don't have one yet get writing now - it could make a HUGE impact on your business and lead generation..