If you don’t know why you want to do it, don’t do it

“But WHY mom?!” was one of my son’s first sentences.

Just like me, he’s always wanted to know the reasoning behind things. What purpose it serves and why I’ve decided that we should do things in a certain way. And when he does, even though he might not like it, he usually does whatever it is that we’re discussing.

The same goes for leadership and communications. We need to ask ourselves why we’re doing things, what purpose it fills and what the goal is, to know if it’s truly valuable for our business. Especially if we want to get others, whether it be employees or clients, on board with what we stand for and the direction we want to go.

There are plenty of ideas, advice, tips and tricks when it comes to branding and marketing. A lot of lists about all the things you could do and things that have worked for others. Things that might give you the results you desire, or get you to where you want to be. But if it doesn’t serve a purpose for your business idea, if it doesn’t align with your goals and the brand you want to build, it’s not going to have the desired effect anyway.

So just like my son I think we should all ask “But WHY?!” a little bit more often. Because to be honest, if we don’t know we want to do it we shouldn’t do it. And if we’re brave enough to scratch the things that won’t bring us closer to our goals we’ll have a lot more time and energy for the things that will.