You have a great idea and you need a logo to get it off the ground.
Well not so fast!
A successful idea, business, or personal brand works well with some thought behind it. I challenge you: Why are you doing it?
You have to absolutely understand deep down inside why you are doing business. I'd say many skip this step. Don’t skip this step if you want to save time, money, and energy (for you, the designer, and any other team members).
An excellent starting point is to do the personal vision exercise. From there, you will figure out your life's purpose and then you can sprinkle that purpose into your business.
After doing that exercise, you can sit down with a piece of paper, write the question “Why?” at the top and answer it. This is an honesty test. You have to be honest with yourself in order to get through the exercise. If you are not honest with yourself, then who are going to be honest with? Get ahead now so you don’t play yourself later.
It may be a good idea to do this with someone you trust. Perhaps a potential business partner, or even a creative like yours truly.
Ask these questions in a cyclical manner and at each level of your answers. It's kind of like when a little kid keeps on asking you "why?" after you keep answering them.
1. Why?
2. Why is that important to you?
3. Why does that matter?
4. Why?
After every question, ask yourself the same question again. Try and dig deeper every time. Keep asking yourself why. What naturally happens is that you discover what your actual intentions are. Your vision becomes articulated, clarified, and most importantly - written down. There is a certain magic that occurs when you actually write down what you are thinking.
When I started to think about why I am doing the things that I am doing and why do I care so much, I realized my driving force - community. My dream is to uplift my community through the creative things that I do. If I succeed, my community will succeed with me. If I learn something incredible, you will learn it too.
Take a look at my whiteboard below.
And then when I sat back down and refined everything I came up with this:
I am doing this business so that I can fulfill my personal mission in life, and that’s to uplift my community through creativity.
Uplifting my community is important to me because I need to see my people succeed. Especially in a world where everybody is always bitching and moaning about their wack ass jobs.
If I educate people on how to be happy, fulfilled, and content with their lives, then they in turn will be happier. That’s what I strive for, happier people.
If you succeed, I succeed, if I succeed, we succeed. You + I = We.
Latinos, blacks, and minorities in general have always been oppressed, the media is always throwing it in our face. However, I consider myself successful, and being Latino myself, I wish to show how one can be successful by following their passion.
I believe that a life filled and driven by passion is a life worth living.
I believe we are all creative people and that everybody has a purpose.
Creativity is important to me because it makes me feel amazing when others validate my creativity, by paying me to be creative. Creativity in itself can be very uplifting.
All of this matter because we are all trying to live comfortable lives. Comfort with finances, time, and fulfillment. It's sad to see that some never get past the comfort of finances. Therefore I wish to help so we can all feel incredible.
Community is important to me because I crave connection with others. When we are connected, we can grow. My community consists of latinx people, minorities, creatives, entrepreneurs, people who care about their communities, and passionate individuals with drive.
You also start to understand who you are trying to serve, which leads us to defining your ideal client/customer persona.
The TED talk by Simon Sinek below explains how great leaders inspire action, and it's by starting with "Why".
This Why exercise is just one of the many that I go through with my clients in my "Your Brand Discovery" workshop. If you can't wait to brand your business effectively, check it out!
If you haven't grabbed my Before Re/Branding Your Business Checklist, you can get it for free by subscribing below!
Love you all!