Not 'what', but 'why'... The Golden Circle

Welcome back! This week our class discussion centered on a TED Talk by Simon Sinek. In the presentation, Simon spoke about how great leaders inspire action. Throughout the talk, there were a lot of takeaways, but the biggest one that has been cycling in my head is when he states, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why." As a former marketing professional, that was the thing I would inform clients about all the time. People buy into the person or the why, not the product or what. 

Simon continued by drawing a diagram he called The Golden Circle, saying great leaders and organizations all communicate the same way -- by telling their 'why' first. In the visual, most people would think to go from the outside and work their way in... tell what you do, how you do it then the reason why. However, Simon explains that great inspirators work from the inside out -- telling why, how then the what. 

The Training Thinking | The Golden Circle by Simon Sinek

Going back to marketing the problem is not getting people's attention. The problem comes with keeping the attention. We are human and live in a time where advertisements come in abdundance. Therefore, there is always going to be something shiny and new coming at us. Business cannot afford to squander our short attention spans with product feature and simply explaing why a product or service is needed. There is already too many people doing that, but not everyone has the same reason why they are selling that product or service you need.

By sharing the 'why' can tap into the emotions of a person and help you gain crediability with the potential customer. In my opinion, credibility is one of the most critic aspects companies can gain from customer in the marketing and buying process.

Credibility is what determines whether someone will buy a hotdog for $1 from Business A or the exact same hotdog from your business for $5. 

Now to relate this to the discussion post for this week, the question was asked "Does the existence of social media make it easier or more difficult for some to be opinion leaders?" My reply was the following:

The advent of social media makes it easier for people to be opinion leaders. Social media has enabled everyone's communication to be not only instantaneous but also very widespread, which means that people's opinions, no matter how far-fetched, have a better chance of reaching the intended audience, which puts individuals in a better position to be heard and possibly seen as a significant influence on the topic at hand.

And in my opinion, the more unpopular the view is on a controversial topic, the more a person willing to share their ideology via social media might be seen as an opinion leader. Where the not-so-popular opinion would've typically fallen victim to the spiral of silence theory, social media platforms have made it possible for those minority opinions to penetrate straight to like-minded individuals.

The most prevalent example that comes to mind is the trend of "alpha male" podcasts, where men will often share their sexist or misogynistic views via podcast and post it on platforms like TikTok and receive thousands of likes and comments. Granted, plenty of those hits come from people in disagreement, but a lot of them don't. And because TikTok curates people's personal feeds, or 'for you page,' based on their likes and content engagement, people who align with those opinions can see more of them, allowing those opinion givers to be opinion leaders.

But to take that thought one step further... because it's much easier now to become an opinion leader due to social media, are those people circumventing the Golden Circle by only sharing their opinion (or their what) via social platforms and people agreeing with them? Does that effect their credibility?

For that answer, I believe that the majority of people see influencers as creditible until they're not. Meaning, opinion followers look for opinion leaders who's ideology matches with theirs. Therefore, if those followers find a leader they can relate to and have similar thought systems, they will have no reason to question their credit, unless something is discovered that underminds those beliefs. We can see that all the time in the trend of 'cancel culture.'

Thoughts?


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