“The goal is not to sell what we have to people who need it. The goal is to do business with people who believe what we believe.”

 -Simon Sinek

I’ve owned two businesses where people bought from us because they needed what we had, and for more than two decades now I’ve owned a business where people buy from us because we believe the same things.

They’re incomparable.

When you hone your positioning down to a clearly articulated discipline (what you do) and market (for whom you do it) the next step is to articulate a belief about how or why this (discipline for market) should be done.

This belief, ideology or perspective will be one of the final differentiators that separates you from your most direct competitors.

Through a stroke of ignorant luck (or divine fortune, perhaps) our ideology is right there in the name of the business. But the ideology isn’t luck. It’s a deep rooted belief. If you don’t share that belief then you can’t work here and you certainly won’t buy from us.

Your competitors will copy what you do. They will say your words and use your methodologies, believing the magic is somewhere in this combination of language and deeds.

Few of them will ever understand that the magic is in the belief. You believe what they only say, and you attract clients with resonant beliefs.

Ideologies don’t just align in this way, they resonate in a way that can’t be faked. You feel it in your chest. And in that moment of ideological resonance everything and everyone else fades to background noise. They are your people and you are theirs, aligned around a belief that is not shared, valued or even understood by the majority.

When done properly, belief can be your moat.

What do you believe about your discipline and market that your competitors do not? 

Imagining the purest form of your business, what are the resonant beliefs that you need your clients to share before you will do business with them?