Tell Me Baby: Your Why, Their Why, and the Big Idea

Today’s inspiration comes from a lyric I wrote down years ago and kept in my Sounds of Marketing file. It’s from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Tell Me Baby”:

Tell me, baby, what’s your story

Where you come from

And where you wanna go this time?

Those questions sit at the heart of my first book, Get Where You Want to Go Through Marketing, Selling, and Storytelling. When I wrote it over ten years ago, most business leaders didn’t view storytelling in a positive light. The word made them think of fiction, fluff, or a salesperson stretching the truth. Today, leaders talk about storytelling as a core business skill, and most companies have plenty of stories: a founding story, a culture story, a recruiting story, a story about the client they saved. The companies that grow tie those stories to one big idea.

A big idea answers two “Why?” questions. Your why is your reason for being. Your customers’ why is their reason for buying. Where those two meet, you find the message that sales, recruiting, culture, and marketing can all pull from.

I saw this firsthand at Duquesne University. I helped transform marketing and branding during the university’s turnaround, and that work produced “Do More,” the big idea we built everything around. Those two words carried what Duquesne stood for and what students and families wanted when they chose a school. Record-breaking classes followed, in both size and academic talent.

The same big idea reaches beyond customers. It gives employees a reason to stay and gives referral sources a reason to send people your way. One idea, told through many stories, to each audience that drives growth.

When a company’s story only answers its why, it reads like a mission statement on a lobby wall. When it only chases the customer’s why, it sounds like the competitor down the street. The big idea brings it all together with a believable message that makes an emotional impact.

So as you cue up “Tell Me Baby,” ask yourself:

Can your employees explain your reason for being? Can your sales team say why your best customers buy from you, in your customers’ own words?

Do those two answers meet?

If they do, you’ve found your big idea. If they don’t, start there. Then answer the question the song keeps asking. Tell me, baby, what’s your story?