Hey Square Readers,
What are you highlighting so far?
We’d love for you to share your favorite lines and sections as you read Start with Why by Simon Sinek, our book for April and May.
What quotes have stood out to you? What are you highlighting or post-it note-ing?
Take and share pictures or screenshots of any sentences or paragraphs that are meaningful and stand out to you, along with the page number. Or if you’re listening to the audiobook, post in a timestamp or a sound clip!
Why did they stand out to you?
We can’t wait to see your favorite quotes, and we’ll be sure to use some of them for discussion and our end of book summary.
Here's my first one:
This quote really gets to the heart of what this book and philosophy is all about. I've heard a lot about this book with, and the quote "People don't buy what you do, they buy Why you do it" has stuck with me for a long time. I've found that it's really true for me as a customer, and in my businesses. I always said that I wasn't selling ice cream, I was selling a feeling. It wasn't about the product, the product was just a method to get that feeling of community, family, happiness -- made by hand by people who cared. I knew that my customers would have come to us no matter what we made, as long as it was true to that mission and vision. They didn't buy the ice cream, they bought the feeling.
I'll put some more of mine in the comments below too!
Happy reading,
Pesso
Here are some more quotes from this book that have been really impactful for me, and get down to the core essence of Start With Why:
This is absolutely key. Aligning your beliefs and your actions and being completely genuine is the crux of being a trustworthy business. And if you don't have your customers' trust, you don't have much.
If you can achieve that level of loyalty, your business is almost invincible. I know that I am this way with certain brands and businesses. I'll absolutely buy certain things without looking at the price because I know that what they sell is worth it, and their prices are fair according to what they need to charge. I'll go out of my way and pay no matter the price in order to have the thing they're selling.
I love this one so much. Whenever we hired new employees, the big thing we looked for is the passion. Most of our employees were customers first. They were people who grew up coming to our shop and had core memories with us. Everything else we could teach, but you can't teach belief and connection and passion.
I never really worried about losing sales too much. If someone didn't connect or understand what we were doing, they weren't going to be our customers for one reason or another. Of course if our core customers were getting upset with our decisions, we knew something was wrong and we weren't being true to our Why -- but if we were doing what we knew was aligned and we lost customers, they weren't really our core folks anyway.
This is so true for small business owners. We're absolutely not in it just for the money. If we were, we would probably pick something easier. We're in it for the passion, and making sure our customers see and know and feel that it's true is a hard thing to achieve sometimes.
