Do you know why you’re doing this?

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This week we’re quoting Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram (Founder of Proximie)

What Hachach-Haram said:

“I learnt it is imperative to narrow and deepen the impact of your business. You need to understand the pain point you are trying to solve and the market opportunity available.” 

Why? 

Hachach-Haram’s business is a cloud-best remote collaboration platform for surgeons and healthcare professionals. And in terms of impact, it’s laser-focused and definitely profound: addressing the problem that five billion people around the world don’t have access to safe surgery. 

“...the surgical workforce would have to double by 2030 to address this shortfall,” she said, “so it is vital for us to address challenges related to patient safety, operating room efficiency and surgical training and education. We have seen in the UK’s NHS – where Proximie has been adopted to reduce nonclinical cancellations – a potential average efficiency saving of £1.24 million per trust per year.” 

But across all tech sectors, this notion of narrowing and deepening to really drill into what the whole point of your business really is can help you create a market strategy that will enable success. 

How do you find that focus? 

Some businesses are built on this kind of sharp focus. The problem they’re trying to solve has high stakes, and the solution they’re offering has a clear impact on that problem. That doesn’t mean that business development will be easy – but it does mean it’s pretty simple to communicate why what you’re doing is important, and how you’re going to help. 

But it’s OK if a business starts with a broader scope. Maybe your product has several potential use cases, and you need to identify the most impactful one and zoom in on that. Or maybe you’re solving a problem that your customer base doesn’t really understand yet – and in order to show them the impact you’ll have, you need to educate them so they click with the problem first. 

Wherever you’re starting from, the critical word here is impact. 

Understand it. Measure it. Figure out how to communicate it to your customers. And put it at the heart of all your work and all your marketing. 

Four steps to get a grip on impact

1. Get clear on what impact really is. It’s not just about numbers – and that means it’s often hard to quantify. Impact is about the difference you’ll make in the world; the lives you’ll change (and specifically, how you’ll change them) and the value you’ll create through your tech business.

2. Identify what you’ll change. The beginning of any story starts with a status quo; a sense of this-is-how-things-are-right-now. So what’s the status quo of your business impact story? What is it that you are striving to change? That’s where you’ll start to gain a focused view of your impact – because you’ll see how your work will change the status quo (for the better) and introduce a new normal.

3. Piece together a vision of what it’ll look like when you’ve achieved that change. If you’re successful in shifting that status quo to something new and better, how would it look? In an ideal world, with your company doing exactly what you want it to do and achieving exactly what you want it to achieve, what will your users’ lives be like? Communicate this vision in the present tense – as if it’s already the reality. This will help both you and your potential customers/users understand the impact you’re working towards. 

4. Celebrate it. When you start to see the impact of your work alive in the world, make a big deal of it. Talk about it, write about it, share it with the world. Talk about your impact at industry networking events, and pitch articles about it to industry publications. Share it on all your marketing channels and integrate it into your brand story. 

It comes back to finding your ‘why’

In his book Find Your Why, Simon Sinek (Author and Speaker) wrote:

“...discovering your WHY is like panning for gold in the river of the past: the gold is there, lost in the debris of the river, hidden by rushing water. Only when you take the time to pan for the significant moments of the past, retrieving them nugget by nugget, will they turn into treasure.”

And ultimately, your impact is closely connected to your why. What difference do you want to make in the world, and why does it matter? Take the time to go deep – and you can refocus your work on a clear vision of the future.

Read our interview with Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram: Collaborating on the cloud 

Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? We're eager to hear it! Drop us a message and share your thoughts.

Catch you next week,
Richard McKeon
Group Marketing Director

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