Authenticity, Point-of-View and Telling Stories

For an organization, your point-of-view (POV) is the expression of what your company believes, what makes you different, and why people (customers, partners, employees & investors) should care.

The vast majorities of businesses just blend, or disappear, into the crowd. While their critical metrics – sales, growth rates, margins, earnings, and market capitalization – position them as viable competitors in their chosen markets, being average should never be the aspiration.

Truly great and lasting enterprises have a great story to tell. They stand for something. They are also able articulate their unique value in a manner that is both clear and compelling and positions them in a way that separates them from their peer group. They are different and are able to continually and consistently demonstrate that difference through both words and actions. Telling their story and institutionalizing their POV allows them to remain steadfast as they navigate both choppy and calm waters. And this makes them valuable to all their stakeholders.

For consistently successful companies, the POV forms the core of both content and context. It drives content in the way that their story informs every market facing document they share, online or offline. It also informs their internal communication. It provides context for both strategic and tactical decision making, including what products and services to offer and how to market and sell them and to whom they partner with and who they hire.

The best way for an organization to remain relevant in today’s dynamic marketplace, is to be authentic. To be authentic, they must be able to tell their story and express their POV, in the most compelling manner possible, across every traditional and contemporary medium that might touch their key constituencies. In such a fast moving, global business environment, telling your story is how you do business, how you turn suspects into prospects, prospects into customers, opportunities into deals, and investments into revenue.

At its essence, an enterprise POV is the compelling argument as to why a business problem exists and how that enterprise can provide the most valuable response to that problem.