Matter More: Building a Brand That Matters
What’s the difference between a brand that’s successful and a brand that matters?
This simple word—matter—carries such weight. Hidden in its meaning is a fundamental truth: to matter at all, you have to matter to someone.
The human desire to matter is profound. People want to matter. It’s core to our human experience. People who don’t matter, or more accurately, people who feel that they don’t matter often struggle with depression, lack confidence or lose their sense of purpose. We constantly grapple with questions of legacy, impact, meaning.
Yet in business, we rarely discuss this fundamental need.
Instead, we fixate on metrics, ROI, and market share—important measures, certainly, but are they everything?
The success or value of human life is not typically measured (despite what Bezos and Musk might think) in profits or the accumulation of wealth. And while I fully recognise the stark differences between a human and a business, I also see the obvious connections. Businesses succeed or not based on how well we can connect with, build relationships with, and build trust with our customers. Yes, a business must make money to exist. But even the best business coaches will tell you: focus on solving real problems for real people. Money follows meaning. Profit is the natural result of improving people's lives.
Naturally, this begs the question: How do you make your business matter to people?
I’m glad you asked. Let me tell you exactly how to do just that.
Who Do You Matter To?
Mattering isn't universal—it's specific. What matters to you, won’t always matter to someone else. What you couldn’t live without, someone else might feel completely indifferent to. Your goal isn't to matter to everyone; it's to matter deeply to the right people.
This is where most businesses get it wrong. They try to appeal to everyone, to be everything to everyone, and end up meaning nothing to anyone. The universal can be found in the specific. It’s a weird paradoxical quirk of our reality. This is why when a comedian starts discussing the funny way their girlfriend brushes their teeth, it gets a resounding laugh. Because in the specificity of that story, even about people we don’t know, we can recognise ourselves or others.
The more specifically you can define who you matter to, the more deeply you can matter to them. And I don’t just mean demographics or market segments. I mean understanding the people who share your values, who believe what you believe, who see the world the way you see it.
When was the last time you felt truly understood by a brand? When did you last think, "Yes, they get me.” That feeling doesn't come from broad, general messaging aimed at everyone. It comes from specific, focused communication that speaks directly to your experiences, your challenges, your aspirations.
Mattering starts without recognising that you need to matter to the right people.
Start by asking yourself these questions:
These people—the ones who resonate with your purpose, who share your values, who benefit most from your work—these are the people who matter most to your business. And they're the people to whom you should matter most.
Identifying these people means accepting that you won't matter to others. And that's okay. In fact, it's necessary. The courage to say "we're not for everyone" is the first step toward mattering deeply to someone.
Try this exercise:
Write down all the characteristics of your ideal customer.
Now, for each characteristic, write down its opposite.
These opposites represent the people you're willing to not matter to. If you're not comfortable with these opposites, your targeting isn't specific enough.
This specificity isn't limiting—it's liberating. When you know exactly who you matter to, you can:
These are the people who will become your advocates, your community, your purpose made manifest. You're choosing the people whose lives you want to impact, whose problems you want to solve, whose future you want to help create.
Because when you matter deeply to the right people, they'll help you matter to others like them. They'll tell your story for you, champion your cause, and bring others into your community. This is how your business grows—not by trying to appeal to everyone, but by mattering so much to some that they can't help but share your significance with others.
So, the question isn't "How can we matter to more people?”
The question is "How can we matter more deeply to the right people?"
The people who matter most.
The MATTER Framework
Through years of working with businesses to help them matter more to the people who matter most, I've developed a framework for making your business matter. It identifies four distinct dimensions through which your business can create meaningful impact:
Practical Mattering: This is your tangible impact—the real-world problems you solve.
Cultural Mattering: This is about shaping mindsets and influencing behaviours.
Social Mattering: This is about creating connections and community.
Future Mattering: This is your vision for tomorrow.
The magic happens when these dimensions align. Once you flesh out each of these dimensions of your business, the combination of them becomes a powerful brand story.
"[Your brand] matters because we [Cultural Impact], by [Practical Solution], [Social Connection], to create [Future Impact].”
For example: "Patagonia matters because we challenge consumption culture, by creating durable, sustainable products, and uniting environmentally conscious consumers, to create a future where business protects Earth.”
Here’s how you can create your own powerful brand story using the MATTER framework.
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Practical Mattering: The Art of Tangible Impact
This is your concrete expression of your brand's promise, where theoretical potential transforms into tangible solutions that meaningfully improve people's lives.
This is the practical, tangible and functional things that you do, your products, your services, your offerings. But practical mattering isn't just about having a product or service that works; it's about solving problems so effectively that people can't imagine returning to their old way of doing things.
The key here is understanding not just what people need, but how they need it delivered. For your business to really matter, you need to create solutions that fit seamlessly into people’s lives. Solutions that become essential.
Questions to consider:
Then try to answer the following:
What’s the underlying value we provide or problem we solve?
Cultural Mattering: Your Power to Shape Understanding
This refers to your brand's profound ability to reshape societal understanding. True impact comes from identifying and challenging deep-rooted assumptions that limit human potential. It's about becoming a force that shapes how people think and behave. Cultural mattering happens when your brand transcends its product or service category to influence broader societal perspectives.
Think about the deep-rooted assumptions in your industry or society that might be limiting human potential. Your opportunity lies in challenging these assumptions, starting new conversations, and introducing fresh perspectives that shift how people think about your space.
To develop your cultural impact, start by identifying the status quo beliefs in your industry. Then ask yourself: What if the opposite were true? What if there was a completely different way to think about this? The gap between current thinking and potential new perspectives is where your business mattering culturally begins.
Questions to consider:
Then try to answer the following:
What’s your most significant cultural impact?
Social Mattering: Bridging Human Connection
Mattering socially is about your brand's capacity to transcend transactional relationships and become a genuine connector of human potential, creating ecosystems where individuals find belonging, support, and collective empowerment. The most powerful social mattering happens when your brand becomes the catalyst for relationships that would otherwise never exist. It's about creating spaces where shared purpose becomes more important than individual differences.
To enhance your social mattering, look for opportunities to turn individual experiences into shared ones, and consider how you can create platforms for meaningful interaction among your customers.
Questions to consider:
Then try to answer the following:
What is your most significant social impact?
Future Mattering: Your Vision for Tomorrow
While being the least tangible, the most conceptual, the most ambitious and the most difficult, this dimension may just be the most important. You’ve likely heard people talk about finding your ‘why’ in business. Why do you exist? Why do you do the things you do? What’s the world you want to create? That’s really what this dimension is about. I define it as your brand's visionary commitment to shaping possibilities beyond immediate commercial interests, positioning itself as a transformative force that actively designs the world it wishes to inhabit.
It represents your brand's commitment to creating lasting, transformative change. It's not about predicting the future—it's about actively creating it. Future mattering is your declaration that your significance extends far beyond current market dynamics.
The most powerful future-focused brands understand that innovation isn't about incremental improvements—it's about reimagining entire systems and approaches. To develop your future mattering, think beyond immediate business goals to consider your lasting impact. What fundamental transformation are you working toward? How are you already prototyping that future today?
Questions to consider:
Then try to answer the following:
What legacy do you want your brand to leave?
Let’s Add It All Up
Remember: These dimensions aren't isolated—they work together to create your brand's complete significance. As you develop your story, look for ways these dimensions can reinforce each other. The strongest brand stories show how cultural shifts enable practical solutions, how practical solutions build communities, and how communities help create the future you envision. Your goal isn't to excel equally in all dimensions but to understand where your brand can make its most meaningful impact and then build a cohesive story around that strength.
Now let’s add it all up…
"[Your brand] matters because we [Cultural Impact], by [Practical Solution], [Social Connection], to create [Future Impact].”
I know. It’s not always easy to articulate these ideas. But if you get this right, it can be the key to unlocking the potential of your business. Once you start to really matter to someone, the entire trajectory of your business will change for the better. Once you stand for something, once you truly begin to matter to the people who matter most, everything else falls into place.
Your marketing becomes clearer because you know exactly who you're talking to and what matters to them. Your decisions become easier because you understand your purpose and impact. Your team becomes more aligned because they can see the meaningful difference they're making. And most importantly, your customers become advocates.
The MATTER framework isn't just another business tool. It's a lens through which to view your entire operation, a way to ensure that every action you take, every decision you make, contributes to your significance in people's lives. As your business evolves, as your customers' needs change, and as the world transforms, how you matter will need to evolve too. The key is to stay committed to the core principle: that your success isn't measured just in profit margins and market share, but in the significance you create in people's lives.
I'd love to hear how this framework resonated with your business. Have you discovered a powerful way your brand matters? Share your final brand story in the comments, or if you'd like help crafting how your business matters to the people who matter most, let's chat.
CEO & Co-Founder Dala Health | Director Museum of Sticks & Stones | CBO Mettlesome | Creating Better Ways to Support People
2 个月The questions in here are very insightful and now have me very curious.
Founder at The Encouragement Foundation
2 个月Really meaningfull post Adam. It really resonates with me. I think there are more and more people open to your suggestion these days. Well done to you.