#656 Define Your Business Purpose in 7 Words or Less with Ian Chamandy

In this episode of Talking with the Experts: Business Insights, host Rose Davidson speaks with Ian Chamandy, Chief Purpose Officer at Blueprint Business Architecture, about how discovering and living your organization’s true purpose can transform everything from leadership to communication.

Ian explains how his proprietary Blueprinting process — used by over 400 CEOs — helps companies define what makes them uniquely remarkable in seven words or less. This simple yet profound statement becomes the foundation for decision-making, innovation, and culture-building.

You’ll learn how purpose fuels clarity, unity, and performance, and why what your customers are buying is often very different from what you think you’re selling.

If you’re ready to lead with conviction and unlock your business’s superpower, this episode will show you where to start.

🔗 CONNECT WITH IAN

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianchamandy/

Website: https://www.7words.biz

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Transcript

Intro | 00:00
Business insights on talking with the experts. Hosted by Rose Davidson. 

 Rose | 00:10
Would you like to know how to define what makes your business uniquely remarkable in seven words or less? My next guest, Ian Chamandy, is going to discuss with us just that very topic. He believes that one of the most powerful ways a company can be consistently unique and remarkable is to discover and live according to its purpose. Ian is a, has Over the last 20 years, has helped more than 400 organisations define their purpose and become consistently uniquely remarkable through his proprietary blueprint process, Blueprinting, defining an organisation's purpose in seven words or less and uses it to design how it will operate and communicate. Ian has adapted this process for individuals so that they can create a personal blueprint for a happy, productive, self-directed and purpose-driven life. He is an author, he's a speaker and a coach, as well as a contributor to a nationally broadcast TV station. He co-wrote the book, Why Should I Choose You?, answering the most important question in business in seven words or less. Published by HarperCollins. Ian, thank you for joining me today on Talking With The Experts. I'm really keen to find out how I can talk about my business in seven words or less. 

 Ian | 01:34
Thank you very much for having me, Rose. 

 Rose | 01:37
Yeah, tell me a little bit about your journey. How did you come to, you know, develop this blueprint? 

 Ian | 01:44
Well, You know, it all starts kind of from a single place. Which is I just have this belief that the single most important asset that any organization has is knowing what makes it uniquely remarkable. 

 Rose | 02:03
-. 

 Ian | 02:03
And, You know, here in Canada, we have... By big banks. And, you know, they're basically all the same. Their colors are different. But when you go in, the experience from a retail standpoint... It's basically the same. If you work at one of those companies and you decide to move to another one of those companies, you're likely going to have one of two experiences. You're going to say when you get to that new company, wow, this is really different. I feel at home here. Or, wow, this is really different. I don't like this. Because inside, they're totally different. Why are they totally different? Because they each have Something. At their essence, that makes them uniquely remarkable. And, you know, I have the conversation about. Your most important asset? A lot of people will say, well, it's your employees. And the thing is, your employees come and go. Right. 
 So But that one thing that makes you uniquely remarkable is always there. And it should be. The basis for and the guiding light of everything your organization does and says. 

 Rose | 03:30
It's interesting. I think you're right. We are all unique in some sort of way, whether it's in our business or whether it's on a personal level. Being remarkable, though, I think that has to do a lot with how you run your business. 
 I mean, to me, anyway, to be remarkable is how you deliver the service that you provide to your clients. Yes. 

 Ian | 03:53
Well, In theory, Yes. But, you know, there's a lot of businesses, and I would suggest that's maybe most of them, that don't do that remarkably in any way, you know. In any way. This is why I think it's important to identify the one thing at your core that makes you uniquely remarkable. Because if everything that you do and say flows from that then you know, and by intention, everything that you do and say will be uniquely remarkable. It won't be hit and miss. It won't be dependent on what leader you have. It won't be dependent on, you know, how many resources you have. How many companies that are resource starved, but purpose rich. Just become the little train that could. 
 Yeah. So, yeah. 
 So. If you want to be remarkable in execution, you have to know what makes you uniquely remarkable. And if you know Simon Sinek, And his book Start With Why. Do you know Start With Why? 

 Rose | 05:09
I've heard of it, but I have not read it. 

 Ian | 05:11
Well, he sort of burst onto the scene doing a TED talk. And he's probably done a bunch since then. The first one is the one you want to see. It's absolutely brilliant. And you know, he says, that you're wise. Why you do what you do is what people actually buy. And the example he gave is Apple. He said Apple. 
 You know, Apple's, why Apple exists. Which is the same as their purpose, right? Why Apple exists is, is changing the game. Apple's all about changing the game. They've never invented anything. They took something that existed and they made it a hundred times better. That's what they do. They're about changing the game. And everything that they do and everything that they say Every time they come out with a new you know, a new marketing campaign, you go man, there's Apple again. 
 You know, and what's Google doing now? Google has beautiful ads right now. But they're Apple ads. They're just copying Apple. 
 So. And I'll give you one more example to sort of prove my point. Is when you think about a company like IBM, After the Second World War, what was IBM doing in the 40s, 50s and 60s? 
 Well, they were selling the most advanced business technology of the time to the biggest companies in the world at the time. What are they doing now? They're selling the most advanced business technology to the biggest companies in the world. 
 So through generations and generations of senior management. And employee turnover. And CEOs who had their own vision of how to make the company thrive. Which were all legitimate, or probably most of them were. But the company stayed. On this same general path. And what those CEOs with a great vision did is they advanced them further along that path, further and faster. But there were guardrails there that kept IBM And they were unspoken. Nobody had them written down on paper. It just exists within the culture of the organization and gets passed along. And so IBM... You know, has been doing what made it uniquely remarkable. Through incredible changes. In time. 

 Rose | 07:48
Right? 
 So how does one find out how they are uniquely remarkable? How do they... Pinpoint that. 

 Ian | 08:00
Yeah, well, so my answer is a little self-serving, right? Because I'll tell you. Probably about a third of my clients after they go through the blueprint process, a third of them say, that was like, you know, doing therapy. That was like the company going to see a therapist. And it is true, you know, because you. 
 You know, we, have conversations and we really get into what the company is and the psyche of it. I have one client who's a, you know, big national, food company in Canada. And the CEO said, and pardon my language, but he said, What I really loved about the process is that, you know, you just nailed our asses to the chairs, right? And you made us think about the company and its future. And, So Where was I going with that? I forgot the question. How do you do it? 
 So, you know, it is like therapy. And you can't do therapy on yourself. 
 I mean, you know, maybe a few people can't, but what I often get asked before, as we're gearing up to do a blueprint. I often get asked... What can we do to prepare? And I said, consider this question. If everything you do is a means to an end. What's the end purpose? And what it forces the company to do Like they think of everything that they do, like all their products, We're a car company. What's your purpose? Cars. Now, Cars are the expression of your purpose. What's your purpose? Cars are what you do. Everything that you do and say. Is a means to an end. What's the end? And it forces them for the first time. To think at one level more strategic. 
 And then when you do that, that's the beginning of the journey. Down the path to figuring it out. Here's... Maybe. Can I tell you? A case study and you get a better maybe tangible sense of that okay super so I was at breakfast with this guy. John, he's the CEO of a retail show of income. Right. 
 So Home Depot builds a box. They go in, they put up all the rack shelving, and when they're done, the store opens. And so I'm at breakfast with John and he says, I know there's a match to my company. But every time I open my mouth to talk about it sounds so generic, so banal, so like anything anybody else can say. And I said, John, it's because you don't know what business you're really in. And to his credit, he said, you're right, I don't know what business I'm really in. Now, John knew. He played in the retail shelving sandbox, but he didn't know what part of that sandbox he owned. And that was, excuse me, that was his challenge. 
 So he decided to do a blueprint. Now, I'll just... That's a tangent. The way the blueprint is done is there is a draft team. At the company. And it's always the CEO and up to three other key decision makers. And we, in a collaborative process, Create the draft. 
 And then it gets socialized out to the board and senior executive team and then eventually rolled out to the whole company. So you know, we have this group and we're, and what I do is I get them. To explain their company to me. In their own words. And if I've got four people in the room, there's four different stories. It's like, okay. Which one of these stories or what parts of each of these stories are true? And so the colloquial way I describe it is, We tear the company apart. And it's sitting in pieces on the table. And in the process of tearing it apart, which is, you know, discussion. At some point, the purpose statement, Pop said, the seven words or less. And usually... We all started to go, well, wait a sec, which is what happened in this case, because I got, you know, I was just getting the company to talk and where the conversation got interesting was when they started talking about how they had been in the business for three generations, right? Not three decades, but three generations. And they had developed, because of that longevity, they had developed techniques and processes and systems and procedures that enabled them to get finished significantly faster. You can imagine if they get a Home Depot done a month faster, than one of their competitors. The store opens a month sooner. And that's a month of retail sales that they didn't anticipate. And so as we're having this conversation, and a lot of times it just sort of pops out like this. As we're having this conversation, One of his VPs says as a joke, You know, in our signs where it says opening soon. I want ours to say opening sooner. And I just went. My God, that's brilliant. That is absolutely brilliant because All of the activities of the company. The moment we said those words, we looked at the company and we said, Wow. 
 Yeah. All the conversation that we've been having About what the company does, what its strengths are, what its weaknesses are, where it fits into the marketplace and all of that. The entire conversation. Was summed up in those two words. Opening sooner. And the magic of those words from a sales standpoint is if you're the VP of construction at Home Depot, let's say, There's two things that you care about, staying on time and staying on budget. 
 So staying on time is one of the two things that causes the gray hair. And when John walks into, you know, his or her office... And starts his story with, We are committed to opening sooner. The VP of construction goes like that. And usually the reaction is, What do you mean? But it's not. I would have confusion. It's out of intrigue. Because... As soon as the VP of construction hears opening sooner, Those two words blow up in his or her head. Because they know immediately they connect the dots and they say opening sooner. 
 So you're not only going to Meet my deadline. But you're going to beat it. Green flag number one. And you're going to beat it by so much that we can open the store sooner and start generating revenue that we didn't anticipate before. That's what all explodes. In the VP of construction's head from those two words. And now they're like, tell me more. I've never heard this story before. 
 And it's all because This company. Identified the one thing at its core that made it uniquely remarkable. And once it did, It could be intentional about it. You do it on purpose rather than You know, almost by accident. 

 Rose | 16:01
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think if people actually sat down and found out what their really core purpose is, they could come up with seven words or less that describes what they actually do rather than the big convoluted mission statements. Yes, Yeah. 

 Ian | 16:21
Yes. 

 Rose | 16:23
Interesting. 
 Yeah, very interesting. If you want to find out more about Ian, you can find him on LinkedIn, on his website at sevenwords.biz, and he has something he would like to promote today. On his website. 

 Ian | 16:42
No. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what I'm promoting. 

 Rose | 16:48
I don't know. It just says you have a product or service that you would like to promote. 

 Ian | 16:53
No. I misunderstood. I'm so sorry, Rose, for that. I misunderstood what that was. No, just, yeah, there's a lot of information, of course, on my website, like everybody else's website. But What I would encourage you to do if you go to my website is actually go to the blog. I have about 30 videos on there. That are all I mean, they're not, it's not all title like this, but it's purpose and this purpose and how purpose accelerates sales. How purpose? Makes training faster and more sustainable. Even how purpose, makes the integration of mergers and acquisitions go much faster. Which means money, right? If you can do that integration faster, That's money. And, what You know, if you're wondering, how does purpose help a merger? 
 Well, you have one company that's this and you have one company that's this and you're trying to get them to come together. And, you know, this one doesn't want to be this and this one doesn't want to be this. 
 So what you do is. Is you say, well, wait a sec. Combined, you're this. Both of these companies look at that and go, Yeah. I want to be that. Because that's a lot more fun because they've got more capability, more opportunity as a merged entity. 
 Sorry. I was just going to say, that's how... 
 You know, when Air Canada and Canadian Airline merged up here, Ten years later. The pilots of each airline or the employees of each airline were still complaining about the other. It was just a really poorly handled merger. And that's what I'm, you know, that's what I'm saying. They'll create something that both of them want to be in the merger will go a lot faster. 

 Rose | 18:59
Absolutely. And I think you're right about purpose. 
 You know, if you find your purpose and you find your why, then it's really not everyone knows their why. No. They haven't actually... Formulated a why and or a purpose. 

 Ian | 19:16
Well, see, I consider them to be the same thing. 

 Rose | 19:18
But to define that is really important for any business, whether you're a one-person business. 

 Ian | 19:36
Of how purpose adds value to your you know, to your company. Is that it's a decision-making tool. 
 At the end of the day, It's a decision-making tool. To say, In any situation where you're faced with options, what should we do here? That's usually the question that's asked. And you examine all of the options. And there's a lot. Often. And so separating the wheat from the chaff is difficult. If the question you ask instead is which of these options is best aligned with our purpose. That's a much easier thing. To answer. Which of these options is most aligned? With opening sooner. That's an easier question to ask. When you're trying to figure out answers to complicated questions for your business. Because a lot of those questions that in the absence of purpose are really difficult to answer. All of a sudden become, You know, it's like the veil lifts and the fog clears. 

 Rose | 20:44
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes it takes a while, but you really have to Sit down and think about it. And, you know, work it out. And once you do, I think you're on the flight to success. 

 Ian | 20:59
Or just give me a call. 

 Rose | 21:01
That's it. Absolutely. Absolutely. 
 So don't forget you can find Ian at sevenwords.biz. Ian, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

 Ian | 21:12
For me too, Rose. Thank you very much. 

 Outro | 21:16
You've been listening to Talking with the Experts with Rose Davidson. The podcast that brings you real stories, bold insights, and strategies that work. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast channel so you never miss an episode and dive into our full library anytime at talkingwiththeexperts.com. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing and keep talking with the experts.