We know most brands are yet to recover from the recession. Most brands’ corporate social responsibilities have suffered a lot of setback because of this. Not only in our climes but I do believe everywhere. The last two years has increased the level of financial stress for Nongovernmental organizations that rely on funding from donor organizations to continue their impacts. As an individual, I do not believe every philanthropic gesture must be in check. Checks are good but in the absence of check something else can still be offered to sincere organizations that are really doing the work.

In a conference we held in February 2010, A multinational (GSK PLC) could not offer money but gave product-drinks –that helped in no small way. MTN Nigeria was able to help out with a check that also helped. We salute these great organizations for being there.

 The essence of this article is based on my personal believe that everyone, brand can give something no matter how small to make a difference in a cause they believe in. Oprah Winfrey once said “I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an on-going process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.

In a recent edition of personal branding Magazine (that was just released), I am so happy that the issue of philanthropy is given a major story status. I have come to the conclusion (I stand to be corrected) that only brand that does not know its value will say it has nothing to offer. For instance it takes energy, commitment and dedication to give out free information. That is a form of giving. Many write and sell articles on the net .I am not condemning that act though.

So I strongly believe corporate brands can give through several means. Most corporate brands have experts who can coach, mentor the young ones in schools and colleges. Most can afford to print a few thousands of writing materials, text books and distribute them freely. Most corporate, personal brands can organize competitions among the youths that will project their strong believe in a cause. Most can have a library within their head office where external audience can read, borrow books from. It cost nothing or less to go to orphanage homes and give motivational lectures.

It also cost less to go to remands homes and give reconstructive lessons to some wayward children. What about the Managing Director of a great conglomerate who has sound integrity and can explain how he gets there organizes a three hour session for selected start up entrepreneurs twice or thrice a year in their corporate headquarters’ conference room to avoid incurring cost?

A major point that the Magazine above also stressed is the ability of individual, corporate brands to make their impacts viral through social media by asking your network to help promote the cause. I think most brands that do not do anything have nothing that ignites them. This may be as a result of lack of concern of someone up in the cadre. While we will allow our community to think about what ignites them, I love a quotation by Candance Cameron Bure (that the cover story centres on) when she said “I think that all of us have a responsibility and an obligation to be a voice for those that can’t be a voice for themselves.” If a brand cannot be anything for anybody, it means something is wrong somewhere. What is your brand doing to affect its community and what is the motive of such?

You do not need heavy checks to make impact even though that goes a long way to reach millions when judiciously used. When a brand makes impact with what it has, it can build trust, credibility, engagement, love, passion etc around its name. People watch what you are doing daily with what you have. Time to start with what you have.

Recently someone asked me ‘what is the position of attitude in personal branding?’ Like in every sphere of life, attitude carries the highest mark. It is 100%. You either have it or lose it. Attitude is the foundation of personal branding. If you do no have right attitude you cannot fake it. No one can succeed in any building project without a sold foundation. As we know personal branding is an unending project that needs to be built overtime. That is as long as you have life. Someone has defined Attitude as the “advance man” of our true selves. For those who have an idea of what an ‘advance team, details’ mean in security, you will understand that before an important person goes somewhere, the advanced team would have been there for days. The team would have secured the environment and be sure that there will be no harm done. If the security report is not that favorable, the main target or personality will be advised to shelf or postpone the visit. So in personal daily endeavor, if one’s advance man is not good, armed with right gadget to detect danger but continuously misbehave and give wrong signals, it is safe to say that one is as good as dead, just a living ghost of the personality exists.

Attitude often feeds well on our past experience, people we relate with. We must realize that most of our personal brand efforts are geared toward manifesting our uniqueness with regards to how we help other people to succeed. Interestingly we cannot do that or succeed in this if we have a pessimistic approach to issue, if we can not radiate a form of attractiveness that will make others to blend with us. In personal branding journey many will not accept you’re offering no matter what you do, many will misinterprete your efforts as being self-centered or mischievous, many out of envy will backbite or malign you. Without great attitude, one can be affected by these external forces. If care is not taken, one will abandon the project and become discouraged. The position of attitude is captured by the following words which I gleaned somewhere. It is impossible to engage others to believe in your product or service, if your attitude projects the opposite.

If I may conclude let me say attitude helps self esteem, is the forerunner of your true self, It is your greatest friend or worst enemy, draws people towards you or ward them off, is the librarian of your past and presenter of your present reality, is the forecaster of your future and that you can not mask your attitude; it will always find its way out. How has your attitude helped you, you want to share? Use the comment section. I love to hear from you.

Sometimes we can be sincerely wrong because we do not take enough time to study how something works. Even though we put enough energy into it, the fact remains that our efforts can still be in disarray. Or what is the need for speed when destination is not properly determined and mapped out before one sets out for the journey. There is a lot of noise out today in the name of personal branding. Most of these noises are good but because they have titled their efforts on an aspect at the detriment of a complete package, their efforts have made them to become a unique idiot- sorry if it hurts. This is majorly due to the fact that they are only doing cosmetic and dirty branding without knowing as Dr. Rampersad said. Dr. Rampersad outlined certain factors that can make that happen and I quite agree with him. So let us examine these factors and watch against these so that we can avoid being sincerely wrong in our personal branding effort.

1. Focus on personal marketing: We have noted in the past that personal branding that is focused on personal marketing alone will never go anywhere. Personal branding is not only about marketing; it entails several other communal benefits to the community or niche.

2. Image building: In addition to the above, if a brand concentrate on building or selling cooked up or real image without other vital concerns of personal branding, it will be seen as a ‘Me too’ game. Like we know Me too game will never remove one’s name from the pack. If it does anything at all, it damages the ROI.

3. Self promotion: This is always seen by the niche as egocentric and pursuit of selfish end. It does not add much value to anyone than the person involved. It is a matter of time before such individual earn the name of a jerk

4. Personal selling: this may be good, but if this is done at the expense of other mutual beneficial efforts it can boomerang and followed by outright rejection of the brand through negative response instead of desired response.

To get full benefit of personal branding, understand who you are, unearth your real personality, have a vision, craft unique selling point out of your own uniqueness, offer value and continuous value, ensure you have sound integrity and build an enviable, untainted reputation. These all help so much and do not hurt your brand as the identified points above. Have a great day.

Innovation is KEY to keeping our brand healthy. As good as this may be, many brands are avowed to innovation because they feel it will hurt the positioning. Innovation does not necessarily to be disruptive even though it may be part of it. In my continuous research on the word “Innovation” I have come to the conclusion that there is no universal definition of innovation, it s more of a function of the context. We define innovation as “a process for transforming research based ideas to reality that bring an improvement on the past behaviour. We can also look at is that an innovation lowers the costs and/or increases the benefits of a task. Another online study concludes that ‘a wildly successful innovation increases the benefits-to-costs ratio to such an extent that it enables you to do something it seemed you couldn’t do at all before or didn’t even know you wanted to do’.

Innovation is the ability to come up with something new that somehow facilitates a task or endeavor

The other thought I cherished is expressed this way ‘Innovation depends not on certainty of being right, but on rapid learning and rapid response to what has been learned’. From the above, we can say Innovation is process, method, idea views from different perspectives. If we agree on this, it s so clear that brand needs to innovate to be relevant. The following reasons can be attributed to such needs. Innovation helps brands to meet new demands. It also helps to inculcate new perspectives. Innovation increases brand values as well as increases chances of brand impacts. More importantly, innovation helps brand to generate new streams of income. There are several demands that innovation required. One is that brand innovation does not necessarily demand that brand must reinvent the wheel. But there is a high need for clarity of mind to change old patterns into new concept where things are possible.

When last has your brand being involved in innovation, what are your fears? What do you think innovation bring that your brand does not possess now? Please let me know I may be able to help.

FREEBIES

This month of May is very crucial to us at THE BRANDING GAVEL. We have a lot of things to celebrate. This month marks the sixth month that we came online and the impacts have being phenomenon. This month is also the Publisher’s birthday. Because of this, we will be so generous to give full profile coverage for the top “commentator” of the month on this medium. The Publisher (Yinka olaito) will also be speaking free of charge at every event this month. This is an opportunity to invite him to share his knowledge with your organizations, groups, student bodies, associations. This is exclusively for Lagos Audience. Others outside Lagos can benefit from this “at no cost” speaking by arranging for how I will get to your location and back to Lagos. That is the only difference every other values are free. Don’t forget, send your request to yinka@yinkaolaito.com or Tel: 07029778785

Investment is defined as savings, outlays, deals, and ventures among many other words. ‘Social’ has the same meaning with communal, community, shared, collective etc. The combination of the two words- social investment- then can mean any deal, outlays, savings that is made towards a community and shared for collective use. In relation to personal branding, we can say that social investment is any value shared by an individual that will benefit a community. In another words, social investment by an individual (personal brand) is a shared gift by an individual to enhance quality of lives within or outside one’s area of influence. Though a focus on one’s area of influence will be great.

Having said these, there is no excuse for an individual who want to build a strong personal brand to say social investment is for corporate organizations alone. Albert Einstein once wrote ‘the world we have created is a product of our thinking; we can not be changed without changing our thinking’. Expertise is one of the strongest, vital forces in personal branding after sound integrity. It does mean that every personal brand has an expertise in one area or the other. A sharing spirit to give your knowledge away without a notion to receive pay, physical cash instantly should propel an individual to be involved. It is clear that those who get involve reap untold benefit. Most times the rewards are instant, but social investment dividends are often long term with lots of benefits. There are several avenues, platforms to be engaged in social investment that can enhance Brand You rating, effectiveness as well as build larger followership.

1. Professional association: being a member of professional association is not just for the hype. As a professional, Brand You has a differentiator. Sharing what differentiate you in your professional association can be a form of social investment for this professional group. The returns on investment here may not be immediate but somehow, you would have enlightened other professional colleagues in the process. This can lead to business collaboration in the near distance future. Even if it does not, the effect such can have on others may be phenomenon.

2. Ymca/religious association: Brand you may also annex Young men Christian association or other religious bodies to share your expertise. Writing a letter to do so to the right persons in these associations usually receive necessary attention particularly if Brand you is known as an expert in your niche. The opportunity this can offer in the future can be overwhelming

3. Chamber of commerce and industry: There are ample opportunities in some chambers of commerce in different countries to help the business people with your level of expertise. I am trying to annex this opportunity too even though I have a busy schedule.But if any desire my inputs, please give me a call.

4. Clubs/associations; There are several community associations which can benefit from your knowledge, do not insist that you must receive pay for every act of kindness. There are associations, groups within your own religious organizations which can benefit from you, offer something for free, you will be spreading the influence of brand you.

5. Student bodies: Many students’ associations are in dire need of professionals who can offer a guide to them in many areas. Being there for them will spread Brand You. You may not know, one of them may become the Managing Director of a company tomorrow. So accept to teach a free class with some of these bodies as time permit.

6. Papers/Free e-books: Many do not realize the power of sharing through these platforms. Writing a book or a paper of any form can demand a lot of sacrifices from you but the viral effect of such free gift can be phenomenon. Plan to give a research study that can help others away and this will help your spread. Personal Brand needs to be involved in social investment like the corporate brands because social investment is a saving, deal, venture that will yield dividends in the nearest future. It breeds loyalty, emotional attachment that brands need today. In the light of the above our free e-book on Personal Branding is almost ready, just a little editing here and there. Please look out for this soon