Someone says the spelling above is not right but that is the title of a film I watched. So pardon the title spelling. Those who are close to me know I am not a huge fan of movie and films. When I take the chance to watch one it must be that I am fascinated by the title (which I presume can teach me something new).

I am a huge fan of anything that can spur me on to pursue excellence as well as increase my value. So when I saw the title I felt it may contain some nuggets that will help me achieve my goal. One of the hidden challenges I have and which some keen observers of our community will have noticed is that my writing style is not at the best level.

I keep struggling with this each new day and sometime I am embarrassed with my post or structure in other piece I have done. Interestingly, when others give me their materials to read all my senses are always alive. So I wonder why I could not apply that to myself. If I must be honest, sometimes this discourages me from writing a post here as I knew some international readers may judge my brand with this shortcoming.

So one of the reasons that attracted me to the film was what I can learn in my pursuit of happiness with regards to my writing style. The storyline is about a young man (Chris Gardner) who had a disordered childhood. He never had the opportunity of meeting his father until he was twenty eight. This young man decision was to be a role model for his young boy but unfortunately his marriage was threaten by poverty to the extent that his wife could no longer endure and she left. He went through hard times but he eventually made the glorious limelight he desired. So some of the personal branding lessons I learnt from the film are:

Have a goal: Whatever circumstance you find your brand today should not determine where it can possibly be. A written goal, dream of a better future will keep the energy inside the brand to glow. Without a goal and dream, there will be no life inside the brand. Each time Chris goes out, he dreamt and saw how he could become better as he saw others leading enviable life.

Trash excuse: everyone has a ton of excuses that can stop them from achieving their goals. Chris dreamt of becoming a certified stock broker/dealer despite huge financial burden. He could not pay his house rent and was sent packing. He has to sleep in ‘free Dorms’ where light will be off at a regulated time. Despite this he would light candles to read.

Take calculated risk: despite the fact that Chris did not have money, he went ahead to enrol for the job of his dream and started reading at any available opportunity.

Develop confidence in your capability and brand: never allow the situation to determine your confidence level. When Chris’s wife left because she could not go ahead with him, and his house owner ejected him, Chris’s confidence level did not drop. The height of this that really touched me was that he was ejected and detained in police custody a night before his job interview. Chris never allowed this to affect his performance at the interview panel. Imagine someone leaving police custody without shower and moved straight to interview panel?

Hold on, be consistence and damn present circumstance: Chris’s life showed a high level of consistency, persistence in his dream. He works his ‘ass off’. Nothing could discourage him from moving ahead. Though once a while he shed tears in the midnight when he thinks about his situation that seems not to have expiry date.

Enjoy the moment: You do not have to wait till major breakthrough comes before you celebrate yourself. Live each day at a time. The first day Chris made an income of two hundred and fifty dollars he took his son and they went to sleep in a hotel room instead of sleeping in a Dorm they were used to. He and his son had fun. From this story I am learning to be happy with myself, my writing style even though it is not near what I desire. I will keep improving till I get there but be happy with the moment. Do you have anything to share? Transparency, honesty and sharing keep life going. Over to you, Use the comment section.

Success is not mystical. When you apply the principles and follow through the process, there is a high tendency that you can achieve substantial result. Success is never achieved overnight. Ask those who have tasted real success. It took them several months of sleepless nights, commitment, passion and patience.

Most brands suffer from despair, but stand firm with courage. They realise that courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Like everyone, I love it when it is fast and sure. But hey these words do not go together most times. So today it is my desire to discuss, share my little knowledge on some of the conditions that I know will guarantee your brand’s success any day anywhere.  

Comprehensible and quantifiable objective: No brand will succeed without a road plan. Every brand must see the end before it starts otherwise the challenges of the road will chase many brands to ground zero. So a clear comprehensive as well as quantifiable objective and goal is essential. Have you lost your brand’s objective? There is an opportunity to go back to the drawing board.

Deep insight of consumers’ psychology and behavioural patterns: Since the success of every brand is dependent on customers, brand must understand their sustainers’ psychological and behavioural patterns. The days of assumption and arm-chair researches are gone for go. Brand must go out to the warfront, at the point of desire and ability of their clients.

Learn to provoke, stir up and appeal to customers’ emotional bonding: people buy from those who stir them up of make them feel good and appreciated. Do not bore your customers. Add fun, be the brand that gives them hope and stir them up to reach their dreams.

Reach clients through their preferred medium: Brand does not make any headway by following selfish desires and enforcing that on its audience. Brand must look out for new media that appeals to its audience and follow that part.

Expose your brand’s relevance to clients through your creative stories: brand creative stories today is part of what ensure audience bonding with it your audience. Study and look around you, most channels are obvious for those who will look.

Let me conclude this with this quotation “No one has ever found success by doing the same things tomorrow that resulted in mediocrity today.”

As an individual, I have come to cherish the adage that says only fools doubt proofs. It is good to read good books about anything but if all our experiences stop at reading books without a practical application of all we have read, it may become a wasted effort. To excel today, we must be able to ‘show’ it instead of just ‘telling’ it.

While major profit brands are still in the doubt whether this stuff (new/social media) works, a non profit brand (Daystar Centre Lagos) is blazing the trail and I am happy that Non-profit may dictate the phase of what should be with the use of new/social media in our nation.

As our community would recall, it is this same non-profit brand that initiated the first ever social media campaign in Nigeria with its Excellent Leaders congress (ELC 2009) in November 2009.

I am so excited to break the news that this non-profit brand initiated the use of new/social media on Sunday March 28, 2010 to strengthened internal bonding among its audience. This experiment of using new media to reach internal audience that work successful came as a result of long absence of the President/ Senior pastor of the congregation. The senior Pastor fondly called Rev, Sam has been away for about six weeks on a preaching tour to United Kingdom and Western Europe. Apparently, this is the first time the senior Pastor would be away from home for such a long time in Fifteen years.

Expectedly his internal audience is beginning to miss their ever-cheerful, easy going but sound teacher of the Word who has nurtured them for about fifteen years. The audience is used to seeing him regularly as he is accessible to all. A great lesson to some brand’s leaders with less than two thousand employees/volunteers who have remained elusive. This long absence of the senior pastor is beginning to show despite the fact that the leadership of the brand has efficiently run the brand as if the senior pastor were to be around.

So it was a pleasant surprise and a great relief to the internal audience when a life ‘broadcast’ of Pastor Sam’s preaching was powered through ‘SKYPE’- an internet communication device that functions like Yahoo messenger- from London. Even though there was a little interruption due to internet disconnection during the second shift (which was quickly fixed), the audience was happy that at least they could feel their senior pastor all the way from United Kingdom. The four sessions of the church ran normally as if the senior Pastor was with the audience life. A great kudos to a brand that work hard on breaking new ground.

My concern today is why is it that our corporate/profit brands  are running away from reality of our time? What if the corporate brands use the new/social media to promote internal bonding, build support for the corporate ideas through a bi monthly/quarterly session with the Managing Director through the use of social/new media tools? Will there be a big difference. Many employees have not had any opportunity of meeting, interacting with the Chief Executives immediately after the meet the MD chat. Will a life meeting powered through ‘Skype’ make a little difference?

What if the Top Executive holds a quarterly briefing with major distributors of their products with these devices at the distributors’ zones and locations? What if a corporate twitter account is created for this purpose where meetings with zonal employees could be done through that medium? All that is needed to be done is to protect the tweet from external party that is not part of the team. What if a corporate retreat is powered with these tools and no one needs to travel long distance? Can we save cost through this mean? The question can go on and on. But what do you think? Use the comment section. I cherish your opinion.

Disclaimer: I am a member of Daystar Centre and I served as head, Content creation, development and management (New/social media) for the ELC 2009

The sign of stressed economy is here today. It is obvious that little fund is being programmed to accomplish many tasks. Many individuals who have been victims of lay off may not even have enough to go round either for their families or themselves. The recession effects though seemed declining in advanced countries; most developing countries are still confused on the way out. I want to believe also that this situation is applicable to many personal brands in developing economy. Because mine country seemed to be among developing countries, I can not but once in a while be concerned with the plight of my people.

The huge crowd that has been laid off is still battling in the euphoria of what the future holds. Recently someone in a paid employment told me that the opportunity I have to build a strong personal brand is due to the fact that I am not engaged in a 24/7 duty or possibly that I am not at the lower level of management in my organization. While I responded that anyone will have time for what is uppermost in his/her priority, I also thought that many who still  hold a job are  under intense pressure to deliver or they will be shown the way out. By the time they come back home, they are already worn out. Many around me also go to work on weekends to cover up the demands of their responsibilities.

To thrive in today’s distressed economy; innovative brands must begin to leverage on power of social media to expand their brand’s appeal, relevance, and credibility as well to protect their brands from avoidable crisis. The challenges of social media that I have seen though is that to gain recognition, it is not a platform for ‘weak hearts’, lazy individuals or brands looking for quick fix it. Such brands will fail without any warning signals and such brands are the ones that will conclude that there is no credible ROI in social media.

An intelligent player in social media games can stand out of the crowd through proper management of great content, backed with sound creativity. Through right influence, a brand can still drive enough customers that will keep it afloat the troubled water of the present economic position. I have also discovered through feedbacks from my community that over dependence on a social media channel will not help much. The present crops of clients are looking for more value while they are not willing to pay premium. The positive side effect of a truly satisfied client or community member is that they will bring their friends, families, colleagues to patronize your services at no charge or increase in marketing charges.

Given the above, we are about to introduce a new channel to this community. The channel will be known as BRANDGAVEL RADIO. Hopeful in the future we may bring in Television series when the logistics are perfected. Brandgavel radio programme is a series of audio programmes that will  be featured weekly on this platform. It focus will also includes intelligent panel discussions on a range of issues that affect brands enlightenments programmes, personal brand initiatives, success stories, interviews with successful entrepreneurs who are willing to share their success stories from ground up. So if you know any one we can interviews who have credible brand stories that can inspire others who are still going through stuffs, please do send their names and contacts. Is your brand still romancing the old ways of doing things?? It is time to have a rethink.