Many times brand custodians are concerned about pushing their products to the target market. Many assume that just creating a service is the end of it and people will rush in to purchase their services. This assumption is often based on the fact that the new service is a one- in- town bullet proofed idea. Times are changing and we need to think otherwise .I strongly agree with Steve Heimoff’s assertion in this regard which says ‘’No longer is it enough to make and sell and then expect the world to beat a path to your door. Today seller has to reach out to their customers, understand their customers’ need (italics mine) and may have to do so in a way that is unfamiliar and even uncomfortable for them’’ Going the old way does not work any longer. The audience also have a concern.  Sellers, producers must note that many want some services badly but they do not have what it takes in term of financial capacity to get them. Customers are faced with choices. They have to make choices through opportunity cost- which is alternative wants forgone.

Despite these challenges, I must confess that brands can still get necessary attention from their segment if they truly understand the most viable reasons that determine why audience will invest in the brands. Today I just want to examine four basic reasons why audience still invest in brands despite the tight economic structure that pervades our economy now.

People buy to satisfy basic need: Never forget Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When the basic needs of your segment is not know, your brand may not enjoy patronage from them. People have several needs with limited resources to go round. Your brands must aim first at satisfying their basic needs before you move ahead to give what is on their secondary list of needs. So first identify what they need and you can have them ‘grabbing’ your services

Solve a problem: in addition to the above, each market segment has problems that are peculiar to them. The more your brand can solve your segment’s problem in a unique way the better for the brand. Offer services that solve problems in a unique, emotional way that will propel your audience to talk about your brand. This also point to a sure way to get necessary attention from brand’s target.

Status: When the above issues are satisfied, brand audience will invest in a brand based on status’s need. I must admit there are few exceptions to this rule, but what is certain is that majority of brand’s segment will always follow this trend.

Quality and longevity of service/ created product: Why we always believe that emotional connection, perception influences target decision in a major way. A recent research packaged in an EBook form produced by Intrepid and MR. Youth supported the assertion that some clients also consider quality and longevity of the created services/ product before they buy.

 In this mentioned report, a young twenty one year old lady (Brittney) from Seattle has this to say ‘’When I purchase something, I want to know that it’s going to last for a while. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the nostalgia of getting things handed down to me from my parents and grandparents and the history they had but it makes me sad to think that our generation’s purchases won’t go through the same ordeal – everything’s ‘insta-use’ and once it’s used it’s gone.”

Let me conclude this piece by saying that getting value from your brand target is equal to your brand’s ability to know the reason why your target does business with you or not.

We must realize that building a brand in today’s market is far different from what it used to be. When we assume that the major way of building brand is through the marketing gimmicks, we are making the greatest mistake of the highest order. It does not work that way anymore. When a brand is constantly failing in the delivery of its promise, taking people for granted, it is sure it will soon become demised.  The day of brands buying their ways through marketing activities alone are gone for good.

So when you begin to see that the emotional bond between the brand and its clients are no longer there, you must wake up to the reality. When a brand notices that brand performance is dwindling all rounds, it is time to do something. But because many are not involved in constant brand auditing, they always discover too late that their brands have lost relevance quite a long time ago before they wake up to that reality. So in our dealing, we constantly encourage brand owners to ensure a motion is set in place to constantly reassess what the brand look like per time.

So today if you have noticed that your brand has issues and need to re-invent it, let me give you short tips that you can start with before going for the big deal.

Engage your customers: the brand is as good as what the customers say it is. The result of dwindling result will always be traceable to them. So it is time to meet with your advocates, loyalists who have talked to their heels or who may still be patronizing you because of pity. If you prod well you will discover that their hearts are far from you. Some of these might have been offended and may need a lot of deep engagement to get words out of them.

Provide best place to work: when the customers are engaged, brand ambassadors will drive them away if the system frustrates them by discouraging initiative or the leadership does not provide sound direction that will motivate everyone.

Being relevant in the community:   one other thing that will strengthen brand re-invention is in the brand’s ability to be relevant in its community. It has to make inputs to its brand community to get the best from all concerns. Never forget that it will take a community to build brand to the highest of its performance.

If i may round up this short piece, take great look at this acronym ‘C.A.R.E.S’ which means Community, Accountability, Respect, Empowerment, Service

This twenty six year old late upcoming Hip Hop artiste was laid to rest on Friday 30th April, 2010. He was such a promising young man with a bright future anyone can think of.He had gone through stuff, his life was a rise from grass to grace. He was favoured also by the creator of universe who helped him.

Given what I read from the Newpapers, he came from a broken and never known what strong family ties meant. Dagrin left home early and hung on to a discovered music talent. He never had opportunity, advantage to pursue education to a level that most people in his age had. He was disciplined enough to give all it would take to excel in music and the universal being was kind enough to crown his efforts with such a resounding success.He also had strong dream.

Dagrin whose real name was Olaonipekun Olaitan was highly creative as exemplified by his work or at least may be he had good advicers and listened. Some people belive he had prophetic unction because he talked about his death even before death came calling. But alas at the time he was supposed to be getting the limelight and settled down dath came calling on this promising star. From Dagrin’s life, I have learnt great lessons that I think our community can also learn from.

Personal Background: Individual’s background plays a key role in what one becomes in life. A healthy and stable background can become a leverage that will stabilize us at every junction of life. That is why parents need to work hard first on themselves so that they can lay a great foundation for their wards.But given this, negative background should not be allowed to dictate the level of our well being. Despite a negative background that was not promising, Dagrin broke through the rank and strived for limelight.

 Education: education is good and it has its own leverage. Formal education prepares individuals and build in capacity to reason differently. But formal education is not all that is, street education and personal learnings can make up. Even though formal eduactions help if one can afford it. Dagrin’s level of educatin did not exceed senior high school. I also understand that the reason he rap in local dialect was his good  grasp of his mother’s tongue over English language. We must learn to improvise on what we have and not what we do have to build strong personal brand.

Dream: Dagrin had dream.To excel in personal barnding journey, a strong dream, aspiration for an achievable end. He made effort and put action into it. Had he lived long enough, we may have seen the achievement of some of his dreams. When you have dreams, you need to avoid distractions on your way. If Dagrin’s track ‘the dream’ is anything to go by, he had a lot of distractions and there was this manifestation of youthful exhuberance.

Talent discovery: To build a strong personal brand, we must discover our talents and work hard on it. Discovery of personal talent will help in making a head way in the journey. Discovery of talent is not enough, we must work hard on it. I understand Dagrin was coming from studio when death snatched him away(?). Work hard on your discovered talents, communicate it, promote it.

Prepare for success: many of us do not understand what success means. Success comes with limelight, fame, money and all the funfare. Success is also like a wild lion, if you do not know how to tame it, it can tear you. Individual on the journey of personal branding needs to develop capacity to manage success especially huge finance. Dagrin was favoured early with success. He worked hard for it though. But whether he prepared for fame before fame showed up at his dooor is left for reasonable people to assess. Is there anyone out there who has learnt lesson from Dagrin’s brand or the guy inspired you? He was just twenty six when he died but many people attended his funeral based on his impact and influence. Though Influence here may mean different thing to different people.Let me read from you, use the comment section.

N.B. I could not make it to the Facebook launch on Friday 30 April,2010 so i may not have update.

Today we have so much about personal branding with regards tos elf promotion. The noise level is so high that people keep saying image is everything or keep faking it till you get it. As much has I acknowledged that these are important, building on image, will not help much if there is no consistent and concerted effort put into building a solid foundation on personal development that will bring utmost value to your audience. 

 I strongly belive there is no substitute for hard work. Hard work on personal branding begins by a strong determination. Individuals must be willing to pay the price for outstanding success by constantly oiling the wheel that will dictate its success. Anyone who is lazy will soon discovere that life gives back what a person invested into it. First  individual must sit down to chart his course and properly understand how to make right move, learn how to handle mistakes, learn from them. It is also expedient that learning to handle rejection, how to build strong relationship for the future is a must. The art of leraning to speak publickly is also essential. Individual will need to communicate, make presentation.My advice today is that individual concentrate on developing their personal brands outside the hype, self promotion. Even though these may be good, personal brand needs a solid foundation of a depth of knowledge that will differentiate you from others.

Promo

In the light of above, I love to bring to our local audience notice a meeting that is being facilitated by a good friend (Utomi Emmanuel), who is the Chief Executive of PersonalityIn, United Kingdom, a certified life coach/ expert, prolific public  speaker that is based  in United kingdom. He is running two seminars on April 17, 2010 at Elephant cement house Alausa Ikeja Lagos. The first shift runs in the morning  and is focused on Personal Progress while the afternoon shift is focused on The Business of public speaking. I understand  early bird get a discount and pay five thousand naira only. For participation send mail to emmautomi@gmail.com

As we approach the weekend, many will say thank God is Friday while few will embrace the opportunity to work harder on their own brand. The truth is that your personal branding is what lives with you for the rest of your life after you have worked on your 24/7 paid job. Also given what Zig ziglar says “The most influential person who will talk to you all day is you, so you should be very careful about what you say to you”. There is a need for individual to supercharge his/her personal brand irrespective of what the economy or situations around them are saying. At the end you will take responsibility for either personal success or failure. To continuously care so much about what other people are saying about you is to give external people charge  over your life.

I am of the opinion that if a man constantly considers what other people says to determine his action, he will fail without warnings. To supercharge your personal brand, you may need to ask why am I doing what I am doing now? Is it to join the bandwagon or to fulfill a planned objective? That others are doing great is not a reason to kill your own small achievement. Inch by inch progress is made. Ensure you continuously drive towards your own goal.

 Plan to live your life with right principles that will aid your life’s goal achievement. Stop the blame game. It has not taken any one to a better height. It limits the power of human energy and life forces. Looking at the Jones to draw your life’s chart will fail you. To supercharge your brand, you may need a good dose of optimism despite the present challenges you face. Stop accepting what is for what could be. Keep driving while the storm rages, you are only permitted to look back only when you have weathered the storm. That is to look at those who allow the storm to kill their spirits. You will be glad you did not stop in the midst of the storm.

 Keep refreshing your  mind. Keep your information consumption high. Many will not. They have forgotten that when they finished school in 1980. Perhaps if you have been a laggard here, it is never late. Start now, there is still miles to cross with accompany glory. If you do not make an attempt you will miss the rest crowns.

Let me conclude this piece with what an online writer says ‘ Dare to be individual, Dare to develop your own style – instead of following fashion, Dare to study and work to improve yourself in your profession, Dare to have a positive mental attitude and the courage to try. In other words: Dare to take a chance’. This is my thought today.

This will be the last part of the two previous posts. Google and other search engines have turned many into product, service researchers while at the confine of their rooms or offices. Today’s customers are no longer satisfied with information provided by brand advertisers or traditional media. They really want to see things as it. They want to drag hard bargain for their valued incomes. They also need personal conviction which shows that what they are buying is the best. It has been proven that at least two million potentials log on to the net everyday. Most of these potentials may be looking for things that either concerns your personal brand, product or services you are offering, institutional or corporate brand you represent. As a brand, you or your corporate brand has a chance of making these teaming ‘searchers’ to take a look at your side. That is if you have a web presence or Google resume. To get a chance of being seen, ensure your key words help in Search Engine optimizations. This will help your visibility in the first page of Google search. Many searchers do not have the patience of going beyond the third page of the search result.

Let us assume that your brand is lucky to be found, ability to create first impression with your web presence become the second most vital point. First impression begins with design aesthetic, quality of homepage content.

Your web presence first impression can help. As we know attention is a great deal on the net. Researchers have no time to waste on a non appealing site and at the click of the mouse they may be gone forever. That may be a lifetime opportunity too.

To get a chance with any first timer to your site/blog/content channel, be sure that the homepage is filled with useful content. If it is corporate website, let it incorporate integrated platforms that offer valuable information. Such information must aim to establish relationship instead of selling. For personal sites, it will be good to make your helpful contents the homepage, It may not be wise to make ‘how good I am info’ your homepage,

For other social networking sites like facebook, twitter, Xing, plaxo etc, make sure the content section popularly referred as ‘what is on your mind, what are you doing’ be loaded with helpful guide, insight that will help your target audience instead of ‘I am eating cheese’ stuff. That may be good occasionally but it should not be habitual practice. The reason is that such details may not lead to higher engagement and conversion rate. To enhance conversion rate, be willing to spread your highly usable content to several platforms online. This makes it easier to be found in different channels.

Let me conclude this piece by restating the process of identifying online potentials and how they can be converted to customers, loyalists or followers. Most start their online journeys as searchers or browsers; they are turned into believers in your brand through relevance of your brand. If you open a conversation, give free content that will help them, then you are on your way up. This will eventually make them to make decisions to buy from you, follow you. From here the journey to winning them as brand loyalists, advocates begin.

Time is changing gradually. Knowledge too is spreading like wildfire. What used to be politically correct few years ago are being reviewed. I was just considering these two words as they relate to professional usage recently and I discovered that many brand drivers may be breaking the thin line between the two. Reputation is what people see. It is often manipulated to achieve a predetermined aim. It speaks volume about brand status and standing as well as character. There is nothing wrong with a systematic application of brand reputation building tools that will engage the stakeholder. But as we know today, tools are changing and there is need for re examination of each tool. Trust is much deeper than reputation because it demands transparency, openness. Trust heals wound of dishonesty. Trust places a high sense of responsibility on the brand, leadership, key players. Trust has greater dividend as it gives competitive advantage as well as salvage relationship during trying times. To really build trust, brand must carefully select, train internal audience. To build trust, it requires that everyone agrees on the need not to do business as usual, covering up but work with a strong determination to say it as it is and be willing to stand up to the demands of response-abilities. In closing, let us realize that nothing extreme, extraordinary happens in brand relationship except a strong level of trust can be established.We must also remember that one day all things may fail. At such time, the last thing brand or anyone want to make is first impression. It is no need. Build trust instead of impression.

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.

There is need to measure the competitive advantage, impacts a personal brand has over its niche like other forms of brands. Like other experts noted, to gain substantive advantage and value over others, manipulations, gimmicks, over bloated image laundering are counter productive to any personal brand equity building. As much as I agree that there are basics measurements to all personal brands in term of equity, I am of the opinion that measuring personal brand’s equity should be considered in line with the present position the personal brand occupy. I do know this is subject to discussion, yet I think when a personal brand is operating as corporate employee, the yardstick for measuring personal brand’s equity should not be the same with a person who is an entrepreneur. Before we analyze this, I think we should all agree that the level of influence that the personal brand wield will go a long way to help its equity. True influence is not that hard to earn as long as one is productive, working with others to achieve common goals as well as staying true to one’s core competence will pay at long last. Sound integrity and consideration also form some of the basics that enhance personal brand equity.

When a personal brand is known to be making others successful, the brand will gain equity. This does not mean that the brand forgets his success at the peril of making others successful. A personal brand that is easy to talk to and not necessary arrogant will consistently build equity that can be recalled later in life. Another way by which personal brand can build equity is to supply value as well as accelerate such scarce value always for the niche market. Let your brand always be noted with providing right solution.

Today the world is full of brands without much value or equity. That will not help much in this time of recession. Many companies now want strong personal brands that will add value, reduce cost. This is possible if your brand has strong reputation and can bring a lot of equity to the corporate brands.For employees, you may ask: who will miss me if I leave this organization today? Will the management beg me when they see my resignation letter? Will my leaving affect the perceptions of the corporate body by the clients you have dealings with on behalf of the body? Will they be able to carry on without a blink of an eyelid when you leave? Are you a people person- that increases your personal branding equity? A friend recently said as a Manager, he is not expected to have all the command of facts in his finger tip but his ability to lead people and get results desired by his organization. Many of the personal brands equities are attributed to its expertise but tagging with people is key. To build equity, know your niche very well and beat expectations, be focused as well as versatile. Let me conclude here by saying being successful will earn you a lot of booty. As a respected personal brand, you will be fulfilled.

Brand equity is the sustained value that customers placed on your brand over others. Brand equity is built through a consistent and sustained delivery of promise. This suggests that brand equity is built over time. Equity is not built in a day. Merely understanding the equity markets is enough should tell an individual something vital about equity building.Brand equity is value is viewed in terms of trust, dependability, security and more importantly perception.

When a brand has gained equity, it guarantees the fact that less amount of money will be spent on marketing activities without much concern for what the implications will be. When brand equity is built, efforts need to put in place to ensure it sustainability. Like every structure, it takes time to build something but within hours, days, a permanent damage can be made that can make the structure goes under. If in doubt, think about the experience of September 11, in the United States.

Having established that, let us look at what may contribute to the brand equity’s debit.

1. Poor customer service: many brands often forget what bring them to the top. Because they now have more customers, they treat their old customers as nobody. May be because they feel they can no longer pay their bills. Watch against this and remain focused.

2. Unrelaible product/service quality: many brands start to cut corners to make more profit. This will erode brand equity. I was discussing with one of the third generation banks’ official about the quality of the service we now have at a particularly branch in Lagos which was far away from what it used to be before and the response I got was shocking. He said ‘the crowd has become too much and because of that the staff has no option but to shout on their customers’. I smiled and concluded a time is coming and that will be soon when such answer will not be tenable.

3. Changes that reduce perceived values: Some brands just make some internal changes that are not called for just to show off. When such changes are made particularly those that affect point of contact with the brand, the brand image suffers immediately. That is why people who hold the baton in every brand must be keen observers so they can have accurate assessment of the changes that need to be made.