STRIKING THE RIGHT CORD

Have you ever told someone that he or she is God sent? Chances are you got assistance from that person when you were in a tight spot and had little space to manoeuvre. It happens and not just to you but many other people. We are all pretty vulnerable at one time or the other; and that time should be like the advert spot just before national news to a serious personal brand. In other words, that specific time is the best to act. That’s like striking the iron while it’s hot.

Customers or clients do not always realise that they have a need and a lot of times, have to be told specifically that they need something or the other. Now, that’s not always as easy as it sounds because resistance is a fact of life. The remedy of course is to ensure that the person is in some kind of twilight zone which lowers the defences and gives you the opportunity to convince the person.

You must make your customers/clients vulnerable first before stating your case and this can only happen if you use emotion. Hitting their emotional nerve is crucial in making an impression. Consider the case of Coca-Cola. If you ask the average teenager how long coke has been in existence, chances are the teenager will think Noah stowed some away in his great ark and you can’t blame that person! Coke has succeeded in consistently touching the emotional spot in people’s lives to the extent that they have changed the date stamp in their minds, shifting it a couple of centuries back!

What kind of impression is your personal brand creating? Is it striking the right emotional chord or just twanging away on a discordant string? You need to play the emotional tune to their souls and get them to see, feel or hear just how they can get relief from engaging you. Now, you just got through to them!

                                   

                                             Put some magic in  your brand!

                        ......Olatunji Ladi Adejumo

IS PERSONAL BRANDING ARROGANT?

“Son go, your sins are forgiven thee”. In a society where the forgiveness of sins was a tedious process presided over by the self-righteous Pharisees, that was the height of arrogance! The question in their minds and on their lips was “who is this man to utter such words?” Jesus Christ made no pretences about the matter; He is superior to others.

Any brand which cannot claim superiority to others which are competing with it is doomed. Simple! The very essence of branding lies in differentiation; the ability to prove to people that it has something to offer which others cannot or do not. Does this mean that every brand must be ‘superior’? There may not be a straight-cut answer to this question but take the example of the car rental brand; AVIS. It is definitely not the first and faced an uphill task convincing people that it is better than the dominant brand in that market; HERTZ. It adopted an unusual strategy which admitted that it was not the first but represented that fact to mean that they were prepared to work harder to get and maintain the customer. Their tagline reads: “We’re Number two. We try harder”. I call that arrogance dressed in humble garb!

The word ‘arrogance’ usually connotes something negative but then one of its synonyms is the word ‘superior’. It is very important to note however that what people usually term arrogance is the ability to do effortlessly that which competitors are struggling to do. A footballer who converts half chances to goals with annoying ease and walks away like it was just a casual pass is seen as arrogant as is a professor who analyses a knotty issue with irritating simplicity or even a lawyer who characteristically presents superior logic in arguing a case. It is of course incumbent upon a brand to ensure that such perceptions are mitigated by avoiding a condescending (incidentally another synonym) attitude.

To answer the question posed by the title; Yes, an element of arrogance is inherent in personal branding.

                                             Put some magic in your brand!

                         ......Olatunji Ladi Adejumo