It’s amazing what can happen when you just speak from your heart and not just from your head. It leads to all kinds of things. Especially when you speak about the stuff you love. Like your brand.
In 2014 I wanted the business of discount clothing retailer Fashion Fusion, so a guy named Osama (no not HIM) pointed me to a guy named Imraan who ran marketing for the company at the time.
My pitch to Imraan was so impassioned and sincere that he invited me to merge my agency with his so we can do work for Fashion Fusion together. We did eventually partner with his agency – Nocturnal Designs – to take over the marketing for another huge Durban-based company. The partnership was short-lived, but a year and some change later Imraan called me up to come and help do some work at Educor Holdings.
They needed some “digital direction” for their brand over there.
Fast forward to February 2017. I attend some municipal business do at the Royal Hotel and end up sitting next to Mandisa. She has that face that says “I’m serious about what I do”, so we start chatting, exchange contact details and agree to meet again. A few months go by before we make good on our promise to meet again, and the meeting goes great. I learn more about what she does, I tell her more about what I do – again heartfelt and sincere. Another few weeks go by, we connect on social media platforms etc..
One day Mandisa calls. She wants to know if I would like to speak at a gathering of entrepreneurs. Having done this before, and having enjoyed it thoroughly, I obviously and over-enthusiastically said YES. Then she threw me the curveball. I would have to speak about something I posted on Linkedin about.
Now that wasn’t what I was about. If I’ve already said it I wouldn’t necessarily want to say it again – regardless of whether the platforms are different. But I agreed and on 11 August I spoke to a group of young businesspeople saying THIS:
I started by introducing myself, my business, the companies we have done work with since I launched the agency in 2011 and I pointed out some notable achievements like the R20million in tickets we sold for Top Gear Festival in 2013, the above-industry-average sales growth we generated for Coo-ee Softdrinks in 2015 and the R70million in part-time revenue the Damelin college generated in 2016 as a direct result of my work.
I then moved on to identifying what a brand is before we can move on to “how to build one”. I cited the different definitions of a brand as per David Ogilvy, Al Ries and Jeff Bezos. Then I gave my own personal definition of a brand, which is: “THE SUM TOTAL OF EVERY EXPERIENCE A CUSTOMER HAS WITH YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE ACROSS EVERY TOUCH POINT AND THE EFFECT OF THAT EXPERIENCE ON THEIR PSYCHE”. Following that, I launched into the 10 things (out of 150) I believe are important to building a great brand.
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Make a stellar first impression with your brand
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Always make sure you can be relied on
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Listen twice as much as you speak
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Instead of a mission, vision and values, have a MANTRA instead
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Never sell products and services. Sell Benefits
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Always deliver great customer service
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Offer value for money. Under promise and Overdeliver
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Make sure you can be trusted. So they trust the brand
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Relationships run a business. Build relationships
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Communicate. Communicate. Communicate
I ended my talk by running through the 10 points again twice to reinforce each one, and then rounded off first with a quote by Denzel Washington: “WITHOUT COMMITMENT YOU’LL NEVER START. WITHOUT CONSISTENCY… YOU’LL NEVER FINISH.” and as a grand finale a quote by Will Smith from the 2005 movie Hitch, that is so near and dear to my heart:
“NINETY PERCENT OF WHAT YOU SAY.. AIN’T COMIN’ OUTTA YOUR MOUTH”.
And with that, I thanked the audience for their time and their attention and gracefully jumped the gun on the program director by asking if there were any questions (a habit).