From Sales to Branding: Why Your Reputation Matters More Than Your Logo

Hello and welcome to the show. Apologies before we begin because it's that time of the year and the munchkins are home in case you hear the noise bleeding in through the background. So with that out of the way, let's get straight down to business. I'd like to start off with the listener shout out to Cameron Shirley. Really interesting name because OK, Cameron is male, but the only Shirley's I know are female. So I'll need to ask him about that during our conversation.

But I, I forgot about that. So Cameron Shirley is not really a podcast listener, but is someone who has admired my work around personal branding and the podcast. I mean, at least how he sees it. And so he reached out so that we could chop it up concerning personal branding because he's also into business development, but for telecoms firm, a telecoms Internet company in the US of A. And so I'd like to say, Cameron Shirley, thank you very much for reaching out.

Even though you're not a habitual listener. But still, it's nice to put a face to those people in other parts of the world. Half my listenership base so far seems to be American, although I'm wondering if really it's, you know, 50% of you guys who listen to the show are American or a bunch of you are just Nigerians in diaspora who happen to be in America. So can't quite figure that out yet. So Cameron, nice having the conversation with you.

The next time we chat, I definitely will be asking you that that question about the Shirley because in this part of the world, all the Shirleys I know are female. So he reached out on LinkedIn and we had a LinkedIn meeting. In fact, for me that was one of the most notable things about the meeting because so far in doing this whole, you know, work from home, remote work, you know, blah, blah, blah thing that we're currently going through right now.

I'm used to Google Meet. In fact, I prefer Google Meet. Some people seem to be Zoom people, some organizations, OK, like every time we're planning a project with the British Council that's on the media side, photography and video and live streaming and all that, they seem to be a Teams organization and, and let's see what else. So I'm used to all those things flying around there. And I did know that LinkedIn has this audio meeting capability and video meeting capability.

Sorry. The audio capability on LinkedIn is for, I think that's for events. Then the video capability that they have is for meetings. So I was aware that it existed, but yesterday was my first time trying it out. Oh by the way, if any of you have to accept a LinkedIn video meeting request, something you guys need to know. I don't know if it's something peculiar to Android phones, but I had to download some some something, I can't remember what it was anyway, but it was pretty much an automatic thing before the meeting started.

So I hit the video link and while I was priming up the video, it now said I needed to download something, something, something. I clicked on that it went ahead and downloaded and so then I was able to to start the meeting. So just to let you guys know, in case you're trying to do business with someone, the person recommends a LinkedIn video meeting. If the meeting is for 10, don't sign up at 10 since you have to install this thing and you know how network can be in Niger now.

So my recommendation of the person says the meeting is for 10 is LinkedIn video and it's your first time doing it. Maybe try and sign in 955 so that you have to click and then nothing will download and you're good to go. So LinkedIn video meetings another Ave. for connecting with people. Give it a try, especially for those of you who don't like giving phone numbers and e-mail addresses to total strangers. Because I prefer to have phone calls and I prefer to do Google Meet.

So I tried to get phone numbers for phone calls and for WhatsApp or e-mail address so we can share the link. And I noticed that some people are kind of hesitant giving out that kind of information. So now you have more things that you can add to your arsenal. If you're chatting with the person on LinkedIn and you feel like a face to face or a voice to voice or whatever will get the conversation moving. Now you can just say, oh, since we're both online right now, how about we have a LinkedIn meeting instead?

If you just look to the bottom right of your screen right now, you see the icon. All one of us has to do is to tab the icon and we're good to go. OK, so even though the listener shout out out is out of the way with Cameron and Shirley, still I wanted to tell you guys about the discussion that we had because there were a bunch of stuff that I think a whole host of us should. A whole host of us should, what would I say, put our minds too?

Because the reason why he reached in touch, he's also a business development professional, like I said, in the telecoms and Internet space. But the reason why he reached out was because he wanted to discuss personal branding because of all the activity that he's been seeing, not just the podcast, but my stuff on LinkedIn and all of that. So he wanted us to discuss personal branding. Now, I keep saying time and time again that I am not an expert on any of these things.

You know, marketing, branding, what else? Copywriting, all these sorts of things. Well, people still reach out and ask for my opinion anyway and I do try to help, but so excuse me, but the avenue, the lens through which I look at everything is through a sales and business development perspective. Because luckily since sales selling, business development is a very broad profession, we do have a lot to say about. So excuse me, we do have a lot to say about different aspects of business.

So I went ahead and I gave it a shot. So we're looking at personal branding online and offline. So for him, of course, I did my sure thing, asking questions. They had been receiving some training on personal branding at the office, especially offline. So he had received lessons at work that's provided by their telecommunications company. Well, by the way, if you happen to be working for one of those firms, companies whether in Nigeria or abroad where they do provide these sorts of things,

it's something you ought to cherish because not lots of employers do that. And I can speak especially from the Nigerian experience. You're not going to have lots of Nigerian employers who pay for coaching, personal development, professional development and stuff like that for their staff. So when I do get called in by companies here in Nigeria to do stuff, you know, train members of the sales team and things like that, it's something that I, that I point out, like, look,

you guys are already here. Whether you want it or not, this thing has already been paid for. You might as well take advantage of this opportunity because once you leave this organization, whether you leave on your own terms, whether you get kicked out, chances are the next Nigerian employer is not going to give a hoot about how you learn on the job and how you're developed and stuff like that. So for Nigerian employers who bring specialists like us in to handle these sorts of things,

I'd like to say kudos to you guys. I know sometimes it can be a bitter all I say. Some of you think you receive bitter lessons at the end of the day because you bring in your staff, You get someone like me to train the staff, The staff receive the training, They hang around for six months, a year and then they leave. And yes, it does seem like it's unfair, but unfortunately, it's just one of those things that we have to live with.

But then again, this is something you ought to consider. If you bring somebody in and the person is at the 20% and the person stays with you for two years, giving you 20%, is that really worth your money and worth all the the stress? But if you bring somebody in at 20%, you bring me in to handle training and you're able to boost the person up to 50%. Even if the person stays at 50% for one year and then the person leaves, arguably you have received the return in your investment because at least you got somebody functioning at 50%

for six months or a year instead of having somebody stay with you at, you know, 20% for the same amount of time. So, yeah, it's rough when people take this training and leave, but I still think it's worth it. There's a business case that can can be made. And also, I think we shouldn't pay attention to the people who leave. I think we should be paying attention to the people who stay because there's even added benefits from that because this these are people who remain with the organization with the benefit of this training.

They help to inform the culture and they also help to raise the level of what's that thing called, you know, they influence the culture. And then there's also knock on effects because they also get to train people in these philosophies and things like that, people who come afterwards. OK, so let's go back to what me and Cameron Shirley talked about. Or is it Cameron Shirley and I? I've never quite figured it out. So let's see where were we?

OK, personal branding. He he's received some training in the office. OK yes, the training that they received was mostly offline. So how to build a brand offline, what to do when you're out live networking and those sorts of things. So I guess some of you might be wondering, especially for those of you who came for this podcast because who found this podcast and who listened to the podcast because you want to hear about hardcore sales.

So you're wondering why are two sales professionals or two business development professionals talking about branding? There's me sales business development, and then there's Cameron Shirley, also sales business development in the telecom space. Why are we talking about branding? The reason why folks like us talk about branding from time to time, or employers like Cameron Shirley's, employers who want to make sure that they're trained up, try to train them on branding, is because branding is essential for business growth.

It is essential for sales. The reason why branding is essential is because people have to know who you are. People also need to know what you do before they can buy from you. Let me repeat that. The reason why we pay attention to all these other things, yes, the reason why we're here on the podcast is we're here for hardcore sales. Tips, tricks, strategies, frameworks. Yes, sales. That's what brought us here to the podcast.

But the reason why from time to time we're going to discuss branding is because branding is also essential. Because branding solves the problem of people knowing who we are and knowing what we do. Because people don't know you, they don't know what you can do, they're not going to buy from you. So that's the reason why we talk about branding from time to time. Now, my advice to my advice to Cameron was that he shouldn't get carried away by the floss,

the gloss, the reputation management, logo, font, colour, brand positioning, blah, blah, blah. All that if easy, all that technical stuff, all those things are really, really important. Definitely. And you will pay to it, you pay attention to it later. But in the beginning we should pay more attention to the substantive. Sorry about that. It's a word I've not, you know, I've not been able to put it on my tongue since law school because I always talk about the substantive issues, I mean substantive and meritorious issues of the case.

Yes. So pay more attention to the substantive aspects of running a business and then the rest will follow. Now, this is something that I learned from my mom because she's a former marketer, a former marketing and brand specialist in Lagos, Nigeria. Well, she started off actually in 1985 with the Hilton Hotel in Abuja. So excuse me, until about a decade ago, she had stints with Troika Holdings. Troika Holdings is one of the much more older legacy firms in Nigeria.

Troika Holdings had three companies under it's what are they called? Troika Holdings. Of course it's a holding company. And then the should I say children, OK, Troika is like the parent company. Then the the children companies, if I can put it that way, or the subsidiaries. I think that's the proper way of calling them were MCNA, that's marketing communications and advertising. The office used to be out at Maryland. I'm not sure, Maryland in Lagos,

I'm not sure where, where they are now. So there was MC and E marketing communications and advertising, which was the, excuse me, the advertising firm, obviously. Then there was the Quadrant. Quadrant was a public relations firm. I think my mum when she left Troika Holdings, she left as the CEO of of Quadrant. Then the third one was, I can't remember, you know, I was, I was a young boy back then, so I can't remember. Anyway, so Troika.

Yeah. So mom see herself with her. Troika. So she had roles in advertising. Sorry. Sorry about that. OK, 10 minutes. Let me see. OK. Let me just blaze through. If she reaches 30 minutes, you reach 30 minutes. OK. Yeah. So she had roles in advertising and marketing, public relations, branding. But my mom is retired now and every time I want to discuss stuff with her that are related to these sorts of things, her response is don't bother me with academic stuff.

My brain is resting. So unfortunately for those of you who've been here me talk about my mom and who think maybe one day she's going to make an appearance on the podcast, It's the chances of that are not going to happen because as far as she's concerned, she's tired and her brain is resting. So anyway, I got advice, good advice from her, watching her work at the time, especially when Nigeria was going through this thing on the President Lucia Gabasanjo, that was the Project Nigeria thing, whether we're advertising on CNN and BBC.

And they were doing this whole thing that the current president is also doing now about trying to attract FDI, foreign direct investments. You know, you want people to bring their dollars and their pounds and their EUR into Nigeria. So, you know, for infrastructure projects and things like that. Also trying to make Nigeria seem like a tourist destination. So I was at an event where my mom was speaking also to public relations and branding professionals and that was in, I

think that was in Ibado back then I was in OAU. So OAU Ibado, you know, distance is not, is not far. So and driver just came by, picked me up and then I got to hear mom. She talked and the thrust of her talk, if I remember correctly at the time, was that, yes, it's a good thing that we finally left the military era. Moshe Gong Abasenjo is now in charge. I mean, he's a former military administrator for Nigeria. Why they called military administrators or I can't remember what they used to be called.

Anyway, so OBJ is back as a president and it's good that Nigeria is doing this campaign, this project, Nigeria and all whatnot. We're trying to attract investment and everything. But. But his opinion was that until we paid attention to the substantive, substantive aspects on ground, everything we're doing will just look like film trick and people will not be deceived. So you can't say Nigeria should be a tourist destination if we have insecurity up and down, you know everywhere as this guy said, that position, you know,

Bosa Bosa gunshot in at the air. So foreigners are not going to come and do tourism here if every day is Bosa, bosa, Bosa. So that was Mumsey's point essentially. And people are not going to bring in their dollars, their EUR, their whatever it is if there's political risk and all these other things. So basically Muncie's speech at the time was pay attention to the, to the substance of the matter 1st and then the good things will follow.

So if you deal with insecurity and there's no more Bosa Bosa, then people might say, you know what, let's go to Nigeria. They have tourist destinations in Zaria, in this place, in that place. Let's go and see the history of Kano and let's go and see the old Benin city in the dual state and all of that. So that was mum's opinion. Take care of Busa, Busa and then tourism will come into Nigeria, take care of political risk and all these other things.

And then inflows of FDI, foreign direct investments will flow. So summary, that's what I told the chap that we have substantive. Sorry, forgive me, show my law professors if any of them are listening and they'll be angry like this guy. You still can't pronounce his word. OK, Anyway, so that's my that's my oldest to the guy. Pay attention to the substance. Everything else will follow. So our sales and business development professionals, we already received training about how we should talk, how we should address, how we should find out what people want or need, how we can build rapport,

how we can negotiate, let's see what else, how to create proposals, you know, things like that. So if we just pay attention to every single thing that our teachers teach us and we do it accordingly, a good brand will follow from all that because you show up, you talk on point, you dress on point, you do needs analysis on point, you figure out problems on point, you create solutions on point, you negotiate on point, your proposals on point, your 'cause my relationship skills on point.

You see what I'm talking about. If everything is on point, your brand will also be on point. So let's just pay attention to all the things that our teachers and our coaches, our teachers. And so I will advise you guys accordingly. So just stick to good professional practice that your teacher is teaching you or that your employer is teaching you. Over time, the reputation will follow you and that is the beginning of a personal brand.

Of course, the definition of brand that I'm using in this case is very limited. And I'm thinking of brand as what people think about you when you're not in the room. So brand meaning reputation. Now, of course, for those of you who are MBAs or you studied biz admin, you know, in UNILAG or whatever school, you will say boss, your definition of brand is too limited. And yes, I will agree now my definition of brand is limited,

but for now, I'm sticking with the definition that people can easily understand and follow me. Later on, we can discuss more robust definitions of what a brand is or whether there is such a thing as a personal brand. OK, so yes, so that was my number one advice to him then #2 I told him that this whole thing of personal brand online is since the conception of brand that we're looking at is what people think about you when you're not in the room, what people say behind your back,

then what people associate with you. So then managing online brand now becomes a matter of what you talk about, what you post about, what you share about what you repost about will be the beginning of what people now associate with you. So if you're worried about online brand or you want to be particular about your online brand, you have to be particular about what are you talking about online? What are you posting online?

And that will in turn create associations when people think of some things or think of you. So for those of you who know me live and in the flesh, you know about my dry sense of humour and the dad jokes that I crack and also my off colour sexual jokes and stuff like that. Now there's a time when I actually share all that stuff on my WhatsApp and yeah, was really popular sharing things like now on my socials because people like all that kind of stuff.

But I wonder, I had to give myself a brain like, look, I am not trying to be a comedian. So it profited me not to keep on sharing these kinds of things online. So I stopped doing it so that I wouldn't wake up. And then one day people would be like, ah, you're the joke guy. Oh, oh, you're that sense of humour guy. Or oh, you're that guy that cracks jokes. But what do you do, by the way? So I stopped doing that. So it's the same thing.

You want people to associate you with something, start talking about nothing. Start posting about that thing, reposting about that thing, sharing about that thing, you know, whatever. And that will be the beginnings of your online brand. But I told Cameron, some folks want to wait until they become the specialist. And I think that's a problem. Maybe in the old days you had to be, but now I don't think you should wait because figuring out the time to start will be difficult.

So let's say I wanted to learn everything about sales and business development before I started the podcast. Arguably, would I be doing the podcast now? Some folks will say, no, you're not qualified because you have picked up sales and business development on the go and you are self-taught on some couple of things. You didn't go to school, you didn't write a thesis, your professor didn't certify you. So you can see how it's kind of a slippery, you know, a sliding scale, like, where are we going to start?

So what folks like Gary Vaynerchuk advises is you just use a strategy of documenting and talking about things. As you learn, people will see the specialty and the skills that you are acquiring and they will go to you accordingly for that. And then of course, folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, who else? This former photographer also turned tech founder, what's her name, Jasmine Star, and a couple of other people. What they point out is that expertise is relative.

So me talking about sales and business development, I'm the expert relative to you guys because I know more than you guys. But of course, if I'm having a conversation with someone more far, far along, let's say like Dangote for instance, OK, no, Dangote has generalist expertise in running enterprises. OK, maybe I might still be considered a sales specialist if I'm having a conversation with Dangote. But you get what I'm trying to say that with my level of knowledge, skill and the experience I've gotten so far in front of some people, hands down, I'm the expert.

In front of other people, we are contemporaries. And then in the presence of other people, they'll look at me and say, young man, you stay the line, work a couple of years, no problem. You can come and roll with the big boys and roll with the big girls. So expertise is relative. And so because of that, documenting and talking as you learn is not a problem. So if you want to be your personal online brand to be brain surgery in Niger, you want to be the pre eminent brain surgeon in Niger.

But currently you're in year 2 medicine or let's say like this guy that reached out to us yesterday, Adebulu, that reached out to me. So you're Adebulu, you're in UI, you want to be the preeminent neurosurgery specialist in Niger. But currently you're in year five, you still have two years before you graduate. And after you graduate that two years, you still need to do 2 years clinical Abby. Now after two years clinical,

you now do 2 years. Is it residency, Abby specialization? So someone who's in his own position will need another. If my math is right, I think 6 years to qualify before you can even start positioning yourself anyhow within the neurosurgery space. So with Gary Vaynerchuk, his advice and with Jasmine Star and people like that, what you would do is from this, your year five, start talking about neurosurgery on your LinkedIn, on your Instagram, start talking neurosurgery.

Share the things that you are learning ideas in your thesis, you know, put it up documentaries you come across, share them conferences that you're attending on neurosurgery, put it up all these other things as you're learning, as you go to go, just keep putting these things up on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on everything and people now start making those associations with between you and neurosurgery. So if you take this approach, by the time you're done with the six years, you know, two years qualified medical exams, 2

years, residency, 2 years, What was the other two years? I can't remember. Nepal was one year. NYSE by the time you've been doing this thing for seven years and then, you know, mumsy and popsy, they're able to raise you so that you go out to John Hopkins University. Is that in America? I think you don't want to attend John Hopkins in America and then you specialize. So by the time you've been doing all this over the last 10 years,

as you come back to Nigeria now and you're setting up your own neurosurgery practice, you can see how the brand will now begin, you know, will now start to take shape. It's because from year five, you've been doing some stuff with your LinkedIn, with your Instagram, with your everything. Everything has been adding and been adding and been adding and been adding. And by the time you now graduate, John Hawkins, you come back to Nigeria, you open up your whatever, you know,

certified like you're the guy or you're the girl. You they say neurosurgery in Nigeria, you're the person to go through. It's because you've been following this much more organic approach, documenting and talking about things as you learn. So that was my advice to Cameron, Mr. Shirley, don't wait until you're the expert. You know, now start documenting and start talking about things as you are learning. So that was my advice to him.

Do you want to achieve some sort of big branding in the telecom space in America, in your city, in wherever you are? Then start talking about these things, small, small as you are learning. I went to go and visit a client today. This was the problem, blah, blah, blah. This is how we help them solve it. Our product does this dot, dot, dot dot dot, you know, bam, you post it, you know, small, small as you're posting 2-3 times a week.

People are seeing after a year, if anybody's thinking telecoms problems, they'll say, ah, that my guy Cameron, this is the kind of thing he does. He has Cameron's number. Just holler at the guy who will sort you out. So that's how we start small, small day by day. Then he had questions on how to be much more personable online because he has noticed me to have also noticed, much to my dismay, that people on LinkedIn are now talking about personal stuff because I try to be more like, OK, well, I don't know what the intentions are.

Some people say it has the effect of making it much more personable and likable. So people are talking about stuff on LinkedIn so much to my what's that word, Azisha Green or whatever to my disapproval. People are talking about weight or LinkedIn. You know, before I was 130 kilograms, I did this diet. I did that diet now 80 kilograms to God be the glory. People are talking about marriage, people are talking about parenting, people are talking about personal difficulties and blah, blah,

blah. And yes, I admit it does make people more relatable. It makes people more personable. And I admit it definitely does 'cause people to stop, you know, when Madame is tweeting about her marriage, about how, you know, how meteoric rise in her careers, you know, may have caused some tension between her husband at home and how they navigated those difficulties. I'm like, I'm a young man and I have a wife. We're both building careers.

So definitely, if I see that, that kind of thing. Yeah, me too. I'll read now. So let me see what Madame has to say. Oh, OK. So Madame and her husband, they're having these quarrels, too, the same sort of quarrels that me and my wife have. OK, So. Yeah, people do stop. People do read makes you more personable. But in my own opinion, I stay away from that and I try not to milk personal issues for business growth or career growth.

And I told him not to. And to be honest, there I was listening to Honest Bunch one day and there was this guy, I can't remember his name anyway, but he was talking to Nedu Azubi and a bunch of them. And they were talking about something. And the person said that, look, we were in our own house. You're the one that now use your own 2 left leg. Are you posted about your husband and your marriage and everything? Now that we are commenting,

you're saying that we should keep quiet and respect your privacy, which kind of privacy was minding my business. You're the one that now went to go and put your husband out there. And you're saying that me, I should keep quiet and I should not comment. So these are some of the dynamics that I think we should stay away from because I don't want to put my marriage on blast on LinkedIn. And then people now start having opinions and I'll be getting angry.

I mean, I'm the one who put it out there. So why will I now start be vexing because I'm the one who actually put it out there to begin with. So these are some of the difficulties where I say like, please, all these things about weights, relationship with your children, work life balance, balance, marriage proposal, personal difficulties. I'm dealing with this spiritual evolution. Just I beg, just leave all that stuff for now.

My own opinion, Sha. But of course, if you disagree with me, you want to be more personable online, I will beg you. Yeah, be personal, but leave your marriage out of it. If you're a woman, don't talk about your husband. If you're a man, don't talk about you and your wife issues. Definitely, in my own opinion, leave your children out of it. You know, people putting up photos of their children. You know, my son just graduated everything, blah, blah, blah.

I really think that there's security issues involved in these sorts of things. You put up your son's graduation. So if I'm an Internet fraudster and I'll know your son's name if I troll you long enough, I'll know when your children were born. I know the date of graduation and I know the school that he went to, stuff like that. I'm beginning to get enough data to build a profile on who your son or who your daughter is.

So in my own opinion, please, Marriage, leave your spouse out of it. Children, leave your kids out of it. Let's see what else. OK, in my own opinion, another reason why there's no need to even bring rope all these personal issues in is because as you're talking about these things that you're learning on a day-to-day normal normal as in things about your life will come up anyway, just like how I'm inducing with you guys.

And I told you people about where I'm getting my ideas about branding from. So that is where you know, all these things start to pop up. You know about Mumsy and her career in marketing and public relations or my dad and his career in journalism in radio and television or my wife in legal and a government regulator. So you see these things already just flow as it is just from normal level of you sharing content anyway.

And that's enough to make you more personable. So I really don't think you should go out of your way to start talking about these sorts of things. But anyway, let me know over stress because for those people who keep tweeting the tweeting and posting their children, I don't think there's anything I'll say here on the podcast that will change their minds. Yeah. But I did point out one thing. The choice of medium that you use can make you be more personable and might reinforce your brand because there are some psychological benefits that accrue to video and video and TV

and audio radio that makes people feel as if they know you more. You know, that's what I'm trying to say. If you're doing blog posts and pictures, people might not feel you as if you're doing video, excuse me, video and audio. Now, why this happens? There are different psychological concepts or yeah, different psychological conflicts at play. There's this thing called parasocial interaction, and the parasocial interaction is this one sided thing that happens where like you, you're just doing your thing, but because you're on the media.

Just like when I was a boy, it was this guy Sonia Lizi. Yeah. Sonia Lizi was on NTA. Was Sunday Sunday Tonic, Sunday Sun? Was it Sunday jump up at the Sunday Sunday Tonic or something? He had the show that will come on after that will come on after NTA news and they'll be talking about stuff going on in Nigeria. And he had a real nice sense of humor. To be honest, since I was a boy, I didn't understand 90% of the jokes that he was cracking, but he seemed like he was a real nice guy, like a real friendly guy.

And so it was one time they were doing something in NTA and Sonia Lisa came through and me and my siblings were ecstasy like Uncle Sonia, Uncle Sonia, Uncle Sonia, Uncle Sonia and Uncle Sonia must have been like, who are these kids? Where did these munchkins come from? Like, I know you're not, but of course he was a nice guy, smiling with us and everything. Oh hello, how are you, How is school, blah blah blah. So for my siblings, we felt like we knew the guy because we see him every Sunday and now he's here like, hey, Uncle Sonny,

Uncle Sonny. And everybody was happy. But Uncle Sonny is like, in his mind is like, who are you? I know you're not. Please, you know of these children. Can you come and carry these children and beg? Let me move on because I'm going somewhere else. So that's parasocial interactions and parasocial relationships. So these things happen. So there are a bunch of you listening to this podcast now. You've been listening for several months.

Because of that, you feel like you know me. You know about my munchkins, you know about wifey, you know about my things I like or things I don't like. You see me in public and I'll be like, hey, Tavishima, Mr. T how far now, IB? And I'll be like, oh, yeah, man, I'm cool. Well, what's up? How you you know, And I'll try to flow along. I won't like, what will? The matter is I don't know you. You feel like you know me, but I

don't know you. So that's that parasocial dynamic going on. So I told Cameron that, yeah, these are some dynamics that help. If you're on video and you're on audio, this partial shelfing locks in, as in locks in real? Well, that's another way that people can feel like they know you. So don't hide behind the keyboard. Put your face out there or put your voice out there. It helps. Now, social priming is also part of the dynamic that is going on because people like to make connections.

If you keep things conversational, you stories, you know, this sense of intimacy that is created. So like for those of you listening now who are wives and you hear some of the issues that, you know, small, small, small quarters, me and my wife I've been having and you know, stuff like that. When you see me, you know, there's some social priming going on. You know, you'll be able you'll feel like you'll be able to relate to me.

Like, OK, you're a knucklehead husband and I'm married to a knucklehead husband. You know, that's already one kind of connection. So social priming that one too. Is there then Anyway, so those are some of the dynamics that make podcasting, that make audio and all these things easy to or easier rather to grow a brand. So summary, we've been over 30 minutes. Let me wrap it up. My action plan for Cameron was this. That is my action plan for you.

If you are in a similar situation as Cameron Shirley is, I told him #1 documenting and talking about, that's your strategy. So as you're learning, just they post, they go just on a day-to-day, just be, just be flowing like that. Don't wait until you're the specialist for content ideas. I told him since you particularly want to be personable and I have to tell him you're OK. Sharp as in you know you're not bad clean shaven looking all although he had a mullet and I

thought that mullets were I thought there's only certain kinds of Americans who grow mullets, you know, like people in the and let me keep quiet. Let me not say something now that when you saw someone so but yeah, he looked all right. So I told him I look video will work for you. You know mullet teen shaving already I'm getting a sense of your personality because now everybody's brave enough to be carrying mullet up and down.

So I told him video, you'd be more personable. Then I also told him we have to repurpose content we have to distribute. So I told him, as you're doing a video, put your laptop to one side, open Google Transcribe, and then hit play. As you're talking into the video, Google Transcribe will now be transcribing everything that you say so that when you're done, you take this transcription. You will now be able to use that and repurpose into a blog.

So on Monday, you do that whole thing. You put the video up on LinkedIn. Bam, you now take the audio transcription on Google Transcribe, you know, you know, play with this small. You now release that on Wednesday, but on LinkedIn. Then you now take Google Gemini. The reason why I'm advising Google is just because it's free, really. I'm not saying it's the best. If you find ones that are better than that, then yeah, by all means.

But I recommend Google products because it's free. If you have an Android phone, it's already there. So Google Gemini, that's Google's AI product. You'll now be able to take nothing that you dropped on Wednesday and break it into small, small, small blog posts because you can take one paragraph and then stretch a bigger blog post into it. And that's what you now drop Friday and you can now drop the remainder for next week, Monday,

Wednesday, Friday. So you can see how you record one video. And for now we do video. You get 2 weeks worth of content because you're repurposing and republishing and re sharing. So that was my advice to him. So you do it like this is not a bad way to start. And over the course of a year, two years, this thing starts to compound. I also told him that he should not be afraid in the beginning. Nobody's paying attention. When I started my podcast and I

put up the first one, I think maybe three or four people listen to it. And for that I'm grateful. Today were several thousands above that. But I do know some people who episode 10, nobody listened as even their babe, their girlfriend did not listen. Mumsy did not listen, brother did not listen. I know some people who started with zero episode one, zero episode 2, zero episode 30, maybe episode 7, now one or two, it happens.

So I told him that you should not be ashamed of, you should not be afraid. And that's just how it is. Now, from what Gary Vaynerchuk says and a bunch of other people, even Jasmine Star in the beginning, nobody's paying attention, you know, they don't know you. I mean, who are you? Especially since in the beginning you're too shy, you're too afraid. So you're not even repurposing, you're not sharing. So I told him, don't be afraid,

just continue. They will show me. I started with, I can't remember what was four or seven. So my guy started with zero. It's just normal. But bottom line, one thing I want you guys to take in mind is this. Me and Cameron, we are sales people, but we're talking branding. The reason why we're talking branding is because. Branding done right equals to sales. And I want to stress this, please excuse me. The whole point of the commutative arts in business is to sell something.

There are some people who just cultivate brand for branding sake. Cultivate brand, cultivate brand. You want to blow then lots of Nigerians that become big brand in quote but because they don't have anything to sell, eventually they fade away. It happens. If you just sit down 5 minutes and think, just think it, you'll see that OK Does this guy who blew up like two years back, where is he now? Self zero? Nowhere because he had nothing to sell.

Don't be cultivating brand for branding sake. Don't be hyping yourself for hyping sake. The whole point of commutative arts marketing, the whole point of marketing is sell something. The whole point of branding is to sell something. The whole point of whatever it is, is to sell something. So don't get carried away with this whole thing of cultivating hype and cultivating a brand. It's about selling something. Also another expectation.

Don't think that if you create a brand or if you tried start trying to create a brand today, that tomorrow you're going to get sales. Branding is a long term play. So if you're trying to cultivate your brand now, January 2025, let's assume that you're listening to this in January 2025. Don't assume that because you started in January, in February, you're going to start making sales. That's a long term play. You're looking for something that will bring in immediate money.

We spoke about that yesterday where we spoke about either yesterday or the day before where we spoke about direct response copywriting and direct response marketing. So this is your first time listening to the show. All these things about content and branding, like none of that is for you. You want money now, now, now, now, now. Then listen to yesterday's episode, direct response marketing and copywriting, those ideas that you can start executing in January and hopefully February, March, you start seeing money coming in.

So that's you pretty much, yeah. Let me just wrap it up here. 40 minutes is too much, so thanks again to everyone who reaches out from the show. You get value directly from the podcast or indirectly. Thank you very much for connecting. Love hearing from you guys. Keep reaching out because I'm trying to know who you guys are. I'm trying to get questions from you guys that will inform the growth of the podcast. Another reason why you guys should reach out now is because right now you can talk to me directly.

Right now, I'm not a big brand. When I become a big brand, when I be, when I hammer and I become a big boy, I'm going to become inaccessible, not because I'm full of myself, but because then my inbox is going to be flooded and my wife says I spent too much time on my phone already. So for those of you who can reach out to me now, because in a few years, I will hammer, I'll be a big boy, there'll be too many messages and I won't be able to hear from you guys.

So that's all for today folks. Connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. Country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, then also you can connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavashima Ayede, I'm the host of the show and you can confirm the spelling of my name and the e-mail address from the link. We're currently listening to this episode. Thank you very much for your time and attention.

I'll catch you guys at the next episode.