Your product or service is the expression of you. In other words, your product or service reflects you. Your product or service tells either your story or the story of your life. There is a big difference between 'your story' and the story of your life. The story of your life is your background, what you were born into or found yourself and there is nothing you can do about it. Your story is what you have discovered when you confront the story of your life or what you found out as a result of the story of your life. Your story or ‘the solution’ gives you the elixir or passion or brand energy that is needed for human connections. People are attracted to ‘your story’ and not the story of your life and they pay high premium for it. A good example is Dangote’s brand.
“If you want to follow what is on the ground, you would not want to invest in Nigeria. But then, when you look at it from the patriotism point of view, you cannot but ask yourself: How did those great countries become great...When you say we don’t want to do this or that because we don’t have power supply, it doesn’t make sense because one day, there will be constant power supply( The story of Dangote’s life). At Dangote, as we are establishing our factories, we are setting up our own power plants. Today the power we produce in Dangote is a little bit more than 10 percent of what the Power Holding Company of Nigeria produces. But we are producing only for our industries and not to go and sell to anybody…(Dangote’s story)” (Culled from The secret of success is hard work- an interview with Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the founder and president of Dangote Group conducted by the Globe National Newspaper, page 12, Oct 3 – 9, 2011 edition.)
You are enslaved by the story of your life but ‘your story’ liberates you and connects you profitably to people.
Someone said;
” Personal branding is the energy of a human agent to attract a followership for product and services by a simple human connection that comes from their story”
“The world is not looking for another big idea, they are looking for a big story they can tap into in order to share their bottled up emotions”- Kenny Brandmuse.
The secret to understanding a product or service is to keep looking unto the story of the designer or ‘the author and finisher’ of such product or service, take Dangote for example, who for the universal goal set before him, endured the cross of PHCN, despising shame…for consider such a one as Dangote who endured such hostility from PHCN and others against himself, lest you become discouraged in doing business in Nigeria.
In a story, there are 3 factors and they are the message; the principle and the lifestyle(Soul, spirit and body). These three factors work together as one. As a business man, I buy and sell universal principles, not messages or lifestyles! There is no new message. What keep changing are lifestyles as a result of the discovering of new principles or new methods of doing things in a better way. Consider the example of the migration of manual typewriter to computer to laptop to ipad. The ipad only provide a better way of communicating messages and then better lifestyle. The door or the way to better life style is the discovering of new method of doing things. Once you found the way, lifestyle will definitely change. Finding new method comes when we confront the story of our life like Dangote did PHCN and like Jesus Christ confronted death for all mankind to be saved. Fast moving goods and services tell a brand’s story that people can connect with. If you are a product on a shelf and you are not demanded for, you need to stop telling the story of your life to telling your story.
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