As of recent, my wife and I have been strategically working on fully developing our personal brands. Resetting the grounding for ourselves, and what we put out into the world. It's been intriguing getting things started, but at the same time, too, it's been pretty difficult on my end to find the inspiration and an examples what one might engage with and digest from a bloggers who are men. Why? Because they come so far, few, and between. So my first question was, "Why aren't there as many men blogging as there are women? It's OK. You don't have to keep on thinking so hard. Among the likes of sites such as XONecole (formerly NicoleBitchie), Quirktastic, KarenCivil - and these are just the major ones. I can go on - the list is as extensive as you can choose to go, and that's just the women of color sites I'm thinking of at the moment. They're working full- and/or part-time jobs, are mothers, students, and still managing the everyday crests and troughs of managing multi-faceted brands and online media outlets. They manage the logistics of wholesale dresses, bundles, edit audio visuals from brand reviews, monetize their youtube channels, and still manage to get sleep at the end of the night. Lastly, they're never afraid to be vocal, network online, and take their brands everywhere with them. Black Girl Magic Is to be admired and appreciated, but not imitatedIn my conversation with my wife, driving along the northbound of Bruce B. Downs Blvd in the Tampa Palms area, it had hit me and my head started swirling and we began discussing the fine details of what's really missing. My observation on women-led brands is this: women start brands to solve problems that they've experienced in their personal life, and want to solve for others. I haven't met anyone who sells bundles who could casually comment, "I sell premium virgin hair because I just absolutely love logistics and shipping". Many brands lead by black women have mastered the art of effective storytelling, which is critical to content marketing. All these brands, and all these women begin their introduction of their brands with a story about how it all came to be, and why they do what they do. Courtesy of Cross The T's Event Co., Founded by Colleen Auguste, my wife. Scene. My wife hates when I shave. Truthfully, sometimes I do it to piss her off, but it's most because I hate my moustache to goatee ratio. When my sideburns started to make progress to connecting for the classic R&B chinstrap, it didn't fill in and became really Anthony Hamilton patchy (imagery). I do recall the one time, I fully stopped shaving with razors when I realized I didn't really know what I was doing. I shaved against the grain and broke out completely into in-grown hairs, acne, and started getting blemishes on my face. Visiting sites such as DollarShave Club, and dropping into stores such as The Art Of Shaving was helpful, but the overwhelming encouragement to use more razors, then less razors didn't adequately help me with what was already there: razor bumps. Then, I heard of Bevel. Founded by Tristan Walker, the brand has made large-scale business moves that have shaped how Black men look at the experience of shaving, as well as hair and skin care.
women start brands to solve problems that they've experienced in their personal life, and want to solve for others.Success doesn't count on whether you call yourself CEO, Founder, Lead Strategist, The Radio Guy, or anything of that matter. Success matters at how well you can engage people in understanding the solution you offer to their problems. So, with that being said, as men, there's one last things we have got to do better at: collaborating. I'm not going to say that we have to just get out there and become friends with everyone. But research people in your area. Research your followers. Click their links. See what they're doing, and when the time comes, offer to meet with them and exchange information. Practice speaking with the utmost pride in yourself, as you do with your corporate job. If you don't have a corporate job, operate in your brand as you would a full-time job. I'd be lying if I said any of this was easy. But what I do know is that slapping CEO in your bio, or on your LinkedIn subheading (I have seen this), is easier than actually operating as one (also like to add that the "C" in CEO stands for Chief, and is also referred to as the Chair, so if you do not sit on a board, my friend, you are not a CEO). In closing, the discussion lead me to scrutinizing myself and my own way of operating. Criticizing my own organization as well as my brand. It also made me look deeper into who is out there, and how they've managed to get where they are. What small habits have they picked up? How did they overcome the whirlwind and just doing? I'll write much more about this, and encourage any and all feedback.
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AuthorFrom Personal testimonies to gadget reviews, I'd like to give you a little bit of everything in between. Archives
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