Today I launched my own personally branded website. I birthed the idea of providing integrated marketing strategy services to entrepreneurs in 2012 as I returned from living abroad in London and the website has been a project in conception and lacking creation since. To answer why that is, I need to explain the journey to reach this point.
Getting out of bed to do business — why though?
I’m someone who has spent time with business owners working across a range of verticals. Be they fashion, technology, social enterprise, arts, publishing and all things in-between the most fundamental question I see my clients struggle to answer and articulate is their own personal ‘WHY’. Why are you in business? Why do you get out of bed to do what you do every day?
Considered vintage in brand theory now, I was a convert to Simon Sinek as soon as he coined the Golden Circles and gave this still so pertinent TED talk which ties together the ideas of why brands succeed and their connection to their own personal ‘WHY’. Ironically it turns out answering my own reason ‘WHY’ has taken an incredible amount of resilience-led training and perserverance.
Evolution is sometimes painful but necessary
Significant to this journey was the Vinyasa Flow yoga teaching course I undertook in March 2016, which helped me to understand and align to my soul purpose. As a result of this four month intensive self-development course I can say that my purpose for being on this earth, my dharma, is to connect others with the specific intent to collaborate in meaningful personal and/or business brand aligned ways.
However at the same time that I was undertaking my yoga teaching training, my corporate real-world existence was leaving me pretty unfulfilled and very unhappy. The reasons for this? Well, at its heart, I worked out I was operating within the confines of a company whose values I struggled to find any affinity for and who showed on numerous occasions that they had very little concern for the people employed within the company.
Courage and your intuition will carry you through cross-roads
Upon completion of the yoga course I found myself at a cross-roads. The inward transformation, the call to reconnect with my ‘dharma’ and true essence was strong and in my current world, especially in employment there was absolutely zero space for insincere non-mutual value exchanges– in any aspect of my life to take place, particularly business.
An ‘aha’ moment incoming
In order to create effective engagement and find success in partnership a brand whether personal or corporate needs to isolate its fundamental purpose for existing and seek to identify those partners who are aligned to their own values and moral code.
This aha moment once I had it shifted things in a way I never knew could be possible. (They can strike at any moment. ) My beliefs and personal moral code underpin all my dealings and exchanges today. I left behind my unfulfilling job and embarked on a year invested in distilling how to achieve business in a genuine and brand aligned fashion. Not all the experiences of 2017 heralded success but they provided deep learning and opportunity to identify exactly why it is I want to do business.
So… to return to my fundamental reason ‘WHY’?
To cultivate partnership and engagement on behalf of brands that leverage the values that we both hold in high esteem to create the most impactful and success driven outcomes and results, that is my WHY! Ultimately I hope to align with entrepreneurs whose business and values correlate with my own, to see this noble mission validated.
If what I’ve said resonates with you here and you and your brand could benefit from my approach to brand theory and integrated marketing, please be in touch.
