Marketing – The Book Neighbourhood

How to Build Your Personal Brand with Branding Expert Kubi Springer

Find and promote your unique voice, unapologetically.

The perfect toolkit to help women create and grow their brands.

Kubi Springer has over 23 years of brand experience and has worked with big names such as Diddy, Rolls Royce, Nike, Facebook, MTV, Aston Martin, and many other big-deal brands.

In her book, I AM My Brand, she offers an ample supply of tools to find and build your personal brand. She not only goes into the details of what you should be doing but also digs deep into the how part of it.

The book is a practical one, structured with easy to follow exercises and steps. Springer pulls from techniques used by different badass women across different sectors who have built successful brands.

She structures the books according to what she calls the ‘8 Pillars of Personal Branding’, which are Decision, Vision, Clarity, Strategy, Tactics, Metrics, Ownership, and Be Unapologetic. Under each one she focuses on what it is, how it applies to building your brand, and has exercises that will help you create a good structure.

There is just an abundance of information in this book. You will learn about having a full understanding of the direction you want your brand to take and the people you need to get there. There’s advice on having clarity on your brand messaging and how you want the world to see you. She delves into strategy and linking it to your tactics.

I Am My Brand is thorough and there is a lot you will learn from her expertise. It will help you become unafraid of your dreams, unearth the challenges you will face along the way,e and how to deal with them. It is empowering and great whether you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, or in employment. Kubi Springer is also a refreshing voice and her advice is relevant and easy to follow and apply.

Enjoy!

Book Review: Tribes by Seth Godin

“We need you to lead us.”

The Internet has broken down geographical boundaries and made it easier to create movements, groups of people who share ideas, and spread messages of empowerment and growth. These groups are called tribes and they’re flourishing everywhere. Tribes is about these movements and the connections they have, the connections that need you as a leader to create a platform where they share the same belief and spread their ideas.

Seth Godin reminds us that these leaders of tribes can come from anywhere and can be anyone. The barriers of leadership have been brought down and it’s no longer left to top executives or managers to lead. And so, Godin asks, why not you? Why not now?

“I’m not sure where I’m going. I’ll lead.” – Emmanuelle Heyman

He recommends two things to create a movement – shared ideas and a way to communicate. Godin talks about being a heretic, an outsider, someone with novel ideas and someone willing to step forward to make a difference. He does agree that fear exists but that you should drown it out by telling yourself a different story. There is no way around discomfort but through it.

Just as he has mentioned in Linchpin, he reminds us again of the need to ditch the factory path. Tribes do remarkable things, they do innovative things and the marketplace rewards innovation. In Tribes he also strongly discourages sheep behaviour, or what he calls sheepwalking. Leaders of tribes initiate and where they’re told an idea is stupid or impossible, they go first.

I’ve read Purple Cow and Linchpin and this one is my favourite.

It addresses a problem that organisations have – people stuck in the status quo and being afraid to lead without authority. He provides effective solutions. In this fast-paced world where people are constantly in search of remarkable products and services, organizations need everyone, regardless of their position, to lead.

What I love about Seth Godin’s books, is the way he writes in a free and simple way. Anyone can understand. As a marketing guru one would expect his work to speak only to those with an ear trained for marketing but anyone, in any career, can grasp his message and most importantly, use it.

I’d recommend it for people who want to do away with mediocrity and are in search of a way to use their passion and vision to spread great ideas and change. If you want your product or service to really meet your customers’ needs and make sure that you build connections that lead to more connections, then grab a copy of Tribes. It will inspire you and change the way you see and do things.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

For more of his work, visit his webiste, Seth Godin

Title: Tribes

Author: Seth Godin

Published: Piatkus, 2008

Genre: Self-help

Seth Godin encourages us to ‘stop advertising and start innovating’ in Purple Cow.

“The old ways of marketing are dead – and being safe is now too risky.” – Seth Godin

Seth is an acclaimed marketing and leadership guru and his books have been hailed as revolutionary and inspiring. This is my third read by him and I will confess that I’m officially a Godin disciple.

He first gives an example of driving past grazing cows and spotting a purple one, and how that would be unexpected and extraordinary. This Purple Cow is that extraordinary and special thing that companies need. It is a new P in the established Ps of marketing.

In the book, he indicates how we have moved from word of mouth pre-advertising to mass media when advertising came along and back to the similar pre-advertising where we are moving information through a population. This dissemination of information is done by early adopters, who he calls ‘sneezers’ and advises that a company focus on because they’re the people who spread your idea or message about your product. Godin uses very good study cases of companies like Logitech, Dr Bronner’s, Curad and many others who have used successful techniques for their products and services.

In terms of readability, this is a very easy and to-the-point book. You don’t have to be a marketer to understand it because there’s no barrage of hard-to-digest marketing jargon to swim through while trying to get the gist of the book. His style of presenting information is simple and clear.

I found it quite useful because of this age of social media that we live in and the way it has made it possible to distribute ideas and information. This is the age of influencers and it works, and so the book is relatable and relevant. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting off or have been in the game for a while, Purple Cow is worth a read and will provide you with applicable strategies that you can apply to your business.

If you want to know more about Seth Godin’s work, visit www.sethgodin.com

Enjoy!