Proud to cover this Step Up event for TheRodinhoods. We had our very own Rodinhood on the panel, along with Rajiv Vaishnav (VP, NASSCOM), Vishal Agarwal (Director, LocoBuzz) and Atul Sharma (India Lead, STEP UP). The agenda was to discuss how startups can tell their story in a different yet a genuine manner. Panel was informal and shared experiences which revolved around the mindset of starting up and growth. The room was full, the crowd was responsive and the questions revolved around the mindset of starting up as well.
This event was a part of a super cool event known as the Social Media Week. Venue was Novotel (Juhu, Mumbai) and there were amazingly talented folks tweeting and chattering and networking throughout the day. While I simply stepped in, tweeted like hell, grinned and shook hands with Alok and rushed out to my madcap office (after bumping into 6 acquaintances in the meanwhile), I’m sure I did miss A LOT.
Inbound marketing strategies are arguably more effective than push strategies usually adopted by giants with money muscle. Being a genuine brand and sharing your story builds intangible assets in form of relationships with your customers, which hard to offset. Here- sharing effective ways to build your brand so your customers seek you out and prefer you over countless others.
Being Visible
Being noticed by journalists is crucial. As an entrepreneur, your passion is what keeps you going and makes you a low hanging fruit for those seeking stories for publications. Be genuine and valuable, being different for the heck of it is useless. Your logo becomes important after you become important, and your importance grows with your work. Being naive is a gift, it gives you courage to ask questions and be frank in relationships. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to pitch. Keep it crisp and concise. Being relevant to your audience is crucial- no one likes blabbermouths. Be truthful, be honest, and share your mistakes and the ugly side of life- humans do business with humans. Tell a story for your service business, let your product talk for your product business.
Share Your Idea
No one cares about your idea, people care about execution. Frank feedback will not be received unless the idea is shared. How people react to what you put forth might be a deciding factor in your go-to-market approach. People cannot steal ideas, for your execution strategies are going to make a real difference. Sharing a story is effectively an opportunity to build your story too, thus shaping perceptions and striking a connection. Like good storytellers hold sway over their audience, brands have the potential to build belief systems and inspire their customers.
Building Your Team
As you grow, your teams need to be brand ambassadors, because marketing permeates into the way you do business- with customers and vendors. Are you communicating your vision with your team? Do they have a say in the decision making process? Are they adding a dash of their personality to the brand? Don’t be one person, be a team. Use ‘we’ in conversations instead of an ‘I’. Trust your intuition while hiring team members, hire for a balance between passion and skill. There is no right formula; quality of talent might not be precise, keep testing while hiring and growing. Hire fast, fire fast.
Consistency
Brands need to showcase a uniform message on all social media platforms, which helps build trust in the mind of customers. Language, design and tone play an important role in helping customers strike a conversation with the brand. If you are half convinced, your audience won’t be fully convinced. Being consistent and trustworthy builds relationships online which have the potential to develop into evangelism. Money won’t get you all the happiness in the world, strive for enrichment and value.
Being Human
With being humans comes slight polarization. Being neutral is not being genuine, since we all have opinions and we take a stand. Share your failures, accept your mistakes, and prepare for embarrassment in your entrepreneurial journey. Live on hope, we learn something from every failure – your customers understand that.
This is yet another amazing event. I look forward to more 🙂
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Editor’s note: In case any of you are interested in covering any startup event in your city;
give sushrut@rodinhood.com a shout!
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