Off with the mask!
If there are tips to personal branding, what are they? What do you believe in?
Lata, I believe in the Big Five.
Integrity: Sticking to the truth all the time. If you are a pain in the rear, you must be portrayed as a pain in the rear. That's going to become your brand tag. Never shy away from the truth. Your truth is your uniqueness. You own it and you must own it with pride and pomp.
Sustainability: The personal brand proposition you adopt must be sustainable. You should be able to ride with it, and on it, through thick and thin. Through good times and bad.
Live the brand: You must be able to live the brand every day. This should not be a pain and a charade. We wear too many masks in life. In personal branding, it is important to throw that mask away. You must feel free. Only then will you live the personal brand with fun, day in and day out.
Fallibility: A very important part in the process of establishing your personal brand which people will emote with. None of us is perfect. As that is the truth, we must expose ourselves in our personal branding format when the time demands. Time to portray yourself to be an entity that is not rock solid all the time. Time to accept that you cry every night, maybe. Real people love real people. Are you real enough for them? Or are you that plasticky Madonna who appears so perfect and so happy?
Uniqueness: This is the ultimate final one. Your personal brand must be distinctive and unique.
How is that possible? India is a nation of 1.2 billion people. How can you be one in 1.2 billion? That's the quest, and that’s what will set you apart.
Dabur’s Hajmola Yoodley and Paperboat are priced at par. Is this intelligent pricing?
Kochi
Nayan, the pricing strategy is an intelligent one. Today consumers can tell brand-positioning through pricing. Pricing talks much more than advertising, packaging and anything else. The moment you walk into a store and pick up a Yoodley, you check its price and compare it to Paperboat. If Dabur had made the mistake of pricing it lower than Paperboat, the consumer immediately says that the product quality is likely to be inferior. To that extent Dabur has handled its pricing strategy well.
I am sure at the trade level there will be the paper wars now. Dabur is bound to up the ante on retailer margins.
This will be an interesting play. On pricing though, this is good strategy.
As a CEO, what is your strength and weakness? Time to get to know you a bit and learn from it, maybe?
Mumbai
Shampa, my strength is my conviction. A strong and clear belief system. I do believe in being inclusive. And that’s important. I think brand leadership is thought leadership. This thought leadership is a strength as well.
The weaknesses are many, but the top one has been impatience. Impatience that leads to anger. I am the last one to accept things as they are. And I expect things to move fast and quick. I believe in pace. Very fast pace. I hate the status quo. This, to an extent, is a big weakness.
As a CEO, the most important thing to understand is that what you think is your strength and your weakness just does not matter. What is most important is what your employees think to be your strengths and weaknesses.
Every six months I run an anonymous 360-degree feedback on my strengths and weaknesses. I do get good feedback. I try to work on it. I fail more than succeed, for sure!