Unconventional Marketing: 5 Best Principles for Personal Branding

For Businesses, doing the same things over and over or doing the same things done by your competitors won’t improve your business. If businesses do something different to catch attention, it can be their ticket to gain more revenues. This is called unconventional marketing.

Unconventional Marketing can also be used to improve and even promote yourselves.

Conventional Marketing Concepts to Improve

I love challenges. I long to prove doubters wrong. When you accomplish a challenge, you gain valuable traits that can reap benefits.

I don’t know, but every time I felt I am challenged if feel motivated. I think my limit never hinders my capability. I usually take the challenge and climb over the hump.

That said, I took the challenge to become one of the wedding singers for my friends’ wedding. Some people said I have a decent voice and I have decent guitar skills. But no one ever imagined I could transcend it to a stage. Much more a wedding event. It was just a wild request when we were having a few drinks. I was glad that I took the challenge.

Looking back.

The experience I gained had a valuable impact on my life. Lessons proving doubters wrong can be handy for individuals who had a not-so-good past. I can also certify that these lessons apply to entrepreneurs in improving their business.

Practice and Scrappiness is Key

There is a rule that says if you practice 10,000 hours then you can consider yourself an expert. In reality, it’s hard to practice that long given the demands of daily tasks and prior appointments. I had full-time work and I had graduate studies so I can’t really have so much time practicing.

Scrappiness isn’t a secret in business and in life, it is a requirement.

This is where scrappiness will be handy. I tried to practice the song in the bathroom or even when I am riding my motorcycle. As for the guitar playing, I try to play as embarrassing as I can even with people around.

In order to be successful, practice is everything in life or in business. We all see the prestige of success but behind it is 10,000-hour practice sessions that resulted in failures and struggles. Scrappiness isn’t a secret in business and in life, it is a requirement.

Timing is Everything

In music, it’s important to have the right rhythm and the right moment. If the notes aren’t made at the right moment, it will be a disaster. The result will be a mess.

Similar to business, every business move should be at the right moment. Any great business idea will not make much if it is too advance for the market or if the market has already shifted to a different focus. In life, if you didn’t time decision, opportunities could very well slip right in front of you.

Mindset coupled with Confidence is the Perfect Match

I don’t have the experience of singing on stage. I really don’t. What I did in to have a proper mindset visualizing what I needed to do. Of course, I took confidence as my ally even if I had I could make some mistakes here and there.

Similarly, mindset and confidence are all you need when in business, much more in starting one. In life, you need to muster the confidence to match your people around you. A lot of setbacks are inevitable and embarrassment will always be there.  Mindset and confidence can get past obstacles leaving you with valuable lessons of doing better next time.

Feedback is Key in Improving Yourself

I knew most people liked what I sang at the wedding but there were some that didn’t like it. I distanced myself in hearing them. Looking back, I should’ve taken that criticism at heart so that I can improve.

In life, improvement is the key to success. You can make use of rumors and criticisms thrown at you.

In business, customers are at their core. No business can survive without customers. It’s about giving them the best to get the best result for your business. If your business receives feedback from customers, it shouldn’t be ignored. In fact, it should be a priority for improvement.

Make Fans

I mostly noticed that musicians have fans that are truly engaged. These fans feel that they have a strong connection to musicians that it develops into a synergistic relationship that helps each other. Most often, businesses just find a customer who they can sell to. These result in short-term gains for the brands and don’t sustain into a high-return business.

I’m sure I did make some fans when I took the challenge.

SIDENOTES

I was given the honor to sing at my good friends’ wedding reception.

The performance went well but It could still get better. Coming from a Corporate Financial Reporting exam (BA211) hours before the event, I never had the time to warm up and practice most of the songs I sang. 

To make things worse, I was in the middle of the finals week of my MBA Program in UP Diliman. There were a lot of pending papers to submit, cases to ponder on and exams to review for.

Luckily, my wedding singer act was just enough to create a relaxed and heartfelt wedding reception ambiance.