Speaking for the first time at The Platform Nigeria, Mr Charles O’tudor charged the crowd with positive self-affirmations confirming it’s a needed tool in surviving an unpredictable environment. Showing a video of a lean lion eating grass, he asked; Why would a lion eat grass? The Lion adjusts.
Emphasizing how entrepreneurship starts with survival, he quoted one of Oprah Winfrey’s quotes:
“Every time you state what you want or believe, you are the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think possible.”
There are two types of entrepreneurs he explained further;
- An entrepreneur
- An intrapreneur
Not everyone will be an entrepreneur. You need to be a successful intrapreneur to be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur starts with being an initiator, then a challenger. He challenges the system.
You must shift from your mindsets. Everybody was born an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship starts with survival. You do not create the impossible from where you are without thinking. You cannot serve wrongly and lead right. If you cannot identify where you belong, that is the biggest problem you have. You can’t be a successful entrepreneur if you lack discipline, focus, consistency and rigour.
As an entrepreneur, understand who you are. Ask yourself who you are! As an entrepreneur, you must be ready to go through trials and take risks. As an entrepreneur, your mindset is important and how you manage the process is critical.
Speaking on how to succeed, he shared three things:
- Don’t assume. Your mindset must be right.
- You have to be fact-finding.
- You must solve problems.
Global brands need to have the following:
- A compelling and consistent brand that resonates cross-culturally
- Innovative product development strategies.
- A passion for improving the daily lives of their customers
In branding for the future, you need to start transforming and you need to start thinking global. He described it with the word he called ‘GLOCAL – Global Thinking, Local Operations’; you are operating locally, but your platform is global. You must have a consistent brand.
He added that a compelling brand needs to be consistent. If you fail, learn to say you are sorry. You must come out to apologise to your customers.
To play global, you must make sure your brand strategy can be relevant anywhere and in any economy. To survive any economy, you must have; creativity, problem-solving and ‘innoventive’ (a word coined by him).
Drawing his session to a close he stated that entrepreneurial spirit is based on 3 principles: rigour, discipline, and consistency.
