Attempting vs. Trying

Friday I went into the gym feeling a bit off. I told my brother, I wasn’t feeling as strong as usual and to keep an extra eye on my squats because I may have trouble. True to my word, I wasn’t able to complete the set and my Bro had to bail me out. 

When I reached deadlifts, my favorite lift, my trainer told me to add another 20 lbs to my lift. The Wednesday before I had completed 8 reps with 225lbs for the first time and I protested to an extra 20lbs. I said I should get comfortable with the weight I’m at now before I try to increase.  After some talking to, I reluctantly added the 20lbs onto the bar I positioned myself for pull. Time to Dip, Grip, & Rip(position, grip the bar, lift the weight). Only problem was, the weight didn’t move. I stepped back from the bar, looked at the weight again, and tried a second time. Dip, Grip, &…. Nothing. I was defeated. I told myself it was because I was not feeling strong and it was too much weight. 

So I took off the 20lbs and tried again. Dip, Grip, &….. Nothing. Then was when I knew something was wrong. My trainer walked straight up to me and told me he knew I wasn’t going to lift it. “I could see it in your eyes. You can’t doubt yourself.” He explained that because I pulled 225 for 8 reps, my one rep max(most amount of weight for one rep) should be over 300 lbs. And the only reason I wasn’t getting this weight off the floor was because I didn’t think I could. After he told me that I was able to do my regular workout with the 225lbs.

This got me thinking about self belief. Many times in our lives we doubt ourselves because we think that our progress should be normal, steady and consistent like 'everyone else'. This mindset may not stop us from attempting but it stops us from truly trying. 

If in our mind we don't believe we can achieve it, the moment we encounter any difficulty our mind tells us this is where we were meant to fail and we stop genuinely trying. Our mind then reinforces the idea that we could not have achieved it, limiting ourselves.

If we can’t even do it in our mind how can we hope to ever achieve it in real life.  

So maybe you have an extra 20lbs to add to a lift or a project you wish you could do. But you’re thinking ‘I need to get more comfortable with this weight’ or ‘I need more experience before I try that.’ Truth is, more than likely you can do it. But it’s not just a matter of attempting it. It’s a matter of believing it. Otherwise you’d never truly try.

As for my extra 20lbs? Well I’m back in the gym tonight and let’s just say I’m feeling strong. Lol

I’ll keep you’ll posted.

* Update - Since this post I've been able to add another 10lbs. to the previous 20lbs. One word, Believe.

Quality Products

It's important to remember that no amount of marketing can replace quality. So don't try to bamboozle your customers with flashy ads and ignore product development. They will eventually see past the hype and recognise the product for what it is.

Even swag can't save a bad product

Personal Development

I’ve been asked before why I got into marketing. While there are a number of reasons and some serendipity along the way. One reason that stands out, is how dynamic the field is. In addition to technology, I think marketing is one of the fastest developing and evolving disciplines out there. Marketing is basically connecting with your target and aligning your company to offer them value. That first point, connecting with your target/customers, is where things get exciting. With changes in beliefs, lifestyles, technology, how we interact with people, and society on a whole, connecting with that customer is like shooting a moving target.

This means we are constantly looking for new ways to connect to people(through lifestyle, technology, and the internet). With this in mind, we’ll never know everything in marketing. Because it evolves as society evolves. 

What does this mean? It means we as marketers can never stop learning. A foundation knowledge in marketing (STP, value, etc) is necessary, yes, but it’s not all you’d need. What the foundation does is help you understand the new rules and insights into marketing that are being created. But it cannot stand on its own. 

You need to constantly be studying, learning new practices, and improving yourself. Reading that new edition of HBR and reading that new book on social media. In fact, my advice is find a new marketing/business each month and read it. It’s a necessary investment in your profession.  

So for those now starting their journey into the marketing world, be it first degree, masters, or your first marketing job. Don’t think that the information you’re learning have gathered here would be enough to last you your time in the marketing. 

Using Marketing To Study

As a student understanding information and memorising it is very important. Many times we sit down studying yet don’t understand nor remember anything we just read. I thought there had to be a better way and decided to draw inspiration from my marketing backgroundn finding the answer in multiple encoding.

In the fields of consumer behaviour and IMC (integrated marketing communications) memory and recall is a big thing. It’s what makes one brand come to mind when you reach the store. So naturally, marketers have given the idea a lot of thought. One of the methods used is called multiple encoding. This is, sending a message to the customer using different mediums and different formats. For example, a marketer may produce an ad for television, radio, digital media, and print. All with the same message. That message then gets stored in the customer’s mind in multiple formats and in different contexts helping it stick. 

So I tried this approach to my studies and used different methods to remember content. My ‘media outlets’ were reading, summary writing, drawing, and presentations. 

1. First I read the content, without fighting to understand or remember it. But rather reading like I would a magazine or blog article.
2. Skimming through, I then summarised the information in my own words being as simple and concise as possible. Using paper without lines, I mapped out my summaries and how they related to each other. Almost like an infographic.
3. Thirdly, I went through the page drawing a small doodle for each chunk of information, capturing the essence of it(e.g. a Gorilla talk to a guy about cheese for guerilla marketing). 
4. Finally using the page I made a presentation to an imaginary group being as realistic as possible, speaking out loud, engaging the ‘audience’, and giving my opinion on topics. 

The results were astonishing. The information and ideas were almost engraved in my memory and recall was not a problem. In exams remembering content and context was a breeze. 

It may be tricky implementing this method for technical subjects like math. But the idea is to take more than one approach when memorising content. Because when we can relate to a topic in more than one way and context, we are more likely to remember it. It’s also important that marketers don’t forget these bits of theory when marketing our brands and try to communicate our messages in different formats. 

The Importance Of A Brand

RIM’s failure to develop the Blackberry brand played a role in the fall of the phone. 

The Blackberry phones have not been able to compete with the Android and Apple phones. With many analysts writing about the demise of RIM and it’s slow death. While there are technical issues that also affected the company and its phone. Few have focused on the issue of branding in the whole scenario, but as a marketer, I couldn’t resist. 

Blackberry’s Brand

Blackberry’s brand grew out of it’s functionality. Many business people began using the phones because of their capabilities. It’s ‘brand’ of the ‘businessman’s phone’ grew organically through lifestyle association. RIM however never focused on developing the brand but rather let it grow on it’s own. Being the only phone with it’s capabilities, it stood out. 

Enter Google and Apple

When the iphone and Android phones entered the market with the same smart phone capability, it created brand parity. Brand parity is when the customer perceives no major difference between competing products. How companies deal with this is by pushing and focusing on their brand. As customers would move beyond purchasing the product and begin purchasing the brand. So when Apple and Google brought their brands into the game, things began to look bad for Blackberry. Relegating them to a ‘metoo’ product. 

Another interesting benefit of brands is their ability to create loyal customers. Without Blackberry constantly working on their brand, their customer loyalty fell. With a large number of customers switching to Apple and Android. 

RIM took too long to address this issue and they are now paying for it. They have been effectively knocked out of the market and needed to make some tough strategic decisions. Looking at RIM’s new strategy (focusing on Enterprise business) I think they can succeed. I just hope they take their brand more seriously this time.

Why I like Twitter

Recently I’ve started using my Twitter account (@nBengo) much more and I must say, I like it. What I like most about it is its restriction to only 140 characters per tweet. Keeping all your tweets under 140, forces you to really think about what you want to say and how best to explain it. Every tweet can be a mini exercise in English language and simple language. Sentence construction, punctuation, and choice of words are just some of the elements to look at when crafting my tweet.
Even though I’m some way off from having excellent writing, I think the little daily practices are helping me improve. Now if you would excuse me, I have to write a tweet for this blog post. 

Form and Function

In the design world, there needs to be a marriage between form and
function.  Great designers have stated that good design form is born
out of good function but not vice versa. Hence we should use function
as the starting point then merge it with form.


I believe design without function is art. It is beautiful and needed
sometimes, but one must recognize it as art and treat it as such.


Building on my last post, we see that not all ads stay true to this
relationship of form and function. There are some impressive
innovative ads out there that are pleasing to the eye but are they all
effective? They ticked the form box, but have they ticked the function
box? Sometimes, no.
So when designing ads for your products be sure to keep in mind that
without function, form is just art and art doesn't sell products.


The solution? Strategy and Tactics. Marketing strategy refers to where
you are taking your brand and marketing tactics, to how your getting
it there. Every brand should have a clearly defined strategy and
tactics. Aligning your ad directly to both, would ensure the
functionality of the ad.