Consult With Sola - Building Your Business With Biabook

As I promised, we brought Sola back in and I told you she was here from time to time. Sola and I were talking about how this is the top of the year, the beginning of the year. We have that New Year's resolution of, “New Year. New You,” and all the different things that come with the new year. Some of us might have taken a step back from doing resolutions but knew that we wanted to do something differently. 2020 COVID has taught us that you have to have something to pipeline. If you have been sitting on the idea for some time, maybe now is that time to work and grow that idea.

We often do workshops with REC, Regional Entrepreneur Center out here in San Diego, one of the things we were talking about was to coach, work with other startups and young entrepreneurs to do workshops, some coaching tips and tricks from things that we have learned along the way. One thing that was coming up was building your brand and business. In this episode, we will dive into a little bit of that, some of the common questions, themes and so forth.

I'm grateful and happy that Sola has allowed us to pick her brain for a little bit and not charge us too much for it. It’s a brief insight into that to help you build your brand and business. If you need further info, definitely reach out to her. She's a wealth of knowledge and information. I'm pretty sure she's willing to help any of those individuals who want to take their brand-new business to the next level. Without further ado, let's talk about building your brand, your business with Sola.

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We’ve got Sola in the building. We are going to do these monthly sessions of Sola. We will call it Consulting 101 with Sola but I'm not saying you will get the full consult but we get to pick her brain for a little bit. If you want full and undivided attention with Sola, you have to go find her and get her consulting service. She's amazing. We are going to start this New Year episode with our monthly check-in consulting with Sola, Consulting 101 with Sola, by talking about building your brand and business. Welcome, Sola. How are you?

I am good. Thank you for having me here. I'm excited to give you guys some training. Hopefully, this helped you get your year wind up and started the right way as well. Thank you for having me.

No problem. Sola and her background, you will know how organized this woman is. She’s got sticky notes all on the wall. She got ideas and it looks like a whole little mind map going on her back wall. Building your brand and business. I want to get into something that you have created that will help because I know a lot of readers out here are trying to start the new year right with building their brand, their business. Your Biabook dives into this because you talk about you, your idea, and your brand.

One interesting thing that I want you to talk about before we dive into some of the concepts of your Biabook is the holistic approach to entrepreneurship. Why do you say, “The holistic approach to entrepreneurship?” This is something new that I don't think I have heard before anywhere else. What does that mean?

I'm going to give you a brief description of Biabook. It's about the overall well-being of an entrepreneur as they embark on their entrepreneurship journey. Being an entrepreneur isn't about having an idea and executing it. There's so much more to it. There's so much more that you become by taking that step and making that decision to put everything into something that no one has seen or might not even believe in to make it a success.

I'm writing another book. There’s an extended level of psychosis that you get to as an entrepreneur, especially when things are not going the way you want or reach a sale grade, or there's a massive hurdle on your wall. Most entrepreneurs usually feel this, especially when they are trying to raise capital. The whole thing about this book is, number one, you need support.

Throughout my book, we have something called a mentor and self-awareness emotional intelligence checkpoint. You need to do that. You need to have a mentor to guide you through the steps and hold you accountable. The way I want people to see entrepreneurship is not a pathway to me becoming a successful person, it's the whole thing, what it does to you as a person, how it makes you grow.

For me, entrepreneurship was my vehicle for growth, for mental wellness. It pushed me to the brink of so much but I'm still here. It's like, “I have gone through the worst already. I'm not afraid of anything anymore.” That's what I want people to understand. There's a wall picture when it comes to entrepreneurship aside from the whole standard process that you have to go through to become an entrepreneur.

That whole living as an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur, speaking like one, becoming someone that gives back once you reach a certain point, that's a whole view. That's a holistic view. It's all about wellness and your well-being and that has to be at the forefront when you start your entrepreneurship journey.

I liked that when you said that. When you said it, it made me remind myself. I'm starting to work out. Speaking of a holistic view, it’s when you exercise a muscle. When you take it to that breaking point, it heals, restores, and gets stronger. How you get stronger as an entrepreneur is by having that holistic view. I see your first chapters and exercises about you.

It’s everything from self-awareness, social awareness, self-management. Dive into that, why did you decide to focus on the person, individual when making this book, talking about your brand and building your business? Why start there? What was the mindset behind that and how did you come up with that vision and concept?

I realized that I was on a different journey. Simultaneously as I was an entrepreneur, I own my businesses, running my businesses, and managing people. It was important that you came first because you are your business. If your business is ill, if you are mentally unfit, your business will not do well. I realized there were so many correlations to a successful business and this is why you need to be surrounded by an excellent team, so your shortcomings match up. They cover it up for you more or less.

It's also good for managers to know if they can identify quickly what the strengths and weaknesses of that person are from their responses. For me, personality types are something that people need to start looking at, the center or questions you answer based on your result will give you your personality point and it changes.

Years ago, I was an ENTP straight up but now I have evolved to being something else. I'm an ENTP, an advocate, which you can tell. I'm an advocate for entrepreneurship, I always have been. For people as well, even when they are not advocating for their own selves. That's the thing entering because that's something that is important. You are seeing that potential.

You are helping them get from that point that they are in now to sit in their full greatness. That's not the thing to do but it's always good when they know themselves. It only works when you know yourself because then you are open to learning. You are more willing to make the sacrifices you need to do the work and do the work that's going to get you to where you are supposed to be.

That's an important thing that I tell entrepreneurs, my managers, and executives, all the time, “You have to do the work. There's no shortcut to this. You’ve got to do the work on yourself and with your team. If you are asking your team to do this and you haven't done it, it doesn't work.” They don't understand the change that needs to be made.

Sometimes those moments are necessary as you know. When we work together, you see me go into those spaces before and sometimes when diplomacy is needed. That's what self-management is. You need to know when to zip it and when to talk. Being the CEO of this new company, I found myself having to do that consistently. In fact, when I'm not putting myself to heighten, I send my COO, “This conversation that needs to be had. Can you reach out to this person?” I know that person can be calm consistently. She used to be a teacher, so she's learned the art of a straight face when you are delivering something. I'm learning from her. I’m like, “I need to learn how to do this.”

Self-management comes from pulling and absorbing the best of what you see and making it your own. It's like leadership, there's no playbook for leadership. Everyone’s leaders are different. I would love to be Steve Jobs but I'm not him, so I need to find my way to become or be the best in that space in that set rule. That's one key thing about this journey, it's not easy.

I'm not one of those entrepreneurs that will tell you, “You are going to have a ball.” I'm like, “At the end of the day, all the pain is going to be worth it.” That's what I tell people. There's a lot. You have to grow in this process. You are going to learn so much about yourself. You would never survive if you are not open to being that person that is flexible to change and transcends where they are now to become the best of what they can be.

That’s the beauty of it too as well because I tell people all the time, “Any journey or achievement that you are on in life, it’s usually the things that were hardest to obtain were the best journeys.” It’s well worth it because you come out a better person, hopefully, and you gain so much from it. Let's jump into Your Idea. Tell me about the Your Ideas section. What is it about? I know it looks like what's the big idea, idea clarity goals and idea viability. Tell me a little bit more about it. What is the idea section and what does that do for somebody grabbing this book?

If it’s just you, you get exhausted. Who's going to back you up? Who's going to push you completely? Also, sharing the work. That's what I love about collaborations. You are sharing thoughts. That's the key thing of any good manager. It’s learning how to delegate. I know the best manager who ends up going on a holiday while their workers are still working.

Price points. Price thing. That took me a while to realize what I was worth consulting. At one point in time, I used to charge about $50 an hour. I'm a $500 an hour consultant. How did I get from $50 to $500? That wasn't easy but when you realize that your time is valuable, you now realize, “How do I come up with a price?” We can't ignore social media. It's here to stay. You need to figure out how to do it. I'm not that great at it. In terms, I can create a strategy for it but to execute it is a pain. There are people specifically, who have a career doing that.

Revenue streams are my favorite part. I always tell people, “Make sure you have three revenue streams.” When 1 is dying, the other 2 can get activated.” It’s those things, then your exit strategy. Once I realized that I have an exit strategy, I feel better about my business because I'm thinking, “At what point would I feel satisfied? I have done the best that I can for myself to move on.” Especially someone who’s creative like I am.

I like writing projects. Once I have sent them a point, I know it has gotten traction, it's successful, and pays me back the money, someone else can take it to the next height. You need to be able to let go. That's the key thing about venture capital. The goal is to exit. You need to leave your things okay with the IPO or when you would get acquired. That means that from day one, as you are planning your idea, you already need to know who's going to possibly buy it from you.

It’s building from there. You have to build your company around its own ethos because you don't want to stay where they absorb your company and disappear, which happens a lot. Especially with these big tech companies, if it doesn't match with their culture, they are going to take what they want, strip it for parts, and somebody will pay you some money, which is a good thing.

That's something wrong that people need to think about but the whole idea again, not to reuse the word but it's a robust thing, your idea. It’s not that you had this moment and boom. It now spreads up into something completely different and from all these blocks here, you now build the sections of your business that are vital.

Key points I want to jump back into are the idea map and building out the purpose of this thing, and how are you going to make your first dollar. Raising money is not making money. It's not the same thing. I love the last point that you touched on about giving back. I don't know if you have ever seen me wearing these shirts that say, “Decolonizing Wealth or decolonizer.”

The Decolonizing Wealth brand is all based upon the fact that if all the top percent companies gave 10% of their wealth back to these communities, we will have no such thing as hungry kids, homelessness or poverty because all that wealth will trickle back down. It can dissolve all those problems. It would take away all those problems. Those problems would not be existent anymore and all it takes is 10% of the top wealthiest companies to give back 10% to these different initiatives and it can end hunger, all this stuff. It was a fascinating concept. I love where you are going with that.

Let’s jump right back to the Idea Map. Break that down. Does the Idea Map help you do all these things like clarity? What is the Idea of Map for somebody who's new to this, coming on our podcast, this is their first time and they are probably like, “What is that?” “There’s a map out there to help me organize my ideas, so it takes me down the road to entrepreneurship. What is this Idea Map that you speak of?”

I use the term Idea Map because people tend to use brainstorming. Brainstorming happens a lot but sometimes nothing happens at the end of it. My Idea Map is designed for you to chew through your idea, all these parts of your because you now realize the work is going to take. That point is when you need to make a personal decision. “Do I have the time for this? Do I have the money for this? Can I do this?” There are certain questions here that people do not ask. They don't ask how they are going to make their first dollar.

If you notice in my book, I didn't put how you are going to raise capital because that has become a massive distraction for founders. They don't think about what their business is, how it's going to make money, revenue versus profit. They don't even think about profit. That’s the thing, what do you think your investors are buying into? They are buying into the possibility that you are going to make a profit because that's where they make their money. It's not in the revenue space. These are the things that people like me realize, I chose the word map because a map leads you somewhere. A map starts at a point and you end up at another point.

You use this method of thinking and processing your thoughts. The key thing is processing your thoughts. For someone like me, I use maps all the time. What you see on the back here is how I get things done. If I leave it in my head with every single other product I have, they become a big bowl of mush. You need to draw it out. You need to visually see.

That's what I love about this map. You are visually seeing it. You are the one writing. If you don't have the answer, which happens in some of these sections, you are like, “I don't know.” If you care about this, I want to make it something that you are going to go find out or find someone that can help you out with building this map, which is one of the reasons why a mentor and an accountability partner are key in moving forward when you are starting anything.

This has become so important that I am happy this happened in marketing. There's nothing like your story. No one can replicate it. No one can replicate the journey you have taken to get to where you are going. You need to infuse that into your brand. When I’ve got to know who Steve Jobs was, and what he had gone through as an entrepreneur to make Apple what it was, I appreciated the brand more. Founders need to get ready and be prepared to share their pain, successes, happiness, struggles, challenges.



If you put that somehow into your brand story, it makes it so compelling because people feel that. This idea that you are like this god-like thing doesn't work. Eventually, people will follow other gods. Why don't you let people see the real you and be authentic? What makes you unique? Find your unique spot and attach your brand to that. That's something that's super important. We are RISEprenuers and we have a unique spot. We are like, “Africans.” We have a unique target audience. No one pays attention.

In the current climate, immigrants have been seen as more or fewer criminals. They are here to make not only our lives better but to share our culture with you and show you the best of us. Most of the top 500 companies in the US, for instance, have immigrants running the helm. Contribute to society. I can't stress this enough. Your brand needs to show what you are doing to make the world a better place. Legacy, that's something about a brand you want to brand that will outlive you. Now and for generations to come we are going to be talking about Apple. We will probably be going to be talking about Amazon as well.

We are not ever going to stop talking about Apple and Amazon. They are going to be around long before our parents, siblings, daughters, and we are gone. They are going to be around. They submitted their mark in history.

Apple has built a legacy. Everyone involved in that company from the onset needs to be proud of themselves. Yes, the visionary is gone but it's alive, kicking and creating. They have an aggressive innovation model, so they tried to make their old items obsolete. That is amazing. They are like, “I'm going to make what I created obsolete.” That's why we are hooked on it.

Every time you get an iPhone it’s better than the last one. That's part of their brand. That's part of the ethos. This is something that people need to think about when building their brand. Articulate it well. If you can’t speak to a brand consultant, someone like me, so I look at the whole of what you are trying to deliver because people care about these things.

In fact, your brand and how people perceive it is a subconscious decision. People are deciding what they think about your brand without it being at the forefront. All they need to do is hear someone speak in your company or speak to you before they decide. Why don't you let your brand look so good that you don't even need to speak to someone to convince them? That's what you need to look at when you are thinking about branding, brand strategy, and creating a brand that sings.

Important Links:

• Regional Entrepreneur Center
• Adesola Akindele
• Biabook
• SeedLegals
• Biabook – Amazon
• Instagram - Adesola Akindele
• Clubhouse - Adesola Akindele
• http://www.AdesolaAkindele.com/work-with-me

About Adesola Akindele

As an economic strategist and serial entrepreneur with 15 years of experience, I have developed a strong visionary sense in identifying unique business opportunities not easily seen by most. I enjoy being a catalyst for innovation, challenging corporate leaders to initiate growth within their organizations and communities. These skills I now translate in my daily professional life as a Strategic Marketing Partner in an International IT firm, Author of an entrepreneurship workbook, Startup Mentor, Venture Capitalist as well as a co-founder of 3 tech Startups. I enjoy working as an engagement vehicle to assist underserved audiences by helping them develop collaborative pathways to ownership as well as foster economic equality and financial wellness in their communities and beyond.