Name: Otatade Okojie

Title: Founder

Organisation: influencer redebonyhotspot, Lunchbox Millionaire Company,D Influentials Channel,Ebony East Magazine

I am the founder and influencer of Redebonyhotspot, Lunchbox Millionaire Company, D Influentials Channel, and Ebony East Magazine

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.

I hope Otatade's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

I build trust with my employees by problem solving, but first listening to their needs and engaging with them at two levels. First of all, what is the question their asking? What is their requirement? What support do they need? How do I show that I can add value and assist them to the best of my ability if it's an area that matches my expertise? For example, with my colleagues we come together to develop projects and concepts which we believe will make a difference, engage our key target audience, but the first question is what the audience is looking for. What do they need? What resources do we know about that can help them make an impact? If it's marketing, with marketing through their different digital channels. It has to be niche and focused, not too broad and general. It also has to be provided in nuggets, simply, and accessible. Done in the format that is accessible to an idiot.

No matter how smart you are, that's great for you. When you provide support and resources, don't deliver information to bash people over the head with how brilliant you are. Did you get a PhD, have a master's, or get a degree? Great for you, the entrepreneur ecosystem is very diverse People want information they can digest quickly. Information that hooks them, that they can play with, that they can come back to, which will ultimately help them solve a problem. They also want regular bite-sized info, services that they feel familiar with, language that doesn't make them feel dumb, or language that isn't too basic that they feel they haven't learned anything at all. It keeps them coming back.

Provide insights, identify facts for customers that they may not find or have the time to find on other sites. Data pushes insights forward; the right statistical and analytical data can help attract more customers and can help secure investment in a new project. This will get more trust from stakeholders. Add more videos to your content that you share, research the information shared so people aren't wondering if their guessing when they come to you. They know that you move with distinction, you've done the legwork. What about your business should symbolise distinction, and which area of work makes you known for your expertise?

For me, it's my ability to develop content and grow a following as an influencer, and I have mastered and researched this, so I can do this for any brand. I have built a network of over 60 million contacts. 13,135 on LinkedIn, and another 2 million on Google plus, an extra 60,000 and on social media, 24,000 on Instagram, 11000 on TikTok, and on Facebook 50000, plus the 8000 followers on my Ebony East Magazine. Please Google and subscribe. Why do I draw your attention to these? Because they all start with the pen and the paper, taking the time to research and build trust with an audience, but the real key is to build engagement. When you build engagement with your audience, that engagement can be converted into sales, and you have commerce.

Utilise key things on the different platforms such as advertising to heighten the profile of your brand, and research the most popular ranked articles in your niche so you can learn from them and follow their content, see how their building trust with their consumers, how is their brand navigating with distinction in such tough economic times, read more books, the more books you read on leaders in your field, podcasts you watch, webinars, seminars and tutorials, the better equipped you will be.

Go to Quora, go to Reddit, find out what your consumers are searching for in chatrooms, what newsletters are they subscribing to? What apps are they joining to network, what chatrooms are they part of, where is the conversation? Where is the buzz? Follow the thread? Be part of the community, be part of the ecosystem. But remember, nobody is supposed to know everything. When your consumers, your stakeholders, your employees come to you with problems, be open to assessments. Have forms ready for people to fill in for every 6-month qualitative and quantitative data assessment, just to look over how things are going, feedback forms, could they be better? Visit your competitor's website, or site, what are they doing? What could you learn? Be open to learning.

Be open to constructive feedback. Be open to critiques. The more you learn, the more your business community will grow. You want a community. You want a network, and you want that particular word, Engagement. Engagement means I trust you, and I will come back, I will keep coming back. What you want is to form one of their regular habits. We all have different types of online personalities, the keyboard warriors, the shopaholic, the scroller who's just killing time, you want them to favourite your site, to bookmark it, so when they're trawling through the Internet, when they're bored it's a site that they always come back to. With habits like this, they will click and they will purchase.

Also, pay attention to the time you have spare, you can be reading about seo, and other ways to be seen online. If people can't see you, they can't find you. You want to be front and centre, in interviews, blogs, and advertising. If you can't see me, you don't know what I have to offer.

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

Vision for me is where you see the seed growing, and to mission is the journey. The steps you take to get there. What budget do I have? Let's say I think like I have no budget, and I really want this vision. What are my steps? Who are my connectors? What is my food? Who is my fuel? What books will I read? Whose journey is similar to mine? Let me draw up a plan? Design a businessman, write a statement with an outline of what the business does, a full summary, and what problem it solves. Who does it help? What is its unique selling point? What is its niche? What are its strengths? Who are its consumers? Design a profile for them? Where do you find them in the shop? Which aisle? What website? What blogs do they read? What channels do they go on on YouTube? What content do they read? What would be their favourite article? What webinars, seminars, Books, and what courses would you go on to develop yourself in this arena? Academically? What course would you take for a business plan in this niche? Design the website for this concept on a blog, but keep it private.

Now Design 5 articles linked to your concept, design a day in the life of your business. For me the word mission was when I was executing some of my goals for Lunchbox millionaire I was offered £375,000 investment funding match funding at one point for my project, for the initial project I was accepted for a grant and mentoring scheme by Newham where I was mentored and I'm still connected to my Mentor, I was also accepted as a mentor for the Princess Diana awards, I worked with John David's Amnick foundation for my Hotbox programme part of Lunchbox millionaire where I mentored some dynamic brilliant minds and one of them was a young lady who was recognised in the Guinness book of world records as one of the smartest young people in the uk, she also wrote for my magazine which I initially founded mentored by Marco Gaffarelli from Vogue Alchemii Magazine.

It is now called Ebony East Magazine. The mission is the intricacies along the way and all the hard work that you continue to invest in your journey.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

Listen to them, hear them, remember that they have a voice too, but also know when people want to engage you because they want to engage and grow, they want to be better. Community in any ecosystem should celebrate diversity, dynamism, and empower the importance of people being heard. Real leaders don't dictate; they listen, when you listen, and act. There's room to add more value to the space, the space has more dimensions, those who have questions have answers, and people feel less muted.

We want our voices in any entrepreneurial space that we're running to feel less muted. There are some people with extraordinary ideas that could take your business to the next level, but you may mot know because of office politics., because of hierarchy at times, because sometimes some voices are louder than others, and others veer off because their personalities may be softer, quieter, more sensitive, less outspoken. Yet they may have exceptional ideas for content creation, for advertising, for marketing, for branding, for commercials, that could put your company front and centre.

I had an experience that stuck with me for years, and I never forgot this, but I thought, how many people have had such an experience? I came into a company, and I was told I had exceptional ideas for the company, the boss loved my ideas, and I knew she wasn't trying to be nice; it was a small company.

I was one of those funny eggs, the try hard, tries a little too hard, too focused, too nice, wasn't popular amongst the colleagues. But had great ideas. Ultimately, I had to leave this role because I just didn't fit, yet how many people have great ideas for a company that could propel it to the next level, deserve promotions, deserve better positioning, but just don't fit certain social tags. Because they've been muted, they miss out, and the company misses out. Listen, and encourage others to share ideas and be endorsed for them.

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

I suffer from Grand mal tonic-clonic epileptic seizures. Despite these seizures, I push and I push. I've also had two experiences where I experienced something that propelled me, and along with two very inspirational leaders, motivated and inspired me. Status Epilepticus.

The fuel and the reminder that I don't have all the time on Earth I have to value my time, keep going, keep working, keep pushing, and some David Goggins and Eric Thomas, I love these two leaders, and the support of family. I think it was Goggins that said the Marines say Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die....translation...do the work and get the reward.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

I read more books, I research, and I do a lot of content creation

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

I write a list and create a weekly strategy, I also create an outline for the month ahead, and have an overall plan for the year

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

Get a diary, or get an app that can help, or find someone online who can help you