Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ayo Kuyinu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ayo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

My dad was a physician who worked for 40 years but owned his own medical practice. Aside from being a great doctor, my dad knew very early on that he wanted to be his own boss. He learned this lesson quickly after several bumps working for others. He knew it was time to control his own destiny when he knew he wasn’t at his best when he was working for others. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change “when” I started my business, but I would change “when I was ready” to start my business. Nobody told my dad he was “ready” to run a medical practice. All he knew was that he was a doctor and he wanted to do it his own way.

When I finished graduate school, I was lucky enough start my marketing career at great companies. I worked for great brands, bosses and had some of the best experiences but all that work was for other people or company’s destinies. Even with these fortunate opportunities and amazing people, I still wanted to do things my own way. As soon as I started having these feelings, I should have started my own business. I thought I wasn’t ready to start my own business but as soon as I started it, I realized the only person that wasn’t ready to start the business was me.

Ayo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a British born, Nigerian-American. My parents were successful doctors and that’s what I thought I would do. I love soccer, cooking and figuring things out. I’ve always been driven to understand who people are and what makes them “tick”. This interest started even before I took my first Psychology class in college. I’m that person who always asked probing questions and notice or pay attention to things that most people ignore. Unfortunately, when my dream of becoming a doctor ended at the MCAT, my interest in people and Psychology led me to becoming a marketer.

If I wasn’t a marketer, I would have become a therapist. A good therapist is a great listener who successfully understands patient needs and provides successful outcomes. My desire to truly listen to and understand client needs, had led to me being called a “brand therapist”. I like this moniker because I actually do provide “therapy” to brands. The companies I work with just need to “do the work” so they can better connect with their customers and drive the business. AOK Brand Consulting helps brands do the work by successfully helping them define who they are, how to position themselves and what their overall message should be. From this framework, I am able to develop a brand and marketing strategy with actionable recommendations and measurable results.

Looking back at my career, I’ve realized that I have been using this framework before I even started my own business. I helped launch new brands that range from a professional soccer team and clothes that were a staple in teenage fashion, to household products that you use every day. In order to do all of that, I had to use all of the pillars that make my business successful. When working with clients, I always make sure they know my four pillars – Identity, Positioning, Messaging and Marketing Plan. From these, they can easily know what I’m about and the help I can provide for their business.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Positioning is one of the core elements of marketing. At the same time, I did not realize that positioning was also one of the most important parts of opening and running a successful business. When I decided to start AOK Brand Consulting, one of the best pieces of advice I received was to read “The Art of Expertise” by David Baker. This book taught me to look at positioning and expertise in new ways. According to the book, if your business is positioned well, you will find yourself in scenarios where you are only doing work that plays to your expertise. Success happens when you position that expertise in a way that makes your work less interchangeable. What this means is that if I know the value I provide to clients and position it well, my services cannot be easily replicated or done by another company. This is when the light bulb went off for me.

I previously prided myself on being a generalist that could do “a lot of different things”. “A lot of different things” is not an expertise. I started my business not because I could do a lot of things, but because I knew I could provide expertise that was not being utilized on a daily basis. I was also working for companies that didn’t fully appreciate the value of my expertise. From this book, I realized that my expertise is something that I need to define, hold on to and position in such a way that AOK Brand Consulting is the only company that can deliver it.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My journey to business school was not a straight line that started smoothly. When most people decide to go to business school, it’s something they often planned for, or determined, before going to college. Having first generation Nigerian parents who were doctors, premed and becoming a doctor was all I knew about college. So when I graduated with just a Psychology degree and a chemistry minor I no longer needed, I was a little lost. Luckily, I had family friends and mentors (who weren’t doctors) who showed me there were other ways to make a living other than being a doctor. After working several jobs and making progress in my career, it came to the point where business school was needed to get to the next stage in my career. Most people start the business school process 1-2 years before attending. My process unfortunately started at the end of Round 1 of applications. This timing led to many waitlists and rejections that were somewhat expected given the rigors of the whole process.

Fast forward to the first day of orientation at the business school I was not admitted to. Fast further forward to 4 PM that first day and me receiving a call from an admissions officer asking whether or not I still wanted to come to school there. After asking if he was serious and then screaming, “YES”, he then asked, “can you be here by tomorrow?”.  I obviously made sure I could be there by tomorrow. That was of course after doing a load of laundry and a 10-hr drive done through the night.

I look back on that day and phone call and know I wouldn’t have been able to make that decision (and drive) if I did not have the resolve that my parents instilled in me. They had to struggle to make it to the United States, often had to retake coursework they did years prior and work through many of the stereotypes that unfortunately still plague us today. Through those real-life examples, I learned that you have to both work hard and capitalize on opportunities even if they don’t present themselves in the best ways at the start. Being resilient got me into business school and without that resiliency I probably wouldn’t be writing this now.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.consultaok.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/aokconsulting
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayokuyinu/