The Importance of Communication for Business Growth with Motola Oyebanjo

Motola Oyebanjo is a passionate Communications Consultant with extensive strategic experience across Corporate Communications, Marketing Communications, and Development Communications. She has previously served as the Head of Corporate Communications for Lafarge Africa, Head of Strategic Communications and Media for Union Bank of Nigeria, Head of Corporate Communications for the British Council and as Internal Communications Manager for Unilever Nigeria. As a Consultant, Motola has delivered high impact brand and communications projects for local and international organizations including the Australian Trade Commission, United Kingdom Education Advisory Services, Kia Motors, NISSAN Motors, Haansbro Confectioneries, Edinburgh Napier University Scotland and BPP University UK. She is the Country Director at The School of Life – an unconventional learning academy that trains career professionals to excel in their careers. She is also the Founder of When Women Win – a women empowerment platform providing affordable access for women to the inspiration, knowledge, and opportunities they need to succeed.

Below is a summary of the interview The Importance of Communication for Business Growth with Motola Oyebanjo

She defined communications as a way or structure through which organizations pass their message across to key stakeholders; customers, government, media, community as well as their employees. She was of the opinion that for any organization set up for profit they would need to listen to and hear their customers if they are to deliver.

She advised business owners to always endeavor to ask for feedback from their customers as the information would be helpful in improving their business for better. She spoke on the need for business owners to understand where they stand and how they are perceived so as to always communicate the right brand personality to their customers.

In the process of attending to the customer, pushing out content she said that brand personality is being created and will go far to determine if a customer will choose to buy or not. She said that in this age of Social media SME’s can harness the opportunity to reach out to their customers at no cost by creating a structure of taking feedback from their customers.

She said that it was important for organizations to build an Employee Communications Culture around their business as unhappy employees often do not deliver on quality service. She went further to say that it was important for organizations to create structures that inform, educate, take opinions, engages and rewards their employees.

Speaking on strategies to growing one’s business network she said that individuals and business owners can start by creating value for others so as to leave lasting impressions in people’s minds. She said that if anyone was to find their career path, they needed to understand their personality type so as to guide them in discovering where they will best fit in.

To business owners looking to hire personnel, she advised that they look out for personality traits being that someone who isn’t a talker would often not do well in a sales position. She talked about the four major temperaments as the driven choleric, the sanguine talker, the melancholic thinker and the easy-going phlegmatic adding that there were 16 different personality types.

In changing business narratives, she advised that businesses begin to think in angles and look out for stories that will resonate with their audience. She advised business owners to avoid the attitude of always writing about themselves but to write instead with their audience in mind. She revealed that an online career course had been recently launched at the school of life where she is the Country Director and is set to guide people through understanding their career path.