ROI of grace: Building lifetime brand equity
Marketing columns usually focus on positioning, differentiation and shareholder value. This Valentine’s Day, I want to talk about brand equity, not in the marketplace, but at home.
It’s where I had learned the true meaning of trust long before I began teaching it.
Before my wife, Chiqui, became my partner in life, she had been my first early adopter. She saw intrinsic value in me when my market signals were at an all-time low.
Substance over signaling
In my early years, my “packaging” was unrefined. English was my third language, and I spoke it with the hesitation of a beta product still in testing.
I drove a second hand car with a noisy muffler that doubled as an unintentional and annoying brand awareness tool.
While others might have focused on my weaknesses, she looked at the core product. She understood that communication skills can be learned, but character is nonnegotiable. She ignored the technical glitches and invested in the person.
Long before I could articulate it in marketing terms, she lived the principle that substance outlasts signaling.
A strategic pivot to family
When I resigned from RFM Corp. at 23 to become an entrepreneur, there was no safety net. It was a critical moment in what was now our shared journey. Chiqui made a deliberate decision to be a housewife and take care of our children—we had twins.
This wasn’t a passive role; it was foundational. She ran our home with such steadiness that it allowed me to focus on building a business amid uncertainty.
In startup life, cash flow is often thin and pressure is constant. During those years, she offered something more valuable than solutions: presence. She taught me that in long-term partnerships, support isn’t always about fixing problems.
Sometimes, the strongest response is simply sitting beside someone while they find their way.
Recovering from total brand failure
My biggest failure came from poor risk judgment. Driven by the desire for a quick win, I invested our entire wedding gift fund into commodity trading, without fully understanding how it worked.
I lost everything. At 23, I wasn’t just broke; I was deeply in the red—saddled with more liabilities than assets.
In any corporate setting, this would trigger an immediate exit by stakeholders.
When I finally told her, she didn’t audit my mistake or demand a recovery plan. She paused and said quietly, “I guess we have to start all over again.”
In that moment, she demonstrated something I now call resilient equity. She believed the brand, the person, was still worth rebuilding. Without that belief, my life could have taken a very different path, one driven by desperation instead of discipline.
We pivoted our lifestyle. Our dates moved to Jollibee most of the time. It wasn’t about romance in the traditional sense; it was about authenticity.
We learned that the strongest brands aren’t the ones that never fail, but the ones willing to rebuild, side by side.
From recovery to cocreation
As we rebuilt, our relationship evolved from a support system into a true partnership. Over time, we realized our values and vision were deeply aligned.
We didn’t just share a home. We shared a mission: to elevate the standards of marketing in the Philippines.
That shared mission led to several joint undertakings:
- Co-authoring books, turning lived experience into structured insight
- Founding the Mansmith Young Market Masters Awards (YMMA), to identify intrinsic value in young marketers, much like Chiqui once did for me;
- Developing frameworks, such as the Trust Flywheel and our Implementation Model.
The Trust Flywheel shows how integrity and small, consistent wins create momentum over time. Ours began quietly, over simple meals and long conversations and eventually gained enough velocity to earn industry recognition.
Implementing a shared vision
Many people have vision statements. Few have an implementation model.
Chiqui and I learned that dreams only become real through shared execution. Whether we were consulting, organizing seminars or raising a family, we operated as one unit.
We discovered that synergy isn’t a buzzword. It’s what happens when two people stop competing for attention and start working toward something bigger than themselves.
The framework of lasting love
When I now advise clients and readers on building brands that endure, I look for three qualities I first learned at home:
- Consistency: Standing by the brand when key indicators, such as finances, health and morale, are down
- Conviction: Choosing partnership over certainty in volatile conditions
- Continuity: The patience to keep moving forward even when results aren’t immediate.
That same consistency showed itself decades later, when my father had passed away and I asked if my mother could come and live with us. Chiqui never hesitated. She never complained or negotiated terms. She simply said yes, because that’s what commitment looks like when it’s real.
A Valentine’s reflection
This Valentine’s Day, I’m paying tribute to acceptance.
Real love is the ultimate long-term investment. It sees strength where others see flaws and values character over temporary possessions.
The success of the YMMA, our books and our frameworks are merely lagging indicators of a deeper leading one: a marriage built on grace and a shared balance sheet of trust.
The call to action: Look beyond the flowers and the noise. Who stood by your brand when your market value was at zero? And are you willing to cocreate something that will outlast you both?
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Don’t miss the opportunity to engage live with 16 CEOs, managing directors and presidents as they discuss Trust, Opportunity, Strategy and Leadership at the 17th Mansmith Market Masters Conference on March 17 at SMX Aura. For inquiries, email info@mansmith.net.
Josiah Go is a business thought leader, speaker, mentor, entrepreneur, blogger, columnist and independent director. He is a record-breaking, bestselling author of 20 books on marketing and entrepreneurship.
