Top 10 tips to understanding and building your brand

1. A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company. It’s not what you say it is. It’s what THEY say it is.
2. The foundation of brand is trust. Customers trust your brand when their experiences consistently meet or beat their expectations.
3. A charismatic brand is a product, service or company for which people believe there’s no substitute. Any brand can be charismatic, even yours.
4. To begin building your brand, ask yourself three questions: 1) Who are you? 2) What do you do? 3) Why does it matter?
5. Differentiation has evolved from a focus on “what it is,” to “what it does,” to “how you’ll feel,” to “who you are.” While features, benefits, and price are still important to people, experiences and personal identity are even more important.
6. Over time, specialists beat generalists. The winner is the brand that best fits a given space. The law of the jungle? Survival of the fittingest.
7. It’s design, not strategy, that ignites passion in people. And the magic behind better design and better business is innovation.
8. Make sure the name of your brand is distinctive, brief, appropriate, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, likable, extendible, and protectable.
9. Every brand contributor should develop a personal shockproof brandometer. No decision should be made without asking, “Will it help or hurt the brand?”
10. A living brand is a never-ending play, and every person in the company is an actor. People see the play whenever they experience the brand, and then they tell others.