10
Define the Spirit of Your Brand
About fifteen years ago, I lived in San Francisco and owned a Honda Civic. It was my first brand-new car, and I was eager to take good care of it. So I started looking around for a mechanic.
I was not looking forward to the selection process, since my experience to date had been really unpleasant. Since I don’t know a whole lot about cars, I braced myself to be sold unnecessary services by unscrupulous shop owners.
Then someone told me about Pat’s Garage.
Nestled in the technology and industry-heavy South of Market neighborhood was a Honda shop called Pat’s Garage. On the outside, it looked like any other auto shop, with the requisite big sign and grease spots in the driveway.
As soon as I stepped inside, I knew it was a special place. Pat and his staff were welcoming, open, and nonthreatening.
Their office walls were filled with art pieces and postcards from happy customers. The closest thing to a blonde in a bikini on the wall was a picture of Hillary Clinton in S&M garb. I don’t remember the exact message behind the parody, but it was in good taste and not disparaging of either Hillary or women in general.
And the best part? Really, really great coffee. Not the watered-down Folgers crap that you find at most shops, but jet fuel grade, organic and flavorful coffee. Served in real mugs.
The more I got to know Pat, the more I was fascinated by his story of creating a totally unique and valuable business in a crowded niche. He once told me, “My business is not really about cars, it is about people. When I focus on my customers and their needs and concerns, my business thrives.” He chose to service Hondas because “I like the kind of people that drive Hondas. In general, they are nice, funny, down-to-earth, and environmentally aware.”
The home page of his Web site describes the spirit of his brand well: “Located in San Francisco’s burgeoning Third Street Corridor, Pat’s Garage is dedicated to providing the best service and advice for Hondas, Acuras, Subarus, and Hybrids. We’ve been in business for 28,000 years, and besides cultivating an obsession for the technical aspects of our work, we believe in the power of community, education, and strong coffee.”
His business is offbeat, vibrant, welcoming, and delivers excellent technical and customer service. His mechanics are dreamers, poets, artists, and writers, in addition to being experts in their technical field. And Pat is one of the most talented managers I have ever met, and I have met thousands of them in every business you can imagine.
Pat embodies exactly what I mean by the spirit of a brand:
• He provides value to a specific, defined niche.
• His personality clearly shows up in every part of his business, from the message on his answering machine to his Web site to the quality of his work to his physical location.
• He inspires trust, enthusiasm, and evangelism in every one of his customers. You walk away after working with Pat and not only feel great having given him money, but want to tell twelve of your friends about his auto shop.
• He attracts a great team. He values and supports his employees better than most leaders I’ve met in entrepreneurial and corporate settings. He once told me, after explaining how he was paying for his mechanic to take a day off a week to take an art class, “When you learn what is important to people who work for you and support that, no matter if it is related to the work they do for you, they will be happier. That translates into better work and natural loyalty.”
From “All About Me” to “All About Them”
The most powerful way to connect with the people you are meant to serve is by talking in their language.
This will solve the problem of coming up with copy that makes you sound important like:
For the last twenty years, Jim has been a leader in innovating creative solutions for his corporate clients, who all think he is the smartest consultant they have ever met. His numerous degrees from Stanford make him qualified to talk about all kinds of things. . . .
No wonder you want to hurl when you write things like this. Instead, think about this “flash of branding insight” from author Tom Asacker:
 

 

THE FLASH OF BRAND INSIGHT
 

Who am I? What is my brand?
Me.
What is my promise, personality, and positioning?
Me. Me.
What do I want to say? How should I say it?
Me. Me. Me.
If only I can get the details right. If only I can discover my essence.
Me. Me. Me. Me.
■
 

BAM!
 

■
 

 

 

I wonder who they are.
Them.
I wonder what they’re doing.
Them. Them.
I wonder how they’re feeling.
Them. Them. Them.
I wonder how I can make life better for them and make them feel better about themselves.
Them. Them. Them. Them.1

Common Brand Mistakes

Happy Fluffy Terms

I realize that I may offend some of my peers with my sarcastic subhead, but I simply must tell you that your “Happy! Fluffy! Be all you can be! Live your best life!” marketing copy is really irritating. It is as if you had toilet paper hanging out of the back of your pants after leaving a public restroom. It would be irresponsible for me not to mention it.
The reason it is so important is that people generally don’t go searching for “how to live their best life.” They look for help with problems—how to get out of debt, heal their marriage, make their computer work, spend more time with their kids.
I had a great experience with this when working with a coaching client on her brand. We started brainstorming ideas and this is the dialogue that ensued:
“I am really excited by the phrase ‘stop and smell the roses,’ ” she said. “Is that a good brand position?”
I bit my tongue. Then I asked: “What does ‘stop and smell the roses’ mean to you?”
“It means taking time to be in the present, to take time to enjoy your life instead of just rushing through your life.”
“And why is that important?”
“People who pause and breathe seem to feel that they are really participating in life, not just sleeping through life.”
“What happens to people when they are really participating in life?”
“They get more pleasure; they seem to be happier and more fulfilled.”
“And then what happens?”
“They are more successful in their life. They are happy.” Then she paused. “They seem to have fewer regrets.”
I suddenly got the chills. Regret. That is a powerful word.
She continued: “I am working with a lot of men now. Their concern is ‘I don’t want to be the dad in the “Cat’s in the Cradle” song—I know I need to be with my kids, but I am scared, and I want to provide.’ ”
I sat back in my chair and my heart started beating really hard. For a forty-two-year-old person like me, and anyone who grew up listening to this song, you will know immediately what I am talking about. I cannot listen to this song without getting tears in my eyes.
The message, the emotion, the regret in this song shoots right through the heart of men who care about their careers and their kids. So I asked her: “What do you think would speak to men in their forties and fifties more, ‘stop and smell the roses,’ or ‘not being the guy in the “Cat’s in the Cradle” song’?”
Silence.
Obviously, to develop a compelling brand, she has to do some refining. www.dontbetheguyinthecatsinthecradlesong.com may be a bit bulky. But I hope you get my point: people do not respond to generic brand names that cause no emotional reaction. Your job is to reach out and sock your people in the gut with clear, direct language that speaks directly to them.

A Rose by Any Other Name . . .

You have gotten through the tough part of dreaming up a product or service, analyzing your market, defining your niche, and doing a first draft of your business plan. Now you are ready for the fun part: choosing a name for your business. Although certainly a creative exercise, it isn’t always as easy as it seems. Branding expert Suzanne Falter-Barns breaks down the process into two parts:
1. Brand Name: Catchy, easy-to-understand name that says something about what you do.
2. Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Phrase that describes what you do more specifically, preferably addressing a key problem faced by your target market.
Examples I love:
 

FURNITURE THAT FITS: SMALL FURNITURE FOR SMALL SPACES
 

I saw this on a billboard here in Arizona. The URL is actually owned by a company called “A Perfect Space.” But I like it as an example of directly addressing a problem faced by people living in small spaces. I think they could have raging success targeting people in New York City or San Francisco where you spend 82 percent of your salary on rent for an apartment the size of a small storage locker.
 

AREA 51: TOP SECRET RESEARCH FACILITY
 

I realize that this is a government-run facility more known for UFO conspiracy theories than a spunky brand name. But what if they had chosen to call it the Nellis Air Force Range Research Center? It hardly has the same effect. If I were a famous researcher aiming to take over the world, or build a better bomb or whatever they do inside there, I certainly would want to be part of a “top secret research facility.”
 

GARAGE TECHNOLOGY VENTURES: WE START UP START-UPS:
 

EARLY STAGE VENTURE CAPITAL
 

This is a good example of a clean, clear, and crisp business and brand name. You don’t have to guess what they do. The “garage” part of their brand is very pertinent to their target market, Silicon Valley technology start-ups. Those in this community would love to grow big like a few famous people who started in a garage: Bill and Dave in their Palo Alto garage (now known as Hewlett-Packard) and the Steves (Jobs and Wozniak who started Apple).
 

We can also learn a lot from good book titles. Granted, the titles are probably longer than you would want for a USP, but they do speak directly to their target audience and the problems they face. The bold part of the title could be considered the brand, the rest the USP.
 

MADE TO STICK: WHY SOME IDEAS SURVIVE AND OTHERS DIE
 

This book by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, which became a New York Times bestseller, walks its own talk as it draws in anyone who has to communicate ideas for a living with a compelling title and intriguing promise.
 

BOOK YOURSELF SOLID: THE FASTEST, EASIEST, AND MOST
RELIABLE SYSTEM FOR GETTING MORE CLIENTS THAN YOU
 

CAN HANDLE EVEN IF YOU HATE MARKETING AND SELLING
 

 

Author Michael Port works in two major problems people in his target market face: lack of clients and a deep loathing of sales and marketing.
 

In The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki recommends some guidelines for choosing a name (my explanations are in parentheses):
• Have a first initial that’s early in the alphabet (you will be in a directory, may as well be in the top)
• Avoid numbers (too hard to know how to spell: 1 or one?)
• Pick a name with “verb potential” (think Google)
• Sound different (don’t choose a name close to a competitor or other, unrelated brand which will get confusing)
• Sound logical (match your business name with what you actually do)
• Avoid the trendy (probably not a good idea to call your firm Sick and Phat Technology Services)
I would now add my two cents:
• Choose a name with an available URL. These days, your Web presence is critical. And you don’t want to have a different URL from your brand name. If you can’t find a perfect match, it isn’t the end of the world. Remember, it doesn’t have to be matchy-matchy, it just has to go.
• Don’t be fluffy or cute. See example above, for coaches like me tend to go off into happy-fluffy-lala-land when choosing business names, with ridiculous results like “Be all that you can be coaching: Find the YOU in YOU!” (No, it doesn’t exist yet, but just wait!)
• Don’t use a misspelled word. Kawasaki mentions that Krispy Kreme is misspelled and sells products that are neither crispy nor creamy. I don’t know if the misspelling has anything to do with their recent tanking stock, but it couldn’t have helped. Please, please avoid names like “Kute Klocks and Krafts” (the USP would be fun: Ridiculous stuff you don’t need that make perfect gifts for annoying relatives).
• Focus on the benefits to your target market. You may think “Anal Accounting” is clever and catchy, but your target market may care more about “Accepting Accounting: Cleans up your financial mess without making you feel like a loser.”

Everything for Everyone

As the saying goes, if you don’t stand for something, you will go for anything. Trying to market to everyone who could possibly buy your products or services will water down your message and actually repel potential clients.
In chapter 9, you looked at the importance of defining a niche to work with that both needs your services and has the wherewithal to pay you.
As hard as this is to do in the business planning stage, it gets even harder when it comes to developing your brand.
A common reaction I get when I work with clients at this stage is something like: “I know I said I only wanted to work with African American men aged fifty-five who graduated with advanced degrees from Columbia and work in financial services, but since I am going through the trouble of setting up a Web site, can’t I also mention my interest in teenage farming entrepreneurs from eastern Iowa?”
If you want to have a clean, compelling brand that attracts your ideal clients, you have to be targeted.
And remember, just because you choose to start your business with a tight focus and specific brand, it does not mean that you have to serve this market for the rest of your life. You can grow and expand, create subbrands and complementary products.
You just have to start somewhere, and that is with a clearly identified niche served by a great brand.

It Doesn’t Have to Be Matchy-Matchy, It Just Has to Go

I am a fool for makeover shows where frumpy housewives or people with a fashion sense stuck in the eighties get a sleek, updated look. On one of my favorites, What Not to Wear, stylist Stacy London always tells people who are afraid of pairing an orange purse with a black belt and teal shoes, “It doesn’t have to be matchy-matchy, it just has to go.”
The same is true for your brand. You want people to look at your overall presence on the Web, see you in person, check out the sales page for your products, read your blog, and listen to your podcast and say, “Yeah, that feels like Arnie, the Legal Sanity guy.” Or “That blog has a Skellie look and voice,” referring to the smart and talented Australian blogger who writes for a number of sites including FreelanceSwitch.com, Anywired.com, and Skelliewag.org. Or “that project definitely has a Seth Godin vibe.”
But don’t worry if not every part of your brand is perfectly integrated. It takes some time and money to harmonize the look and feel of your print and online materials, and when you are starting out, you may need that money elsewhere, like getting your product or service launched. People will forgive an inelegant temporary design as long as your content is clear, focused, and zippy.

“Grown Up” Corporatespeak

If you have come from a corporate environment, you have been taught that to earn your annual bonus, you need to take perfectly clear language and add jargon, buzzwords, and a series of legal disclaimers to make a point.
This approach will repel real customers in the real world faster than your teenager will leave the room if you try to discuss sex education.
I have a suggestion: get a gang member coach.
When I recruited for the martial arts program that I mentioned in chapter 3, I walked the streets of the Mission District of San Francisco, talking to kids to encourage them to join our program. Some were pretty hard-core, either in or on the verge of joining gangs. I learned very quickly that they had zero tolerance for touchy-feely language, and preferred to “keep it real.”
So one day, as I was sitting in a conference room listening to an excruciatingly obtuse presentation by a senior manager, it dawned on me: My kids could coach the b.s. right out of this presentation in five seconds flat!
Imagine the scenario:
Joe, VP of Alliance Partnerships: “And as you can see from my deck, by creating a strategic partnership that focuses on key enablers of the new paradigm, we can leverage out-of-the-box thinking and deliver an integrated solution to our end-users.”
Juan, the Gang Member Coach: “Joe, what the f**k are you talking about?”
In five minutes or less, Joe, the stammering vice president, would have to explain in clear, plain terms what he was trying to say.
Visualizing your gang member coach is a great way to ensure that you do not write marketing copy that is convoluted, dull, and boring.
Write as though your life depended on it. It does.

Keys to Building a Killer Brand

The best way to develop the elements of your brand is to review all of the information you excavated from your hard work. When you have a deep sense of what work you want to do, and which business you want to open, there are a few things you want to do that will really make you stand out from the crowd.

Be the Sharpest Knife in the Drawer

A few years ago, I hosted a holiday dinner at my house and my mom helped me cook. After riffling through my kitchen drawers, she pulled out half a dozen dull and inferior knives, all of which would pulverize a tomato instead of creating crisp and clean slices.
“Do you have a good knife?” my mom asked.
“Um—not really,” I replied, realizing that my shoddy collection of ten-bucks-for-a-set-of-twelve knives would never satisfy her culinary needs.
Thankfully, the next Christmas, she bought me a beautiful and razor-sharp cooking knife that made cutting through carrots feel like slicing through butter. Soon I was using it for everything, and wondered how I ever lived without it.
As a small business owner, you should make your clients feel the same about working with you.
Because despite all the other things that you worry about when setting up your business, the most valuable and enduring asset you have is providing the absolute best service that solves not only the articulated needs of your customers, but also the unspoken ones.
So how can you make sure you are a sharp knife yourself ?
1. Choose the right business. As hard as you try, you cannot manufacture passion. Choose a business that allows you to express your best skills, talents, and interests. This enthusiasm will permeate your brand and draw customers to you. You want to make sure that you will enjoy your business as you are growing it, not just when you get to a certain level of financial success.
2. Be fiercely dedicated to learning. All fields of business are rapidly growing and changing. Learn as much as you can about your profession so that you provide the absolute best service. Take classes. Read books. Surf the Internet. Connect with other professionals in your field. Your love of learning will keep you fresh and alive, and ensure that you solve new problems in new and effective ways.
3. Always ask yourself “What would really help my customer?” In my years as a corporate consultant, I would say that at least 50 percent of the time, clients would bring me in with a predetermined idea of what solution I should provide to solve their problems. But after a short conversation, it became clear that following their prescriptive path would not solve the problem, it would either do nothing or exacerbate it. If they were insistent on following a path I didn’t agree with, I would graciously turn down the work and offer other resources. It is never worth it to take a big check for a project that you know is doomed from the start. (And since it will fail spectacularly, who will get blamed? The errant executive? Of course not. The incompetent consultant!)
4. Avoid clients who are not a match with your ideal profile. Martha Beck humorously calls these folks “life-sucking squids,” due to their tendency to wrap their needy tentacles around you and drain your life force. You will not be of good service to someone you don’t enjoy working with; it is better to pass them on to someone who can truly serve them.
5. Check out your competition. Regularly benchmark yourself and your company with others in your field. Find out how you stack up, and learn from the things others are doing right and wrong. You don’t have to aim to crush all your rivals, you just want to honestly assess your place in the pack of people serving similar clients. Being around smart, effective competitors is great motivation for stepping up your game.

Create an Experience for Your Customers

Your customers evaluate your brand not just by the usability of your Web site or look of your logo, but by the entire experience they have with your business from the first time they make contact.
I understood this clearly with a positive experience at a retail store.
As soon as I walked in the Apple store to buy an iPod, I felt very engaged. The atmosphere was simple and stylish, and I didn’t feel overwhelmed by screaming advertisements or mounds and mounds of computer equipment. A friendly and knowledgeable young man came up to me and in a very relaxed way asked what I was looking for. After I told him I was looking for an iPod, he steered me over to an easy-to-understand chart and asked a few simple questions:
What was I planning on using it for?

How much music or how many movies was I planning to download?

Did I prefer white or black?
The technically savvy among you may groan loudly at my lack of technical finesse, but I just want someone to listen carefully to what my intended use of the product will be, use their vast technical expertise to recommend what I should buy, and stick out their hand to accept my credit card.
And that is exactly what happened at the store. This cute techno sales kid got me the exact product that I wanted, put it in my hands in less than five minutes, rang my sale with a handheld remote credit card processor so that I didn’t have to stand in line to pay for it, and did nothing to hype me into an extended warranty plan.
To top it off, while I was being taken care of in the aisle, my husband and baby son were sitting on comfortable, kid-sized beanbag chairs at a low table and playing educational games on Macintosh computers. My husband was so enchanted by the whole thing that he was ready to buy my son a new Mac right then and there. I had to remind him that our son had just barely started to walk and talk and that perhaps we should wait until he doesn’t try to eat the mouse before buying him a computer.
This is just one example of a retail location that does so many things right, and takes its target customer’s needs into account with its entire sales model, a key part of its brand spirit. They don’t force you to buy, they seduce you into buying.
 

What are the lessons to learn from these examples as you plan your business?
• Respect your customer’s style. Even if you are a fifth-degree black belt in Java programming and could slice electrons with your bare fists, save your technobabble for someone who cares. When you see a clueless, pressed-for-time, and credit-card-bearing customer like me walk through your door, become a consultant and help me make an informed purchase without forcing me to listen to information I don’t understand or care about.
• Make it easy for the customer to buy from you. Analyze the steps that your customers have to take to purchase a product from you. If you have a Web-based business, how can you make it “1-Click Amazon” simple? For a retail store, how can you be like Apple and avoid the line at the cash register altogether?
• Let people mess around with your stuff. I learned from a savvy salesperson that the key to getting someone emotionally ready to buy is to let them “test drive” your product. Find ways to let them try on, hold in their hands, eat, listen to, and play with your products. If you are a service-based company, offer a free sample of a great audio program, assessment tool, or video.
• Don’t be afraid to be funky and use humor. One of the appeals of the blogging world is the free speech, humor, and open communication. This medium is growing because people are hungry for real conversations with real people. Let your true self show through in your business. As mentioned before, no corporatespeak allowed. You can still be professional, smart, and fun.
• Use color, art, and style in your brand. We are sensual creatures! The more we see, hear, taste, touch, and feel beautiful, rich, colorful, and pleasing things, the more engaged we are with them. Make your facilities, Web site, product packaging, business cards and all other marketing collateral pleasing to look at. You don’t have to spend a fortune, just engage a smart and talented artist to help you.
• Hire genuine, caring, and knowledgeable employees. I have no patience for gum-chewing, irreverent, and bored employees. Anywhere. Make sure that you, and your employees if you have them, respect your customers. Care about them. Listen to them and thank them for their business. My worst pet peeve? When I politely say “thank you” after purchasing an item in a store and a bored-looking employee rolls her eyes and says “You’re welcome.” Make your customers feel like rock stars, not lucky to do business with you.

Living Brand: Sergio Photographer

For my wedding ceremony, I was looking for a great photographer to capture pictures that we could treasure forever. I have high creative standards when it comes to photographs because my dad is a professional photographer and I grew up in the darkroom.
So I did the usual thing, Googled “wedding photographers in Arizona.” After looking at a number of sites that had the typical boring staged shots, I stumbled upon Sergio Photographer’s site. I was really taken aback by the photos—they had energy, color, and life, and they communicated a lot of emotion. I was intrigued.
I called Sergio and immediately felt comfortable. He was accessible, easy to talk to, and asked lots of good questions about what we were looking to capture with our wedding photos. We ended up hiring him, and I soon saw a number of things he does well that we can all learn from as we develop our brands:
1. He has a specific niche. Obviously, as a talented photographer, Sergio can take shots of just about anything. But he chose weddings because of the specific emotional content of the events, as well as the workflow that fits with his lifestyle. Based on his portfolio, I am sure that if you asked him he would also say he loves to work with nontraditional, multicultural, creative, and family-oriented people.
2. He has a clearly defined style. Rather than taking posed “say cheese for the camera” shots, Sergio acts as a photojournalist, capturing the movement and action of a wedding. The intimate father/daughter shots in his portfolio are some of my favorites. I cry when I look at them, even though I don’t know the people in the photos, because I can feel the tender emotion in the moment.
3. He is doing the work he is meant to do. You cannot spend one minute with Sergio and not know that he is meant to have a camera in his hand. He loves what he does, and that love shines through in every part of his business. And he is damn good at it.
4. He has great partners. Sergio often shoots with his partner Kelly Rashka, who also worked on our wedding. She is an amazing artist in her own right, and the two of them work really well together. Both flow seamessly through many different situations and complement each other’s strengths and shortfalls.
5. He understands that the way he works is also part of his brand. One of the best things about Sergio is that he gets along with anyone. When we first met, he said, “The way I want you to feel about me at your wedding is not as a photographer, but as a family member.” And that is exactly what happened. He laughed and joked with my husband’s relatives and my relatives, sampled the roast mutton and fry bread (it is a Navajo thing!), played with the kids, and was quietly respectful with the grandmas. This ease made everyone relax, which, of course, is the key to getting great candid photos.
6. He has clearly defined packages. Once we decided to go with him (which for me took about thirty seconds), he made it really easy to buy. He outlined a very clear wedding package and sent an organized contract right away. That made me feel comfortable, knowing that if he was organized in his business he was most likely going to show up to the wedding on time and deliver the photos as promised. Which he did, right when he said he would.
7. He provides value-added services. In addition to standard photos, Sergio creates slick slideshows and gorgeous wedding books. This not only gives him more things to sell, but cements his reputation as a high-end photographer since the books are works of art, worthy of any coffee table, even for those who are not related to the happy couple.
8. He charges what he is worth. He is not the cheapest person on the block, but is worth every penny. By charging a good rate, he ensures that those he works with value his services. Because he is not busy running from cheap gig to cheap gig to pay the bills, he has time to plan and prepare for outstanding events.
9. He has a consistent look and feel in all his materials. His Web site, printed materials, and blog all go together. They capture the spirit of who he is. He describes himself this way: “I have been a wedding photographer for about five years and I love doing this more than anything else in my life. I enjoy every single aspect of my job. From the moment I get an inquiry and everything throughout until I deliver the album after the wedding.”
Funny, that is exactly what I said about him as a customer! That is true brand harmony.
Like many of you, Sergio used to be a cog in a corporate machine. Fed up, he jumped ship to launch his business. Each of us, in our own way, can learn from Sergio about showing up in our businesses in a big way.
You can find Sergio at sergiophotographer.com. Look at his site and tell me if you don’t immediately get a sense of his brand spirit.

Do You Have to Be an Expert to Have a Strong Brand?

One of the things that trips up a lot of people establishing a new brand is the concept of “expert.”
If you feel like you have to have three advanced degrees and twenty years’ experience to have credibility as a business owner, here are some alternative “expert” definitions:
1. The “no one would call them an expert because they are too young but they really are an expert” expert. Ben Zweig, a very enthusiastic “folding expert,” demonstrated proper shirt folding techniques on YouTube, at the tender age of eleven years old. What he lacked in years on the planet, he made up for with exuberance, charm, and a true knack for making a great instructional video.
2. The “low on training or formal education but high on results” expert. Thirty minute meal cooking phenomenon Rachael Ray is a perfect example of this. She was not formally trained at an elite cooking school or five-star restaurant; she honed her skills while preparing food demonstrations in a mall. Now she perkily flings food around her kitchen on her way to a multimedia empire. It doesn’t hurt to have Oprah as a backer, but I do believe that it was a lot of her own ganas (inner fire, drive) that got her noticed by major media. She is a master at being open, friendly, accessible, and practical, and this adds to her appeal.
3. The “been there done that” expert. This kind of expert has learned a tremendous amount from real-life experience, not formal education. They often share their expertise through analogies and examples, not textbook citations. Sometimes the experts from this area gain experience in areas outside of work, for example the child abuse expert who grew up in an abusive household.
4. The “been to the right schools and has the right advanced academic degrees” expert. They do exist, and thank goodness. There is real value in seasoned, well-read, and analytical experts who know volumes about their subject matter. The caveat I would propose for experts with this pedigree in the business world is that they should be able to demonstrate results from all of their book smarts. All of us have probably come across a cultured genius with more letters after their name than in their name who is also a tremendous windbag. The key is not just knowing a lot about a given field, but knowing how to apply what you know in a practical business situation.
5. The “has a combination of academic and ‘been there done that’ experience along with a boatload of enthusiasm” expert. My aim in giving some texture to the definition of the word “expert” is to encourage you to expand your view of what it means to be credible. It is okay to stand up and say with pride, “I really do know and care a lot about this subject and you should listen to me!” If you have the results to back it up, you have just as much right to say this as does a postdoctorate from Stanford.

Building a Brand Case Study: Rachael Ray

2007 was the year of 30-Minute Meal perky cooking diva Rachael Ray. It seems that her brand and media presence jumped from a whisper (a few cooking shows and cookbooks) to a scream (a talk show, magazine, product line, pet advice, etc.) all in a short period of time.
I think she is kind of spunky and I admire her business growth so she doesn’t bother me a lot, but I know that there are some people who feel she is the human equivalent of nails scratching on a blackboard. Maybe there is such a thing as too perky.
Regardless of how you feel about her personally, I think we can all learn a few things about building a brand from her meteoric success:
• Find a real need in the marketplace. So many stressed and overworked moms and dads long for a way to cook healthy and fast meals for their families. Rachael saw this need when she started out as a humble manager and cook at a food equipment store in Albany, New York, and started offering “30-Minute Meal” cooking classes as a way to increase sales. They became so popular that she realized she was on to something big, and started writing cookbooks.
• To get national media, start local. After her cooking classes exploded, she got some local press coverage. This caught the eye of an Albany television producer who invited her to do a weekly “30-Minute Meals” segment for the local news. As she was promoting her first book, she got booked on the Today show, and an interview on a public broadcasting station caught the interest of a Food Network executive who invited her to start the first of her four cooking shows. Many people want big, national media immediately. Start in your own backyard, and you may be surprised when the media heavies come calling.
• Be yourself. I find it hard to believe that her smiling personality is all an act (or is she really like Martha Stewart behind closed doors?). A big part of what draws people to Rachael is her unpretentiousness in the kitchen. She makes people feel that they, too, could have fun in the kitchen while preparing a quick and healthy meal—and without being a Cordon Bleu- trained chef. Her personality is her brand.
• Build a product set around a core concept. For Rachael, it was the 30-Minute Meals that started as a class, then moved to a cookbook, then a food network show, then a series of shows, then a magazine and a national daytime talk show. The idea is to take a great fundamental idea and build a whole set of products and services around it.
• Align yourself with influential people who will help get you where you want to go. I am not sure how the introduction happened, but Rachael Ray somehow connected with Oprah. After appearing on Oprah’s show a few times, she struck a deal to have Oprah’s Harpo Productions produce her daytime talk show. I have a feeling that aligning with Oprah was a very conscious choice on Rachael’s part, given the target demographic of Oprah’s viewers.
So while you may faint at the thought of ever using a term like “Yum-o” or “E.V.O.O.,” don’t lose the branding lessons of the most exposed cooking sensation of the year.
You should feel as comfortable in your brand as in a well-worn pair of pajamas. You are not posturing or pretending or positioning. You are sharing the best of you with your people, your market, your tribe.
Bring it on in Technicolor.