The burger industry might be the best classroom in the world for brand strategy. Five chains. Similar products. Five completely different paths to market leadership—and every single one of them has lessons for your business, regardless of your industry. I recently joined The Hustle to break down exactly how different chains each built dominant positions […]
Brand differentiation is more important now than ever before. You can’t just be better than your competitors — you must be different. Here are five of my resources, all in one handy spot, to help you understand the new challenges and requirements to differentiate and how to achieve greater brand differentiation. […]
Differentiation may quite possibly be the top priority in brand development. In today’s competitive business environment, simply being better than other brands no longer creates a sustainable advantage. Your brand must be different. As you scale-up your brand, it is critical to identify and develop your key brand differentiators. […]
My blog series on “How to Scale-Up Your Brand” continues today with instructions on how to plot your brand positioning. A clear competitive brand positioning is essential to brand-building because it defines who you are selling to, what your business scope is, and how you create unique value for your customers. In this post, you’ll […]
I originally wrote this piece for the Harvard Business Review. It was published on HRB.org on March 28, 2014. As a member of a start-up advisory program, I regularly hear pitches from aspiring technology entrepreneurs. My job is to sort out the companies with potential from those that need to go back to the drawing […]
Pro football season is in full swing now, and as I watch the drama unfold every week on the field, I am once again reminded of how many business insights can be gleaned from the gridiron. […]
At a talk I gave a couple of weeks ago, I explained that companies could connect more emotionally, and more meaningfully, with customers if they constantly addressed the question, “what business are we really in?” The question, first raised by Theodore Levitt a former professor at the Harvard Business School, is one of the most […]
Here are the latest installments in the FREE video series “How to Build a Breakthrough Brand” — teaching you how to build a brand that’s relevant, differentiated, and powerful. […]
“How to Clarify Your Brand Essence” and “How to Position Your Brand” are the newest videos in the “How to Build a Breakthrough Brand” series. […]
“Differentiation is really the best way for all businesses to address consumers’ new value mindset.” That is the key point of the article the folks at Franchise Update Media Group asked me to write. Decrease Your Deal-Dependency with Differentiation is part of their latest newsletter (subscribe here). I’ve heard from so many business leaders who […]