Whether branding your business or yourself – here are the top 10 things we believe most about what drives success.

1. Everything you do creates an image and winning companies do everything they can to manage the images and perceptions being developed about them. This is branding.
2. Branding is not about where you are today but where you want to go…your strategic decisions should always be a stretch toward your vision.
3. People buy on emotion, not just facts. Your brand strategy decisions need to reinforce the emotional quotient.
4. Branding is a top strategic imperative, not just a marketing and communications issue. Your corporate branding decisions should guide everyone in the organization every day.
5. Operational and resource impediments (talent, product mix, resources) must be identified and addressed to execute brand strategies fully.
6. Your goals should be clarity, consistency and comprehensiveness in the brand strategies and subsequent communications about the brand.
7. Your executives must be visible champions of branding activities. Their behavior is a very powerful influencer on branding success internally and externally.
8. Employees are always a company’s best branding tool. When your employees become “brand ambassadors” – living and promoting the strategic brand values – the brand will thrive. No amount of external communications activities can build a strong brand the way employees can.
9. Successful branding isn’t just about making decisions that feel right, it is about making decisions current and prospective customers find believable, achievable and differentiating by you.
10. Branding is in the minds of others and their perceptions are real. If your brand concepts don’t ring true to your audiences, your efforts will fail. The most important thing you can do in branding is listen.