The following issues are important to consider when building a brand, even if that brand is called YOU, Inc.1. Great Brands tie into our emotions. It is crucial that this link be present and underlying all brand building efforts. If your brand efforts don't touch people at an emotional level, their power to leverage and attract is nil. If your own brand building efforts (You, Inc.) are not emotionally driven then your power to sustain your brand building efforts will be weak!
2. Brands are never-ending stories! Branding is a journey. The path that a brand takes is always a bit unknown. This is a key point. We do not always know what lies in "implicate order." Therefore branding is both recognition and management of present as well as creating space and opportunity for emergent possibilities within context of journey.
3. Brands have lasting value and transcend fad. While it is cool...to be cool, what matters is what lasts. Moving our brand into a position where it has to be cool to survive is sounding a death nell. Coolness is a result of brand acceptance, not brand intention. It will pay to remember that!
4. Great Brands are consistent in appearance. Everything you do to promote your brand needs design consistency. Continuous management of appearance is critical to creating brand equity and leverage. The biggest part of attraction that many people forget, is that people need to know you're there! Brand consistency must be seamless and transparent...the effects are clear, intention is subtle elegance.
5. Brands re-create categories! Look what Blockbuster did for video. Boston Market for fast food. Nike for sports. Starbucks for coffee. Each and every one of these great brands have one thing in common, they became protagonists in view of a simple goal, to reinvent entire category.
6. You can brand ANYTHING, even You! What makes people desire one thing over another? How does one brand attract people over another? Anything can be managed as a brand by following simple rules and by consistently outperforming other items in category. This performance doesn't have to be validated only accepted!