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Aggressive Small Business Marketing & Advertising
Showing archives from 04/2005.
What’s with this branding crap, anyway?
Posted by Michael Cage on Thursday, April 21, 2005When I was a kid, there were a handful of misguided entrepreneurs in my neighborhood. My mom called 'em "no good drug dealing scum" ... but that's not important for this story.
What is important is how those drug dealers remind me of "The Branders."
You see, the worst of the dealers would "get high on their own supply." They were wrapped up in the culture of what they did. Instead of being able to talk intelligently about what they do (or just about anything) ... they'd make sucking sounds and talk about "how good their stuff was, man." To a naive outsider, they looked mysterious and cool. To someone with some smarts, they looked like fools.
Not unlike The Branders.
The Branders will give cool and mysterious explanations of what they do and how it is supposed to help a business. But usually, under the haze of thick smoke and giggles, the substance just ain't there.
Fortunately, every once in a while clarity shines through.
It shouldn't surprise me that one of my favorite bloggers, the brilliant Tom Asacker, has posted a definition of branding that pretty closely matches mine. The "smoke their own dope" Branders will probably hate it, but I think Tom's dead-on.
Toms definition: "A brand is the expectation of someone or something delivering a certain feeling by way of an experience."
My definition: "What a person feels to be true of themselves when interacting with the product/marketing/business." (See Small Businesses: Direct Marketing OR Branding?)
Since reading Tom's, I'm amending my definition to start "What a person feels or expects to feel to be..."
Anyway...
Two recommendations. First, read Tom's full post. It's got some goodies. And second, Tom has a book out you should buy. I've ordered it, haven't read it yet (it's pre-pub), but going by his blog... it's going to be great.
There are 5 comments, add your own!4/11/05 Carnival of the Capitlists
Posted by Michael Cage on Monday, April 11, 2005TJ's web log has this week's Carnival of the Capitalists.
There are 0 comments, add your own!Get the Edge in Business
Posted by Michael Cage on Monday, April 11, 2005The best post I've read all year, and I missed it the first time around.
From Mark Cuban:
The ultimate competition. Would you like to play a game called Eat Your Lunch. We are going to face off. My ability to execute on an idea vs yours. My ability to subvert your business vs your ability to keep it going. My ability to create ways to remove any reason for your business to exist vs your ability to do the same to me. My ability to know what you are going to do, before you do it. Who gets there first? Best of all, this game doesn't have a time limit. It's forever. It never ends. It's the ultimate competition. It's the sport of business. It's not for everyone, but I love it.
Read the full post here.
There are 0 comments, add your own!Success In Business (from Calcanis)
Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, April 08, 2005Terrific post from Jason Calcanis on success in business.
The older I get the more I realize that business is about three very basic things:You have those things it really doesn't matter what the idea is... you can change your ideas all day long, in fact evolving is what you're supposed to do in business. However, you can't substitute hustle, passion, or resiliency.
- Hustle
- Passion
- Resiliency
FWIW, I think those three things are critical to SUCCESS in business. But they are not business itself. It's an important distinction, as I've witnessed plenty of folks with numbers 1, 2 and 3 in spades... who nonetheless were applying them to a miserable business concept and doomed to fail.
There are 1 comments, add your own!Write an essay, win a cafe?
Posted by Michael Cage on Thursday, April 07, 2005Gotta check this out, a couple is giving away their cafe plus $50,000 to the person who writes the best essay starting with: "I'd like to own Ma and Pa's cafe because..."
Aside from being a cute story, it begs the following question:
"What could you 'essay-off' in your business, and how could you leverage it into killer local publicity?"
Found at USA Today article here, via Bill Myers.
There are 3 comments, add your own!