Ironclad Brand Strategy [logo] Ironclad Brand Strategy

What My Book Reveals About Brand, and Why

Transcript


For many years as a brand strategy consultant, I noticed that this word brand took people to wildly different places. And that, because of this, the whole concept of brand was grossly misunderstood and grossly underused, despite the fact that it's a deeply useful tool for any business leader. So I wrote this book really to demystify brand so that all leaders could access it to guide the growth of their business.

There are three parts to the book: the what, the why and the how of brand strategy.

I start by explaining what a brand is and is not. Then I make my case for why leaders should use brand to guide their growth. Lastly, I unveil the Ironclad Method, which is my framework-driven methodology for building a brand, for somebody who's left brained, for somebody who's right brained, for somebody who is a general manager who doesn't know marketing at all, to somebody who is a marketer. All of these leaders can build and use brand to drive growth.

Next in the book I present to you why brand is an essential leadership tool. And the core, under-leveraged truth that I assert is that brand is your business' north star. It's a way of helping you orient your business according to its meaning so that you can lead with intention, clarity, and focus. 

I learned about brand while I was in the formative years of my career. I was in consumer-packaged goods at Clorox, where brand is known as the most valuable asset that we have as a business to differentiate and to guide profitable growth. And so I'm continually astonished outside of consumer-packaged goods how many leaders dismiss brand and instead grow through brute strength, ignoring the power of empathy, human nature, and consumer insights to guide the decisions they make to grow the business. 

When every element of your business is aligned around a single brand strategy, you leverage human nature to work for you. All of the elements of your business work in concert. And this creates a compounding loop of goodness for your customers, for your employees, for your investors, for you as the leader. So having a brand strategy simply makes growth easier and more gratifying. And since I believe that not all brand choices are created equal, I share with you the nine criteria for an optimal ironclad brand.

These are qualities that, when present together, will enable your business to punch above its weight. Then we get to the heart of the book, the how of brand, where I share with you my eight steps of the Ironclad Method so that you, yourself, can build an ironclad brand strategy. I pull back the curtain and show you precisely how I build a brand strategy for my clients one step at a time using the framework-driven, Ironclad Method that I have developed. 

Finally, we spend the last part of the book exploring ways to implement and amplify your brand with everything that you do. Because it turns out that successful brands are not squishy or elusive or superficial. They're logical, proven, and always ready to guide. When you create a brand strategy deliberately and carefully, you're creating your business' north star that can guide all of your decisions. Brand forms your most enduring, competitive advantage. It lights your way to creating value, scale, and purpose.

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