It’s only January, and I can’t believe I’ve found my favorite book of the year already: Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands by David Vinjamuri (available in March 2008). Of course I’m biased, because branding is a huge focus for me at the moment. But it fits in with my all-time favorites because, at least two or three times mid-chapter, I put my advance copy down and ran to the computer to make changes to the draft of my new website (More on that later.)
It also makes my favorites list (see the whole list on www.womensdish.com) because it reads like a collection of Vanity Fair articles–entertaining portraits of individuals and how they built their companies. The six individuals are:
John Peterman (The J. Peterman Co.)
Craig Newmark (Craigslist)
Gary Erickson (Clif Bar and Co.)
Myrian Zaoui and Eric Malka (The Art of Shaving)
Gert Boyle (Columbia Sportswear)
Julie Aigner-Clark (The Baby Einstein Co.)
Roxanne Quimby (Burt’s Bees)
While I learned a bit from all of them, I have to be honest. The only profile I found lacking was the one on The Art of Shaving. Perhaps that’s because it was the only brand with which I was unfamiliar. Or maybe it’s because its market/retail aspect has no relationship to my business. I don’t know, but some of the highlights/insights from the rest include:
Craig Newmark/Julie Aigner-Clark. Not everyone is meant to be a CEO. Craig likes resolving the disputes on Craigslist (The idea of someone getting a personal admonition from Craig for misuse of the service just made me laugh, thinking of the person’s reaction) . Julie is back being a teacher after selling her company to Disney. While they both are still working when they don’t have to, they are pretty much back to their normal lives, with minimal interest in the material things in life. Note to Craig, though: It sounds like you have a very nice girlfriend, and you really should take her on a vacation. Craig and Julie both started a business to solve problems plaguing them and their friends. This is something that recurs in almost all the profiles and is a good question for any entrepreneur to answer: Is your widget/service solving someone’s problem?
John Peterman. His story was interesting because he had to handle a unique issue in which his exclusive brand suffered because it became less exclusive, thanks to Jerry Seinfeld. Yet, he was willing and had the drive to start over from scratch.
Gert Boyle. The beginnings of Columbia Sportswear could be traced back to creating a product to meet a client’s needs. Columbia also was asked by a customer early on to design a fishing vest, and that item made the business boom. I also found it interesting to hear the background behind the famous commercials showing Boyle putting her son through the car wash to test her gear. One could quite imagine that Gert might have thought about doing it for real.
Roxanne Quimby. While her honey and candles did great, it wasn’t until she dabbled in lip balm that the business exploded. She went with it. Like Boyle, she was open to what her customers were telling her and willing to change direction.
Gary Erickson. His chapter demonstrated how, sometimes, listening to your gut and your employees might help you in the long run because bigger doesn’t always mean better. At one point, he truly thought the next step was to sell out to a big company. But he decided to try it on his own and, buoyed by the launch of the Luna Bar, was able to grow his market share despite not having a fortune 100 behind the company.
Vinjamuri sums up the lessons to be learned as follows:
Rule No. 1 – Do sweat the small stuff.
Rule No. 2 – Pick a fight.
Rule No. 3 – Be your own customer.
Rule No. 4 – Be unnaturally persistent.
Rule No. 5 – Build a myth.
Rule No. 6 – Be faithful.
I wholeheartedly agreed with his list and felt I could check off four of the six items. But it was Rules No. 2 and No. 5 that made me drop the book and hit the computer. I realized in our “aboutâ€? section I had some bland “blah blah blahâ€? language describing the founding of the Downtown Women’s Club (It’s still up there. The new site is coming later this month). Yet when I spoke to potential customers or journalists about the club, I told a completely different story about how existing women’s business groups at that time turned younger women away and even today don’t use technology to make networking convenient for my busy schedule–and those were the two primary reasons I founded my company. I also usually mention some of the more personal challenges I’ve had (the good, the bad and the funny) to demonstrate why I am my own best customer. So, thanks to Accidental Branding, in the new version of our website, I’ll be telling it like it was.
Will I build an extraordinary brand like the folks listed above? Who knows. But, it may be time to reread Made to Stick (another all-time favorite) to ensure I’m doing all that I can.
The Top Shelf Bottom Line: Must read for any entrepreneur trying to build his or her brand. Enough said.
*Addendum. After hearing me rave, a friend gave me a similar book called Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers’ Trust from Wedgwood to Dell by Nancy F. Koehn. It’s similar in that it follows a handful of entrepreneurs who built extraordinary brands. As a Harvard Business School Press publication, it’s written more like a textbook than a collection of magazine articles. That has its advantages, as it contains more hard data. But I used a 4-Hour Workweek recommendation and only read the chapters that interested me–Estee Lauder and Starbucks–and bits of the other chapters that were interesting historically, as well as the wrap-up at the end. Since it was written pre-Web 2.0 and focused more on people selling products, it had more historical interest than utility for my business.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 9:39 am and is filed under Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.6 Responses to “How to Create an Extraordinary Brand”
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January 11th, 2008 at 10:53 am
[…] Top Shelf Reading Picks wrote an interesting post today on How to create an extraordinary brandHere’s a quick excerpt a client’s needs. They were asked by a customer early on to design a fishing vest, and that item made Read the rest of this great post here […]
January 14th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Your summing up reminds everyone the basic (and true) principles of business.
Gireesh Kumar Sharma
Recognize, Nourish and Retain Talent
http://www.empxtrack.com/
January 14th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Diane, don’t you think that by reading the chapters you’re interested only, you might be missing other important information within any given book that could be shared with your readers for their benefit? Javier.-
January 14th, 2008 at 11:08 am
TakeoffZone -
You are right. Some things will be missed. But, it’s about prioritizing. In this case I skipped sections about “manufacturing” businesses that would have little impact on my business model. Or in the Trump book I skipped/skimmed the bits on managing your personal finances (a quick glance showed that I didn’t need much advice in that area). I do tend to mention what I’m skipping/skimming and why (esp. if it’s the main book I’m reviewing, and not a small mention or addendum) with caveats that those sections might be meaningful to someone else. But, I will definitely make sure I do so in the future. (And if the book is truly great, I don’t skip anything, even if I don’t think at first it might be relevant.) Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
Diane
January 16th, 2008 at 11:06 am
HI Diane,
love it, love it, love it! I loved your article and I can’t wait to get my hands on that book. I’m in my second year of designing, manufacturing and expanding a new line of protective baby wear, totally new and original, but man or man is it hard to come up with the right branding concepts! Specially for a know nothing about branding fool like myself! (I’m an environmental scientist and stay at home mom, but somehow I ended up here so I’m sticking with it!)
Thanks!
January 17th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Hi Marina -
If you need more marketing/branding, pick up Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. And also something by Seth Godin.
Diane