So you want to be an entrepreneur. You have your killer idea that is going to make your fortune. You have begun to put your plan of action in place. Naturally, you will have done your research. There is a demand for your product, and you are convinced you can make the whole venture a success.
What are you going to call your product, or indeed your company? Choosing a name is essential because it will define your product way into the future. Now get ready for the really hard work. You have to establish your business and build it up so that it is the best business it can be. You have to build your brand so that it becomes a household name.
Famous brands, though, are more than just a name. They have a solid reputation for reliability, honesty, and fair-dealing that takes years to achieve. Once people know your product is good value and that your company provides superior customer service, they will buy from you again. Everything you do to promote your company must be another step towards forging its reputation as a premium producer. Make sure it’s your company that gets the repeat orders and the recommendations.
Think about the top brands in tech that we all know: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter. The world would be a very different place without Amazon or Facebook. These are companies of the Internet age, each of which spotted an opportunity, filled it, and promoted themselves until they became instantly recognizable brands. Do not be envious of the success of these brands. Resolve instead to make your brand as easily remembered as they are.
Your brand should reflect your personality and your outlook on life. You must believe in the image you are promoting for your brand. That image must connect with the buying public. Once you have established your trade name and it has become well-known and permanently linked with your brand, then you will have succeeded. Consider Virgin and how closely it is associated with its founder Sir Richard Branson. He stamped his personality and beliefs on the company right at the start and has maintained that influence up to the present day.
When a company has established itself and its values are well-known, it will appeal to customers who have the same values. They will form a loyal base for the brand. Companies should make sure that they reward that loyalty by not deviating from their original values. Customers can be fickle and do not appreciate being taken for granted. Customers will share in the founder’s passion for their business and enjoy the sense of being part of an exciting, innovative venture.
Building a profitable personal brand online is not a sprint, and something that happens over night. Don’t aim for perfection early on. Instead allow your brand to evolve naturally over time and focus on providing massive value and over deliver to your target audience. Then you will get more clear over your message and brand as well. Always remember that!
Navid Moazzez
A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is—it is what consumers tell each other it is.
Scott Cook
All of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.
Tom Peters
If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.
Howard Schultz
A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.
Seth Godin
Your brand is not what you sell.
John Iwata
Your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room – remember that. And more importantly, let’s discover why!
Chris Ducker
A brand’s strength is built upon its determination to promote its own distinctive values and mission.
Jean-Noel Kapferer
It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have.Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything, and more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Branded content is created for a company. A content brand is created for a valuable company.
Drew Davis
If you can’t find your own center and love for yourself, nothing else works.
Chris Brogan
Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.
Sir Richard Branson
The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability.
Simon Mainwaring
Your culture is your brand.
Tony Hsieh
The most important thing to remember is you must know your audience.
Lewis Howes
Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.
Paul Rand
At the center of your being you have the answer: you know who you are and you know what you want.
Lao Tzu
Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO
Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.
Jason Hartman
Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time.
Elon Musk
If I lost control of the business I’d lose myself–or at least the ability to be myself. Owning myself is a way to be myself.
Oprah Winfrey
Too many companies want their brands to reflect some idealized, perfected image of themselves. As a consequence, their brands acquire no texture, no character, and no public trust.
Richard Branson, Virgin Group Founder
Truth is a point of view, but authenticity can’t be faked.
Peter Gruber
Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.
Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway CEO
Even individuals need to develop a brand for themselves …. Whatever your area of expertise, you can take steps to make people think of YOU when they think of your field.
Accelepoint Webzine
Focus on building the best possible business. If you are great, people will notice and opportunities will appear.
Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks Owner
To find yourself, think for yourself.
Socrates
For better or for worse, our company is a reflection of my thinking, my character, my values.
Rupert Murdoch, Founder of News Corporation
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
Dr. Suess
If your business is not a brand, it is a commodity.
Donald Trump, President of The Trump Organization
If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.
Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO
Your personal brand is what differentiates you from others.
unknown
Personal Branding Quotes
All of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.
Tom Peters
If you’re not branding yourself, you can be sure others do it for you.
unknown
Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records. Going on a date? Chances are that your “blind” date has Googled your name. Going to a job interview? Ditto.
Tim Ferriss
In a world where you can be anything, be yourself.
Etta Turner
A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
Jeff Bezos
A brand’s strength is built upon its determination to promote its own distinctive values and mission.
Professor Jean-Noel Kapferer
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernhard Shaw
It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have. Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything, and more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level.
Gary Vaynerchuk
A great brand is a story that’s never completely told. A brand is a metaphorical story that connects with something very deep – a fundamental appreciation of mythology. Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience.
Scott Bedbury
The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability.
Simon Mainwaring
Start by knowing what you want and who you are, build credibility around it and deliver it online in a compelling way.
Krista Neher
Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.
Jason Hartman
Branding gives you an exceptionally effective way to broadcast who you are to your target market quickly and efficiently.
MultiChannel News
If I lost control of the business I’d lose myself–or at least the ability to be myself. Owning myself is a way to be myself.
Oprah Winfrey
Focus on identifying your target audience, communicating an authentic message that they want and need and project yourself as an “expert” within your niche.
Kim Garst
Even individuals need to develop a brand for themselves …. Whatever your area of expertise, you can take steps to make people think of YOU when they think of your field.
Accelepoint Webzine
If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.
David Brier
Your brand is a gateway to your true work. You know you are here to do something – to create something or help others in some way. The question is, how can you set up your life and work so that you can do it? The answer lies in your brand. When you create a compelling brand you attract people who want the promise of your brand – which you deliver.
Dave Buck
Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.
Malcolm Forbes
We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.
Marey Sarton
Start by knowing what you want and who you are, build credibility around it and deliver it online in a compelling way.
Krista Neher
Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken.
Oscar Wilde
There isn’t any significant difference between the various brands of whiskey, or cigarettes or beer. They are all about the same. And so are the cake mixes and the detergents, and the margarines… The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined personality for his brand will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit.
David Ogilvy
If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.
Zig Ziglar
Storytelling and Branding Quotes
Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make but about the stories you tell.
Seth Godin
Don’t be scared to present the real you to the world, authenticity is at the heart of success.
unknown
We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.
Jimmy Neil Smith
Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.
Bruce Lee
If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.
Jay Baer
Your personal brand serves as your best protection against business factors you can’t control.
Dan Schawbel
The key is, no matter what story you tell, make your buyer the hero.
Chris Brogan
The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.
Walt Disney
Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points.
Jonah Sachs
Be so good they can’t ignore you.
Steve Martin
Marketing used to be about making a myth and telling it. Now it’s about telling a truth and sharing it.
Marc Mathieu
If you’re your authentic self, you have no competition.
Scott Stratten
A great brand is a story that’s never completely told. A brand is a metaphorical story that connects with something very deep – a fundamental appreciation of mythology. Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience.
Scott Bedbury
Branding adds spirit and a soul to what would otherwise be a robotic, automated, generic price-value proposition. If branding is ultimately about the creation of human meaning, it follows logically that it is the humans who must ultimately provide it.
David Aaker
Make your customer the hero of your stories.
Ann Handley
Personal Branding is about building authority that gets people to pay attention to your message and want to share it and recommend it to others.
Mark Traphagen
When people put their kids to sleep, nobody tells bedtime facts.
Jonah Berger
Personal Branding is all about your unique promise of value and what you bring to the table. It’s (also) about getting your potential clients to choose you as the only solution to their problem.
Dr. Sarah David
Brands should think of themselves not as storytellers but storybuilders. We plant seeds of content and let our community build on it.
Amy Pascal
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Ayn Rand
Branding Quotes on Creativity and Innovation
Creativity may well be the last legal unfair competitive advantage we can take to run over the competition.
Dave Trott
Live authentically. Why would you continue to compromise something that’s beautiful to create something that is fake.
Steve Maraboli
Creativity without strategy is called art, creativity with strategy is called advertising.
Jef L. Richards
If plan “A” fails – remember you have 25 letters left.
Chris Guillebeau
Creativity is intelligence having fun.
Albert Einstein
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
Albert Einstein
To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.
George Kneller
The most exhausting thing you can be is inauthentic.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Peter Drucker
Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.
Eckhart Tolle
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
Leo Burnett
What makes you unique, makes you successful.
William Arruda
An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.
Edwin Land
You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not.
Marc Eckō
If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything innovative.
Woody Allen
These tech brands have brought a fresh way of thinking to the branding of a product. There is still room for the tried and tested techniques used by, for example, food companies. Heinz, for example, was an established brand well before the development of Silicon Valley.
They relied on good old-fashioned service, customer care, and quality products. Maybe today’s modern tech companies aren’t so very different, but with youth and technology on their side.
Read these quotes about branding, and you probably will agree.
