Andy Whitlock on LinkedIn: 'How to make sure your brand strategist isn’t a numpty' Three to four… | 13 comments

That is: A person — often a founder, or someone similarly empowered — needs to have compelling ideas, establish a voice and perspective, and use it. Tools like brand books and style guides are important so agencies and partners know how to speak the same language. But the actual opinions and values can’t be algorithmically generated or offloaded to... See more

ompanies are focused on building products rather than brands. A product is something made in a factory. A brand is something made in the mind. To be successful today, you have to build brands, not products. And you build brands by using positioning strategies, starting with a good name.

Messaging versus positioning: they are distinct, and positioning is the fundamental input to the messaging.

- What’s surprising for many people, she says, is that marketing is actually highly tactical. There are frameworks and distinct steps founders can take to define what their company is doing, why it’s important, and why — above all the noise — people should listen to them. - How to Position Your Business - “You can't be everything to everyone, but y... See more

But who are we — am I — trying to be original for? Myself, a client, a boss, a professor, Instagram, my mom, nobody at all? I think that it’s time to really think about who we’re creating for, so that we can strategize who deserves our originality, who deserves our efficiency, who deserves both, and who deserves neither. If there’s one thing I

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Design is hope made visible.

You can live your life as the result of history and what came before, or you can live your life as the cause of what’s to come. You choose.

When talent doesn’t hustle, hustle beats talent. But when talent hustles, watch out.

When you work only for money, without any love for what you do in and of itself, your work will lac... See more