How Brands Grow Quotes

When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work – the most you will make is 5 dollars.

What separates people who made their dreams come true is not setting goals to achieve a life the way they expect it to be, but how they expect to be, in order to achieve it.

How you think and create your inner world that you gonna become in your outer world. Your inner believe manifest you in the outside

memories were tricky things…they weren’t stable. they changed with perception over time. …they shifted, and [she] understood how the passage of time affected them. the hard working striver might recall his childhood as one filled with misery and hardship marred by the cat calls and mae calling of playground bullies, but later, have a much more forgiving understanding of past injustices. the handmade clothes he had been forced to wear, became a testament to his mother’s love. each patch and stitch a sign of her diligence, instead of a brand of poverty. he would remember father staying up late to help him with his homework – the old old man’s patience and dedication, instead of the sharpness of his temper when he returned home – late- from the factory. it went the other way as well. [she] had scanned thousands of memories of spurned women, whose handsome lovers turned ugly and rude. roman noses, perhaps too pointed. eyes growing small and mean. while the oridnary looking boys who had become their husbands, grew in attractiveness as the years passed, so that when asked if it was love at first site, the women cheerfully answered yes. memories were moving pictures in which meaning was constantly in flux. they were stories people told themselves.

Modern cultish groups also feel comforting in part because they help alleviate the anxious mayhem of living in a world that presents almost too many possibilities for who to be (or at least the illusion of such). I once had a therapist tell me that flexibility without structure isn’t flexibility at all; it’s just chaos. That’s how a lot of people’s lives have been feeling. For most of America’s history, there were comparatively few directions a person’s career, hobbies, place of residence, romantic relationships, diet, aesthetic—everything—could easily go in. But the twenty-first century presents folks (those of some privilege, that is) with a Cheesecake Factory–size menu of decisions to make. The sheer quantity can be paralyzing, especially in an era of radical self-creation, when there’s such pressure to craft a strong “personal brand” at the very same time that morale and basic survival feel more precarious for young people than they have in a long time. As our generational lore goes, millennials’ parents told them they could grow up to be whatever they wanted, but then that cereal aisle of endless “what ifs” and “could bes” turned out to be so crushing, all they wanted was a guru to tell them which to pick.

If he wasn't angry, he certainly did a good imitation. His voice was clipped and as hard as stone. She wrung her hands together. "I love you. Clay." "No, you don't." Meg felt as though he'd just slapped her. "Yes, I do. When you leave this town, I'll go with you." Narrowing his eyes, he studied her. "Will you marry me?" "Yes." "Will you give me children?" "If I can. Kirk and I were never able to conceive, but if I can have children, I want to have yours." "In this town that we move to, wherever it is, will you walk down the street with me?" "Of course." "Holding my hand?" "Yes." "And the hands of my children?" "Yes." He unfolded his arms and took a step toward her. She wanted to fling herself into his embrace, but something hard in his eyes stopped her. "And what happens, Mrs. Warner, when someone you know rides through town and points at me and calls me a yellow-bellied coward? What will you do then? Will you let go of my hand and take my children to the other side of the street? Will you pretend that you haven't kissed me, that you haven't lain with me beneath the stars?" With disgust marring his features, he turned away. "You think I'm a coward. Go home." "I don't think that. I love you." He spun around. "You don't believe in that love, you don't believe in me." "Yes, I do." He stalked toward her. She backed into the corner and bent her head to meet his infuriated gaze. "How strongly do you believe in our love?" he asked, his voice ominously low. "If they threatened to strip off your clothes unless you denied our love, would you deny our love?" He gave her no chance to respond, but continued on, his voice growing deeper and more ragged, as though he were dredging up events from the past. "If they wouldn't let you sleep until you denied our love, would you deny our love so you could lay your head on a pillow? "If they stabbed a bayonet into your backside every time your eyes drifted closed, would you deny our love so your flesh wouldn't be pierced? "If they applied a hot brand to your flesh until you screamed in agony, would you deny our love so they'd take away the iron? "If they placed you before a firing squad, would you say you didn't love me so they wouldn't shoot you?" He stepped back and plowed his hands through his hair. "You think I'm a coward. You don't think I have the courage to stand beside you and risk the anger of your father. I'd die before I turned away from anyone or anything I believed in. You won't even walk by my side." He looked the way she imagined soldiers who had lost a battle probably looked: weary, tired of the fight, disillusioned. "You don't believe in me," he said quietly. "How can you believe in our love?

I am not anti-technology. After all, there are forms of technology—from tools that let us observe the natural world to decentralized, noncommercial social networks—that might situate us more fully in the present. Rather, I am opposed to the way that corporate platforms buy and sell our attention, as well as to designs and uses of technology that enshrine a narrow definition of productivity and ignore the local, the carnal, and the poetic. I am concerned about the effects of current social media on expression—including the right not to express oneself—and its deliberately addictive features. But the villain here is not necessarily the Internet, or even the idea of social media; it is the invasive logic of commercial social media and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction. It is furthermore the cult of individuality and personal branding that grow out of such platforms and affect the way we think about our offline selves and the places where we actually live.

People with purpose thrive, brands with purpose grow, and companies with purpose last.

When you become a superfan of something, it’s not because of a person, a product, a name, or a brand. You become a superfan because of how that person, product, or brand makes you feel.

She logged in and read a few of her old posts, smiling at the issues she had raged about and shaking her head at how some of the rants now seemed pretentious and judgmental. She had grown so much without even realizing she had. Mythili typed out the draft, spicing it up subtly and after a last read, she published it. Admiring the brand new post on her main page, she realized she missed writing. She had barely written anything since her last by-line. Typing this out, she felt like she was back with a long-lost friend who understood her. It was like snuggling up in a warm blanket when a thunderstorm raged outside.

Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day - very much such a sweetness as this - I struck my first whale - a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty - forty - forty years ago! - ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without - oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command! - when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before - and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare - fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul - when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts - away, whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow - wife? wife? - rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey - more a demon than a man! - aye, aye! what a forty years' fool - fool - old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God! - crack my heart! - stave my brain! - mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board! - lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye!

A second relationship between advertising and identity is seen in the growing exploitation of desirable identities. Farberman and others have described how advertisers have marketed their products less and less on the basis of the product's merits and more and more by associating a "dream identity" with a possession of a given product. The suggestion is that the possession of a particular brand of car or cigarette will furnish you with the identity of a successful, attractive, worthy person. The message is clear - accumulating things is an effective means of achieving identity and actualizing one's potential.

There is no greater suffering than constantly measuring yourself and coming up short, except perhaps the realization that your suffering is hurting others. But where do we learn these things? Because, really, they are learned. We don't come crying out of the womb because of our birth weight or because we have no money in this brand new world. We learn to measure and we learn to attach our self-worth to those measurements. These patterns we're stuck in aren't just painful for us, they're also distracting us. Every day, the gap between rich and poor grows while the people of developed societies do nothing, because we are too busy worrying about looking good. We're distracted, but not because we've chosen to be. Being distracted by our illusory inadequacy keeps us from changing the world. And believe me, we all have the power to change the world. If we only make the time. If we only free some head space. If you can't learn to love yourself for yourself (and how could you with such a paradoxical motivation?)... then do it for us. Do it for the world. We need you. We need your mind. We need your attention. We need your thoughts. Change your focus, and you will (not can, but will) change the world. You already matter. You just have to realize it for yourself.

But the villain here is not necessarily the Internet, or even the idea of social media; it is the invasive logic of commercial social media and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction. It is furthermore the cult of individuality and personal branding that grow out of such platforms and affect the way we think about our offline selves and the places where we actually live.

When older people ask me, “How have you been so successful after age 65?” I tell them, “Anyone who’s reached 65 years of age has had a world of experience behind him. He’s had his ups and downs and all the trials and tribulations of life. He certainly ought to be able to gather something out of that, something he can put together at the end of his 65 years so he can get a new start.” The way I see it, a man’s life is written by the way he lives it. It’s using any talent God has given him, even if his talent is cooking food or running a good motel. You can reach higher, think bigger, grow stronger and live deeper in this country of ours than anywhere else on Earth. The rules here give everybody a chance to win. If my story is different, it’s because my life really began at age 65 when most folks have already called it a day. I’d been modestly successful before I hit 65. After that I made millions. When they’re about 60 or 65, a lot of people feel that life is all over for them. Too many of them just sit and wait until they die or they become a burden to other people. The truth is they can make a brand new life for themselves if they just don’t give up and hunker down. I want to tell people, “You’re only as old as you feel or as you think, and no matter what your age there’s plenty of work to be done.” I don’t want to sound like I’m clearing my throat and giving advice about how a man can be successful. I’m not all puffed up. My main trade secret is I’m not afraid of hard, back-cracking work. After all, I was raised on a farm where hard work is the way of life.

While some of our deepest wounds come from feeling abandoned by others, it is surprising to see how often we abandon ourselves through the way we view life. It’s natural to perceive through a lens of blame at the moment of emotional impact, but each stage of surrender offers us time and space to regroup and open our viewpoints for our highest evolutionary benefit. It’s okay to feel wronged by people or traumatized by circumstances. This reveals anger as a faithful guardian reminding us how overwhelmed we are by the outcomes at hand. While we will inevitably use each trauma as a catalyst for our deepest growth, such anger informs us when the highest importance is being attentive to our own experiences like a faithful companion. As waves of emotion begin to settle, we may ask ourselves, “Although I feel wronged, what am I going to do about it?” Will we allow experiences of disappointment or even cruelty to inspire our most courageous decisions and willingness to evolve? When viewing others as characters who have wronged us, a moment of personal abandonment occurs. Instead of remaining present to the sheer devastation we feel, a need to align with ego can occur through the blaming of others. While it seems nearly instinctive to see life as the comings and goings of how people treat us, when focused on cultivating our most Divine qualities, pain often confirms how quickly we are shifting from ego to soul. From the soul’s perspective, pain represents the initial steps out of the identity and reference points of an old reality as we make our way into a brand new paradigm of being. The more this process is attempted to be rushed, the more insufferable it becomes. To end the agony of personal abandonment, we enter the first stage of surrender by asking the following question: Am I seeing this moment in a way that helps or hurts me? From the standpoint of ego, life is a play of me versus you or us versus them. But from the soul’s perspective, characters are like instruments that help develop and uncover the melody of our highest vibration. Even when the friction of conflict seems to divide people, as souls we are working together to play out the exact roles to clear, activate, and awaken our true radiance. The more aligned in Source energy we become, the easier each moment of transformation tends to feel. This doesn’t mean we are immune to disappointment, heartbreak, or devastation. Instead, we are keenly aware of how often life is giving us the chance to grow and expand. A willingness to be stretched and re-created into a more refined form is a testament to the fiercely liberated nature of our soul. To the ego, the soul’s willingness to grow under the threat of any circumstance seems foolish, shortsighted, and insane. This is because the ego can only interpret that reality as worry, anticipation, and regret.

I presume that feeling ostracized and alienated from them, even within my own home growing up, encoded within me a deep sense of alienation. That’s why in any group dynamic my identity will always be defined as an outsider rather than from within. This is also the reason why stand-up comedy is the perfect career for me. Not just because I’m constantly scribbling notes inside my own mind to deal with the embarrassment I perpetually feel, but also because I’m always observing, always outside. It’s a perfectly natural dynamic for me to stand alone in front of thousands of people and tell ‘em how I feel.

fundamental facts about language. First, virtually every sentence that a person utters or understands is a brand-new combination of words, appearing for the first time in the history of the universe. Therefore a language cannot be a repertoire of responses; the brain must contain a recipe or program that can build an unlimited set of sentences out of a finite list of words. That program may be called a mental grammar (not to be confused with pedagogical or stylistic “grammars,” which are just guides to the etiquette of written prose). The second fundamental fact is that children develop these complex grammars rapidly and without formal instruction and grow up to give consistent interpretations to novel sentence constructions that they have never before encountered.

DISTINCTIVENESS is the quality that causes a brand expression to stand out from competing messages. If it doesn’t stand out, the game is over. Distinctiveness often requires boldness, innovation, surprise, and clarity, not to mention courage on the part of the company. Is it clear enough and unique enough to pass the swap test? RELEVANCE asks whether a brand expression is appropriate for its goals. Does it pass the hand test? Does it grow naturally from the DNA of the brand? These are good questions, because it’s possible to be attention-getting without being relevant, like a girly calendar issued by an auto parts company. MEMORABILITY is the quality that allows people to recall the brand or brand expression when they need to. Testing for memorability is difficult, because memory proves itself over time. But testing can often reveal the presence of its drivers, such as emotion, surprise, distinctiveness, and relevance. EXTENDIBILITY measures how well a given brand expression will work across media, across cultural boundaries, and across message types. In other words, does it have legs? Can it be extended into a series if necessary? It’s surprisingly easy to create a one-off, single-use piece of communication that paints you into a corner. DEPTH is the ability to communicate with audiences on a number of levels. People, even those in the same brand tribe, connect to ideas in different ways. Some are drawn to information, others to style, and still others to emotion. There are many levels of depth, and skilled communicators are able to create connections at most of them.

The right Brand Promise isn’t always obvious. Naomi Simson — founder of one of the fastest-growing companies in Australia, RedBalloon — was sure she knew what to promise customers who want to give experiences such as hot air balloon rides as gifts, rather than flowers and chocolates. Her promises included an easy-to-use website for choosing one of over 2,000 experiences; recognizable packaging and branding (think Tiffany blue, only in red); and onsite support. It wasn’t until a friend and client mentioned that she was using the website as a source of ideas — but buying the experiences directly from the vendors — that Simson had an “Aha!” moment. She realized that other customers might be doing the same thing, assuming that RedBalloon must be marking up the price of the experiences to cover the costs of the website, packaging, and onsite support. To grow the business, she promised customers they would pay no more for the experiences they bought through RedBalloon than for those purchased directly from the suppliers; otherwise, customers would get 100% of their fee refunded. The company calls this promise, which is technically a pricing guarantee, a “100% Pleasure Guarantee,” to fit its brand.

Cultivating loyalty is a tricky business. It requires maintaining a rigorous level of consistency while constantly adding newness and a little surprise—freshening the guest experience without changing its core identity.” Lifetime Network Value Concerns about brand fickleness in the new generation of customers can be troubling partly because the idea of lifetime customer value has been such a cornerstone of business for so long. But while you’re fretting over the occasional straying of a customer due to how easy it is to switch brands today, don’t overlook a more important positive change in today’s landscape: the extent to which social media and Internet reviews have amplified the reach of customers’ word-of-mouth. Never before have customers enjoyed such powerful platforms to share and broadcast their opinions of products and services. This is true today of every generation—even some Silent Generation customers share on Facebook and post reviews on TripAdvisor and Amazon. But millennials, thanks to their lifetime of technology use and their growing buying power, perhaps make the best, most active spokespeople a company can have. Boston Consulting Group, with grand understatement, says that “the vast majority” of millennials report socially sharing and promoting their brand preferences. Millennials are talking about your business when they’re considering making a purchase, awaiting assistance, trying something on, paying for it and when they get home. If, for example, you own a restaurant, the value of a single guest today goes further than the amount of the check. The added value comes from a process that Chef O’Connell calls competitive dining, the phenomenon of guests “comparing and rating dishes, photographing everything they eat, and tweeting and emailing the details of all their dining adventures.” It’s easy to underestimate the commercial power that today’s younger customers have, particularly when the network value of these buyers doesn’t immediately translate into sales. Be careful not to sell their potential short and let that assumption drive you headlong into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Remember that younger customers are experimenting right now as they begin to form preferences they may keep for a lifetime. And whether their proverbial Winstons will taste good to them in the future depends on what they taste like presently.

The only thing I knew about pickups was this: growing up, I always inwardly mocked the couples I saw who drove around in them. The girl would be sitting in the middle seat right next to the boy, and the boy’s right arm would be around her shoulders, and his left arm would be on the wheel. I’m not sure why, but there was something about my golf course upbringing that had always caused me to recoil at this sight. Why is she sitting in the middle seat? I’d wonder. Why is it important that they press against each other as they drive down the road? Can’t they wait until they get home? I looked at it as a sign of weakness--something pitiable. They need to get a life may have even crossed my mind once or twice, as if their specific brand of public affection was somehow directly harming me. But that’s what happens to people who, by virtue of the geography of their childhood, are deprived of the opportunity to ride in pickup trucks. They become really, really judgmental about otherwise benign things. Still, every now and then, as Marlboro Man showed me the beauty of the country in his white Ford F250, I couldn’t help but wonder…had he been one of those boys in high school? I knew he’d had a serious girlfriend back in his teenage years. Julie. A beautiful girl and the love of his adolescent life, in the same way Kev had been mine. And I wondered: had Julie scooched over to the middle seat when Marlboro Man picked her up every Friday night? Had he hooked his right arm around her neck, and had she then reached her left hand up and clasped his right hand with hers? Had they then dragged Main in this position? Our hometowns had been only forty miles apart; maybe he’d brought her to my city to see a movie. Was it remotely possible I’d actually seen Marlboro Man and Julie riding around in his pickup, sitting side by side? Was it possible this man, this beautiful, miraculous, perfect man who’d dropped so magically into my life, had actually been one of the innocent recipients of my intolerant, shallow pickup-related condemnation? And if he had done it, was it something he’d merely grown out of? How come I wasn’t riding around in his middle seat? Was I supposed to initiate this? Was this expected of me? Because I probably should know early on. But wouldn’t he have gestured in that direction if he’d wanted me to move over and sit next to him? Maybe, just maybe, he’d liked those girls better than he liked me. Maybe they’d had a closeness that warranted their riding side by side in a pickup, a closeness that he and I just don’t share? Please don’t let that be the reason. I don’t like that reason. I had to ask him. I had to know.

Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side, and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel - forbidding - now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop. Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there. Ahab turned. "Starbuck!" "Sir." "Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day - very much such a sweetness as this - I struck my first whale - a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty - forty - forty years ago! - ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without - oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command! - when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before - and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare - fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul - when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts - away, whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow - wife? wife? - rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey - more a demon than a man! - aye, aye! what a forty years' fool - fool - old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God! - crack my heart! - stave my brain! - mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board! - lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye!

Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day- very much such a sweetness as this- I struck my first whale- a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty- forty- forty years ago!- ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain’s exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without- oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!- when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before- and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare- fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul!- when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world’s fresh bread to my mouldy crusts- away, whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow- wife? wife?- rather a widow with her husband alive? Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey- more a demon than a man!- aye, aye! what a forty years’ fool- fool- old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!- crack my heart!- stave my brain!- mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearthstone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board!- lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye!” “Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! But Ahab’s glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil. “What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.

As we thought about what would make us both better and different, two core ideas greatly influenced our thinking: First, technical founders are the best people to run technology companies. All of the long-lasting technology companies that we admired—Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook—had been run by their founders. More specifically, the innovator was running the company. Second, it was incredibly difficult for technical founders to learn to become CEOs while building their companies. I was a testament to that. But, most venture capital firms were better designed to replace the founder than to help the founder grow and succeed. Marc and I thought that if we created a firm specifically designed to help technical founders run their own companies, we could develop a reputation and a brand that might vault us into the top tier of venture capital firms despite having no track record. We identified two key deficits that a founder CEO had when compared with a professional CEO: 1. The CEO skill set Managing executives, organizational design, running sales organizations and the like were all important skills that technical founders lacked. 2. The CEO network Professional CEOs knew lots of executives, potential customers and partners, people in the press, investors, and other important business connections. Technical founders, on the other hand, knew some good engineers and how to program.

We are born with a natural delight in the music of language. As infants we coo and babble and let consonants roll around in our mouths like mother’s milk. As young children, we invent words, mash syllables together, and delight in nonsensical lines. We let ourselves be lulled to sleep by the playful rhymes of Mem Fox (“It’s time for bed, little goose, little goose, / The stars are out and on the loose”). We seek out stories with fanciful sounds (“Quickberry / Quackberry / Pick me a blackberry”). We begin to sense the link between what’s on the surface, and what’s under it (“I meant no harm. I most truly did not. / But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. / I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. / I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads”). As we mature, our delight in the music of words goes a bit underground, but it’s still there. We repeat not just Chaucer’s prologue, but also advertising jingles. We let brand names like Chunky Monkey and SurveyMonkey tumble off our tongues. We appreciate the curt sentences of Hemingway as well as those that are long and loose and lyrical. We let ourselves be moved by the moral authority of Nelson Mandela. We follow the Dalai Lama on Facebook. We let Chris Christie voice our outrage after a hurricane, Barack Obama our sorrow after a massacre of children. Language remains an adventure, if sometimes a somewhat mysterious one: We are drawn to reliable narrators and find that metaphors lift us. We are transported by soaring vowels. The cadence of sentences acts on us like the rhythm of an ancient drum. The music of language leads us to meaning, to our own humanity.

The more the brand stays true to its mission, the more the trust grows.

The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. —Dale Carnegie

Growing up with migrant workers, I knew that they usually worked harder than we did. Sometimes my dad and my uncles would hire a few of my buddies from school to help with the harvest or the branding; they would last maybe a day or two and were often unreliable. But our Mexican migrant laborers worked hard, and we could count on them. Because of this experience, I have always said that I could never look at these migrants and consider them criminals. They were working to feed their families, and we simply could not have gotten along without them. So when during the 2016 campaign Jeb Bush committed a sin of candor by saying that people crossing the border did it as an act of love, well, that’s exactly how I felt, too. And I said so at the time. Having grown up with migrant labor and with the Hispanic community that was here long before we were, I knew that what Jeb Bush was saying was true. Among those who were raised in rural Arizona, it is much more difficult to summon the vitriol for immigrants that fuels so much of the politics in the age of Trump. Of course, Jeb Bush was savaged for saying what he said, just mocked mercilessly. But then, unlike his critics, he knew what he was talking about and dared to speak truthfully, which is both a rarity and liability these days. We have to return to the politics of comity and inclusion and reject the politics of xenophobia and demonization.

Her little brother, Ruel, is different. Everyone dotes on him. He is special because he is brand new and he is a boy. Her father always wanted a boy, and her mother is happy because she has given him what he wanted. Ruel is, unfortunately, destined to grow into a negative masculine narcissist.

38. No One Cares How Much You Know Until They Know How Much You Care My SAS patrol sergeant Chris Carter was the living embodiment of this advice, and if you are ever in a position of leading a team or managing people, following his selfless example will help you become a better leader and enable your team to achieve more. Can you imagine how I felt after Chris had let me drink his last drops of water? Gratitude doesn’t come close. One of the regiment’s toughest, most hardened of soldiers was showing that he was looking out for me way beyond the call of duty. And once I had been shown how much he cared, I knew that, in return, I would never let him, or the regiment, down. That simple act of kindness, of caring, is always at the heart of great brotherhoods. Call it what you will: camaraderie, shared purpose. The end product was that here was a man I would work my guts out for. And that made us all stronger. Ditto, on a mountain: the most important bit of kit or resource on any expedition is always the human asset. When valued and empowered, humans have proved they can truly overcome the impossible and scale the unconquerable. But first we have to be valued and empowered. The real value of a team is never in the flash hi-tech equipment or branded sponsors. It’s the people and the relationships between them. As a leader, in whatever field, it is one thing for your team to see how much you know, but that knowledge isn’t what will make your team great. What makes the critical difference is how you use that knowledge. Do you use it to empower and support those around you? Do you value others above yourself? Is your ego small enough, and your backbone strong enough, to raise others up high on your shoulders? If you let people know, through your words and actions, that they really matter, that their work matters, that their wellbeing matters to you, then they will go to the ends of the Earth for you. Why? Because they know they can trust you to use all your knowledge, skills and power to support and encourage them. You see, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

Once you understand how story integrates with your brand message, you’ll be able to create communication pieces (and even a brand strategy) that engages more customers and grows your business.

Mosaic also marked a new stage in the evolution of the power law. Venture-capital returns are dominated by grand slams partly because of the dynamics of startups: most young businesses fail, but the ones that gain traction can grow exponentially. This is true of fashion brands or hotel chains as well as technology companies. But tech-focused venture portfolios are dominated by the power law for an additional reason: tech startups are founded upon technologies that may themselves progress exponentially. Because of his experience and temperament, Doerr was especially attuned to this phenomenon. As a young engineer at Intel, he had seen how Moore’s law transformed the value of companies that used semiconductors: the power of chips was doubling every two years, so startups that put them to good use could make better, cheaper products. For any given modem, digital watch, or personal computer, the cost of the semiconductors inside the engine would fall by 50 percent in two years, 75 percent in four years, and 87.5 percent in eight. With that sort of wind at a tech startup’s back, no wonder profits could grow exponentially. Mosaic, and the internet more generally, turbocharged this phenomenon. Again, Doerr grasped this better than most others. As well as working at Intel, he had known Bob Metcalfe, so he understood that Metcalfe’s law was even more explosive than Moore’s law. Rather than merely doubling in power every two years, as semiconductors did, the value of a network would rise as the square of the number of users.[70] Progress would thus be quadratic rather than merely exponential; something that keeps on squaring will soon grow a lot faster than something that keeps on doubling. Moreover, progress would not be tethered to the passage of time; it would be a function of the number of users. At the moment when Doerr met Clark, the number of internet users was about to triple over the next two years, meaning that the value of the network would jump ninefold, an effect massively more powerful than the mere doubling in the power of semiconductors over that same period. What’s more, Metcalfe’s law was not supplanting Moore’s law, which would have been dramatic enough. Rather, it was compounding it. The explosion of internet traffic would be fueled both by its rapid growth in usefulness (Metcalfe’s law) and by the falling cost of modems and computers (Moore’s law).[71] After listening to Clark’s pitch, Doerr was determined to invest. A magical browser that attracted millions to the internet had almost limitless potential. The price Doerr had to pay was secondary.

In 1987, ivermectin was approved for human use under the brand name Mectizan. But there was one final challenge – money. It would cost Merck $2 million to set up a distribution channel to West Africa and an extra $20 million per year to produce it, even ignoring the millions that Merck had already spent on development. The West Africans suffering from river blindness were some of the poorest people in the world.

Courage is not always found in grand and dramatic gestures or jaw-dropping feats. It is the grassrootsy, unassuming brand of bravery that should not be underestimated.

In general, candles are most popular among female millennials, who use them for aromatherapy and as décor pieces around the house. Additionally, they are popular purchases by commercial establishments like spas and restaurants. These spaces use candles to create a specific atmosphere—for example, spas use them to encourage a sense of calm, while restaurants use them to create an intimate space that draws in diners. Independent brands and fashion and beauty businesses also create product lines with candles to encourage a new customer base.

Goya Foods and Quorn are examples of marketers thinking about the category needs their brands could satisfy, and worrying less about who within the category is going to buy their brand. This thinking widened their potential markets and created sales opportunities that would have been missed if they had stuck to their ‘target’ markets.

market research survey in Myanmar– AMT Market Research Myanmar, a nation in Southeast Asia that is rapidly developing, presents numerous business opportunities for both domestic and foreign businesses. However, it is essential to gain a comprehensive understanding of the environment before making strategic business decisions due to the unique socio-economic landscape, consumer behavior, and market conditions. AMT Market Research serves as a reliable partner in this regard, providing Myanmar market research surveys that are comprehensive and insightful. Why market research survey in Myanmar Is Important Myanmar's economic structure is undergoing significant change due to increased foreign investment, a growing middle class, and rapid urbanization. However, there are difficulties associated with this expansion. Businesses need to know a lot about the local market because of the country's diverse population, changing regulatory landscape, and changing consumer preferences. In Myanmar, crucial insights into customer requirements, preferences, and purchasing patterns can be gleaned from a well-conducted market research survey. It helps businesses navigate challenges unique to this region, comprehend market trends, and identify potential growth opportunities. When it comes to conducting surveys for market research survey in Myanmar, AMT Market Research stands out as a leading name. AMT is the ideal partner for businesses seeking actionable insights because it has a team of highly skilled professionals and years of experience and is well-versed in the complexities of the Myanmar market. Services Provided by AMT Market Research Consumer Behavior and Insights: AMT focuses on gaining an understanding of consumer behavior by collecting information about preferences, purchasing patterns, and the factors that influence decision-making processes. Companies that want to tailor their products or services to local demand need to know this. Methods for Entering the Market: AMT provides invaluable information regarding competitors, market size, and potential obstacles for businesses wishing to enter the Myanmar market. You can come up with a solid plan for entering and thriving in the local market thanks to their research. Specific Industry Research: AMT conducts industry-specific market research surveys in Myanmar for businesses in the manufacturing, healthcare, telecom, and retail sectors, among other industries. This aids businesses in comprehending the industry-specific opportunities and threats as well as the competitive landscape. Positioning and Perception of the Brand: It's important to know how your brand is seen in Myanmar. Businesses can use the insights gained from AMT surveys to improve their market positioning by increasing brand awareness, customer loyalty, and satisfaction. Solutions for Personalized Research: AMT provides individualized research solutions based on your particular requirements. AMT tailors its research methods to provide the most pertinent and actionable data, regardless of whether you're looking for qualitative insights, quantitative data, or a combination of the two. What Attracts You to AMT Market Research? Local Knowledge: AMT Market Research is well-equipped to provide insights that really matter because they have a deep understanding of Myanmar's particular market dynamics. Complete Information: Because their surveys aim to cover every facet of the market, you'll get a comprehensive picture of the opportunities and challenges. Relevant Insights: AMT's data is more than just numbers and figures; it also contains meaningful insights that can guide business strategies and decisions. Timely and dependable reports: AMT's reputation for timely, accurate, and comprehensive reports will keep you ahead of the competition in the Myanmar market. Businesses looking to establish or expand their presence in Myanmar's emerging market must conduct a market research survey. Y

Digital marketing expert Angela Liberatore stresses the importance of data analytics, which lets businesses track how well their digital campaigns are doing and make changes if needed. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) focuses on improving the website to turn visitors into customers. Mobile marketing makes sure content works well on smartphones and tablets, as more people use these devices. Lastly, marketing automation tools help save time by automatically sending emails or posting on social media. All of these parts together create a strong digital marketing strategy that helps businesses grow, engage customers, and increase sales in today’s digital world. Digital marketing includes several important parts that work together to help businesses reach and connect with their audience online. One part is search engine optimization (SEO), which helps websites show up higher on search engines like Google. Content marketing is another part, where useful things like blog posts, videos, and infographics are made to attract and interest customers. Social media marketing uses platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to increase brand awareness and build a community. Email marketing allows businesses to send personalized messages directly to their audience. Paid advertising, like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, brings quick traffic to websites. Influencer marketing uses the popularity of influencers to promote products or services.

Foaming is a huge reward,” said Sinclair, the brand manager. “Shampoo doesn’t have to foam, but we add foaming chemicals because people expect it each time they wash their hair. Same thing with laundry detergent. And toothpaste—now every company adds sodium laureth sulfate to make toothpaste foam more. There’s no cleaning benefit, but people feel better when there’s a bunch of suds around their mouth. Once the customer starts expecting that foam, the habit starts growing.” Cravings are what drive habits. And figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier. It’s as true now as it was almost a century ago. Every night, millions of people scrub their teeth in order to get a tingling feeling; every morning, millions put on their jogging shoes to capture an endorphin rush they’ve learned to crave.

Remain stuck inside your current business model, and your business’s days are numbered. Make a brand ideal your North Star, and the sky’s the limit.

If you want to grow a social presence, you have to take the time and energy to attract the low-hanging fruit: your current customers and other people who know you. From there, you’ll gain other fans and followers who are likely to eventually buy from you. But you have to start with your current customers.

The behavior of businesses that I have already talked about — as well as well-publicized customer service fiascos (like Costco’s transition to only accept Visa credit cards, which led to more than 1.5 million customer service calls and scathing online complaints19) — shows that customers feel let down again and again by the companies they depend on, whether by overreaching marketing claims, pushy sales tactics, terrible customer support, or poor quality. Combine that with the ever-growing range of customer choices in many product and service categories and their power via online reviews and we may be at a “change or die” inflection point in many industries. Lovable products, services, and companies are disrupting entire industries. They are changing the world. Back to People Here is another secret that should not be secret at all: Companies are not brands, buildings, or technology. They are people. A corporation does not do anything; its people and customers do. We need to get back to the human aspect of business. It all starts with people and human interactions.

Maybe you already think you have a pretty good handle on the business environment you’ve had to work with so far. Maybe your present level of information and abilities has been enough to sustain your personal brand or small business until now. But circumstances never stay the same for long. An entrepreneur, to thrive for any length of time, must be adaptable to the new environments he will eventually find himself in. If nothing ever changes, it simply means he is not growing. In the end, we are all either growing or dying. Your

But it isn’t the fun of DIY invention, urban exploration, physical danger, and civil disorder that the Z-Boys enjoyed in 1976. It is fun within serious limits, and for all of its thrills it is (by contrast) scripted. And rather obedient. The fact that there are public skateparks and high-performance skateboards signals progress: America has embraced this sport, as it did bicycles in the nineteenth century. Towns want to make skating safe and acceptable. The economy has more opportunity to grow. America is better off for all of this. Yet such government and commercial intervention in a sport that was born of radical liberty means that the fun itself has changed; it has become mediated. For the skaters who take pride in their flashy store-bought equipment have already missed the Z-Boys’ joke: Skating is a guerrilla activity. It’s the fun of beating, not supporting, the system. P. T. Barnum said it himself: all of business is humbug. How else could business turn a profit, if it didn’t trick you with advertising? If it didn’t hook you with its product? This particular brand of humbug was perfected in the late 1960s, when merchandise was developed and marketed and sold to make Americans feel like rebels. Now, as then, customers always pay for this privilege, and purveyors keep it safe (and generally clean) to curb their liability. They can’t afford customers taking real risks. Plus it’s bad for business to encourage real rebellion. And yet, marketers know Americans love fun—they have known this for centuries. And they know that Americans, especially kids, crave autonomy and participation, so they simulate the DIY experience at franchises like the Build-A-Bear “workshops,” where kids construct teddy bears from limited options, or “DIY” restaurants, where customers pay to grill their own steaks, fry their own pancakes, make their own Bloody Marys. These pay-to-play stores and restaurants are, in a sense, more active, more “fun,” than their traditional competition: that’s their big selling point. But in both cases (as Barnum knew) the joke is still on you: the personalized bear is a standardized mishmash, the personalized food is often inedible. As Las Vegas knows, the house always wins. In the history of radical American fun, pleasure comes from resistance, risk, and participation—the same virtues celebrated in the “Port Huron Statement” and the Digger Papers, in the flapper’s slang and the Pinkster Ode. In the history of commercial amusement, most pleasures for sale are by necessity passive. They curtail creativity and they limit participation (as they do, say, in a laser-tag arena) to a narrow range of calculated surprises, often amplified by dazzling technology. To this extent, TV and computer screens, from the tiny to the colossal, have become the scourge of American fun. The ubiquity of TV screens in public spaces (even in taxicabs and elevators) shows that such viewing isn’t amusement at all but rather an aggressive, ubiquitous distraction. Although a punky insurgency of heedless satire has stung the airwaves in recent decades—from equal-opportunity offenders like The Simpsons and South Park to Comedy Central’s rabble-rousing pundits, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—the prevailing “fun” of commercial amusement puts minimal demands on citizens, besides their time and money. TV’s inherent ease seems to be its appeal, but it also sends a sobering, Jumbotron-sized message about the health of the public sphere.

Candidate: Because digital advertising is the only segment that’s growing, we need to understand more about what’s going on with customers, so I’m going to switch gears and analyze customers next. Interviewer: That sounds like a reasonable plan. Why don’t you go ahead and do that. Candidate: I’d like to know who these customers are. What are the key customer segments? What’s the growth rate of each segment? Interviewer: Well, the customers are Fortune 500 brand managers such as Procter & Gamble, midmarket-size clients, and small-business clients.

brands grow by improvements to both penetration and loyalty, though typically far more sales growth comes from gains in penetration than improved loyalty.

America’s biggest Hispanic-owned food company, Goya Foods, began in 1936 as a specialty distributor of basic products, such as beans, to Hispanic immigrants. Today it is one of the USA’s fastest-growing food companies, introducing all sorts of Americans to a (wide) range of Hispanic-inspired food items. ‘We like to say we don’t market to Latinos, we market as Latinos’,

As brands fight to differentiate identity, sonic branding is a growing marketing mechanism.

In 1911, P&G’s marketing arm branded the company’s newfangled cooking fat as Crisco. Crisco had no flavor—an attribute that P&G’s marketing turned into a positive by calling it “clean.” The company promoted it to housewives as “a healthier alternative to cooking with animal fats,” adding that it could help ensure their children would grow

Chances are, if you’ve learned something, there’s probably a good portion of your community that would find value in learning that same thing from you, even if you aren’t the world’s leading authority on the subject. And if you’re regularly learning, then you’ll always have regular content to contribute to the community. This can become a nice flywheel over time, as teaching often becomes the best way to drive your own curiosity and inspiration to learn more yourself. And when you learn publicly, your students will have questions that force you to learn even more stuff to teach them. You don’t have to teach everything you learn. In fact, a narrower core focus can be better. For example, Patrick McKenzie, a writer, entrepreneur, and software business expert who is best known for a 2012 post on salary negotiation that has since become a cult classic in the software engineering space, believes that the best personal brands exist at the intersection of two topics. He now works for Stripe, where he continues to write and advise software engineers and software entrepreneurs about how to start and scale their businesses, speaking from real experience as a creator and business owner himself. If you’re learning every day, which you probably are, you’ll have something to share every day. Meanwhile, you’ll build your skills and experience, learn to speak the language, and grow your community, all essential ingredients when you eventually have a product you are ready to sell. Unfortunately, as you probably already know, there are no shortcuts. As you think about what you’re creating now and how that might lead to a business in the future, look to the communities you’re already a part of. You’ve invested time and energy there, so perhaps you already have an idea of how to proceed. If you don’t, keep going, and continue using your time to get strong, to learn how to paint, to learn how to code, to learn how to write, or to learn whatever else you are into, teaching what you’re learning along the way.

The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage. The products or services that have wide, sustainable moats around them are the ones that deliver rewards to investors.84 Because Buffett generally invests in low-tech companies like See’s Candies or Coca-Cola, the moat he refers to is often a strong brand or a unique business model. For software products with network effects, a strong moat means something different: how much effort, time, and capital does it take to replicate a product’s features and its network? In the modern era, cloning software features is usually not the hard part—replicating the complete functionality of a Slack or Airbnb might take time, but it is tractable. It’s the difficulty of cloning their network that makes these types of products highly defensible. I’ll use an example to think through the competitive moat. Let’s start from first principles, with an example of Airbnb trying to launch in a new city with no competitors in sight. As the early Airbnb team described, the Cold Start Problem lies in the difficulty of launching a new city to a Tipping Point of over 300 listings with 100 reviews. This requires real effort, because the minimum network size is quite large—contrasted to many other network types like communication apps, which might only require two or three people to get started. But once Airbnb has reached Escape Velocity in a market, the Cold Start Problem creates the defense against new entrants.

Hemp Marijuana’s sober cousin is out to redeem its dreary sandal-wearing reputation. Requiring no pesticides, very little water and comparatively small amounts of land to grow, there’s no doubt as to hemp’s environmental credentials – but its style kudos is looking up too. New, refined production means the days of rough hessian textures are over, and there are countless brands using it to make clothes that are more hip, less hippie. Inhale at leisure.

The Fearless Flyer began life in 1969 during the Good Time Charley phase of Trader Joe’s as the Insider’s Wine Report, a sheet of gossip of “inside” information on the wine industry at a time where there weren’t any such gossip sheets, for the excellent reason that few people were interested in wine. As of the writing of this book, 11 percent of Americans drink 88 percent of the wine according to contemporary wine gossip magazine the Wine Spectator. In the Insider’s Wine Report we gave the results of the wine tastings that we were holding with increasing frequency, as we tried to gain product knowledge. This growing knowledge impressed me with how little we knew about food, so in 1969, we launched a parallel series of blind tastings of branded foods: mayonnaise, canned tuna, hot dogs, peanut butter, and so on. The plan was to select the winner, and sell it “at the lowest shelf price in town.” To report these results, I designed the Insider’s Food Report, which began publication in 1970. It deliberately copied the physical layout of Consumer Reports: the 8.5” x 11” size, the width of columns, and the typeface (later changed). Other elements of design are owed to David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man. The numbered paragraphs, the boxes drawn around the articles, are all Ogilvy’s ideas. I still think his books are the best on advertising that I’ve ever read and I recommend them. Another inspiration was Clay Felker, then editor of New York magazine, the best-edited publication of that era. New York’s motto was, “If you live in New York, you need all the help you can get!” The Insider’s Food Report borrowed this, as “The American housewife needs all the help she can get!” And in the background was the Cassandra-like presence of Ralph Nader, then at the peak of his influence. I felt, however, that all the consumer magazines, never mind Mr. Nader, were too paranoid, too humorless. To leaven the loaf, I inserted cartoons. The purpose of the cartoons was to counterpoint the rather serious, expository text; and, increasingly, to mock Trader Joe’s pretensions as an authority on anything.

The Power of the “Buy Now” Button I have a friend who has bought and sold nearly one hundred companies. He knows a lot about scaling a company up, and as he evaluates a company, he makes sure the people, products, and procedures are all healthy. But the key ingredient he looks for in a company is whether the company is challenging their customers to place orders. My friend knows the fastest way to grow a company is to make the calls to action clear and then repeat them over and over. He’s made millions simply buying companies, creating stronger calls to action, and then selling the company after their revenue increases. One of the biggest hindrances to business success is that we think customers can read our minds. It’s obvious to us that we want them to place an order (why else would we be talking to them about our products?), so we assume it’s obvious to them too. It isn’t. There should be a “Buy Now” button in the top right corner of your website, and it shouldn’t be cluttered with a bunch of other buttons. The same call to action should be repeated above the fold and in the center of your website, and again and again as people scroll down the page. Companies that don’t make their calls to action clear remind me of my dating days before I met my wife. Instead of clearly asking a girl out, I’d say something like, “Coffee is nice, isn’t it? Do you like coffee?” What in the world is a woman supposed to do with a question like that? That’s just not how you make a baby.

You'd best stand up. You'd best prepare. Things are gonna get tough out there. This train's moving. You'd best be on. Cause soon we're going to be gone. Se get ready. It's just about time. Have your oil plentiful and prime. It's wrapping up. Going to close. Heaven or hell? That's how it goes. You'd better decide now and not later. New born lover or old school hater? So make your choice. What will it be? Where will you spend eternity? Jesus loves you. He loves you, friend. Is that so hard to comprehend? Make unbelief leave from your heart. Believe, receive a brand new start. It's wrapping up. Going to end. Hope to see you in Heaven, friend.

Our dysfunctional culture sends mixed signals about manhood. The world of sports tells me that authentic masculinity is linked to athleticism, physical strength, and winning the game. In short, muscles make the man. The world of finance suggests that my worth is directly tied to the size of my bank account, the square-footage of my house, the brand of watch I wear, and the make and model of car I drive. In other words, money makes the man. Then Hollywood tells me that real manhood is measured by how long I can last in bed and how many women I’ve had sex with. The clear message is: a penis makes a man. To add to that chorus, popular music today tells young urban men that their masculine value is boosted if they act tough, beat up women, use profanity, abuse drugs, outsmart the police, and drink as much alcohol as possible. If they do all these things, someone on the street will reward them by saying, “You da man!” So these guys grow up thinking that bad behavior makes a man, especially if it involves impregnating as many women as possible—and leaving those women with black eyes, bruises, and broken hearts in the process.

Successful leaders understand their image reflects what and who they are as opposed to what they plan to become. If you would like to be known as a sustainable organization, there are four things you can do. Think and act in ways that support long-term viability and ESG ideals. Help stakeholders understand how you think and act. Help stakeholders see how you think and act. Continuously reinforce all of the above with stakeholders.

in terms of mental and physical availability. Even product innovation largely works (when it works) by enhancing mental availability and gaining further physical distribution.

Building mental availability requires distinctiveness and clear branding, while brands seldom compete on meaningful differentiation.

It suggests that while high physical availability is an essential requirement for high market share it does not guarantee market share.

Similarly, we found that more than half the submissions from established brands were cases of advertising being started again after a very long hiatus.

So the maintenance of mental availability depends on the quality of branding and advertising. Distinctive, consistent icons and imagery build memory associations that allow a brand to be noticed and recalled in a range of buying situations. This is a huge part of brand custodianship,

Once you understand how story integrates with your brand message, you’ll be able to create communication pieces (and even a brand strategy) that engages more customers and grows your business. And if you really get this down, people around the office will wonder how in the world you became such a marketing genius.

How do we make sense of what we measure? Blogger Cory Doctorow describes the growing flood of data as a “relentless march from kilo to mega to giga to tera to peta to exa to zetta to yotta.” To be of use to science, the data must be correlated, calibrated, synchronized, and updated.

Fifth: in the professions of law, medicine, and education, a new brand of leadership, and to some extent, new leaders will become a necessity. This is especially true in the field of education. The leader in that field must, in the future, find ways and means of teaching people how to apply the knowledge they receive in school. He must deal more with practice and less with theory. Sixth: new leaders will be required in the field of journalism. These are but a few of the fields in which opportunities for new leaders and a new brand of leadership are now available. The world is undergoing a rapid change. This means that the media through which the changes in human habits are promoted must be adapted to the changes. The media here described are the ones which, more than any others, determine the trend of civilization.

The data from a ten-year-growth study of more than 50,000 brands around the world show that companies with ideals of improving people’s lives at the center of all they do outperform the market by a huge margin.

Consider this list of prompts to get the wheels turning: How can my startup increase current customer satisfaction? How can my startup increase the closing rate for potential customers in the pipeline? How can my startup attract new potential customers? What new features/services are needed to continue to grow? How can my startup attract new hires? How can I contain or reduce costs? How can I increase brand awareness with my target customers?

Building a great community is fundamentally about creating an ecosystem in which people produce meaningful work, are able to thrive, are motivated to keep growing, and can help sustain the future success of the community. Doing this well is all about understanding the drivers and motivations of people, and using tech as a means to address and harness those drivers and motivations. Don’t let the tech dominate your thinking.

Hence, in the vicious challenge, it has turned out to be very basic for each organization to concentrate on marketing other than concentrating on great quality and brand picture.

Use one of these starters: - Have you ever been in a situation…? - Imagine… - Are you struggling with…? - Ever wonder how…? - Do you ask yourself…? - Did you ever notice that…?

Continuity How can you create an open loop that keeps them looking forward to your next email? The postscript or P.S. is the best place to tease your

Hero shot / Your first one-third o Hook/Headline addressing their pain point and struggle o How you can help them o Why they should trust you o An image of you aligned with your brand attributes Here are a couple of examples:

With a StoryBrand-inspired narrative, ordinary jobs become extraordinary adventures. With a unifying BrandScript, the above story would have gone more like this: Before even applying for a job, the prospective employee has already heard the buzz on the street about this cool company. It’s somehow more alive. The people who work there love it and so do their customers. They exude a sense of competence within their industry as well as across the community in general. Their leaders are respected. Even their former employees talk about it with a hint of sentimental longing. On the list of ideal places to work, there are few that compare. During the first interview, the candidate starts to understand where the buzz has been coming from. The hiring manager describes the company the way you might describe Lewis and Clarke preparing to tame the western frontier. There are interesting characters whose lives have led them to this place. Business goals sound like plot twists. There are mountains to climb and rivers to cross. There are storms to weather, bears to hunt, and treasure to find. The hiring manager is visibly excited as she walks effortlessly through the seven categories of the company’s narrative. But not just anyone gets selected for this expedition. The employees of this company aren’t trying to be snobs; they’re just staying true to the story they’re following and they don’t want to compromise the plot. If you happen to be selected, it’s because destiny basically demands it. Instantly the candidate’s concept of work shifts up a level. It’s no longer just about what he can get out of it. It’s also about who he will become if he’s allowed to enter the story. He senses that working for this company will transform him. By the second and third interviews, the candidate has met most of the team and even been interviewed by them. Everyone he meets tells the exact same story he heard on the street and in the first interview. The story is growing on him. He realizes he needs to be part of a story like this to be fully satisfied in life. We all do. Finally, his first day on the job arrives, and the onboarding experience is more like being adopted than getting hired. He spends quality time with a facilitator who takes a small, new team through a curriculum explaining the story of their customer and how the company positions themselves as the guide in their customers’ story. Amazingly, the onboarding is more about the company’s customers than it is about the company itself. This organization loves their customers and is obsessed with seeing them win the day. Finally, the new employee discovers the secret. These people are here to serve a customer they love.

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brand voice is nothing but how you communicate with your audience.

And the expressions drill down into the tiny nuances of how your brand voice comes across.

Yes, you need to think of this element even if you’re new. Can you get featured on podcasts and guest posts? Can you coach or help people in exchange for a testimonial? How can you work on displaying more authority markers such as “as seen in” logos?

Priority Metrics Group13 states that there are six ways to differentiate your business. Have a look at the diagram below. So how can you apply this to online businesses like yours and mine—particularly personal brands or those wanting to build an expert business (a business based around sharing your expertise)?

But how do you actually get this information? To get a deep picture of who your audience are and what they want, you need to 1. Research your ideal reader. 2. Create a persona based on that research. I’m going to give you a hack that I regularly use to find this information.

Don’ts define how you don’t want your brand voice to come across.

Think now about the brand voice you're projecting. Is that how you want to come across?

How do you think your blog can stand out?

What separates you from everyone else? How is your content different? How is your business going to be different?

HOW WILL YOU BUILD AUTHORITY AND CREDIBILITY?

Just how did you know where this guy grew up?!" "Was it mere coincidence?! No way! This has to be deliberate! But how?! What kind of magic trick is this, Miss Yamato Nadeshiko?!" "Um, it's kind of hard to explain but... sometimes there's a certain lilt to how you pronounce your words. It sounded an awful lot like the lyrical accent unique to that area." "Huh?" "Eheh heh... when I'm not paying attention, sometimes my hometown accent slips outdo. Given your outfits and brand choices, I figured you were American... so I wondered if you were born in the South near the Gulf of Mexico... which made me think you probably had gumbo a lot growing up." "Well, I'll be! You managed to deduce all that?" "Was I right? Oh, I'm so glad!" "No way! I don't believe it! Just who are you?! How can you even figure something like that out?!" "Eheheh heh... it wasn't much. I've just been doing some studying, is all." "Voila. C'est votre monnaie. Au revoir, bonne journée." "Merci!" In the few months since earning my Seat on the Council of Ten... I took advantage of some of the perks it gave me... to visit a whole bunch of different countries. I went to all kinds of regions and met all kinds of people... learning firsthand what it feels like to live and thrive there. I experienced the "taste of home" special to each place... and incorporated it into my own cooking... so that I could improve a little as a chef! "And that's how you knew about gumbo? But still! All you did was make a dish from my hometown. That's it! There's no way it should've overwhelmed me this much! Why?! How could you manage something like that?!" "I think it's because, deep down, this is what you've truly been searching for. Um, to go back to what I mentioned to you earlier... I think you might have the wrong idea. I'm pretty sure that isn't what real hospitality is. In your heart, the kind of hospitality you're truly looking for... isn't to be pampered and treated like a king for a day. If that kind of royal luxury was all you were looking for... you wouldn't need to come all the way to Japan. You could have just reserved a suite at any international five-star hotel to get that experience. But you said you specifically liked Japan's rural hot springs resort towns. The kind of places so comfortable and familiar they tug at your heart... places that somehow quietly remind you of home. "I think... no, I know... ... that what you really want... ... is simply a warm, gentle hug.

For all the horror, the brand was beautiful. A single line drew layers of sharp petals and etched one jaded leaf. Joy twisted her shoulder and traced the brand with her finger, feeling the dead skin ridge, the tightness of sunburn without the sting. She touched it tentatively and then with a growing confidence. She’d gone through something horrible and emerged with this. Through every insane, upsetting and embarrassing thing she’d been through—her mother, her father, her brother, Ink, Hasp, Briarhook, the police—all of it had built up inside her, but nothing ever showed. Nothing ever looked different despite the fact that it was different, she felt different, and all the therapist talk was about going back to being the same even though she knew she would never be the same again. How could she? Some things were permanent— indelible—and could not be changed back. This change was permanent; it showed inside and out. 

Ransome, a trim and stern-faced fellow, arrived in San Francisco in the early 1870s. It was an excellent place and time for an ambitious, inventive type. Grown rich from the Gold Rush, the city was by then a hub for the new Silver Rush in nearby Nevada, and a base for moguls of the mining, manufacturing, and railroad industries. It was growing fast; the population quadrupled between 1860 and 1880 to nearly a quarter of a million.23 Ransome found a job at a company that produced concrete blocks for paving stones and architectural decorations,24 and talked his colleagues into switching over to his father’s brand of cement. Within a few years, he left to start up his own outfit. He sold concrete vases and cement components (he eventually abandoned his father’s brand for the standard Portland cement), and in his spare time noodled around trying to develop new reinforcing techniques that would make stronger, more durable, more versatile concrete.

To improve your chances of people doing your intended actions, you need to ask. Yes, even if some tasks may seem obvious, asking people to do something is an easy and efficient way to improve the results of specific actions you want your audience to take. Just take, for example, how YouTubers always ask people to Like & Subscribe to their channel. Every single time. Regardless of the size of their following. There is power in the ask, so please don’t leave it to chance. Make the ask.

slope of a valley. There is something satisfyingly eerie about a landfall – any landfall. The growing coast ahead, no matter how exhaustively charted it is, or how old and familiar its history and internal topography, looks so imaginary from this sea distance. Watching it come slowly alive, inseparable from its broken reflection in the water, you feel that you’re making it up as you go along. It’s not real. On a green hill above the town you see a fine, brand-new medieval castle – turrets, towers, keeps, drawbridges, the lot. Like a novelist toying with an invented landscape on the page, you think, that won’t wash; and, obedient to the thought, the handsome castle rubs itself out and in its place there comes up a stolid clump of gasholders or the cooling towers of a power station.

For me, writing any piece of advertising is unnerving. You sit down with your partner and put your feet up. You read the strategist's brief, draw a square on a pad of paper, and you both stare at the damned thing. You stare at each other's shoes. You look at the square. You give up and go to lunch. You come back. The empty square is still there. Is the square gonna be a poster? Will it be a branded sitcom, a radio spot, a website? You don't know. All you know is the square's still empty. So you both go through the brand stories you find online, on the client's website, what people are saying in the Amazon reviews. You go through the reams of material the account team left in your office. You discover the bourbon you're working on is manufactured in a little town with a funny name. You point this out to your partner. Your partner keeps staring out the window at some speck in the distance. (Or is that a speck on the glass? Can't be sure.) He says, “Oh.” Down the hallway, a phone rings. Paging through an industry magazine, your partner points out that every few months the distillers rotate the aging barrels a quarter turn. You go, “Hmm.” On some blog, you read how moss on trees happens to grow faster on the sides that face a distillery's aging house. Now that's interesting. You feel the shapeless form of an idea begin to bubble up from the depths. You poise your pencil over the page…and it all comes out in a flash of creativity. (Whoa. Someone call 911. Report a fire on my drawing pad 'cause I am SMOKIN' hot.) You put your pencil down, smile, and read what you've written. It's complete rubbish. You call it a day and slink out to see a movie. This process continues for several days, even weeks, and then one day, completely without warning, an idea just shows up at your door, all nattied up like a Jehovah's Witness. You don't know where it comes from. It just shows up. That's how you come up with ideas. Sorry, there's no big secret. That's basically the drill.

Remember: Your company’s brand isn’t its logo or its mascot or its mission statement. Instead, your brand is a reflection of the experiences people have with your company. And every single interaction contributes to how your brand is perceived.

Users who continually find value in a product are more likely to tell their friends about it. Frequent usage creates more opportunities to encourage people to invite their friends, broadcast content, and share through word-of-mouth. Hooked users become brand evangelists — megaphones for your company, bringing in new users at little or no cost. Products with higher user engagement also have the potential to grow faster than their rivals.