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What’s your brand? If you can’t answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand’s in trouble.

Al Ries

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Marilyn Monroe Paulo Coelho Abraham Lincoln C. S. Lewis Khalil Gibran Charlie Chaplin Gautama Buddha Isaac Newton

The reason is obvious. A well-known name got well-known because it stood for something. It occupies a position in the prospect’s mind. A really well-known name sits on the top rung of a sharply defined ladder.
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Bvious Define Known Ladder Name Occupy Reason Rung Sharp Sit Top Well
Marketing is not selling. Marketing is building a brand in the mind of the prospect.
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Brand Build Market Mind Prospect Sell
A branding program should be designed to differentiate your cow from all the other cattle on the range.
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Brand Business Cattle Cow Design Lok Market Other Program Range
Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.
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Mind Position Prospect What
Advertising is the way great brands get to be great brands.
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Advertise Brand Great Way
Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.
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Alike All Cattle Look Much Pretty Range
It normally takes decades to build a brand… It’s the forgetting of the old truth that allows a person to accept a new truth.
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Accept Allow Brande Decade Enough Forget Need New Normal Old Person Time Truth
The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospects mind.
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Business Concept Market Own Powerful Word
The real barrier (to building a brand) is the human mind.
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Barrier Gray Human Matter Mind Real
A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
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Brand Consumer Mind Own Should Strive Word
To get into the consumer’s mind, you have to sacrifice.
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Consumer Essence Info Mind Sacrifice
Successful brands get into the mind slowly. A blurb in a magazine. A mention in a newspaper. A comment from a friend. A display in a retail store.
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Brand Comment Display Forever Friend Magazine Mind Newspaper People Slowly Store Successful
If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect’s mind. A word that nobody else owns.
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Brand Build Effort Else Focus Known Mind Nobody Owing Word
It creates in the mind of the prospect the perception that there is no product on the market quite like your product.
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Create Mind Perception Product Prospect Quite
After a slow buildup, people become convinced that they have known about the brand forever.
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Brand Convince Forever Known Peop Slow
It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.
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Better Business First Marketplace Mind

What’s your brand? If you can’t answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand’s in trouble.

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