“The essence of positioning is sacrifice.”

It creates in the mind of the prospect the perception that there is no product on the market quite like your product.

Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.

You have to reduce the essence of your brand to a single thought or attribute.

The new product, if it’s going to be successful, is going to require a new name. New ladder, new name. It’s as simple as that.

Only brand names register in the mind… What you should generally do is take a regular word and use it out of context to connote the primary attribute of your brand.

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.

An attribute that nobody else already owns in your category.

A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.

The real barrier (to building a brand) is the human mind.

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.

Good things happen when you narrow your focus.

It is better to have 50% of one market, instead of 10% of five markets.

Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.

You need to allow enough time for this forgetting to take place

Your brand’s power lies in dominance.

Positioning is how you differentiate yourself in the mind of the prospect.

As I got older, I got into all kinds of things in the streets – but for some reason, I never got caught up with the gangs growing up. Everybody dug me, man. I never had problems.

I see people who die a few minutes after a doctor tells them there is no hope of a cure. They give up and go. Others get angry and find joy in proving the doctor wrong. Something within them is challenged and hopeful. Hope is the divine motivator.

When I was growing up, This is Spinal Tap [1984] was the ultimate comedy, and it was the kind of thing I wanted to do. But you get to a point with parody where you can’t go much further because ultimately it’s feeding off of somebody else’s creativity.

If you’ve got great parents, once you grow up and have to live by yourself, you’re going to create some fake self as you get comfortable wherever you are.

There is but one secret to success: never give up.

Animals speak with pure affection. It’s important to me to get something going in NY so we can get to be a no-kill city, and give the animals homes and more attention and love.

People talk about me as masculine. Because of the way I walk and talk and crank out pull-ups and smell like bacon.

Big Ben just kept building up. It ended up coming off the field. It kept taking over. Superman kept taking over Clark Kent and you just never saw who Ben Roethlisberger was any more.