In a company built around a brand, it’s up to the business owner or CEO to understand the difference between the the business and the brand. There is none. That’s the big idea that underpins Denise Lee Yohn’s new book: What Great Brands Do.

Branding is not a marketing function. It is a business function. According to Yohn, brand building cannot be delegated to the marketing department. Instead your brand must be “operationalized,” meaning, you use your brand as a guide and compass for all activities of your core business operations.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, What Great Brands Do author Denise Lee Yohn discusses her new book and her seven brand-building principles. It is a book that will help you get a grip on how your brand and your business are connected. And Yohn asserts that if you make your brand your business, you can have both: a great brand and a great business. Press the play button on the player below and get started.

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Show Notes – What Great Brands Do

Brand: The central organizing idea of your business.

• A brand is a bundle of values and attributes that define the value you deliver to people through doing business, that forms the basis of your company’s relationships with all your stakeholders.
• Your brand is what your company does and how you do it.
• Your brand is not what you say you are, it’s what you do.

Selected Podcast Quotes from Denise Lee Yohn

“Marketing and advertising only play a very small role in shaping brand perception.”

“Great brands don’t delineate between their brands and their businesses. They’re one and they same.”

“It takes an enlightened leader or team of people to realize that there is a lack of alignment between what they’re saying and what they’re doing and at the same time, have the aspiration to have a great brand.”

~ Denise Lee Yohn on Power to the Small Business

What Great Brands Do Show Links:

The Book: What Great Brands Do
The Tools: Branding Worksheets and Templates
On Twitter: Denise Lee Yohn
Denise on the Podcast: Marketers Roundtable Discussion of Current Issues

If you liked this podcast, you might also be interested in these episodes:

The Keys to Transformational Branding
Branding Lessons from the U.S. Marines
Small Business Branding Clinic