ID 11365714 © Michael Burke Dreamstime.com

Bet You a Billion Dollars You’re Wrong

Check your wallet. What percent of the dollar bills in your wallet are over 24 months old? If the answer is more than 50%, you’re the exception.
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Ron Shapiro

Negotiation and Its Effect on Brand: An Interview with Ron Shapiro

Many have heard the name Ron Shapiro. A world-renown expert in negotiation, Mr. Shapiro is a distinguished graduate of the Harvard Law School. He has negotiated agreements in the corporate, government and nonprofit sectors. He has successfully represented many of the world’s greatest athletes, including Cal Ripken Jr., Brooks Robinson, Eddy Murray, Jim Palmer and Joe Mauer. And his books have appeared on the best-seller lists of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Business Week magazine.

Recently, we had the privilege of chatting with Mr. Shapiro about the impact negotiation can have on brand – organizational brand as well as personal brand. These are his comments.
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Brand flame-1486648

It’s Not the Logo, It’s the Brand

We need a new word for “brand.” That would help clear up the confusion so many people have about the process of branding. It’s really not the customers’ fault; it’s the fault of marketing professionals who use the term so loosely. And the error is rooted deep in our culture.
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Great Barriers - City walls of York, England

Marketing to Overcome Barriers – When Selling Benefits Just Isn’t Enough

People who work in sales and marketing are trained to think in terms of benefits, and rightly so. While features may tell us about a product or service, they inform more than they motivate; buyers are motivated by benefits.
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Margaret Thatcher Zimmerman

Aligning Brand with Corporate Goals: Keeping the Dog in Front of the Tale

Here’s a simple multiple choice question most branding consultants can’t answer: Which of the following are good reasons to rebrand your organization?

(a) We’re tired of hearing our own positioning statements and we fear the brand is getting stale

(b) Our logo has been around for decades, and besides, we’ve brought on a new management team

(c) The competition just updated their position and we’re afraid, if we don’t change, we’ll be left in the dust

(d) A change in strategy will help us leverage changes in the marketplace or our offerings

(e) All of the above are good reasons to rebrand Read more