Brand DNA: Uncover Your Organization’s Genetic Code For Competitive Advantage is to small business branding what E-Myth is to small business systems. In E-Myth, author Michael Gerber uses the fictional story of Sarah, a passionate but struggling entrepreneur, to remind us of the curse of the technician: the mistake many small business owners make by assuming that a particular skill or passion can be easily turned it into a business (we now know that passion and skill are not enough, and that we need to have systems in place; in other words, we must learn to work ON our business, not IN our business).

In Brand DNA, authors Carol Chapman and Suzanne Tulien tell us the story of Meg, an ambitious but also struggling entrepreneur, who has fallen victim to another common small business myth: that doing more “marketing” and constantly tweaking our logo, packaging, etc. will automatically get us more business.

The authors make a convincing case that before spending any money on marketing we must first define what our brand is all about, what makes it different, and what are the behaviors that are more likely to communicate and reinforce that message.

They also ask small business owners to take a cue from world class brands like Starbucks and Apple, who spend most of their marketing efforts and money in building an outstanding customer experience instead of advertising.

Other books have also covered this topic at length, but what I find valuable and different in this one is that by using the story of Meg and her brand, Ecologé, it adds clarity to concepts that otherwise would be too dry and difficult to grasp in the absence of a specific example.

The book also goes one step further by providing an interactive section with practical exercises so that you can apply the book’s main ideas to your own small business.

If you are a newly minted entrepreneur just starting a small business you will find this book extremely valuable and relevant. If you are a seasoned small business owner with several years of success under your belt, it wouldn’t hurt to give Brand DNA a quick read if only to make sure that you’re covering all the bases in your branding efforts (let’s not forget that losing sight of the basics is one of the most common reasons why entrepreneurs sometimes get in trouble).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 9:55 am and is filed under Book Reviews, Branding Basics. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.