Laura Ries Habits Brand Positioning and Strategy

Prioritize weekends for family activities to maintain personal connections and recharge. This involves dedicating time to attend children's events and engage in shared interests.

Work closely with a trusted business partner to combine expertise and share decision-making. This fosters complementary skills and long-term strategic alignment.

Maintain strict focus on a single market position to build brand clarity. Avoid dilution through excessive product lines or conflicting messaging.

Use distinctive visual elements to reinforce brand positioning. Develop icons, packaging, or logos that emotionally connect with audiences.

Prioritize public relations over advertising for brand launches. Cultivate organic media coverage through newsworthy innovations.

Bridge analytical and creative thinking in business decisions. Encourage collaboration between data-driven and intuitive team members.

Resist reactive changes to brand strategy during market fluctuations. Maintain core messaging and visual identity over time.

Conduct regular assessments of brand focus and market position. Eliminate inconsistent elements and reinforce core differentiators.

Identify and dominate emerging market spaces rather than competing in saturated categories. Position brands as category leaders.

Reject opportunities that dilute brand focus. Develop criteria for saying 'no' to line extensions or irrelevant partnerships.

Regularly review historical brand successes and failures. Extract patterns from category leaders and failed competitors.

Develop brand names that work across languages and cultures. Avoid regionally-specific terms that limit expansion.

Highlight market leadership in all communications. Leverage perceived authority to justify premium pricing.

Align brand actions with core identity. Avoid trendy tactics that contradict brand heritage.

Distill brand essence into memorable phrases. Use linguistic devices like rhyme or alliteration for recall.

Encourage right-brain creativity in corporate environments. Protect innovative ideas from excessive analysis.

Track consumer brand associations through research. Prioritize mindshare over functional attributes.

Produce books and articles to establish thought leadership. Use publishing to reinforce consulting frameworks.

Conduct intensive strategy sessions to develop positioning. Use visual tools and case studies to drive consensus.

Define brands against category leaders. Highlight contrasts in messaging and visual identity.