Do Business Well

Leadership first, perception second. To try to reverse this sequence is almost impossible.

What if you do everything right? What if you are the first in a new category and subsequently go on to dominate that category domestically? Then you should try to expand the market in the U.S. at the same time that you take your brand to the global market.

Coca-Cola did all of these things. But what’s next? Are there no second acts in branding history? Continue Reading »

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But everybody wants to grow, and you can’t blame them. So what should an Internet brand like Amazon.com do? There are five fundamental branding strategies for a leader in any category.

1. Keep your brand focused.

There are more than 5 million dotcom sites registered on the Internet, and you want your site to stand for more than one thing? Amazon.com should stay focused on books and music CDs. After all, the site accounts for just 4 percent of the $24.6 billion book market in the United States. Continue Reading »

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Amazon.com used to use the theme “Earth’s Biggest Book‑store.” No longer. They’ve changed it. The new theme is “Earth’s Biggest Selection.”

Person of the year Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, says, “It’s very natural for a customer to wonder, can you really be the best place to buy music, books and electronics? In the physical world, the answer is almost always no. But on the Internet all the physical constraints go away.” (A sign of the times: The company recently registered “Amazoneverywhere.net as a Website name.) Continue Reading »

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The biggest mistake of all is believing you can do anything.

Success in business doesn’t just show up on the bottom line of the profit-and-loss column; it also goes to the top. Success in business inflates the egos of top management.

Supremely successful companies believe they can do anything. They can launch any product into any market. They can make any merger work. It’s just a question of having the willpower and the resources to throw into the task. “What is it that we want to do?” is the question that management usually asks itself. Continue Reading »

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