Your Brand Is Your Business

In the CUES Podcast Episode 30, we explore brand building with Denise Lee Yohn, president and consulting partner for Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

Yohn enjoys challenging readers to think differently about brand-building. It was with that goal in mind that she wrote the bestselling book What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest.

Yohn initially cultivated her brand-building approaches through several high-level positions in advertising and client-side marketing. She served as lead strategist at advertising agencies for Burger King, Land Rover, and Unilever and as the marketing leader and analyst for Jack in the Box restaurants and Spiegel catalogs. She went on to head Sony Electronic Inc.’s first-ever brand office, where she garnered major corporate awards as the VP/general manager of brand and strategy. She has run her own firm as an independent consulting partner since 2004.

In this episode, Yohn speaks about working at Jack in the Box in the highly commoditized fast-food industry. Credit unions will recognize some of her challenges.

“There should be no difference between the way you build your brand and the way you build your business, whether that’s targeting certain kind of customers, whether that’s developing certain products of services … whether that’s designing a customer experience. You want all of that to be an expression and delivery of what your brand stands for,” she says.

“Your brand is really how you run your business. Your brand is what you do and how you do it,” she explains. Think of “your branding as the things that create the perception but your brand is really your identity. It is really who you are at your core.”

You’ll have the chance to meet Denise in person at the 2017 CUES CEO/Executive Team Network. She will deliver a keynote on building a rock star brand for your organization followed by a deep dive session on how to take action with your credit union immediately upon your return to the office.

Some key takeaways from my interview with Yohn include:

1. why you should define brand as a business;
2. changes in brand-building strategies over time;
3. some of the biggest challenges organizations face to communicate their brands effectively; and
4. insights on her bestselling book, What Great Brands Do.

Listen now.

James Lenz is CUES’ professional development manager.