Business & Economics

Dollar Shave Club and its hilarious marketing. Casper mattresses popping out of a box. Third Love’s lingerie designed specifically for each woman’s body. Warby Parker mailing you five pairs of glasses to choose from. You’ve seen their ads. You (or someone you know) use their products. Each may appear, in isolation, as a rare David with the bravado to confront a Goliath, but taken together they represent a seismic shift in a business model that has lasted more than a century.

As Lawrence Ingrassia–former business and economics editor and deputy managing editor at the New York Times–shows in this timely and eye-opening book, a growing number of digital entrepreneurs have found new and creative ways to crack the code on the bonanza of physical goods that move through our lives every day. They have discovered that manufacturing, marketing, logistics, and customer service have all been flattened―where there were once walls that protected big brands like Gillette, Sealy, Victoria’s Secret, or Lenscrafters, savvy and hungry innovators now can compete on price, value, quality, speed, convenience, and service.

Billion Dollar Brand Club reveals the world of the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and corporate behemoths battling over this terrain. And what fun it is. It’s a massive, high-stakes business saga animated by the personalities, flashes of insight, and stories behind the stuff we use every day.

It has long been assumed that, in the development of any organization, the time for entrepreneurial activity is right at the beginning. Once an organization is established, qualities that were virtues in the organization’s start-up and early stages can become vices, and the entrepreneurial founders must cede control to professional managers who can nurture the fruits of their original vision more efficiently.

One unintended consequence of this assumption is that large, established organizations tend to be entrepreneur-free zones. Entrepreneurial thinking is tacitly discouraged because it can create novelty, and novelty is a threat to established organizations with large market shares.

Re-entrepreneuring argues that organizations must revive the entrepreneurial out-look of their founders in order to survive in today’s market. In an organization that encourages and nurtures an entrepreneurial outlook, everyone has the potential to unleash their inner entrepreneur and bring new and dynamic ways of thinking into their work environment. It has more to do with the ways of thinking encouraged by the organizational culture than by any inherent differences in talent or aptitude.

The solution presented in this new book is piecemeal yet targeted ‘re-entrepreneuring’. With the help of international case studies and first-hand testimony from business leaders, the authors show how the entrepreneurial approach can be applied to any organization and at all levels, in order to spark innovation, remove operational obstacles and – ultimately – to create new value.

Traditional approaches to brand management adopt an organizational perspective–the assumption is that the organization designs, produces and sells the brand, making a promise to customers and delivering on it. However, this view is limited. The power of the Internet to connect people and the desire of consumers to focus on experiences means that the brand is not created by the organization, but rather is co-created through the experiences of consumers, the participation of people in online communities and the sharing of ideas and opinions within networks.

In this new reality, the task of managers is to connect, listen and participate. The focus of brand management is no longer on the organization but on the intersection between the organization and all its stakeholders. This changing environment must lead to a new brand management paradigm, which the authors call the “co-creation perspective.”

Written in an accessible style with easy to understand models and international examples, Brand Management looks at how co-created brands create value and how the success of a co-creative approach can be measured. The book outlines the specific leadership approach required to develop a supportive culture–co-creative leaders need to be willing to let go of their brand and allow employees, customers and other stakeholders to help develop it.

Along with the positive outcomes of co-creation come situational challenges that will need to be handled differently within different industries. Co-creating Brands details the adjustments that leaders and organizations will need to make and how these challenges can be overcome.

America’s leadership expert teaches that if your life in any way connects with other people, you are an influencer. Whatever your vocation or aspiration is, you can increase your impact with Maxwell’s simple, insightful ways to interact more positively with others. Watch your personal and organizational success go off the charts!