Catherine Kaputa - Breakthrough Branding: How Smart Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs Transform a Small Idea into a Big Brand

PRAISE for Breakthrough Branding
By Catherine Kaputa

Whether youre dying to launch your own company, or are more of a reluctant entrepreneur, you face the imperative to build your brand. Catherine Kaputa has made this challenge her personal and professional study, and in this book she shares secrets worth many times the cost of admission. Now go forth and brand!

Daniel H. Pink, Author, DRIVE and A WHOLE NEW MIND

Breakthrough Branding is engaging, vital and packed with branding power. With examples from around the world, its a must read for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who have a business ide but need the tools to grow it into a big brand.

William H. Roedy, Former Chairman & Chief Executive of MTV Networks
International, and Author, What Makes Business Rock

If you aim to be an entrepreneur and already have a big idea, but you never studied marketing and branding, this book will give you a running start. Catherine is a superb coach and her book delivers a wonderful collection of marketing steps and real world entrepreneur success stories.

Philip Kotler, Marketing Professor, Kellogg School of Business,
Northwestern University

Anything that Catherine writes is worth reading. She was one of my best students on the subject of Positioning and building brands. She wont steer you wrong.

Jack Trout, World Famous Marketing Strategist

If theres one thing youve just got to know aboutbut is tough to learn aboutits branding. Catherina Kaputa tells you what you must know in this valuable book. Read it before your competitors do.

Jay Conrad Levinson Author,
Million-Selling Guerrilla Marketing Series

If brand building were courting and marrying, Kaputas strategies would be the best dating advice around! She shows you how to romance the marketplace with your package, your name, and your image without sacrificing the heart of your brand.

Dr. Wendy Walsh, Americas Relationship Expert,
Co-Host, THE DOCTORS and CNNs Human Behavior Expert

Catherines Breakthrough Branding is a book you give to the ones you love who are building their own business. She takes us step by step through a process born of security of the perfect job to the jungle of entrepreneurship. She has been thrown into it and mastered it. Her lessons are invaluable. This is a must read for anyone aspiring or working to build a business.

Jim Camp, Founder Camp Negotiation Institute,
and Author, Start With No

For both long-standing and newly-minted entrepreneurs, there is no greater defeat than having a customer go elsewhere because they didnt understand your value. Breakthrough Branding clearly and skillfully leads its readers through the need and the creative process of branding a position in the marketplace. By first creating a clear benefit or promise of worth which is different from that of competitors, and then by allowing social media to be a big microphone, each entrepreneur can learn to reinvent and redistribute their personal and business branding. I highly recommend this book as a must-have marketing tool in todays highly-competitive, global marketplace.

Patricia Sigmon, President, David Advisory Group,
and Author, Six Steps to Creating Profit

Having a great idea isnt enough. Youve got to develop and build your brand if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, and Catherine Kaputa is just the expert you need to provide you with great ideas in a simple, direct way. Want branding to be easy? Read this book.

Anita Bruzzese, USA Today Workplace Columnist,
and Author, 45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy

An accomplished marketer and world-class businesswoman, Catherine has created the ultimate field manual for any aspiring entrepreneur. A must-have and must-read for anyone who wants their business to succeed!

Kevin Allen, Author, The Hidden Agenda

Your brand is a mental picture that consumers carry around in their heads. But the act of branding is something you can controlby using the tools of marketing communications to influence those perceptions. Here is a cheerful crash course on how to get going.

Steve Rivkin, Marketing Consultant, and Co-Author,
IdeaWise and The Making of a Name

From one of marketings premier thought-leaders, Breakthrough Branding is a treasure chest filled with practical and immediately applicable advice on branding and marketing strategy. It is sure to become THE handbook of entrepreneurial branding and marketing strategy.

Robert Barnwell, Author, Lead, Follow or Get the Hell Out of the Way

How SMART ENTREPRENEURS
and INTRAPRENEURS Transform
a SMALL IDEA into a BIG BRAND

CATHERINE KAPUTA

This edition first published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, in 2012.

www.nicholasbrealey.com

2012 SelfBrand LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-85788-581-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaputa, Catherine, 1948

Breakthrough branding: how smart entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs
transform a small idea into a big brand / Catherine Kaputa.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-85788-581-1 (pbk.)
1. Branding (Marketing) 2. Success in business. I. Title.
HF5415.1255.K37 2012
658.827--dc23
2011044338

To my heroes:
All the entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs
growing businesses around the world

Coauthor, War in the Boardroom

Never in history has there been so many opportunities for entrepreneurs to become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

Mark Zuckerberg, a college dropout, is twenty-six years old and is worth $13.5 billion.

Dustin Moskovitz, a former roommate of Zuckerbergs, is eight days younger than Mark and is worth $2.7 billion. The third employee of Face-book, Dustin left early to start a software company.

Over in Japan, another entrepreneur, Yoshikazu Tanaka, is thirty-four years old and is worth $2.2 billion.

All over the world, the stories are the same. If you want to become really wealthy, forget the traditional path of getting an entry-level job at General Motors, General Electric, or General Dynamics and working your way up from the bottom.

The way to become really wealthy is to start at the top and not at the bottom. Be an entrepreneur and not an employee.

Thats the good news. The bad news is that more than 90 percent of entrepreneurs never become truly successful. They struggle for years and never seem to break out of the pack.

Why is this so?

Perhaps its because entrepreneurs are different. Theres an old saying: You can always tell an entrepreneur, but you cant tell them much. To be an entrepreneur and start a company, you need a thick skin. You need to be able to shrug off advice like, Youre going to start a WHAT?