Branding vs. Naming, Part II.

Just finished Marty Neumeier's "The Brand Gap" this weekend. It is a wonderful (and really short) book on branding. Neumeier defines a "brand" as

a person's gut feeling about a product, service, or company. ... When enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand. In other worrds, a brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is.

The author suggests every company should be able to instantly and unambiguously answer these three questions:

1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. Why does it matter?

This is a really hard exercise for lawyers. Go ahead, try it. I admit I get hung up on the second question before I even get to the third. I am (and have been for nearly 8 years) a "general practitioner" -- that kind of small-town lawyer who tries to be everything to everyone. In the past week, I've worked on a divorce, filed three evictions, drafted five deeds, and prepared two contracts for a client selling his business. Neumeier argues that "focus, focus, focus" are the three most important words in branding. He says that it is often better to be number one in a small category than to be number three in a large one. And if you can't be number one (or even number two)? Redefine your category. Being a general practitioner runs counter to Neumeier's advice to focus one's business. As I build my new law practice, I clearly have some work to do.