Marketing your small business is tough work. Making time to improve your companys Brand, Package and People marketing elements is something most of us just barely squeeze in when we can. But, once in a while, a really good read comes along that can supply profitable insights for todays small business marketer.

If you are a small business owner and have time for only one book on Brand, pick up A New Brand World by Scott Bedbury.

Of course, there are other texts that are more concerned specifically with small business marketing, but there is no other book we know of that provides such a solid overview of the subject of Brand.

And Bedbury covers Brand in a style small business owners not trained in marketing can understand. He writes from the gut and from his experience at both Nike and Starbucks. We can see some of you already shaking your head from side to side--and usually we would be, too.

Big companies mean big ad money and a huge advertising staff; two items no small business has. But trust us here. Take an evening or two and read Scott Bedburys story and we just bet you will relate to his experience at both Nike and Starbucks when each was a much smaller company. Thats part of the beauty of his narrative; you get to see inside these marketing giants when they were at a much earlier time in their development, prior to their global domination days.

Bedbury lists eight brand principles in A New Brand World. For the small business owner or manager, pay particular attention to the following chapters:

• Cracking Your Brands Genetic Code

• Show Some Emotion

• Brand Environmentalism

• Brand Leadership

Youll want to grab your highlighter and some sticky notes when you sit down with this book. We found ourselves writing in the margins and jotting notes down about our own experiences as we raced through this read.

If you think you dont have time to read the entire book, then please get to the bookstore and at least devour and digest pages 27 through 29 to whet your appetite. Our hope is that youll find these pages right on and decide to tunnel out some time to read the rest of this excellent brand manual.

Trust us: theres nothing worse for a small business owner than wading through page after page of marketing theory. But with this book youll learn great Brand ideas in short order. And then we urge you to make some of Scott Bedburys lessons your own.

2006 Marketing Hawks