Books: "Accidental Branding" by David Vinjamuri

[Ben McConnell]

David Vinjamuri's new book, "Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands," kicks off SWOM's program to feature discussions of new books that are relevant to word of mouth.

David is adjunct professor of marketing at NYU and president of ThirdWay, Inc. David has over 15 years of corporate experience, half of which was at Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola in brand management and marketing.

David and his publisher, Wiley, have supplied SWOMies with a downloadable chapter of the book (in PDF form). Take a read and offer up any comments or questions.

Excerpted with permission of the publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. from Accidental Branding. Copyright (c) 2008 by David Vinjamuri.

[Austin White]

Looking forward to reading more. This looks like info that will be great to spread !

[Laurie Brown]

Great reminder of how to succeed!
thanks

[david miron]

Heard You were handing out ten free copies - I want one. David Miron

[Brian Austin]

I work for one of those companies that was founded and led by a great entrepreneur who's story is mythic - yet for some reason this great American success story has been played down in the brand development. Curious to have a chance to read the book and learn more about how this entrepreneurial drive fuels the organic growth of the brand.

[David Vinjamuri]

Brian,

It's such a danger that as the brand develops and time goes on the story might get lost. A great story is more effective than a lot of average advertising.

dv

[Brandon Morris]

I read the review from 'The Latest from Church of the Customer Blog' - '10 questions with David Vinjamuri'...very intriguing book...I would love to get a copy to read myself...please include me in the drawing...I will be getting this book regardless of the drawing...

[Adam Gilbert]

I love the question of if you'd bet on someone who has an MBA or someone who quit their regular paying job to start a company.

Well, that' s what I did. I'm a 25 year old entrepreneur who is insanely passionate about health and fitness, helping people and entrepreneurship and created my dream company a little over a year ago, MyBodyTutor.com, after quitting my full time job at Ernst & Young in NYC.

I started it because I noticed that there was a huge problem going on. Everyone was always asking me for health and fitness advice, yet when I'd see them a week or two later, I'd ask them how they were doing. Every single time, they'd reply with, "Well, it worked out great for the first few days but then..."

I realized that we all know how great working out and eating right is. Yet we don't know do it. We all know, for the most part, how to do it as well. We just don't it.

I even found myself constantly making excuses and rationalizing poor eating. I needed to solve this problem for me and everyone else.

I created MyBodyTutor.com and it's going amazingly well. I offer daily and personal accountability like no other company in the world. My website is still very basic, (in the process of redoing it now) but when you read some of the testimonials on my website, you'll see how much of an impact I'm really having on people, and that's what makes it all worth it!

I truly believe in my company and my clients truly believe in me. They are becoming customer evangelists and believe I have created (and of course, so do I) what will be a huge company serving millions of people.

In fact, I won't stop until I do, because as only true passionate marketers would know, I feel I have an obligation to help people because I know I can. It's not about the money. It's a responsibility I feel I have. It's my purpose and I'm helping people solve a very important problem...

And that is staying consistent when it comes to your health and fitness. Consistency is the key to success in any aspect of life.

In order to do good, you have to feel good. All the wealth in the world means nothing with your health!

And I believe so strongly in what I'm doing that I offer a full 100% money back guarantee although no other health and fitness company in the world does.

I'd love to read this book so one day MyBodyTutor is in a book like this!

And wait until you see my new website, hopefully launching in early May...it truly represents what I'm all about.

I believe, if you believe in what you're doing 1000% and are honest and authentic, failure is not an option...and thankfully my clients see that.

-Adam Gilbert
GuruGilbert.com
MyBodyTutor.com

[David Vinjamuri]

Hi Adam,

I'd be happy to tell your story on the Accidental Branding blog (www.accidentalbranding.com ). If you're interested, let me know and I will ask you 5 questions you can answer ...

dv

[Adam Gilbert]

Hi David!

Great to hear from you.

That sounds amazing! I actually just emailed you.

Talk soon and thanks again!

-Adam

[Adam Gilbert]

David,

I must say, I wrote my long comment without reading chapter 2. After reading, chapter 2, all I can say is wow and I'm excited.

Here's why:

Rule # 1: Do sweat the small stuff!

I love it. Everyone I know, tells me me I'm a perfectionist and that it's an awful thing in business. I couldn't disagree with them more. Are we more likely to talk about our experiences with businesses and products where every single detail was paid attention to or not. I think the answer is pretty clear.

EVERYTHING is in the details. That's where the remarkability factor comes in. It took me a long time to find a web designer/developer because of this. And I refused to settle. I much rather have my unprofessional, yet, hopefully authentic website.

Rule # 2: Pick a fight

I love it! I believe we're all super busy and that we all have a million distractions and things to do. The last thing we need when it comes to our health and fitness goals are programs that encourage embarrassing, annoying and time consuming meetings. We also don't need impersonal websites that send out automated and generic emails. What we need, what we all need, is that personal and daily accountability. Fine. I might be pumped up after a weekly meeting, maybe, but what happens two days later? I'm there every single day and there is no embarrassment to keep my clients motivated, and focused!

Rule #3: Be your own customer

I started this company because working out and eating right have been a huge part of my life for so long. But after I graduated college and started working 12 hour days at Ernst & Young, I realized it was really so easy to lie to yourself, rationalize bad eating and not exercising and to just keep saying, "Screw it, I'll start tomorrow!" We all need daily and personal accountability and mine is that I simply answer to my clients who look up to me and trust me. I'm solving my own problem every day as well as my clients!


Rule #4: I am insanely persistent. In college, when I had an advertising business, the number one thing business owners used to say to me was, "Thank you for your persistence! I'm glad we are working together." I think persistence can only come from if you really, truly, believe in what you offer. I also, know it takes a long time to build a company and I much rather be patient and not sacrifice personal attention and build my company out slowly.

Rule #5: Build a myth

I love this one and it's something I am really working on. Why does Tiger Woods have 3 coaches? I'm trying to build a myth that the most successful people do have coaches, trainers, and mentors. I mean it's not a myth, but I want people to feel good about having a body tutor. Not bad.

Rule #6: Be faithful

My clients always tell me that when I'm on Oprah (from their mouths to God's ears!) that I better not forget about them. I find the most successful businesses continue doing what made them successful. The ones that as soon as they start making some money, stop doing what they did to make that money, rarely succeed! That's why I'm obsessed with that personal attention and am in the process of training other tutors to handle clients.

Rule # 7 Be PASSIONATE

I can't stop writing because I believe in what I'm doing and love talking about business and figuring out ways to grow my business which is very important to me because I truly want to help as many people as I can.

Okay back to work!

-Adam

[David Vinjamuri]

I love your passion. That's what it takes to succeed!

Best,

dv

[Rob Marsh]

Ben thanks for the great interview and the free chapter.

I both love and hate the title of the book. While it may be right to call the brands that Vinjamuri talks about as accidental, they are only accidental if one believes that branding consists of the logo, the colors, and the creative (i.e. the stuff done by the ad agency). This book hammers home the fact that there is absolutely nothing accidental about creating great brand experiences. As the chapter points out, entrepreneurs like Gary Erickson are very deliberate in everything they do to build their companies. And that's really what branding is, building a great business. The best business owners understand this, whether they've heard of "branding" or not. So it may be accidental in one respect, but it is anything but in all others.

If you still have an extra copy of the book, I'd love one.

Thanks again for the interview.