Ever wonder why some brands just sell more easily than others? Why some brands are just more memorable than others? Why we like some brands more than others?

Consider the following seven secrets of successful brands, does this sound like your brand?

1. Compelling Story: Your buyers attach meaning to your brand because they truly understand your brand’s platform (i.e. the essence, promise, differentiators and proof points).

2. Reputation: You don’t settle for “me too”. Instead your brand is positioned on a reputation idea that reflects where your organization excels, how you’re different, special and relevant (i.e. innovation leader, fun leader, knowledge leader, are a few examples).

3. Core Values: Your brand is based on 3-5 core values which your organization unequivocally defends (even when it costs you more money).

4. Humanized: You don’t settle for a “vanilla” brand personality. Instead you’ve developed a unique personality for your brand which may be based a universally recognized brand archetype (ex. hero, rebel, powerbroker, creator, siren and others).

5. Owning Color: You’ve developed a color palette for your brand’s identity and consistently use 1 or 2 colors primarily (ex. Susan G. Komen’s pink, UPS’ brown, IBM’s blue).

6. Strong Stewardship: Your brand has clear brand standards (ex. Do’s and don’ts regarding your logo, colors and typography). And you’ve made your brand assets accessible to those who use them. Brand assets include digital files of logo, photos and graphics.

7. Living the Brand: Because a customer’s experience with a brand will cement their perceptions, you deliberately work to align employee’s attitudes, knowledge and behavior with the desired brand experience. You leverage, in this order, people, programs and “propaganda” (aka internal communications) to help everyone “live” the brand each day.