I had the pleasure to catch up with my friend and brand expert Denise Lee Yohn at Medallia’s recent Experience 17 conference (to which Medallia provided me a free ticket). Denise spoke at the event about the key concepts in her book What Great Brands Do.

Denise’s seven tenets of what great brands do are as follows:

• Great brands start inside
• Great brands avoid selling products
• Great brands ignore trends
• Great brands don’t chase customers
• Great brands sweat the small stuff
• Great brands commit and stay committed
• Great brands never have to “give back”

What I love about this message is that many of these concepts are counterintuitive; they are not among the first things that come to mind when you hear discussions of great brand.

As a big proponent of culture as a key ingredient of customer experience, I find the first principle “great brands start inside” to be among the most important.

Check out the brief video below to hear Denise and I discussing how important it is for brands to start inside and why sweating the small stuff is so crucial.