My father taught me a lot of things about life and a lot of what he told me about building my own brand can be applied to others and consumer and B2B brands alike. He introduced me to Rudyard Kipling’s, If poem about “having Class” and with all of the classless acts and rude behavior (pick one – Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Jon and Kate plus 8) out there, I thought re-introducing his poem in this video with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal – two first class, highly successful and respected athletes and men – would make you pause and think about adding the Class Strategy to your marketing and personal repetoire.

If you want to succeed in the long term today with self respect and separate yourself from the the rest of the pack…have Class.  So many people and brands lack class, character and integrity these days that their strategy to succeed is simply based shouting louder, overspending in media, being rude, applying shock value and more.

In this day and age of “look at me” shallow brands, celebrities and citizens, I believe that they and you can move to the head of the class by having class in everything they and you do and say.

Be a First Class Brand and you won’t have to tell anyone…they’ll know by your actions and will tell a ton of people for you.

P.S.: Here is a link to Kipling’s entire poem – If.