The Female Brand: Using the Female Mindset to Succeed in Business

201 Pages·2009·1.1 MB·English

by  Catherine Kaputa

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THE FEMALE BRAND
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F E M A L E
THE
B R A N D
USING THE FEMALE MINDSET
TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS
Catherine Kaputa
Davies-Black
an imprint of Nicholas Brealey Publishing
Boston (cid:129) London
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First published by Davies-Black, an imprint of Nicholas Brealey Publishing, in
2009.
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Boston, MA 02116, USA London, EC1R 4QB, UK
Tel: + 617-523-3801 Tel: [phone]
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www.nicholasbrealey.com
Special discounts on bulk quantities of Davies-Black books are available to cor-
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tact us at 888-273-2539.
© Copyright 2009 by SelfBrand, LLC. All rights reserved. No portion of this
book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or media or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, record-
ing, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. SelfBrand
and its logo are service marks of SelfBrand LLC. Visit the SelfBrand website at
www.selfbrand.com.
Printed in the United States of America.
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ISBN: 978-0-89106-284-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaputa, Catherine, 1948–
The female brand : using the female mindset to succeed in business/
Catherine Kaputa.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-89106-284-4 (hardcover)
1. Businesswomen. 2. Success in business. I. Title.
HD6053.K37 2009
658.4'09082—dc22 2008048675
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For my mother,
Carmen Lockwood Kaputa,
and all the mothers like her,
who have inspired countless millions
since the dawn of time
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Introduction xv
1 True to Nature 1
2 Branding for Success 17
3 Emotional Branding 35
4 A Verbal Edge 55
5 The Brand Story 75
6 Aspects of Attraction 91
7 The Female Style of Leadership 111
8 Born to Network 127
9 A Brand for All Seasons 141
The Final Word 159
Brainstormers 161
Acknowledgments163
About the Author 165
Notes 167
Index 177
vii
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PREFACE
New World—New Woman
Ever since a certain assertive female decided she wanted to eat fruit
from a certain forbidden tree, women have been loved, hated, glorified,
vilified, and misunderstood. Our modern world, of course, is no differ-
ent. Today, however, in many ways we are shedding the rigid ideas that
were commonplace just a generation ago and venturing into a brave
new world of adventure, opportunity, and angst.
Women first entered the workplace in great numbers out of neces-
sity in World War II. The enormity of the war effort meant that mil-
lions of men would need to be mobilized for the task. Men couldn’t be
in two places at once. So if men were busy driving jeeps, who was mak-
ing the jeeps?
Rosie the Riveter, that’s who.
Quaint notions of the weaker sex and a woman’s place were swept
aside in an instant. Saving the world came first. Victory brought the
men back to the factories, but nothing could bring back the world that
had been. Changes to come would, for better or worse, remake the fam-
ily, the workplace, and the world.
To understand the future of the workplace, it’s important to realize
how relatively new our economic reality is. Well into the twentieth cen-
tury, women’s lives were centered around home and family, as were most
men’s, since most people still lived on the farm. The so-called industrial
revolution laid the foundation of our current commercial world. Com-
merce, of course, has always existed, but it has become an overwhelm-
ing presence and has dramatically affected our lives.
In a blink of historical time, we’ve gone from making our own
clothes and growing our own food to making only money. Stereotypes
of women have changed dramatically in my lifetime alone. When I was
growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, women were viewed as not-quite-as-
good versions of men. Women of my generation were encouraged to go
after “pink” jobs like nursing and teaching. While these are worthwhile
pursuits, why should women be limited?
In the ’70s, the women’s liberation movement threw a torch at think-
ing pink and claimed that there are no differences between men and
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