My uncle ran a horse ranch in the Greater Toronto Area - boarding, trail rides, summer camps. For years, he paid a fortune for highway signs. Visible, professional, expensive.
He described the first decade as "rolling a rock uphill." The signs cost money every month. Attribution was impossible. The ROI felt theoretical at best.
Thirty years later, the business runs on repeat customers and referrals. The signs are still there, but they're not doing the heavy lifting anymore. People know the ranch. They know the brand. The business is optional now - more lifestyle than grind, less shoveling shit.
The J-Curve Reality
This is the reality of brand equity: it has a J-curve return.
Early on, brand investment feels like waste. You're spending money on impressions, awareness, "consideration" - metrics that don't convert to revenue this quarter. Your attribution dashboard shows nothing. Your CFO asks reasonable questions you can't answer with data.
Most marketers quit here. They reallocate budget to performance channels where they can see immediate return. They optimize for this month's ROAS instead of next decade's enterprise value.
The ones who stick with it build something defensible.
The Illiquid Asset That Compounds
Brand equity works like real estate appreciation - it's an illiquid asset that compounds slowly, then suddenly becomes valuable. You can't sell it quickly. You can't mark it to market every quarter. But when you go to sell the business, it shows up in the multiple. When competitors enter your market, it shows up in customer retention.
There's power in a recognized brand. It shows up in search demand. It shows up in response rates. It shows up in pricing power and customer lifetime value.
There's a lot more to your brand than just direct response cattle herding.
Maintaining Conviction During the Uphill Years
The difficult part is maintaining conviction during the uphill years - when the signs cost money and the brand feels like a luxury you can't afford. That's exactly when the investment matters most.
My uncle paid for those signs for a decade before they paid him back. Now they've been paying him back for twenty years.
Building Brand Equity That Compounds?
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