If you are satisfying customers, you are keeping your brand reputation healthy. If you are fighting with customers because of something you did (like over-billing), you are damaging your brand, and very likely losing business.

Keeping a healthy brand reputation intact costs far less than attempting to repair a damaged brand. One involves maintaining good practices, while the other goes much deeper, usually involving rooting out an infected company policy, followed by employee training, apologizing to customers, a PR campaign, a website overhaul, and a new advertising campaign. See how that adds up?

Big is your dream or vision.

Big is unconcerned with size.

Big is branding with integrity.

Big is your passion.

Big is marketing with honesty.

Possibilities are big.

Creating is big.

Thinking is big.

Acting is the bigger next step.

What are you dreaming/creating/thinking/doing?

Lately, it seems that every phone call I make to a customer service department at nearly any company, from those known for their stellar customer service, to those not so known for it, is answered by someone whose number one priority it is to assert just how right they are.

It doesn’t matter what I have called about because 99% of the time, they aren’t listening. All they seem to want to do upon answering the call is let me know that they are right. Their opinion is the only one that matters. Have a question? We don’t care. We’re not here to answer your questions. We’re here to be right. Is our product defective? Don’t care about that either as long as we’re right. 

If everyone was perfect, it would be a pretty boring world. We learn from our mistakes. A mistake is a small form of failure. Failure rocks because it teaches us how to succeed. “Why do we fall down? So we can learn how to pick ourselves back up.” (- Batman Begins, 2005)

All of this rightness begs the question: If every company is always right, who does that leave to be wrong?

It leaves only the customer to be wrong. How do you think that makes customers feel?

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes
Think about it for a second. You’ve just given your hard-earned money to a company. You’ve got a question or a problem, so you call customer service, and the first thing they tell you is that you’re wrong or your question is irrelevant. How does that make you feel?

This kind of rightness can only lead to resentment and a damaged brand. The good news is that always being right presents opportunities for competitive companies to steal away business. People do business with people they relate to. People make mistakes. Companies make mistakes. When they can admit it, they go well together. When companies claim to be perfect, humans can no longer relate to them, and they move on to someone else.

When companies claim to always be right as a flawed tactic for eliminating liability or due to an over-inflated ego, they are really losing customer loyalty by alienating people and creating a disconnect that damages their brand reputation.

Whether you are building a personal brand or protecting a corporate brand, you must learn to relate to your customers, admit your shortcomings, and embrace your failures. Only after doing these can you realize your greatest possible success.

My call to businesses great and small: Go out and fail today!

If you launch a business without a logo, you are endangering the success of your business and your brand right out of the starting blocks. A brand is not a thing created solely by the customer, and it’s not just for the customer. Your brand is a conglomeration of the following things, in this order: an entrepreneur’s or company’s core values, your visual and verbal identity (including your logo, the cornerstone of your identity), customer service, product or service quality, and finally the customer’s experience. All of these elements combine to create perception, experience, and loyalty. Your logo plays a vital role in this mix, as the single most communicative and memorable ingredient.

Your logo serves a much larger role than “just” the meaningful identifier for your customers though. It is a daily signal to inspiration and motivation for you and your employees. Your logo is also the single fastest way to communicate your worthiness to angels and bankers, as well as your professionalism to vendors. Your logo and corporate identity set the tone for nearly all of your branding and marketing communications, including your website. If you don’t start with a professional logo, it is highly likely that you will end up with a mish-mash of mismatched marketing communications.

If you skip the critical step of designing a logo, you leave the customer, and all of the people your business relies on, to define their own picture of you. Some people will do this with their own visual cues, and some will not do it at all.

If you design your own logo, it is highly likely that you will want to redesign within 2-3 years. The simple reason for this is that pro designers simply think differently. They solve creative problems in different ways than non-designers. They design logos that stand the test of time. A good logo should last 10-20 years. If you change your logo after just two or three years, you will have to re-educate your customers, yourself, and your employees, and that costs a lot of money.

The most common thing I hear from clients after we complete a logo and identity design is that they now feel real and legitimate. How powerful is that? Super powerful.

Human beings process 80% of all information visually, so if you skip giving them a meaningful logo to remember, guess what? Chances are pretty high that they won’t remember your company. Instead, when they need your product or service again, they will Google it or try to locate it at a store. They may find you, or they may find one of your competitor’s products.

If you later decide to design a logo after launching your business, you have just created a massive disconnect for the customers who have already created their own picture of who you are, and you must now retrain their minds to discover your company all over again. That costs a significant chunk of change. And people don’t like change when it comes to their brands.

How to Get a Professional Logo On Budget and On Time
Three primary misconceptions hold small businesses back from designing a logo prior to launching their business: 
1. Lack of money
2. Lack of time
3. Lack of a good graphic designer, also called disillusionment.

Small business owners and DIYers have a strong tendency to think that logo and identity design will cost too much, and they think it will take too long. If they manage to get past those two excuses, they often hire an inexperienced graphic designer who scares them away with poor design, and they get disillusioned and lose perspective. These are the three most common excuses business owners use to talk themselves out of launching their company with the single most compelling tool available (the logo). There are easy ways to get past all three of these misconceptions. Here they are:

1. Lack of Money – The money factor is the easiest one to conquer. You don’t need a small fortune to hire a competent graphic designer. It’s simply a question of finding the right designer. Set a realistic budget, and be completely up front about it with the designers you call. Avoid trying to get a deal because you’re likely to instead end up with less of a design than you deserve. If the idea for your product or business is great, it deserves to be well-represented. If it isn’t professional looking, that sends a message that your company or product isn’t up to snuff.

Avoid the temptation of trying to get a logo on the cheap from a bulk logo house. These companies have no interest in creating a logo that will truly represent your core characteristics and last you 10 or 20 years, and they can’t possibly help to give you the deeper understanding of your business that a competent designer can.

Interview 3-5 graphic designers on the phone or in person, and chances are you will find one who can work with your budget. You have to know where to look, but it’s not hard. If you call a designer or firm, and they tell you your budget is too low, don’t be offended. It’s not personal. Ask them for the name of a designer they know who can work with your budget. The good designers will want to help you. 

When I take calls from people looking to hire me, I am very up front about our rates. I’ve done an extensive amount of work to devise ways to make working with smaller budgets profitable. Not everyone knows how to do that, so it really is important to make several calls and ask good questions, all with an open mind to the possibilities.

2. Lack of Time – Begin with the end in mind. The first thing you should do when you decide to start a company is call a professional graphic designer. Why? Design runs the world. Look at what mother nature did with design if you need an example to validate that claim. (Unfortunately, she’s not available.) If you are having trouble naming your company, some designers also do brand naming, and they can help. If you already have a great name, you have a head start. 

If you have the time, get started with your graphic designer about 3-4 months ahead of your business launch. If you are short on time, find a designer who works extremely well under deadline pressure. They’re out there (not to plug myself, but I’m one of them). I’ve designed logos that lasted 15 years or more in literally hours, not days or weeks. It’s best not to count on instant turnaround, especially if the designer will be working with a committee for approval. 3-6 weeks is considered normal, but faster is certainly possible. The search for a designer should take a maximum of three half days, or 12 hours total. 12 hours to find a designer who fits your business like a glove is a bargain of time.

3. Lack of a good designer, or Disillusionment – This is another easy one to conquer. The best way to avoid getting poor graphic design that undermines your confidence in the power of great design is to get #1 right. Set a realistic budget, be up front about it, and find a designer who you really connect with in conversation. Are they asking relevant questions? Are they making you think? Are they paying attention? Make sure you like their logo design work. If they use a lot of photos as logos, keep searching. (Photos are used only when a designer is totally stumped, and photos make horrible logos because they are way too detailed to remember in the blink of an eye.) 

Ask a lot of questions. Don’t ask which software they use because software has nothing to do with design – it’s simply a tool, like a hammer to a carpenter. Instead, focus on their design process. How will they start? What will be the project stages? What does their estimate include? Does the estimate include revisions? If the estimate doesn’t include revisions, that can be a red flag. Experienced designers know to include this on their estimates. When can you expect to see rough concepts? When will the project be completed? Ask as many questions as you need to feel totally good about the designer, then hire one.

Great! You’ve Hired a Designer. Now What?
Once you hire a designer, think of them as a trusted partner who is going to understand you and help express your innermost visions. Your expressed confidence gives the designer the freedom to do great work for you.

If you follow these three simple tasks, you will get the logo your business needs to launch well at a price you can afford.

A very common set of statements I hear from prospective clients is:

1. We want to increase sales.
2. We want a really strong logo, brand or website.
3. We don’t want to spend much, or we have a very small budget.

If you can relate with these statements, this article was written just for you.

1. Budget Setting: Use the New Computer Rule
When setting your budget, use the “New Computer Rule,” which states that you should always buy the most expensive computer you can afford. The reason for this is simple. If you buy the cheapest computer, it will have a slower processor, it will become outdated much faster, and it will not serve your purposes very well. Similarly, if you buy the cheapest logo, identity design or website, it will not transform your brand, it will become outdated much faster, and it will very likely not communicate the essence of who you are. If your goal is to increase sales by making a bigger impact right from the start, a cheap identity or website design will not do that. This is not a license to go out and break your budget. It is a great rule of thumb, however, and it’s a smart way to start setting realistic goals for your brand or website design.

2. Break the Cycle!
If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got. If you have always been dissatisfied with the work your designer has done, you probably do not know how amazing it feels to experience outstanding design when it is created just for your business. If you want a big change in the perception of your business, or a boost in sales, or you have some other big goal, stop doing what you have always done. If you have always hired the cheapest design firm, but you are unsatisfied with the results, set a higher budget and get a better design firm. If you hire the cheapest, you get the cheapest. Don’t have a higher budget? Ask about options. Some designers do not offer options, while others can get pretty darn creative with options. Ask yourself: Does the cheapest looking logo represent your business the way you want it to? Does the $300 template website do everything we need it to do? Probably not. Then break the vicious cycle by setting a higher budget, hiring a better designer, and getting better results.

3. Ask Questions
Do you buy a new car without asking questions about it? If you do, you have probably bought a lemon or two in your day. Do you change accounting systems without studying the features? If so, your bank account or books probably suffered heavily until you figured out how to use it, or worse, figured out it wasn’t the right system for you. The same goes for graphic designers. As sad as it is, there are graphic designers out there who don’t know the first thing about branding and can’t map out an effective website to save their lives. Owning a computer and some design software does not make a great designer. If I bought a dentist chair and some dental tools, would you trust me to be your dentist? I sure hope not! Experience and knowledge count for everything in design. Make sure your designer is using solid strategic planning and research as well. How do you find out if they are knowledgeable? Look at their work and ask questions!

4. Find a Designer Who is Also a Writer
If you can find a designer who also is a writer, you’ve hit the jackpot! Designers who can write well tend to read a lot, and because of this, they can gain a thorough understanding of all of the many aspects of brand development. Exceptional brands are not made in a day or a week. It takes time, research, experience and tons of know-how. A brand is made of three primary components: 1) the visual, 2) the verbal, and 3) the experience. If you can find a designer who is experienced at creating all three, and you communicate well together, you have found your designer! Make sure to review samples of their design and writing. What is the value in this? Your brand will be more fully integrated, which means it will be a more powerful marketing tool, and it work better all the way around.

4.5 Avoid the Writer Who is Also a Designer
What? Didn’t I just say to find a designer who is also a writer? Yes, but not the other way around. Writers usually do not make great designers. If your designer is primarily a writer, they probably are not a great designer. Sound confusing? Don’t worry, it’s really easy. Start your search by looking for a designer. When you find one who also writes tag lines and website text, you will have found a designer who is also a writer. Be sure to see their design work and read their text! If they are both to your liking, you’ve hit a home run. If you can’t find one person who is both a great designer and writer, no problem. Hire a designer who has a great relationship with a copywriter. Don’t get me wrong — great copywriters do exist! If you find a great copywriter first, continue your search for your designer. When you need a brand or website design, the simple rule is: Designer first, writer second.

5. Match Your Budget With Your Goals.
The most common goal for businesses seeking a new identity, brand or website design is increased sales. As mentioned above, the three most common statements I hear from prospective clients are:

1. We want to increase sales.
2. We want a really strong logo, brand or website.
3. We don’t want to spend much, or we have a very small budget.

These statements are completely incompatible with each other, which sets you up to fail in your attempts to increase your sales and reach your goals. This is that vicious cycle I referred to in tip #2 above. If you can’t increase your budget, you need to adjust your goals downward. This is one of the hardest lessons for businesspeople to learn and accept. If you are looking for a big change, it’s high time to match your budget with your goals. The return on investment will surprise and please you.

Is it ok to have a small budget? You bet! It’s absolutely fine. You just need to be realistic about what it is going to take for you to reach your goals. Instead of getting a great design that will last you for many years, you need to think about getting a design that will make do until you can afford what you really envision for your business.

6. Resist Negotiating on Price
Warning: You will not want to accept this tip, but you should read it and practice it. I’ll bet my dog’s first born puppy that it will serve you well.

Resist negotiating on price. What did I just say? That’s right, resist the temptation to negotiate on the price of your brand or website design. It seems to have become human nature to dicker, but the fact is that in brand and website design, there are only a few things that can result from negotiating the price downward, and none of them are positives for you, the client. In fact, every single one of them results in you getting less for your money, and not reaching your goals.

You may be thinking, ‘How can this be? If I get a lower price, I save money and I get what I want.’ The simple reality is that it just does not work that way. You may pay less, but you will not get what you want. Instead, you will get what you bargained for. In my many years of working as a designer and writer, the results of dickering have been completely consistent. Oh, and by the way, this is not limited to me or my agency. Graphic designers like to get together in groups and talk, just like housewives, sewing clubs, and drinking buddies. Every single designer I have met during the past 25 years, from the struggling to the most successful, has whined at some point about clients who negotiate for lower prices. (Don’t worry, they don’t name names unless you do something really bad!) I don’t know about you, but I always want to get the most for my money. I work hard to earn it, and I want the people who work for me to work equally hard. If I am not paying them what they are worth, I can’t expect to get their best efforts.

Here are the standard results of negotiating the price down:
1. You get less work from the designer.
2. You get less passion in the work from the designer.
3. You get less resources dedicated to your project.
4. You get less time spent on your project.
5. You get lower quality design.
6. Your project will be lower on the priority list.
7. You get less longevity. Your logo or website will quickly become outdated.
8. You get less satisfaction for your time and money.
9. You get less effectiveness.
10. You walk away less happy.

Do I still put in my best efforts on lower-priced projects? I sure try. But the reality is that lower-priced or discounted projects simply can not take precedence over normal-priced projects.

Let’s face it, you hire a designer for their expertise and their ability to deliver a high quality design that really connects with your customers, makes them think about you, creates desire, and stimulates action. Most experienced designers share those goals with you. When you negotiate the price down, you are telling the designer that you value their work less, yet at the same time, you are telling them that you want great work. It just does not add up.

Designers are a lot like you. They have a mouth or mouths to feed, a business to run, and they need to make sure that the work coming through the door is profitable. Designers tend to be passionate about their work, and they truly want it to succeed and last for a long time.

Good designers understand the value of their work, and they price it accordingly. If you have dickered the price down, what do you think the designer is thinking about while working on your project? Instead of focusing their attention solely on making your design great, they will be thinking about how they are going to make up the difference, wondering to whom they will try to sell the next project, and lamenting about why they accepted the job at a lower rate in the first place. When they are thinking about all of these things, what do you think will suffer? Your project will suffer. You can’t afford to have a weakened brand or website. You will end up with a design that could have been great, or might have been better, but rarely will the best designs come out when a designer is worried about making ends meet as a result of accepting a lower priced project. If the firm has junior staff, those less experienced designers, whose time costs the firm less money, will be the ones working on your design. Perhaps worst of all, the design itself will very likely not meet or exceed your goals.

Do you ask your doctor to reduce his rates? How about your accountant? Your yoga instructor? I’m guessing not.

Ultimately, dickering is a waste of time and an investment in your own unhappiness. When a designer gives you a fair price, accept it, sign the estimate, and get to work on a great design. You know what you want. All you need do is align your budget with your goals. If you hear that little voice creeping up in the back of your brain, ignore it. Beat it back with a dose of logic, and resist negotiating on price.

7. Don’t Settle, Discover!
If you settle for less than you deserve, you deserve the less that you get. Most people settle for less than they deserve, and as a direct result, they lose their vision and give up on reaching their goals. You don’t have to be like most people.

When you are hiring anyone for anything, you should always hire the best people that you can afford. That does not mean that you should hire the most expensive people. It means that you should set some goals just beyond what you think you can reach, write them down, and examine your budget. Then, make some calls, and find the right people to help you reach those goals.

Many branding agencies can help you objectively set a realistic budget. Designers who use strategy can help you set and understand your goals as well. Most good designers will answer your questions for 30 or more minutes free of charge, which is plenty of time for both of you to see if there is a good fit for working together. Don’t settle for a designer who doesn’t feel like just the right fit. Discover the right designer for you!

How do you make your customers feel after they tell you what they want? Your reaction has a huge impact on their perception of you, and on how they remember you and your brand.

Customer service is one of the most important aspects of your brand. That’s right, your brand. The way we treat people is a monumental core component of how people perceive us. As we all know, perception becomes reality. Our job as business owners and brand lovers is to guide perception in every genuine way possible.

Clients often have great ideas, but sometimes, their ideas are out of touch with their target market, or just plain wrong. The ability to smile in the face of a weak concept is paramount to successful client relationships. I always try to make my customers feel like they are right, even when they are wrong, sometimes horribly wrong. Here is my approach:

1. Do what the client asks. Even if it is detrimental to their business – even if it makes me pull my armpit hairs (I have no hair on my head) out by the roots – I always do what the client asks. If budget and time allow for it, I provide an excellent execution of what the client asked for, along with a stronger alternative. Upon seeing the results of their request, business-savvy clients will usually choose the best approach, even if it is ultimately not the concept or end-product they originally asked for. When a client sees that their concept is not really what they were after, and I present a stronger alternative, they are happy to pay for some additional work because they know that I did exactly what they requested, then I went the extra mile to deliver a great solution.

2. Do your best. Whether we are working on our own idea or a client’s idea, putting forth our best effort will always reap rewards in one way or another. Holding back does nothing for anyone. Showing the client our best work and hard efforts will usually pay dividends. Don’t try to save the best concept for the next project, or you may not ever get the chance to show it.

3. Give the client the credit. Do your clients ever try to take credit for your ideas? Mine do, all the time. Give clients the credit when they have a great idea. Make them feel like they came up with a great idea. After all, we would not have their business if they had not had a great idea in the first place. If a client tries to take credit for your great idea, sock them in the ear. Ha! Just seeing if you are paying attention. (Don’t ever punch clients.) When clients try to take the credit, gently remind them of your value or your idea, but ultimately, let them steal the five second spotlight if they insist. What would you rather have, the credit or the business? I’m not saying you should let your clients walk all over you, but it’s not hard to strike a balance that will keep you both happy.

4. Ask questions. Listen to your clients when they are talking. If a client says something that is just plain wrong, what do you do? Tell them they’re wrong? Hell no! Did you correct your grandma when she mispronounced a word? If you did, she probably hit you over the head with a rolled up TV Guide or National Enquirer. The customer is always right. (As is the grandma.) When a customer says something that without a doubt is wrong as wrong can be, I ask questions. We know our stuff, but hey! Our clients know their businesses better than anyone. Why risk pissing off a client by telling them that they are wrong? When we ask questions and give them their due attention, we learn important little clues about what makes them tick. That gives us fuel for promoting their company and for providing better value.

5. Involve the client in the process. The more involved a client is in the work, the more invested they will be. They will understand why we chose certain paths or made particular decisions. They will have less questions and more confidence in what we are doing. When they see the results of our work, our clients have a greater understanding of how and why our work is so effective. Involving the client in the process builds trust. Their is no greater gift to be granted than that. Well, a fat check is always nice too.

6. Pay attention! This is so important that it bears repeating. Listen to your clients when they are speaking. Have you ever had a client who had the attention span of a peanut? I have. These are the ones who can’t go five minutes without taking a call on their cell. You have to imagine that these folks were about to spontaneously combust before cell phones existed. Here again though, they can interrupt our meetings any time they want. If they choose to use meeting time on the cell, that’s their choice. Where am I going with this? Clients endowed with a short attention span tend to pack the really meaningful parts of their conversation into short snippets that can only be caught if you are paying close attention at all times. It doesn’t kill me to rivet my attention on a client for two hours. What kills my business is if I don’t pay attention during the critical moments where I need to learn about the client and their business.

7. Wrong can be right. Always look for the genius in your clients’ ideas. Sometimes I find myself kicking and screaming and cursing and moaning (silently of course) when a client forces me to pursue a concept that I know at the very core of my branding being is just wrong wrong wrong! But walk the path I must because my client is devoted to their idea and its birth into the light of day. I explore, I curse some more, and then something magical occurs as I relax and let my stubborn branding ego fall off the corner of the table. Their bad, wrong idea gives birth to a new concept, something strong and true and right that gives meaning to life and shines like a smile on the sun. In reality, client ideas are all born with the best of intentions. Sometimes a client’s concept might seem too simple or just plain boring, but there is a reason their mind went there. They want to say something, but their creative expression may not be getting at the underlying concept. That’s why they have us. When a client clings to a concept that appears to have no deep creative value, rather than rejecting it, look for the genius in it. Often times a client just needs to see a great execution of their bad idea to see that it was really not what they wanted at all. But even there, your great work will lead to the next round and can serve as a springboard for opening the client’s mind.

8. Buy yourself a shoulder to cry on.

9. Throw a private temper tantrum. Another tact to consider when a client presses you to explore a poor concept is to go ahead and stamp your feet, wave your arms, and yell obscenities. Do it all you want, but make sure you do it solo, in the privacy of your own sound-proof office. When you’re done, give the customer what they want.

10. Know when to say when. If every idea your client has makes you grit your teeth so hard they shatter, it’s probably time to refer your client to someone else. Teeth are hard to come by. Remember, though, that good clients are just as hard to come by. Sometimes letting go of a client is the best move for both of you.

Ultimately, every client comes equipped with their own set of rules. You need only decide if you want to play by those rules. I find that by always keeping this in mind, my average client relationships last over 10 years. Maybe it will help you too.

How do you keep customers happy? Have something to add to the list? Please post a comment!

This is how retail works. It’s a huge part of how we identify with the brands we buy, and how we develop brand loyalty. Where do you go when you need groceries? One store probably just popped into your mind.

Now imagine walking into your favorite clothing store, and having the following conversation:

You: “Hi, have you gotten rid of your sale section?”

Salesperson #1: “We haven’t had a sale area for at least a few months [emphasized], but we are having a sale starting next–”

You [calmly]: “Ok, but do you still have a sale section?”

#1: “No.”

You: “Great, thanks. That’s all I need.”

Salesperson #1 scowls and walks away, shaking her head and mumbling to herself.

You ask another salesperson about a particular type of jeans that you’ve bought there before. He’s never heard of them, raises his eyebrows and hands and says, “Sorry, never heard of that.” He turns to the manager who takes you to the jeans you asked about. Say you don’t like the colors they have – brown, black, light khaki, dark khaki, light grey – and you tell the manager, “Thanks anyway for finding them.”

Manager: “I don’t see what’s wrong with these colors?”

You: “I don’t like khaki. Khaki is boring. I’d like to see some colors.”

Manager: “Khaki is a great color. Well, how about these jeans?” she says, pointing you to some pre-faded, pre-scuffed blue jeans.

You: “I’ve never really liked pre-faded jeans, and those scuffs are the same on every single pair. I’m fine with jeans wearing out, but when every single pair has wear marks in exactly the same place, that’s not really me. It looks contrived, and not authentic. I always strive to be authentic.”

Manager: “These are authentic.”

You: “Well, they’re more conformist really. I’m not a conformist.”

Manager: “They’re all scuffed in the same place to keep, you know, the production level efficient.”

You: “I understand. Mass-produced “authentic” style. That’s speaks to conformity, and we don’t live in a conformist society.”

Manager [passionate and angry]: “That’s not what we’re about.”

You: “I’m not saying that’s what you are about. I’m a regular customer here. You don’t have to convince me that this is a good company.”

Manager: “I know. You look familiar. I think these jeans are very unique.”

You: “They would be unique if only one person had them. They would be great in a conformist society. Everyone could look unique in exactly the same way. We live in a free society. We don’t vote for a candidate because everyone else is voting for them. We vote for candidates we believe in. Same thing, smaller scale. I don’t happen to want the exact same wear marks on my jeans as everyone else. No big deal.”

You try the jeans anyway, along with a shirt. The jeans hang on you as though you’ve lost twenty pounds, but you haven’t dropped an ounce. The shirt is too big. Over the door, the manager asks if you need anything. You ask if they have a medium in the shirt. She tosses a different shirt, an unsightly plaid thing, over the door in a medium.

You: “Oh, uh, not that one, thanks though.”

Manager [exacerbated]: “Uh! (with throaty emphasis). You could try it for size, then I can check another store to see if they have it.”

You: “Ok.”

Manager: “Can I grab anything else for you?”

You: “No, I’m good.”

Manager: “How did those work for you?”

You: “If you can find the shirt in a medium, I’d buy it.”

Manager: “Well, IF I can locate the shirt at another location,” she says, making it clear that this is a pain-in-the-arse, “You can go pick it up, or for eight dollars, they can ship it to you.”

‘Gee’, you think, ‘Thanks for offering.’ This same store has shipped shirts free of charge from one store to another before many a time. You decline.

You: “Thanks for your help.” You extend your hand to shake hers, and she declines. You ask for her name, and she reluctantly gives it, looking at you like you are the devil incarnate. Then, awkwardly, she offers to give you the generic store business card. It seemed that she may have realized right there in that moment that this story would be written and posted.

Manager: “These jeans are going to be on sale.”

You: “Oh? When?”

Salesperson #1: “You would know that if you hadn’t interrupted me!” she sneered and frowned. You had interrupted her because she wasn’t answering your question.

The clothes at your favorite store don’t seem to fit today, even though the jeans are the same cut as the ones at home. The clothes may or may not be the same this time around, but they have lost some of their appeal after the staff treated you as though you were a royal pain in their arses. Today, the staff all seems hell-bent on making sure that you know that their opinion of the clothes is more important than yours. What specifically did they do wrong? Everything. They hurt the customer’s brand perception and endangered the long-term relationship.

The Cost of Poor Brand Representation
Corporations spend hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars on creating and promoting compelling brand experiences. Crummy customer service is the sure-fire way to flush all of that time, money and effort right down the tubes. The cost of customer acquisition easily justifies brand identity training for store personnel.

Now, I won’t write this company off because one bad experience does not define this company, but in other cases, I do write off the company after just one bad experience. In this case, the thing that surprised me was that every employee in this store had lost the meaning of their brand, or they simply did not care about it. In either case, brand identity training would enhance their sales by providing staff with a greater understanding of corporate values and better social skills to boot.

Now, to fulfill the promise of the title: How to Shred a Strong Brand in 10 Minutes Flat

1. 1. Do not adhere to your brand standards. Haven’t got any? Make sure to put some in place so that you can recklessly break them at will.
   2. Alienate your core customers on a regular basis. This one works every time!
   3. Do not instill good social skills in your sales staff. Let ‘em be as gruff as they like, and don’t worry about losing customers because that is the point of shredding your brand!
   4. Do not share your corporate vision with your employees. What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em. It will hurt your business instead.
   5. Do not educate your employees on the importance of brand values. If they don’t know how to represent you, your customers will not understand your brand, and they will fly out the door faster than you can say, “Wish I had me some brand standards.”

How do you do all of this in ten minutes? Refer to the above story.

Food for thought.

‘How the heck,’ you may be asking yourself, ‘does a blue jay hiding a durned nut relate to branding and marketing?’ Well, I’ll tell you.

Blue jays are all very similar looking to a non-Audubon Society onlooker like myself. Without some specific knowledge of the species, I doubt that I could distinguish one from another if my meal depended on it.

When I meet my clients for the first time, they are often a lot like that blue jay in the back yard. They are visually indistinguishable from their industry peers, and they are usually hiding their best treasures. Like the blue jay, the messaging in their marketing doesn’t speak to humans.

‘What do you mean by that, Hobkirk?’ you think as your forehead rumples.

I’ll spell it out:
• Companies often lack a distinguishing, clear, meaningful corporate identity.
• Their best qualities are usually not communicated to their ideal target market. (In fact, they often have not clearly defined their ideal target market.)
• The messages in their advertising and marketing typically do not speak to the people in their target market, and their tag lines are often meaningless.
• Their treasures have been buried so long that they no longer know what they are or where to find them.
• They often lack a clear understanding of how their identity, brand, branding, advertising, and marketing can converge to keep their peers from stealing the show.

Instead of leveraging their identity, values, and brand to make connections with their target markets, most businesses, large and small alike, leave (and sometimes create) stark disconnects at nearly every point of marketing communication. What happens when a disconnect occurs? Your prospective or existing customer moves on to someone else. That doesn’t sound very appealing, does it?

Every small business can and should employ the same tactics and tools that large businesses use to market themselves. Small businesses often rely on the time-honored excuse that they haven’t got the budget for professional branding and marketing. There are now plenty of options available for attaining affordable brand development and marketing planning, so let’s bury that excuse next to the nut. Or they whine, “I hate marketing.” If you hate marketing, hire someone you can trust to do it for you. Better yet, hire someone who can actually convince you that branding and marketing are fun. Or, close your doors and go look for a job.

How can you avoid having a squirrel steal your customers?! How can you make sure that you are connecting with your clients using compelling messages at every opportunity? Where are these opportunities?

Hint: Marketing opportunities are happening to you every single day. Ring me up. I love talking about this stuff. Meanwhile, I’ll be out back moving sticks around, while trying to figure out where the blue jay got a hazelnut this time of year.

The question: How do you guard your brand reputation?

Have you ever asked yourself that? Guarding one’s reputation is harder than people think. It really depends quite a lot on the temperament of you and your employees, as well as your understanding of corporate philosophy as it relates to your brand. It relates to your mission statement and your goals.

How do you want to be perceived? How do you want your customers to feel after an interaction with you?

As brand development specialists and ambassadors, we can guide consumer perception to such a degree that we can accurately predict and to a large extent control their experience with your brand. Once the brand identity is developed, and the marketing campaign is launched, it is largely up to the company to cement the relationship with their prospective customers and ultimately to make the sale. But what happens after the sale is just as important to your bottom line as the sale itself.

How do you follow up with your customers? Do you contact them only in ways for which you have received permission, or do you make yourself an annoyance and lose their attention by blitzing them with unwanted emails, phone calls and non-targeted offers? Honoring an opt-out request may be the key to retaining a customer. Making sure that your marketing communications accurately portray your brand, and that they are precisely targeted, are good first steps. Personal and honorable follow-up helps ensure that the brand experience is pleasing throughout.

Most companies skip a significant portion of the brand development process, focusing only on the before, and failing to address the after until it has already passed. This is a squandered golden opportunity, and it has inevitably dire consequences. If you fail to define and guide customer perception and experience, the customer will do it for you.

Mining the Low Road
Let’s look at a couple of examples to illustrate the concept of brand reputation. Take Best Buy, who receives more complaints than most companies. In fact, Best Buy’s customer complaint department is larger than most corporate marketing departments. They abuse customer information (they call it capturing), discrimination is part of their customer service policy, and they regularly send email spam to their entire customer database. On pissedconsumer.com (no explanation needed for explaining this site), a search for Best Buy will reveal over thirty pages full of complaints from [now former] customers espousing on everything from failure to honor extended warranties, to discrimination for medical conditions, to relentless spamming, to ‘Geek Squad’ technical incompetency.

It seems that Best Buy has resigned themselves to having high customer turnover because they are unable and/or unwilling to provide good customer service. Their less than poor service damages their brand reputation at just about every turn. It would perhaps be easy for Best Buy to reverse the trend by providing thorough pre-sales information, honoring their extended warranties, closing their Geek Squad department or providing comprehensive training to their employees, and simply choosing the honorable path of not discriminating against people with medical conditions. But that is not what they do. It’s a choice, and Best Buy consistently chooses to dishonor the privilege of their customers’ attention.

What does that choice do to their brand? It defines it. How do people identify with Best Buy? They do it through their experience as a customer. My experience with them has been both good and bad. They carry a lot of products, and usually have a decent inventory. I can often find exactly what I want. If they think I might buy the more expensive model, they will aggressively try to upsell me. If I manage to find the right employee, they know enough about a few of their products to answer some questions, but their answers are not always accurate. I often have to wait 10-20 minutes for customer service. Sometimes, they tell what in hindsight appear to be outright lies just to make the sale. They aggressively push their extended warranties, but they will fight tooth and nail to not honor them.

They once told me that since I was shaking (I have an essential tremor, so I shake a little all the time), they would not hold a conversation about my extended warranty on a computer, which they did not want to honor. Without my permission, they added my email address to a mailing list that sends out spam once every day or two. I have requested removal from that list on five separate occasions only to be told that permanent removal is not possible. As a result, I have requested removal of my information from their databases, but they have refused the request, stating that it is their right to capture my data. How do you think Best Buy rates when I am considering an electronics purchase? How does their service effect their brand reputation? Why would a company ever tell a customer that it is their right to “Capture” them? Why? Because they do not understand how to protect their brand reputation, nor the importance of doing so.

Choosing the High Road
Now, contrast that brand experience with that of Apple. I bought an iPod in 2002, and it is still working great. It has had only one problem, for which Apple FedEx’d a box, checked it, and returned it to me in two days flat. I’ve had issues with their computers on numerous occasions, but they always do the right thing, either by replacing the unit, or by swiftly fixing it and returning it. Sometimes it takes a little more phone time than I would like, but I think they are just making sure that replacement is the right solution. Out of the twelve or so Apple computers I have owned, Apple has provided four replacements. Their store employees know their products — even non-Apple products — inside out. Their in-store service is fast and accurate, and they take care of their customers. Apple is very clear on their email policy. They ask for permission, and if you unsubscribe, they honor your choice.

As a fair comparison, I did a search for Apple on pissedconsumer.com, and found less than one page of complaints. They have had a few stumbles over the years, but they usually make a good effort to make it right and ultimately give a good customer experience. Apple seems to understand the importance of brand experience, and it is clear that a good experience is a high priority, as a matter of policy. Apple’s brand identity is consistent with their customer service. How do you think Apple rates when I am considering a computer purchase? I wish they sold everything Best Buy sells. Apple’s brand reputation is stellar.

Really, it’s a choice of short-term or long-term sales. Where Best Buy short-sightedly chooses short-term sales at all costs, Apple chooses to get the sale in the short-term and retain the customer for the long-term by providing outstanding customer service. This choice can be boiled down to something even simpler, but not without insulting the sensibilities of their individual target markets, a practice to which I do not subscribe.

How About Your Brand Reputation?
These are two mega-corps, but the same principles of brand reputation apply to small to mid-size businesses. How are you treating your customers before, during and after the sale? How do you shape their perception and experience? Is your brand identity consistent with your customer service?

It is a good practice to periodically ask yourself how you can shape a more positive experience for your customers. When you carefully consider every aspect of customer experience, it is clear to see that brand reputation plays a large part in both connecting with and retaining customers.

Is color important to a brand identity or website? This is one of the most frequent questions I field while we are developing our clients’ brand identities. The answer, in a word, is a resounding Yes! Color is the second most common way in which humans perceive and remember information. Shape comes first. Color is second. (Language is third.)

We learn the meaning of colors at preschool age and keep reinforcing that knowledge all through grade school. As young adults, we are taught the colors of brand-savvy corporations.

What color is a fire truck? What color is a ghost? How about the sky? Or the ocean? What color do you wear at a funeral? What color is UPS? How about DHL? What color is Kodak? Everyone knows IBM is blue.

Think about the colors you interact with every day. What would travel through your mind if you saw a green stop sign? How about a purple caution sign? Have you ever noticed that One Way road signs are black and white? If they were green and white, that would send a confusing message because we all know that green means go. Do you notice the color of peoples’ eyes? How about their clothes? Would you buy a green steak? Or a black tomato?

You rarely see the color black used as the predominant color on food packaging. What associations do you make with black? Burn, evil, death, mystery. You wouldn’t buy burnt food. At least, not on purpose.

What colors do you see when you walk into most natural food stores? Fruit and vegetables are most often positioned in your direct line of sight. It’s like seeing a rainbow right in front of your eyes. Rainbows make us feel good and fill us with wonder and happiness. Vibrant colors, like those found in fruits and vegetables, are associated with health. We like buying healthy food, particularly when we are happy.

Have you ever seen a doctor with a bright red business card? Probably not. What enters our minds when we see bright red? Emergencies, blood, danger, fire, passion, love and hate. What happens when a bull sees red? What happens when you cut yourself? The last thing physicians want their patients thinking about is blood, let alone emergencies or severed limbs. Physician brand identities are usually a picture of calm, with colors exuding that feeling. Band-aid packaging, on the other hand, almost always has bright red on it.

With these few examples, you can see how color can effect the way you feel. Color plays an unimaginably important role in our everyday lives. With so much of our perception and knowledge based on our interactions with color, it’s clear to see that the colors of your brand are critical in connecting with customers. Color can effect the way people perceive and understand your identity or website, and therefore, your company. Color can turn them on or off, bore or excite them, send them running scared or instill confidence. Color communicates meaning in ways that no other aspect of your brand can.

If you would like to read more about color in design, there is an excellent book titled Kelvin that is well worth a read.