Disclaimer: I’m no Godin. Really I’m not even a branding or marketing dilettante but I do some thing to say on the subject. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. I’m not often wrong.

The criticisms and counsel is this brief article are for small to medium business that have a broad front of customer interaction: retail, consumer services, and professional services with a 1:1 or 1:Few model (meaning business happens when people, not websites, interact). Some of it may translate to other areas, but if it does, I’m not particularly interested. At least, not presently.

With some notable exceptions, big companies tend to “get” branding, at least to the point that they are able to construct systems that allow consistent presentation and messaging across time and media; if I blindfolded you, took you into a Best Buy (God forbid), and removed the blind fold, it wouldn’t take you long to figure out where you were. Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), however, just don’t get it.

The proliferation of “branding” consultants/bloggers/idiots, the availability of cheap/asinine/meaningless logos via elance-types, and the high price of actual brand services have convinced SMBs that branding is about a “cool” logo, a catchy “mission statement,” and, if they are extraordinarily sophisticated, consistent font usage in the Microsoft Word-generated letterhead/business cards/website.

Branding is not any of those things. Truly, your branding is only a name for the perception of your organization by your prospects, customers, and even employees. Brand is a one-word name for Your Message and How You Communicate It. And, to be clear, I do not mean your tortuous, insipid mission statement (trust me, your mission statement is insipid). I mean the message that your business communicates holistically, in every action, decision, and communication it makes.

You brand is not what you say it is, it is what your business executes, all day, every day. You probably think you agree, but it’s easy to find ways your business lies about its brand to customers:

Leave Trash in your Parking Lot.

People expect trash in WalMart’s parking lot because everyone knows WalMart doesn’t care. Trash in the parking lot of a business with local ownership communicates that your brand is: Not Caring About The Community. Seriously.

Hassle Customers About Payment Types

Most consumers think all payment types are equal. Tough. Here are your choices:

• Ask the customer briefly and politely if he or she could pay by your preferred method, while apologizing and downplaying the difference. This makes you seem needy, but if you want to fight this battle, it’s your only choice.
• Refuse to allow your (now former) customers to pay for your products or services in a method convenient to them.
• Charge your customers extra for payment types that cost you more.
• Suck it up and do what is right for the customer. This is your only option that does not subliminally suggest to the customer that do not want his or her business.

Think about it. Amazon’s prices are probably lower than yours, and they process a lot more transactions than you do, and they don’t hassle customers about how they want to pay. Your brand is: We’re In Business To Make Our Lives Easier, Not Yours.

Acquire Your Fixtures Piece-mail

It’s not hard to have a decent-looking environment:

1. Rent a van.
2. Go to ikea.
3. Pick out a furniture collection.
4. Count how many employees you have.
5. Buy that many of the collection.

If you want to do more than that, do it, especially if you’re in retail. But having as many kinds/sizes/colors of desks, chairs, lamps and filing cabinets as you have employees communicates the brand: We Might As Well Work in a Dump.

What Your Employees Are Doing

If customers enter your business and are not immediately greeted by an employee who communicates both verbally and non-verbally that they want to help, you’re in deep trouble. Employees need to communicate to customers that you want their business. Asking “How are you?” while sitting at a desk checking gmail does not qualify. Simply smiling at a customer does not qualify. Answering the phone as a customer approaches does not qualify. Failing to return voicemail or email does not qualify. Standing around watching as a customer on crutches struggles to get in the door does not qualify. These things communicate that your brand is: Not Giving a Damn About Your Customers.

Hire Poorly

Management may think they have control over branding, but employees will interact with far more people than management. In fact, the first interaction customers have with your business is probably the lowest-paid employee. How those employees act, the words they choose, and their attitudes will reflect the actual brand. Poor morale, poor communication, and poor customer service are not the fault of employees. They are 100% the fault of management. There could only a be few reasons you don’t have good employees:

• Management makes poor hires or poor placement.
• Management pays low wages/benefits.
• Management has poor policies, procedures and training.
• Management does not provide the tools employees need.

That’s IT. If you’re employees suck, then your business sucks, and you do the hiring, training and paying. This communicates the brand: We’d Rather Do Nothing Than Get Better.

Don’t Give Employees Business Cards

Business cards are quickly, cheaply, and easily available. If you can’t spend 10 minutes to get a new employee’s name and email address on a business card, then you are communicating the brand: Our Employees Are Nothing Special.

Treat Employees Poorly

If you don’t have family-friendly vacation and sick time policies, you won’t have long term, stable employees. If you don’t pay employees enough to afford your products, you won’t have highly knowledgeable enthusiasts. If you don’t allow employees to make decisions, you will be pestered all day long. If you create an environment of mediocrity, you will drag everyone down to that level or drive them away. Your brand is: Give Us Everything For Nothing In Return.

Manage Poorly

If you promote employees to management because they are good at sales, or accounting, or shipping/receiving, or whatever field you are in, then you are going to end up with your best “technicians” wasting their time and talents. Managers need to be capable in their field, but also need vision, leadership, and the ability to think strategically. If someone cannot figure out how to appropriately manage projects and tasks, get that person out of management or your brand is: We Don’t Know How To Solve Our Own Problems.

Allow Unprofessional Behavior

This is a very broad category, and the hardest place to affect change; management is unable or unwilling to admit “soft” problems in the workplace. Primarily because this kind of behavior trickles down from management: if it happens, then management is contributing to or allowing it. Period. There is no justification for preferential treatment, discrimination, sexual harassment, or disparaging/insulting conduct in the workplace. However secret, harmless, or “subtle” you think this is, it will seep into your culture and reach customers. Your brand is: We Exploit People For Our Own Enjoyment.

There You Have It

I could go on, but if this doesn’t strike a chord, then nothing else will. It takes a lot of guts to look at your business this way, because even $50-100 million/year businesses face huge challenges in the area, and too many managers are so isolated that they are incapable of judging business performance objectively. But what was OK in business 10 years ago isn’t going to fly forever. You heard it here first.