Of course, I was taken aback since Nike makes shoes among other things and these guys are educators and academics and a non-profit to boot.

What they were saying, they explained, was they wanted to have a comfortable, organic and seemingly seamless way of doing business.  They wanted to have a workplace where everyone wanted to come and never leave and where everyone was highly productive.  They wanted to have an enjoyable workplace.  They wanted their culture to change.

If you do business, you have a corporate culture which reflects the way you do business and is the true essence of who you are.  It is not necessarily your brand personality which you show to the public via advertising, PR, social media and the like.  But, it is at the core of who and what your business is.

I know someone who works at a sports website and when business associates come to visit, they don’t go out for martinis and a meal at the hippest restaurant.  They go play basketball at the health club.  Their corporate culture dictates that.  It also allows them to dress casually and work in one giant room outfitted with dozens of  TV screens so they can watch sports non-stop.

These days companies spend lots of time, money and thought getting their culture right.  You have probably heard about the “campuses” at Nike and Google where people can bring their dry cleaning, get massages, workout, have daycare and eat some of the finest food around.  Those places want their employees to be extra happy and stay at work longer so they can be more productive.

Smaller companies can do the same thing although in a fashion that reflects their budget and ability.  Making a place comfortable and thus conducive to work in is essential to draw the best talent but also conveys a message to the public.  It is as easily a form of marketing as any Facebook ad you may put out.

Marketing is not just about the package or the ad but about your employees and environment.  Keep them in line when you consider who you are and what message you want to deliver.

Well, if you are in the majority of people who are online, you did.  You did because you are interested in one or both of these pursuits.

That is what blogging is all about.

Getting people to look at what you are saying or doing.

Alright, so I am not playing golf or indulging in sex…at this moment.

And, I don’t have any salient tips on either subject that would make your game and “game” better.

My goal was to get you to look.  Sort of like a bright, new shiny sign.

I can’t tell you how many times I drive by places that think they are in business but have dilapidated old weathered beat-to-heck signs.  What are they selling?  Old, dilapidated stuff?

In the world of Google adwords and finding the right tags, you have to remember to use the words that people are searching for.  At least that is what I am told by the internet gurus and website design mavens.  I have had debates with buddies who put tons of content on their home page because they say it draws people to their site.

So what?  If there are too many words, who the heck is going to stick around to to read it.  For my money, I prefer tightly woven paragraphs and great graphics to tell the world what you are all about.

Keep in mind when putting up your signs or tags or titles or urls, that you want to grab attention and you don’t want to be misleading.

Don’t talk about golf and sex if you don’t know what you are talking about.

Just like those poor cows.  Poor cows that made the cowboys rich.

I say this because I went into a store the other day that was looking for new marketing and PR.  The store’s walls were a dark blue but the hand-outs at the cashier had none of that blue on them.  The shirts and hats worn by the salespeople had blue insignia on them but it was a shade brighter than the walls.  When I went to the website, it had its own distinct look and color scheme. The only thing they all had in common was the name of the place.  Those cows were running wild.

Brand uniformity is key to the branding of your company and products.  You can fiddle with these things but they better deliver the same message or no one will know what the heck you stand for.

Have you ever been to a Love This Life store?  I love their stuff and not all of the products within the store sport the same logo other than on the label.  Their polo shirts have this nifty little circular smiley face embroidered on the breast.  And of course all of the shirts have clever sayings that connote living life in a loving way.  There is rhyme to the reason and in that thematic sense there is a strong built-in brand that is recognizable to everyone who becomes familiar with the company.  Not all the same color or shape or size, but a brand sense that is easily identifiable.

That is what you want for your cows.

Move down the street or around the corner to where the street is packed and the parking plentiful, and the story is completely different.

I have a friend with a very successful food concept that has won awards, acclaim and the love of the people. He took his concept to a strip mall in a populated area with a demographic that would love his food. He opened his doors after months of hard work putting his restaurant together, painting it, adding new signs and new equipment. It was shiny and perfect and the food was hot and ready to go. But no one showed up.  At least not enough for him to survive.

You see he opened in a place with little foot traffic and less parking.  Many cars drove by, but few stopped. He was noticed but was not shopped. And, his place was even more noticeable when it closed.  Not a good thing.

Yet another joint opened not far from there at a major intersection with a ton of white collar workers, many of them young and hungry.  This was an entirely new concept with no known quantity. No one knew anything about the place.  But, it was packed from day one…and remains so today.  The concept was good but the location was better.

If there is a moral to this little story it is to not let your ego supplant your good sense.  Do your homework before opening your place.  Walk the streets.  Hang out there morning, noon and night.  See who is successful and gauge why.

And, let the location be your guiding light.

Recently, as I talk to more people about their marketing projects, I realize how few of them have actually thought about the marketing side of their business or at least about how important it is and how difficult it is to implement and maintain…
not to mention actually be successful.

They have built the widget, invested money and time and great thought into it, but forgotten they need money, time and thought to market it.  I am not talking about sales or selling the idea/product/service.  That is an entirely different subject although often given the same respect.

I am talking about spreading the word about it, creating and then relaying its personality and make no mistake about it, each product has a personality or should:  We often call it the Brand.

This marketing stuff is huge but let me focus on one example that is rearing its head daily, hourly, minutely…by the nanosecond.  And, that is social media.

Frankly, I am learning about it as you probably are.  How to best utilize it to make yourself more visible,  making sure you have the right content that matches your message and that your message matches your marketing plan.  Got that?

But, most people are underestimating the sophistication of such media, like Twitter, for instance. Too many think it is a do-it-yourself operation, and yes, it is pretty darn easy.  Just fire it up and tweet away.  But, do you know how to build followers?

Do you know how to build the right kind of followers, in your neighborhood or in your key demographic?

That list of followers, like the old mailing list you built to do your direct mail campaign, is incredibly valuable.  If  you start building it now and keep on building it, when you introduce Widget II, Store II, Restaurant II, whatever, then those people will be in place to hear about it, know about it and tweet, retweet and shout about it. Not to mention that such a list could be a very valuable asset should you want to sell your company.

You may think what I just said is just too obvious, but for lack of foresight and perhaps out of pure cheapness, many people are forsaking such a plan or giving it short-shrift by entrusting their Twitter campaign to a lay-person, someone in their office, their cousin’s kid or even themselves.

Twitter is a form of communication that demands a bit of science. It is growing so rapidly (http://mashable.com/2010/09/07/next-5-years-social-media/) that is outpacing just about everything before it.  Still a step-sister to its monster older brother Facebook, Twitter possesses a power of its own, an ability to relay information rapidly, cogently and directly to whomever you choose.

There are many people who believe Twitter is a fad or a form of networking that will be replaced by yet another form of media.  But, because of its ability to interface with graphics, video and content, it may actually be the perfect form of media, allowing you to communicate in rapid motion whatever you like, whenever you like, wherever you like.

It is the building blocks of your marketing program, as essential as any advertisement, public relations or other communications form.  It requires consistency, thought, good writing skills and marketing savvy.

Don’t just give it to your cousin’s kid.

The funny thing is, it has been famous ever since I began buying it all those years ago.  Not sure why it has such fame.  I have a feeling it may have been famous among the family who owns the restaurant and they bestowed the moniker on it to convey its delectable nature and universal likability.  I have been told by the owners that it is also their best selling item and has been since they opened their doors.  It sells better than their tacos and enchiladas and quesadillas.  It outsells the combos and the huevos rancheros.  I mean, it is Famous so of course everyone wants a part of it.

Claiming fame is great marketing  even if it is self-proclaimed. If you are a patron of a place that is “famous”, you naturally want to buy into that quality.  Fame by association, I guess. And, if something is said to be famous, it must have some great qualities that you must sample, taste, see, hear, etc.  even if they are made up. Some things or people are famous for being famous (The entire Kardashian family for instance) and in this world of instant information, someone or something can become famous instantaneously within 140 characters (which used to be “overnight”).  Isn’t that what they mean by word of mouth?

In the case of the taco stand, self-proclaimed fame has brought them fortune and they now have a number of such places selling their World Famous Avocado Burrito all over town.  Isn’t fame great!

With the ubiquity of mobile phones, everyone texts everyone else all of the time.  Yet how many times do you misinterpret a text?

The very nature of a text message is to be short.  That is the beauty of it.  As everyone who texts knows, there are a bunch of new shorthand ways to communicate emotions such as laughter (LOL) and surprise (OMG)…there are in fact more and more every day.  It is a new language that can be very exclusive if you don’t know all of the idioms.

My issue has to do with intent.  Someone told me a story once about how he texted a girl he had just met and when she didn’t respond he took it as a brush-off.  That is not so dissimilar from the way people once communicated by phone.  No return call meant she wasn’t interested.  The difference to me is that by not texting back it may be more harsh.  Since we know that everyone is always on-line with their Blackberrys, IPhones and Droids, we know they received the message you sent.  So, why wouldn’t they respond unless they just didn’t want to.  Why wouldn’t she respond immediately.  She must hate me.

Actually, that may not be the case at all.  The new normal of communication etiquette may have nothing to do with responding quickly even though you are always holding the communication device in your hand and it is always on.  In fact, the new normal may require a new level of patience.  It is fascinating how many people do not respond quickly at all.  A guy sent me a note asking to meet up and gave me a couple of times to consider.  I fired right back with my answer.  It took him a week to get back to me.  Again, I responded immediately…you guessed it, he hasn’t responded yet.

Clarity is not so clear via texting.  I wrote a text to a guy regarding a business proposal we had been going round and round about for the past few months. My text included a few questions.  His response, while courteously quick, offered no idea of his intent or did it: “working on it” was all he wrote.  Does that mean it is a go and they are working on working with me or does it mean he is working on the new concept and doesn’t know right now whether it is a go or not and will get to me later?  What did he mean?

People are multi-tasking so much they are responding in the shortest possible way. Yet another message I wrote and sent via e-mail to someone was far more insistent and required (to me) a multi-layered answer.  It had to do with the level of work I would be doing for the company going forward and involved questions about clients, email and other issues.  The BBM text message response addressed none of these issues and was only one word.  That can make a guy pretty self-conscious.

Perhaps if my relationship with the guy who wrote the response was better, I could have called him to ask what the heck he meant.  But isn’t the point of the text message to eliminate time and to just get to the point.

I guess I shouldn’t take it personally like the guy who sent the text to his girlfriend, but I do.

She said a few words to the clerk and then stormed out.  Before leaving she pointed to the window and said, “I thought you accepted Visa,”  pointing to the credit card logo decal.

“We do, but not for shipping…it says so right here,” replied the clerk noting a handmade sign above the shipping desk.

With a harumph, the young woman walked out, probably never to return.

The clerk shook his head but I am not sure he got her message…he surely didn’t have the right one on the window.  Was the young woman misled?

Sort of.  You see,  the store does accept Visa but not when it comes to shipping.  Only other stuff, like buying packaging, cards and other goods.

So, why did they post the Visa sign and wasn’t it a bit misleading?

Maybe that woman had driven or walked by the store before, seen the Visa sign.  When she had a package to ship, she remembered the store and their ease of purchase via her Visa.  She spent time coming to the store, prepared to do business with them and then couldn’t.

Worse, to my mind, was that the clerk, albeit an employee and not the owner, didn’t even consider his customer’s disgruntlement. He simply smirked a bit, shrugged his shoulders and went about his menial tasks.  Did he tell his boss about the customer and perhaps suggest the store make their window Visa sign more explicit?

This sort of assumption (presumption?) of messaging is more common than it should be.  Too often the place of business, the marketer, lives in a vacuum, assuming they have placed a sign on the window and that is enough.

The store owners must think like customers. They have to go through the process themselves.  Look at the window, think about the signage they have put up, consider the message they are sending out to the world.

In a world beset by signage of all types – graphically, digitally, literally and figuratively – it is that much more important that the message be clear and simple and direct…and take into account the audience, the customer or the client.

But, they didn’t know who they are and so their customers didn’t know either.

What is the message you want to send with your graphics, your copy, your architecture, design, advertising, PR, website, Twitter and the like.  Who the heck are you?

It is very easy for me as an outsider to say that about a company.  I am on the outside looking in and I can see where the misnomers are, where the incongruities lie and where the mis-messaging is.

I just don’t know why the uniformity of branding does not exist.  Is everyone too caught up in the day-to-day stuff?  Has the boss not relayed the company’s message to the marketing staff?  Does the boss even know the message?

There are a myriad of questions and figuring out what to say is half the battle…you then have to go out and say it, spray it, relay it and of course convey it. (sorry, I had to do that!)

I like the idea of the elevator speech:  Try to say what you are all about in a sentence or two.  Nothing more.  This allows you to direct and focus  your message no matter what the medium you use to communicate it.

I know some big time wealthy guy once said he wouldnt invest in anything that he didnt understand.

I think that is the same with branding:  if  your customer doesn’t understand what you are saying, he won’t buy it.

Her response, I felt rather humorously and somewhat sadly, was that she preferred to email because she liked to “multi-task” but that if I really wanted to talk, she would make time in a week.

I just had to laugh. Maybe this is a generational thing (She is in her 30′s and I am much older) but how much time would it take to pick up the phone, which she has in her hands constantly since it is an IPhone, and chat the old fashioned way…by voice?

And, the idea of the need to multi-task really caught me off-guard.  I am definitely one who likes to do many things at once and yet I see the danger in terms of true concentration on an idea in this type of work ethic.

I love the telephone.  I may not have the greatest phone manner but I can get a lot accomplished very fast and much more assuredly by speaking with someone.

There are obvious problems inherent in the written word via texting, Twitter, Facebook messaging or emailing:  The intent, the true meaning, the whimsy, humor, double-entendre, the gist, cannot be conveyed as truly as when you are actually speaking with someone.  And in lieu of a face-to-face, the telephone offers the best way of communication.

I have heard that many couples have had issues regarding the meaning of their correspondence when communicating via SMS or some such nouveau messaging.   Especially in a new relationship where two people are just getting to know one another.

Old-fashioned as I may be, I prefer the phone where I can hear the nuance in one’s voice and follow a course of questions, hear the answers and have a true dialogue.