Now, it’s not like either comment personally offended me, or that we didn’t have the same thoughts come our in our user testing/feedback. In fact, we’ve had a ton of criticism for those things above, as well as the tiny, tiny font we chose to use on the site and on our cards – which are the BEST business cards EVER! AARON SMITTHIPONG – Boon Creative The comments though did drive me to think about our yearly redesign and we’ve come up with some kitschy ideas that play off the feedback. It also drove us to revisit one of our core principles at Amanda Vega Consulting | Social Media Agency which is that a company needs to have a brand foundation, period. And they need to be HONEST about their brand – and everything they do needs to feed from that.

And honesty in branding is the biggest issue every company large and small has. When I speak for audiences and ask them how many of them have a branding foundational document, almost all of them raise their hands. When I ask if they feel they are different from everyone else, they all raise their hands. And when I ask how many of them list “best in customer service” or “best of class” as one of the 5 core principles – their hands are still raised. So someone is lying. Or some other marketing agency sold them a bunch of cookie cutter crap they learned in a business book of the week.

We are not ALL the best at customer service. We are not ALL the nicest, prettiest, easiest to use, blah blah blah. What’s the HEART of your company? And here’s a tip: it’s likely NOT the values of nature of the CEO/founder – it’s the PEOPLE that do the day to day work for the company. They drive the brand in reality – which is really hard for a CEO to admit or accept. They swear they are all leaders and strategists – but you can’t be great at both.

So our brand is this: we are the oldest in the industry, we are a bit belligerent or abrasive (not mean per se, but certainly not the cheesy kiss your ass every five seconds telling you how great your new haircut is or how much weight you have lost sort of way,) we are damn good at what we do hands down, and we truly are consultative in our company – to the point that we hand business to competitors all the time if it is the best thing for the client (which only TRUE consultants will do.) Our brand is harsh and nimble. Our brand is honest and flexible. The services we offer don’t make our brand – WE make the brand.

We develop a lot of sites around here. And most of our clients are highly focused on the user experience or expected nature of the web. While this is of course a good practice, they many times throw the heart of the company out the door in an effort to follow the lead of someone else (someone bigger, someone more popular, someone with more press, etc.) rather than truly tell the story of who THEY are and what makes THEM special. While usability guidelines are inherent in any good design, and certain rules of navigation/flow, etc. are obviously important, they are not always more important than brand and positioning.

So next time you’re thinking about your site, start first with your brand. Use the rules of great design, etc. but if your site doesn’t look like the rest (i.e. A white background with three tables with a callout in the right center, or now for “social media experts” a Wordpress blog turned into a site) don’t feel bad. If it works for you and shows the honesty in what you do – and brings customers in the door, then maybe you are doing something right and the others are lacking in imagination and honesty.

Have comments? We would love to hear them on this blog or give us a call (480) 275-9797, we love feedback of all types!