In the American West, cattle ranchers still brand cattle. Once the brand has been burned into the hide, nothing can change it. Altering a brand is illegal and easily detected.

The branding of a business, product or service is no different. Once the image has been seared into the customer's mind, it's difficult -- and unwise -- to change it. In the United States, "It's a Yugo" has come to stand for the worst in manufacturing quality. The company was smart to drop out of the U.S. auto market rather than attempt to change its image.

It's the accumulation of many "messages" that shapes the customer's perceptions. Whether knowingly or inadvertently, the wrong messages are often sent. The motivation makes it irrelevant because the results are the same: disastrous. Ironically, it's the seemingly unimportant or minor messages that often result in a "Yugo" image, a damaging image that's next to impossible to change. Here are 18 issues that can contribute to bad branding.

1. Believing you can be an expert on everything. Brilliance isn't always transferable from one discipline to another or from one area of business to another. It's not uncommon to find business innovators spending time designing the company logo, even though they lack graphic design experience. Or the CFO writes letters to customers that cause irritation and anger.

Recognizing limitations can help head off serious problems before they occur.

2. Web sites that limit the customer's access to a company. Information and access are the two primary purposes of a company Web site. The corporate Web site of Xerox, a leading company in the document technology field, offers easy access to the company's sales offices around the world. But try to locate corporate executives and you hit a firewall. Its online annual report, for example, has no contact information. There are names but no office locations, telephone numbers or e-mail addresses.

User-friendly means more than ads and an occasional smile. Contrast this with the accessibility offered by an Apple, eBay or Amazon.com. If the goal is building customer confidence, accessibility is essential.

3. An overflowing voice-mail box. "This mailbox is full" is a customer satisfaction killer. More often than not, callers hear it when they need service. The words not only cause frustration, but there's a message in the message: The person is swamped with work, not responsive or gone. It's difficult to "erase" such a message because it becomes embedded in the caller's mind. Customers wonder if this is going to happen every time they call.

4. Telephone calls and email messages that are not returned promptly. It may seem overly obvious or unnecessary to suggest that one of the most effective ways to impress a customer or prospect is to return a call or email quickly. If it's so obvious, then why is it necessary to talk about it? Not all calls need instant attention, of course. It's the same foremail. However, a fast response gives those contacting you the feeling they are important.

5. Contacting the customer only when you have something to sell. Getting through to customers and prospects is often difficult because experience has taught them that salespeople only call when they want to make a sale. And that makes it a call that can be avoided or delayed. Even if there's another purpose to the call, salespeople have been "branded."

6. Failing to fill requests promptly. Customer service has changed. The e-commerce companies have set a new and far more demanding standard. The efficiency of Dell Computer, Amazon.com and other Internet merchandisers has changed customer expectations. Order confirmations are received even before you can log off! Order airline tickets from American Express, and they're on your desk the next day. Responsiveness is the new measure of personal service. It's no longer necessary to talk to a human being to receive personal service. But receiving a quick confirmation is essential because it eliminates doubt.

7. Saying your telephone number too fast. It sounds so unimportant, even insignificant. Why make an issue out of something so minor? Here are a couple of good reasons: If you rush through it, you give the impression that you're bothered or have something better to do. It's irritating to the person who receives your message and leaves the impression that this is the way you do business.

8. Calling it a newsletter when it's an ad. If it looks like an ad and reads like an ad, it isn't a newsletter. If you think you can dupe customers, even though the word "newsletter" is on page one, forget it. Newsletters provide helpful information and give you an opportunity to communicate the message that you know something and don't just sell something. If you want to connect with customers, make it a newsletter.

9. Using the partnering pretense. While partnering may be a hot concept, it fails in execution. More often than not, it's used to mask selling. Just because you use "Consultant" on a business card doesn't change the fact you're a salesperson. It isn't the word "sales" that's the problem; it's the attempt to get to the prospect or customer using false colors. Customers know the difference.

10. Letting shoddy work go out the door. The product may be first class or the service may be top drawer. But what about the letter, faxes, marketing materials and advertising? Ninety-nine out of 100 unsolicited faxes are junk. If they look like junk and read like junk, they are junk. If you don't have high standards for yourself, why should customers think you will behave differently if they do business with you?

11. Self-serving voice-mail messages. "I'll get back to you as soon as I can," or "I'm away from my desk or on the phone . . . ." There are many variations to these all-too-common voice-mail messages. Although they seem to sound friendly enough, they're actually quite arrogant. voice-mail isn't about where we are or what we happen to be doing. The covert message comes through all too clearly: "I'll make the decisions on which calls I'll return and when." Answering calls quickly sends the right message. Other words aren't necessary.

12. Talking as if you are a consultant and acting like a huckster, While words are important, using them to disguise sends the wrong message. Customers come to view you as someone who will do anything to make a sale. Calling yourself a consultant or tacking on "consultative selling" to your title to describewhat you, do while behaving as if your only goal is to make the sale, seals your image in the customer's mind.

13. Failing to be consistent. Whether it's sales approaches, penetrating markets or building market awareness, many companies jump from one strategy to another, hoping to find the "right" combination. The only consistency that's valuable is looking for something new in order to improve results. Ironically, the figures never reach the targets because a program is never given the opportunity to succeed. At some point, a company is known for not sticking with anything. That's bad branding.

14. Trying to look different from what you are. How many small businesses use a photo of a large office building to give the impression that this is their "headquarters"? In the same way, a large financial services company promoted products it couldn't deliver because the CEO wanted to create the right impression with customers. The deception worked on only one person. Each time a customer requested a fictitious product, approval was denied. Would it have been a more prudent strategy to own the niche for which the company had built a solid reputation over many years?

15. "I know we can save you money. When can we get together?". This tired sales appointment strategy is useless. Experienced salespeople know it, and so do customers. Sometimes it seems the only ones who don't get the message are sales managers. The
approach diminishes credibility because it lacks differentiation. Astute customers know that price is never the only factor that separates one product or service from another. The Yugo automobile failed in the United States because the company believed Americans wanted a cheap car. What consumers wanted was value for their dollar and Yugo couldn't deliver.

16. Preparing sales-driven presentations. Inappropriate sales presentations do as much as anything to mar a company's reputation. The negative factors include boilerplate wording that fails to address an understanding of the individual customer's situation and pricing that reflects what the salesperson wants to sell rather than what will benefit the customer. Today's customers expect sales presentations that offer realistic, appropriate solutions.

17. Making exaggerated claims. The tendency to over-promise and to exaggerate the ability to perform are not just distortions, they're stupid. Once customers realize they've been duped, they're angry and they strike back, directly or indirectly.

A national organization claims it has hundreds of members with high-dollar-volume sales for the particular industry. But anyone checking the member list knows differently. As a result, many who could benefit from membership say, "That's not for us." Exaggeration only defaces a company's image.

18. Failing to establish a conscious identity. It's no accident that Fortune 500 companies invest heavily in creating and sustaining carefully crafted images. However, as massive mergers take place, maintaining these identities is more difficult because so many factors must be controlled. This opens the way for middle-market and smaller-sized firms to seize the initiative. Ten years ago, Sears had the image of "yesterday's merchandiser" and almost went out of business. Today, Sears is robust as a result of building an identity that is credible to its customers. If the task is to capture as many customers as possible and not to lose any unnecessarily, then building the right brand image is absolutely necessary.

Ironically, proper branding is not merely the result of creative advertising, expensive brochures or even sponsoring the right golf tournaments. Those may help confirm the perceptions customers have of a company, perceptions derived from seemingly minor matters ranging from voice-mail messages to exaggerated claims.

Reviewing every aspect of a business to make sure every element is consistent with the picture the company wants to portray itself as is the source of effective branding.

John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a Quincy, Massachusetts marketing services and sales consulting firm founded in 1976. Mr. Graham is the author of 203 Ways to be Supremely Successful in the New World Of Selling (Macmillan Spectrum, 1996) and Magnet Marketing: The Ultimate Strategy for Attracting and Holding Customers, published by John Wiley & Sons. Mr. Graham writes for a variety of publications and speaks on business, marketing and sales topics for company and association meetings.

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