One of the challenges associated with operating a consulting firm in a mid-sized market is that people start to learn your schtick. And occasionally, when we're out on the town, someone will walk up to us and ask, with a grin, "Do I really need a brand management strategy?" So, to simplify the answer as much as possible, we've put together a little decision tree, which we encourage you to download and keep handy.

Sixty years ago, my father had an insurance agent named Jack Josephson. Jack was the embodiment of customer service. He answered his own phone, spoke in simple terms, told the truth, and would drop anything he was doing to respond to a client with a claim. Jack was a good guy in an age of good guys – but since good guys were everywhere in the ‘50s, he went pretty much unnoticed...

A few years back, a young Marketing VP confided, “My first year on the job, I lowered our production costs, reduced our dependence on outside services, improved our mail and email response rates, and turned around a departmental morale problem, only to be chided by the CEO, at my year-end review…”