A week ago, one of the neighbor’s two athletic pit bulls bounded over the three-and-half foot fence in our backyard.

I was on my computer in our dining room facing the window to the backyard. I heard some commotion.

I looked up to see the pit bull with its jaws around the throat of our Golden Retriever. I screamed something forgettable as I darted for the back door, looking for something to club the pit bull. I meant to kill the dog. I grabbed a folder chair sitting against the wall in the kitchen and headed out the door. Our dog Zoey would have been dead in minutes.

Fortunately, just as I bolted through the door, the pit bull’s owner grabbed the collar of her dog. The owner also had hopped the fence in pursuit of her wayward dog.

Then, I realized that our three-and-half-year-old daughter was also in the back yard. She was safe.

I can’t remember another time in my recent past when I’ve been so amped up. Blood from our dog’s lip, eye, and ear streaked her coat and stained our hands.

I stormed back into the house and called 911. The neighbor was fined $25, but the police said, essentially, that unless the pit bull draws blood from a human, not much would happen.

The incident led me to confront the veterinarian who had cared for one of our other dogs, which had died about a year and a half earlier.

Like a Really Bad Habit

By noon of the next day, Zoey’s eye was draining and started to swell. The eye was infected. The pit-bull attack had punctured her left eyelid.  I also realized that I had let Zoey’s rabies and distemper shots lapse.

The reason was because I had been so angry with the veterinarian clinic to which we had taken our dogs for almost 14 years. I had not been to the (or any) clinic since.

When our other golden (Cassidy) died, the doctors did the unforgivable: Instead of telling us the truth (that our dog needed to be put down), they took our money.

The vet recommended keeping Cassidy on IVs in the animal hospital for three days. I picked up the dog at 4, and she died two hours later at 6. The bill was about $650.

I was done with the clinic.

But here I was. I needed a vet to examine Zoey. I had not researched another clinic, and now I was in crisis mode.

Like the compulsion that makes me reach for a second bowl of ice cream, I picked up the phone and made the appointment. To the same veterinarian clinic.

What Telling the Truth Will Get You

On the drive over, I justified to myself why I was off the wagon. I steeled myself, determined I would tell the truth to one of the veterinarians. I’d tell him or her my reason for not being a customer for a year and half.

So, after the vet looked over Zoey, I said, “We haven’t brought Zoey back since Cassidy died.”

No comment. Nothing. Silence. I expected, “Really? Why’s that?”

So I proceeded.

“We brought Cassidy in right before she died,” I said. “You put her on IVs for several days, but when I took her home, we had to call a visiting veterinarian to our house to put her down. I wished you had been more honest with us, instead of taking our money.”

Again, only silence. This time, it was an awkward silence.

The next thing I know, the vet says, “Zoey looks good. You can pick her up in a couple hours.”

That was it.

I took away three principles from that conversation:

1) You can run a business for a long time and not really listen to your clients/customers. And get away with it, contrary to conventional “the customer is always right” wisdom.

2) A long-term customer will often give you several chances to make amends. All you have to do is listen. (And maybe grunt even once to acknowledge the frustration.)

3) I am a slug. Though I would never refer the clinic, I may stay simply because I am a lazy.

(By the way, we now have a baseball bat sitting in the corner by our back door.)

In the wide world of the web, how do you ensure that when a consumer hops on a search engine they find you first?

Bruce Philp, branding guru to ING Direct and co-author of The Orange Code says that the answer is differentiation. Here in the third of three interviews, Philp talks about how the Internet has changed brand management–and relinquished control to the consumer.

Is the notion of differentiation irrelevant in a “Google-search” world?

Bruce Philp: Trout and Ries would have been hailed as geniuses if they’d described the concept of positioning about twenty years later than they did. Search is the reason why.

Positioning stipulates that a brand be recognizable as one of a pool of comparable brands, and that this pool is defined by a particular kind of user.

Can you give an example?

We don’t think about Levis as competing with all forms of lower extremity coverage, or even with all kinds of pants. They compete with other blue jeans, and we consider what makes them different in that context.

That generates more powerful differentiation, because it forces relevance. It becomes not just a matter of being different, but to whom and against what set of expectations.

How do you win at a search?

To win at search, a brand absolutely must think first about the tribe it’s selling to (to borrow Godin’s word) and their particular expectations and definition of themselves. That discipline directs effective search strategies, but it also directs focused branding.

It seems impossible to manage how people perceive your brand. Is that true?

I contend that it’s impossible to manage a brand anymore. Brands are no longer taught in a one-way, didactic context like they were in the age of advertising. Instead, they are observed across the full spectrum of their behavior.

In effect, this means that everything a brand does adds to its meaning. That’s because there are so many channels open–including the Internet–and because the social consensus that advertising is the ‘official’ voice of a brand is broken.

What happens if you try to strictly manage your brand?

A brand becomes a totalitarian state with a massive bureaucracy focused on control. It moves slowly because every single tactic is a decision. It’s an unsustainable approach for any brand that has to do business with consumers in a competitive context, when disruption is coming at it faster and faster.

When Google can tell me not only what people have said about the brand in the last days, weeks and months, but what they’re saying right now, it’s hard to imagine that the brand as a fascist state can stand.

What’s the alternative?

Manage a brand from principle. This is the constitutional model I proposed in The Orange Code. Instead of creating a book of rules, we create a declaration of principles. We hire for it, we reward it, we tell the world about it so that we’re held to account. Over time, the organization begins to organically behave according to those principles. They become its culture.

Thus, in a world where everything an organization does accretes to the brand, that entire organization will very naturally get it right most of the time.

You can’t trumpet something you’re not. Or, rather, you can, but good luck. You won’t have much of it. There’s no befuddling your potential clients.

According to Harry Beckwith, author of, among others, Selling the Invisible, and You, Inc the positioning of your organization demands authenticity. CZ President Dave Goetz interviewed Beckwith on why consumers buy into “true stories” and how to position yours:

CZ: What does positioning entail?

Harry Beckwith: To establish your position successfully, you must consider two things—how you are seen and how you want to be seen. From there, you measure the gap between the two. Then you can determine how to get to your end goal. Positioning is about moving that perception.

How do you obtain the best position?

There’s no such thing as an inherently superior position. The tendency is to reach to be “the best.” The superior product. The superior service. You can’t because “the best” doesn’t exist. However, each position has strengths and weaknesses. Part of positioning is being mindful of your inherent weaknesses.

Take cell phones, for example. What’s a superior cell phone? To some people, it’s the iPhone, because it’s colorful and does a lot of stuff; it’s even prestigious. To others, the iPhone’s features represent a whole lot of things that can screw up their work. They don’t even want a camera in their cell phone.

So it’s about staking a desirable niche, in which people will catch something really positive—and giving up on this notion of superiority.

Can you change an established position?

Yes, but you can’t position yourself as something you’re not or cannot be perceived as. It’s a waste of energy.

The most vivid example is when Gerber tried to market adult food. The mind didn’t allow it. Frito Lay tried to do lemonade. They produce salty and crispy snacks, so your mind won’t allow you to drink Frito lemonade.

The stronger your identity and the stronger you’re identified with something, the less able you are to be perceived in any way different than that. So it really depends of how flexible your brand is. How far does it stretch?

How does branding relate to positioning?

Positioning is about your message being perceived in a consistent way—like “sexy,” “fast,” “reliable,” or “safe.” Branding reinforces that single message as well as the nuances and subtle sub-messages that come within that.

I always use branding to describe all of the activities you engage in to reinforce your message. And an enormous part of this is your internal activities. Your staff activities create a sense of authenticity. For instance, if you’re a wealth management firm and the assistants are cold and ruthless, then chances are a warm, friendly service message will hurt you rather than help. It will raise expectations, and you won’t meet them. You have to deliver that position—you have to do what you promised.

How often should you change your position?

Re-positioning yourself demands real changes, not just cosmetic ones. You need confidence in your investment so that you will stay with it for a long period of time. When that position succeeds, you continue to build on your investment.

Take, for example, a University with a well-established School of Optometry: “Okay, we are known for optometry, how might we grow from that? You start to consider adding specialties closely related to optometry—audiology, for example, or other subspecialties in health care. You might offer health care administration in the general university—in short, growing from your strength into closely related areas that expand your offering. Whatever you do, you must begin your strategy by asking, “For what are we known?” And then ask how you can build on that, add to it, and grow.

Good marketing is rooted in good communication: It is concrete, not general. If you’re general—a little of this, a little of that—you’re not strategic. You don’t have a bona-fide, authentic position—and people will perceive it that way.

Branding is not the luxury of the rich. Any organization can take the time to develop a clear, consistent message about who it is. No time for the work of rebranding? According to DK Holland, nonprofit brand expert, your mission will forever be “fuzzy” in the minds of your constituents.

In this CZ interview, Holland shoots straight about the value of branding—for all organizations.

B&S: What can’t branding do for a nonprofit?
Holland: It can’t fix a bad nonprofit. It can only work with a really good nonprofit. Some nonprofits are so internally screwed up that they can’t improve.

Also, it can’t create differentiation where there is none. If there are other organizations doing pretty much what your organization is doing, branding really can’t help—unless the other ones are not doing it very well. And you are.

So how do you define branding?
It is clearing up the perception of who you are. If you can’t cling to an image of something, it’s very difficult to brand it.

For instance, if I say “target,” what do you think of? Probably the store Target—and what its brand represents. If you can’t cling to an impression of something, how do you tell someone else about it? And that’s what you want a brand to do: to spread by word-of-mouth.

How should a nonprofit start a re-branding process?
Ask your audience—your sector and stakeholders—a lot of questions. Evaluate your organization on what I call the Four Branding Markers: 1. Reputation (How well known is your organization?); 2. Esteem (How highly thought of is your organization?); 3. Relevance (How important are your organization’s mission and activities to your audiences?); and, 4. Differentiation (Are there other organizations that do what yours does? Is your organization distinct in the minds of its target audiences?).

What if your board is reluctant?
Often, good organizations re-brand when they’re going downhill. So I would paint that picture to the board. Say, “This is happening, but we know we are better than that.” Then show how branding can reverse the “bad” perception.

Because nonprofits are generally more introspective, they are less concerned about their audiences than their mission. But if the board doesn’t have a clear perception of what the organization does and who it is, how are you going to execute your mission?

A friend and his wife recently purchased a Honda Odyssey van.

They waited about a year from the time they decided to purchase a new van to the time they actually did so.

I would not call them impulsive.

In that year, they did not test-drive any other vans, domestic or foreign. Not one. In fact, they didn’t even test-drive an Odyssey. Not even once. They frequented a Honda dealership only twice, once on a vacation to Minnesota and then again to buy the van. They had never owned a Honda before; the van they drove was a 1998 Dodge Grand Caravan.

There were only two vans in the running: the Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna. And my friend’s wife felt the Toyota was not as roomy. So even Toyota really never had a shot. Never was a domestic van considered. Even the color was never really in doubt. She wanted the Ocean Mist.

The only “marketing” that I can see shaping the decision: their experience driving a domestic van for many years and the influence of a brother-in-law, who drove an Odyssey. That’s it!

And I can’t remember one Super Bowl ad for a Honda anything, can you?

So, which auto company would you rather be the Chief Marketing Officer for?

Marketing is so much easier (and less expensive, I would guess) when you have perception on your side.

A college or university education may be the ultimate service to market. In this exclusive CZ interview with Harry Beckwith, best-selling business author of Selling the Invisible and The Invisible Touch, he addresses the core issue of positioning and marketing the service of Higher Education.

B&S: How is a university education akin to a service?

Harry Beckwith: An education is a service—a classic one. It’s intangible and amorphous; in fact, if it’s a great education, it’s lifelong because a great education teaches you how to think and to continue to educate yourself for your life. You can’t see, touch, taste or feel an education. You can only sense its benefits, the real value of which defy estimation.

It’s hard to tell the differences among many colleges, at least based on their marketing. For example, all view books and web sites appear the same. Design seems like a commodity.

Harry Beckwith: If you’re showing the same photos everyone else is showing, you are all but shouting that you’re not special.

But it’s not accurate to say that design is a commodity. The design of school facilities may be, but that’s only because schools continue to insist on looking like other schools, and architects insist on building “a college building,” instead of something special and distinctive. They fall into a perceptual trap.

The design of everything you do, including and especially your collateral, need not appear commoditized. Design happens on a blank sheet of paper. Anything can happen there, if you let it. The iPod is just an MP3 player—and yet it isn’t. Its design breaks it from its pack.

How does a university discover its message?

Harry Beckwith: Through a disciplined look at its peer schools, and a deeper look at how each of those schools is perceived. You then ask, “How are we different?” and “How might we be perceived differently?”

I worked with the University of Oregon last year. We found a clear point of distinction by examining what prospects—students and donors—thought of Oregon’s peer schools and how they tended to perceive the University of Oregon. We didn’t try to create something utterly new, to plant a brand new idea in people’s minds. Instead, we took what already was in their minds, and leveraged it to the school’s advantage. It wasn’t unlike doing Oregon tourism ads that actually stress the rain rather than trying to avoid that subject. It rains there. You take what people know and point out the advantages they may have overlooked.

You also need to know what positions are most meaningful to a prospect. There are eight and no, I’m not telling. It’s a trade secret, at least until my book in 2009.

Then ask, Which of those positions can we hold? When you decide to take that position, stay on message. Very few schools, and too few marketers, do that.