Your gargoyles say more about your brand than you may think. They are your front line. If your marketing doesn’t match, you’re asking for trouble.

I recently responded to a blog article written by Kay Ross, who wrote about the faces we put forward in a marketing message. Kay’s article is titled “In Your Marketing, To Thine Own Self Be True“, and it reminded me of many observations I have made about the overall feel of companies during my career, and personal encounters.

That “feel” of a company is what makes up a brand, and when it’s done well it involves every aspect of the company, and extends far beyond the marketing department. I want to share some thoughts about your brand, and I believe you will be able to relate to this from both a consumer and business viewpoint.

The topic which was addressed in Kay’s blog came from one of her subscribers who asked the question as follows: “Which is more important when communicating with your audience: say things you really want to say, or say things that people want to hear?”

Should there really be such a disparity between the two? If the marketing is reaching the appropriate audience, it should not have to be one or the other. The way I interpreted this question, it led me to imagine the question as whether it is acceptable to fake it in your marketing. If you know my brand at all, you can place your bets now about where I stand.

I’ll give you the bottom line, right up front. In business, if you are doing something that you would never pay somebody else to do, stop it!

I think this should be obvious, but then, obvious is not so obvious, and common sense is not so common. That is the main emphasis of this article, so if you decide to stop here without further consideration, you’ve got the bulk of the benefit.

This is not just about content curation, or any one specific tactic that somebody told you may be a good practice for your marketing goals … this is about all of them. If there is something you are doing in your business pursuits, but you would never in a million years see the value in hiring somebody to do it for you, stop doing it, and get back to doing things that actually build your business.

I must have heard nearly every conceivable absurd notion a person can come up with when it comes to marketing. There are a lot, and I have heard some really bad notions about marketing practices. One silly thing I hear a lot is when people say “It’s not about you.” A few people may really know what others mean when they say this, but I think the majority of people are just giving you hogwash.

It seems to me that this message has been mutated in so many ways that it has actually become a scare tactic against marketing, rather than good advice.

If you hear people say “It’s not about you”, you should never accept that as a reason to hide who you are, what you stand for, and what you are seeking, only to sneak it in once in a while. Tragically, I believe that is the way many people have taken this message, and it is often completely contrary to effective marketing.

I believe the popularity addiction that many people suffer from in social media is downright pathetic. I’m going to tell you, in plain business terms, why I quit putting that drug in my bloodstream and stopped caring about appearances of popularity, having a squillion followers, or stressing about having the highest Klout score. In short, it is because those things aren’t what pays the bills, and they can even be quite destructive pursuits.

If you will look at it rationally, for just a moment, I’ll show you why the fashionable illusion of popularity fails the test of real business value. If you are ready to breathe a sigh of relief, you may want to pay attention and join me on the road to recovery.

Have you ever felt so sick of people feeding you lies about marketing that you can still taste it the next morning? Those lies often leave us, as a society, with a bad taste in our mouth for the whole concept of marketing. It creates a heightened level of cynicism that was not there before, and it spreads like a bad rash.

Isn’t it time to take inventory of what you’ve been accepting on faith, and start to question it? I think so, and I think it should apply to marketers and their clients alike. Of course, that will require a shift toward using due diligence and common sense. When you wonder if what you’ve been told is a lie, do you accept the responsibility to find the truth, or do you just give in and believe it because it is what you want to believe?

It is not my full-time job to be a whistle-blower about the abundance of bad marketing, but I’d say I definitely have a knack for it. I also have a sense of industry responsibility to balance out all the worthless junk and cons with some common sense and honesty … brutal honesty. Maybe I shouldn’t harp on it so much, but there are many instances when I see just how badly lies about online marketing can hurt a company. It is true that many marketing efforts can cause a net loss even greater than the upfront price paid.