Minding Your Own Brand

What did you expect?

By Dave Lubelczyk

A long time ago, back before I met my wife, I went on a very interesting blind date. Well, it wasn’t technically a blind date. It was more of a set-up. I knew what Sara looked like but that was all. She worked in another department and a co-worker of ours decided to play cupid because they knew we would “be perfect for each other.” Sara and I had a very brief hallway conversation about when we should go out and what we should do. I was excited to hear she liked my idea of trying a new restaurant that had just opened up and we made plans to meet there for dinner.

I had a lovely evening planned: dinner, drinks, a club, and maybe if I was lucky, a romantic walk on the beach. Instead, the night was a disaster from the minute we opened the menu. You see, Sara was a vegetarian and we were eating at Cape Cod’s newest steak house. There was literally nothing she could eat on the menu. I offered to leave but she was a good sport. Sara picked at her “side” salad while we discussed our lives and discovered how truly incompatible we were. In my mind I had planned a truly extraordinary evening that in the end was utterly dreadful for my date. After dinner she thanked me for my well meaning effort. We said our goodbyes knowing we both wanted different things out of life; we definitely were not “perfect for each other” and that was ok. I learned a valuable lesson about expectations and the importance of asking questions. When examining expectations, don’t rely on assumptions … ASK!

Like the promise of new love, most companies are so smitten with the potential for new business that they fail to ask “does this prospect’s expectations match up with the company’s expectations.” Because of this, they often build interactions that satisfy the company’s needs and what they assume will impress the customer. However, in order to achieve brand success companies must understand expectations of all parties and if the alignment is not there, they must walk away.

By asking questions of both the prospect and themselves, companies can understand the expectations on both sides. They can then determine if there is a true fit and weed out the people who are misaligned before either party walks away with a bitter taste from the inevitable bad breakup. More importantly, when this alignment does exist it is easier to build an interaction that is truly extraordinary for both parties.

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