Mister Big
Many small business owners like the idea of making their company look bigger than it actually is. Kinko’s advertises that their color printing will make you “look like a big company.” Websites for single-person companies are often written in the third person using the regal “we.” Many small companies never acknowledge that there are individual human beings behind their enterprise.
Yet gigantic multinationals go to great lengths to bring themselves down to human scale. IBM and Microsoft feature various small business people in their ads — from bicycle companies to Franciscan monks. Exxon sends out warm, apologetic letters after an oil spill. Many large corporations use spokespeople — General Motors went so far as to reanimate a long dead car designer, Harley Earle.
Perhaps the large companies know something that the small companies haven’t yet realized — people want to deal with other human beings. Small companies should make a virtue of their smallness instead of pretending to be something that they aren’t. Astute customers are going to figure out any fakery — why risk your credibility?
As an individual, one-person company I’ve done work with many Fortune 500 corporations — IBM, Corning, Xerox, etc. Behind every one of these interactions was a one-on-one human relationship. Yet many small-businesses aspire to eliminate any trace of personality from their marketing and communications. Which is a pity, because personality is one of their most valuable assets.