I had a great “fireside chat” with Tony Parinello the other day. Tony is the author of the best-selling book: “Selling To Vito”

This book is a must read for anyone involved in sales directed towards the CEO, CFO or senior VP management at large firms. Tony’s entire business focus is helping salespeople “sell to VITO.”

Listen in to my interview with Tony to hear about what branding has meant to him – especially in building the very recognizable VITO brand – and hear what you can learn from a master.

Branding starts at the top and lives at the bottom.

What does that mean?

It means that a CEO or senior management might develop and launch a new “brand promise” initiative (the main thing that the company stands for), but it’s the salespeople and customer service people, the employees on the the front line of the organization, who are the ones that ultimately will deliver on that promise.

One of the keys to ensuring a successful launch of a new brand initiative is to make sure that the people who are on front lines of your customer interaction are involved early on with the process. Their input will ensure that you are not making a promise to your customers that you can’t deliver consistently. And, it being part of the process will give your salespeople and customer service people a sense of ownership with the brand promise and will more likely deliver your company’s promise with “on-brand behavior.”

For some reason, a lot of people think brochures are dead because they figure they’ve got a website and why on Earth would they EVER need a brochure?

There are all the cons:

• it takes a lot of time to plan, write and produce
• it requires skillful graphic designer who understands print production
• it requires printing, which can get expensive
• it seems to out-of-date the day after it’s printed

But, what many people forget is that brochures have not lost their value in the marketing and sales process because they provide (sometimes the only) the tangible and visual representation of a brand.

If you were going to purchase a car, maybe a Mercedes-Benz. It’s ridiculous to think that a nice, slick, 4-color, glossy brochure won’t make a solid impression on the buyer, and is in fact a strong marketing tool in helping to reinforce the quality brand that Mercedes stands for.

Mercedes tells you they have the best engineered cars in on the road and it’s only natural that they would want to provide brochures and marketing materials that position their brand in EXACTLY that way – showing the potential buyer why they have the best cars.

The branding logic is, if their brochures are this well-done and impressive, what must their cars be like?

What do your print materials say about your company? Do they say Mercedes or Yugo?