Prime time television is full of makeover shows which feature people who are totally clueless about how they appear to others. Yet, businesses also do not take a sober look in the mirror and see how their customers perceive them.

Rich Tehrani of TMCNet.com recently wrote a brilliant blog post that is built around a very simple question: “In This Recession, Would You Buy From Your Company?”  According to Tehrani, businesses need to “put yourself in the customer’s position. Do you think they want to buy from companies they aren’t familiar with and those who do not invest in their customers? No – they don’t… If you think just wining and dining decision-makers is enough to win the business, you are wrong.”

On the makeover shows, before the intervention,  people think that others somehow will see the  ”inner beauty” that lies beneath a slovenly mess. Similarly,  in tough times, tech companies think that their products will sell themselves because customers will  see their underlying engineering brilliance. So when money gets tight, they cut their marketing, and stop communicating their successes to their customers. The result is that these companies are not making their best cases at the time when their customers are making decisions about what needs to be to cut.

I am not just making this point to carry the flag for marketing in a tough time. Fortunately,  when the economy started changing at the end of 2007, the Vantage team did take a hard look at how we were perceived by our customers. We saw room for improvement. So, we re-branded the company. To highlight our thought leadership, we started this blog. We now regularly communicate our successes with press releases on new clients and practice areas. We are becoming leaders in social media such as on Twitter and Facebook. These actions led to an extremely successful 2008, and positions us well for 2009.

At the end of the post, Tehrani provides some very important advice: “Ask yourself this question – are you spending your dollars as wisely as you can? What are your goals and are you altering them to suit a rapidly changing economy?…Yes, now is the time for prudence and now is the time to cut unnecessary expenses. But remember – be careful where you cut from – after all, your customers are trying to find a reason to cut you.”

Like on the makeover shows, your business may need some outside unbiased assistance to improve its appearance. If you need help to answer the tough questions that Rich raises at this critical time, please do not hesitate to contact me at radler [at] pr-vantage.com.  There are no obligations or strings attached. So what’s the benefit to Vantage? We get to make a connection with a group of companies that know they need a change and that are more likely to succeed over the long term.  As we have been in business for 20 years, this is the company we like to keep.

Over the weekend, T-Mobile sued Starbucks over the coffee company and its new partner, AT&T offering free in-store Wifi. The details can be found at GigaOm and Rich Tehrani’s Blog

One aspect that has not been covered is the PR implications of the lawsuit. I think that T-Mobile is underestimating the PR hit that they will take if they are successful. Consider that every time a Starbucks Wi-Fi user logs in, they will be reminded T-Mobile took away their free WiFi.

The other interesting point is that if T-Mobile is successful, they would have to prove damages. In doing so, they would have to provide a public look at the profitability of the Starbucks arrangement. Since that arrangement is going away regardless of this lawsuit, the bottom line effect of the loss would become public knowledge. So winning the lawsuit would have a price.

On an unrelated issue, it definitely is cool having a blog tag on Rich Tehrani’s blog.