It’s OK to brag (sorta) 02/04/15 | Doug Cofer "Brag" - everyone hates it. When others do it, we recoil and think "good grief, shut up!" It's arrogant and irritating and feels condescending. It elicits negative feelings and thoughts in us. So, clearly, the last thing any company wants to be perceived doing is "bragging". Often times, that leads to an equally large problem - not saying anything. What good does that do? Now, no one even has the opportunity to know what your company is about, how your products can benefit them and, most importantly, why they should do business with you over your competitors. I'm here to tell you - it's OK to brag! It really is, well sorta. The reality is you need to communicate with customers. You need to differentiate your company/products/services from your competitors. If you don't, you are letting others tell your customers and potential customers about someone else's product or service. And, whatever they say about you (which will be negative) will be truth to the customer since they have no other information from you. The catch-22 is no one wants to brag. No one wants to start yelling "hey look at us! Look how great we are!" and be perceived negatively for doing it. We get that. Fact is most of the executives we work with don't feel comfortable putting out public statements to the world about why their company is better. We are fortunate to be able to work with some great leaders of companies who are also humble and doing things the right way. You can communicate with your customers and prospects in an almost endless number of ways. How many are you using effectively today? Maybe 1 or 2? And those aren't public mediums. Your customers and especially potential customers are going to go out looking for information on your company. Will what they find accurately reflect what your company is really about? It better be, or you just lost business. This is why our clients work with Four Columns. We can get the right messages out the right way at the right time to make sure everyone knows what you're about. It's like bragging ..... just alot better.