Every person in your organisation who has contact – direct or otherwise – with your customers is a marketer. Fact. The guy who served me popcorn in the cinema on the weekend is a marketer. He could’ve asked cheerily ‘What movie are you guys heading to?’ but he didn’t. Instead he decided to make his interaction a negative affair, grunting at me to ‘go large’ while his miserable face looked more akin to a concentration camp rather than a by-product of a great work environment.

The waitress who takes your order is also a marketer. So is the UPS driver who delivers your parcels. And yes, you can bet your backside that your sales staff, who largely think marketing is a whole separate department, are marketing all day. And when they do, your glossy literature and slick copy writing is out of the equation; Joe Public is having an honest human interaction, not obediently absorbing a slick 30-second ad.

I guess my question is: does that honest interaction match your brand and all the investment you’ve put into building it?