The bad toupee. You can spot it a mile away, perched on top of someone’s cranium in a feeble attempt to mask the truth – there’s no hair underneath. The wearer of the toupee knows the truth, and deep down probably knows that most people know it too. The irony of the toupee is that the attempt to hide the truth actually draws attention to it. It does more harm than good.
I wonder… is your marketing like a bad toupee? Do you tout your service, knowing it’s subpar, only to have consumer review sites like Yelp point out the obvious. Do you claim low prices, but play games with hidden fees and ruin your reputation. Are you trying to use marketing to hide the truth?
The good news is that unlike hair, you can do something to actually fix the problem. You can change your business, enhance your service, or improve your products in an honest attempt to grow your business… or you can continue pretending to do so. The choice is yours.
Remember that you probably aren’t fooling anyone with deceptive, dishonest, or disingenuous marketing – no one but yourself that is. Best to focus on who you really are and what makes you unique. If there are areas where you are deficient and these are fixable problems that also matter to your customers, invest in fixing them. Lose the toupee, be honest about who you are, and seek to build on your true strengths. Far better to embrace a lack of hair, ignore those people who place too much value on it, and accentuate some other real attribute where you can truly be the best.
