| CHAPTER 5 |

AUTHENTICITY—YOUR PERSONAL CALLING CARD

Don’t Try to Be Something You’re Not

“Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.”

—W.H. Auden

In a 12-month period, a major discount retailer started a new fashion line, initiated a renovation of 1,800 of its stores, overhauled its advertising to focus less on the promise it is best known for (price) to focus more on style (something it’s never been known for), rolled out a $4 generic drug program, ended its layaway program, and imposed wage caps on its workers—among a host of other changes. The year was 2006; the retailer’s stock shares dipped 5 percent and store sales rose only 2.4 percent, half as much as its chief rival, Target, which saw its 2006 store sales go up 4.8 percent.

The store? Walmart—stalwart, dependable Walmart, proving that even large, iconic, and successful brands can make missteps, lose value and sales, and rattle consumer trust by trying too hard to become something they’re not. Consumers and Wall Street alike felt the decline in value was brought about by the company’s overzealous desire to change. Since that time, Walmart has reasserted itself as a discount brand leader by returning to its roots (T-shirts, jeans, baby formula, diapers, grocery items, toiletries) and reinvesting in its main promise—great savings. It reinforced that idea with a strategic redesign of its logo (a cheerful, modern daisy icon) and a great tagline, “Save money. Live better.” And, most important, by continually developing ways to deliver on that tagline’s promise every day.

KEEPING THE BARGAIN

Not that many years ago, Walmart had been losing some authenticity. With 8,100 Walmarts in fifteen countries, compared with 1,684 Targets in the world (all in the United States), the retailer is still the giant in the room. So the missteps gave its competitors like Target and Kmart an opening to jockey for position—and begin to challenge the chain in certain areas such as product quality, selection, and ambiance. Walmart was smart enough to get back to its roots fairly quickly, and in the process reassure consumers and shareholders, by refocusing on what it does best: offering low prices by leveraging its powerhouse ability to buy and distribute large quantities of goods quickly.

“Through sheer managerial brilliance, Walmart is truly a global supply chain—they can get product from China to Minneapolis in three days,” Charles M. Denny, retired president and chairman of ADC Telecommunications, a Fortune 500 company, told me. He analyzed America’s largest retailer as part of a yearlong research fellowship at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota.

How does something as monolithic and ubiquitous as Walmart become an “authentic” brand? Whether a brand is large or small, or a mass-merchandise or luxury product, the heart of its authenticity is in consistently practicing what it preaches and delivering on its promise. When a brand’s language, look, or actions become out of sync with customers’ expectations, brand integrity suffers and trust is broken. One of the hallmarks of an authentic brand, business, or personality is how it connects with its audience on a personal level.

Walmart personal? Sure. This is not just about the greeters who stand at the entrance of every store. It’s about the connection the store makes with individual shoppers when they buy knee-high socks and corn chips. Customers feel secure that they are getting a great deal in a no-frills, one-stop shopping experience. That dependability makes for a deeply personal consumer experience. The retail giant is “real” because it connects with shoppers’ basic needs, and with their financial and time constraints. When Walmart was located primarily in rural areas—it was often the only large store available to people—this personal connection helped make the store into the giant it is today. “All the studies say that the average consumer saves a considerable amount of money, in the thousands of dollars, when they do all their shopping at Walmart,” says Denny. “The average American family makes $55,000 a year—saving thousands over a year resonates in a meaningful way with an awful lot of people.”

While few will grow a business to Walmart proportions, there is a lot to learn from Walmart’s mistakes. Realize who you are, not just who you want to become. Be realistic and appreciate that recognizing your limitations is as important as building on your strengths. Both tell you a lot about what you can do to maintain your brand identity and trust while still expanding your business. In Walmart’s case, it failed to understand that shoppers would not look primarily to the company for fashion-forward clothing or innovative home design solutions. The mixed messages customers were getting from some of the store’s changes were disconcerting.

Walmart’s CEO, Michael Duke, saw to it that shelves have been restocked with staple items that had been shed in the previous merchandise overhaul. The company still looks to a handful of designers and celebrities to introduce lines of clothing and tabletop décor, but the actual designs are still basic in nature. Nothing crazy or too edgy—whether it’s in-house brands, Miley Cyrus, or Hanes, you’re still buying fairly basic T-shirts and yoga pants.

And Walmart hasn’t stopped evolving and changing the brand but it continues to get even smarter. In January 2011, the nation’s largest retailer announced a five-year plan to lower the amounts of salt, fat, and sugar in thousands of its house-branded Great Value packaged foods and drop prices on fruits and vegetables. This recent evolutionary shift fits well with the company’s brand and mission and with the times (it coincides with Michelle Obama’s healthy America initiative, “Let’s Move!”). Walmart has been selling organic produce and packaged food for some time, making these formerly higher-end products available to their demographic and luring more upscale shoppers into the store.

One of the reasons the company is making the changes over the course of several years is to give it time to both overcome and solve technical hurdles, and to give consumers time to adjust to the foods’ new taste. The company acknowledged that it doesn’t do it any good to introduce healthier food if people reject it—and it will take time for people to become accustomed to the change. Taking it slow also minimizes the chance that Walmart will have product line, quality, and delivery problems. Walmart is also keeping up with technology. In April 2011, Walmart Stores agreed to buy (for a rumored $300 million) Kosmix, a social media company focused on e-commerce, as the retail behemoth looks for newer, better, and faster ways to tap into customers’ needs and thoughts via social networking sites and smartphones. All are smart moves from America’s biggest retailer.

It’s All Personal

Even a behemoth like Walmart knows its mission is ultimately a personal one. Consumers are loyal to brands that reliably fulfill a desired experience, so much so that they feel ownership of the brand. This is why stores like Walmart, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, and Nordstrom enjoy fierce and passionate loyalty from their audiences. Once you’ve made the decision to make your business personal, you have to stand behind the qualities that resonate with customers on a personal level. This lesson doesn’t just apply to retailers; it’s true for products, services, and branded personalities. An investment company or hardware store’s success is just as dependent on establishing trust and intimacy as it is for an actor or singer.

Gone to the Dogs

5WPR client Camp Bow Wow (CBW) is a great example of how to get authenticity—and customer trust—right. Camp Bow Wow is the nation’s largest pet services company. It’s a premier day-care and overnight camp for dogs, which in the last 10 years has gone from one camp in Colorado to 125 across the United States. One of the reasons why CBW has become such a big success in a short amount of time—it’s a $50 million company—is because it was founded on a very authentic need. “In 1994, my first husband and I had two big dogs and we couldn’t find a good place to board them, so we created the idea for CBW,” says founder and CEO Heidi Ganahl. She put plans on hold when her husband died, but six years later she resurrected the idea with her brother. It was a success and a year later, she opened a second camp. “We just wanted to create a place where a dog could be a dog, and we used the Colorado mountain lodge feel to make it really seem like a camp,” she says.

The people who run the company love animals, and its staffers are canine-crazy, too, which resonates with customers and those who buy and open CBW franchises. This is a tribute to the company’s management and great product—beautiful, clean, healthy, and safe are its key features and PR selling points. All of these are things pet owners care about when they’re dropping their beloved Fido off, whether for a day or a week. The company hits all the authenticity benchmarks: it was founded out of Heidi’s genuine desire to care for dogs, and it is very involved in community activities wherever CBW camps are located. The PR campaign reinforces the authenticity of the camps.

Events are animal-centric and involve educating consumers about pet care; news stories center on how animals and owners relate as family members, from tips on taking a dog on vacation, to helping children get over their animal phobias. Stories featuring Heidi and the camps in popular blogs like Pet Sugar (“How to Drive With Dogs”) to major newspapers like The Wall Street Journal (“Day Care Is Going to the Dogs”) reinforce the central mission of CBW, which, in turn, strengthens its authenticity as a leader in the pet care industry.

You can never lose that touch when you are running a company that connects with people’s emotions. Any loss of authenticity can result in loss of respect, trust, and business. The 2007 pet food recall is a case in point. Tainted wheat gluten from a supplier in China wound up in Menu Foods products and poisoned hundreds of dogs and cats. In March, after several pets had died from the poisoned food produced by Menu Foods, the company was forced to initiate one of the largest food recalls ever—nearly 60 million cans and pouches of pet food were affected.

Investors and customers deserted the pet food giant’s brands, which include proprietary store brands and big international names such as Iams. Reports said that Procter & Gamble had dropped a contract worth 11 percent of the company’s annual sales; about $40 million of its yearly revenues of $356 million. Its stock fell significantly and it faced a class-action lawsuit. All of this after an FDA investigation revealed that Menu Foods wasn’t at fault. The investigation revealed it was melamine, an organic compound used as a fertilizer in China but not in the U.S., that contaminated gluten used in the foods. I listened to the press conference by the CEO from Menu Foods stating that they had no processes in place for testing for melamine in the China-sourced gluten (they have since changed procedures to do so). A PR nightmare, to say the least.

  An investment company or hardware store’s success is just as dependent on establishing trust and intimacy as it is for an actor or singer.

Boots-on-the-Ground PR

The iconic outdoor gear and clothing company Patagonia’s strategy to create intimacy with customers through numerous PR efforts offers a useful lesson in trust and authenticity. Patagonia’s mission and core value is: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” A tall order, and close to impossible to achieve.

For Patagonia, the mission isn’t just window dressing. While the company admits it hasn’t perfected the art of harmless manufacturing, it does address the challenges publicly, most prominently with its “The Footprint Chronicles,” an examination of Patagonia’s manufacturing, production, and ecological habits. The PR idea behind the strategy is to engage customers by publicly and openly talking and thinking about its corporate practices. Patagonia also commits 1 percent of its total sales or 10 percent of its profits, whichever is more, to environmental groups. Since 1985, when the program first started, Patagonia has donated $25 million to more than a thousand organizations.

Customers and others can track the environmental impact of several Patagonia projects through the company website and a downloadable Footprint program. Online catalog pages offer “Product Footprint” tabs next to at least 150 Patagonia products so consumers can check the impact on the environment of a pair of boots or a thermal sweatshirt before they buy. Some people see this as a pure marketing ploy, but it is so pervasive throughout the site, and Patagonia puts so much time and effort into this aspect of its business, that it ultimately engenders trust and confidence with its constituents who are, after all, outdoor enthusiasts concerned about the environment.

The company’s first foray into environmentalism occurred in the 1970s, when founder Yvon Chouinard noted that original climbing equipment was harmful to rocks. By 1970, Chouinard Equipment had become the largest supplier of climbing hardware in the United States but was also known as an environmental villain because its pitons (metal spikes with a hole for a rope that mountaineers hammer into mountain rock to use as a hold) were doing damage to popular climbing routes.

Chouinard made a tough decision and phased out of the piton line, then the mainstay of his business. The company invested in aluminum chocks, which could be wedged into existing cracks by hand. The company introduced the new tool in 1972 with a message from Chouinard and his partner about the damage the old pitons caused. A member of the Sierra Club, a leading environmental nonprofit organization, extolled the virtues of “clean climbing” with aluminum chocks. Chocks soon caught on and sales quickly exceeded what the piton line had been selling.

Since then, the company has made a conscious effort to stand behind its mission of “do no harm” and has personalized it for customers by talking about its efforts openly. It uses PR to forward this mission. It has a vibrant and robust Facebook page where it connects with fans—and where fans return the love. Blogs, essays, and other content make its community Web page a go-to community for environmental, sports, adventure, and outdoor information. Aside from the Footprint project, Patagonia has at least 14 environmental initiatives, including grant programs, conservation alliances, and recycling programs. It even offers free advice to Walmart on greening its supply chain, and the retailer—10 times the size of Patagonia—listens.

Aside from all these feel-good programs, Patagonia produces a first-class product—many adventure and sports enthusiasts consider the company the Rolls-Royce of outdoor clothing and equipment. The puffy jackets and sturdy pants don’t try to set fashion trends; they instead are manufactured to last a long time and function at a high and consistently dependable level. The result of all this goes right to the bottom line.

While many clothing manufacturers, retailers, and other businesses were suffering in the 2009-2010 recession, Patagonia enjoyed two of its best years in its history. Sales at the privately owned company hit $315 million in 2009, and nearly $340 million in 2010, with projected revenues of $400 million in 2011. When times are tough, people want to spend money on items that are well made and authentic. And the prices aren’t cheap—pants start at $65, and their “down sweaters” start at around $200.

Patagonia used PR to “make it personal” with the “do no harm” mission. Everything it sells and does can be linked directly to its core value. It focuses on its core audience—outdoorsmen and women—placing the most attention on people with whom they already have an established connection. As the company connects with its core constituents, the customers would help spread the word that the company is living up to its hype. From the brick-and-mortar retailer that sells Patagonia products, to the company’s website, Facebook page, and sponsored events, Patagonia speaks to its fans in a consistent voice that reinforces its mission and core values.

For manufacturers, the product is the message—everything else is frosting. Manufacturing within environmental constraints (even self-imposed ones) can mean quality shortfalls. Patagonia has continued to make functional, long-lasting products that come with an ironclad guarantee.

Patagonia is forthright about the effort it takes to “do no harm” by ranking its own products’ environmental impact, continually seeking improvements and talking about them, and soliciting ideas and advice from its audience. In both new product development and environmental solutions to its production and fulfillment strategies, Patagonia stays relevant and continues to innovate while staying true to its core.

USE TRUST TO BUILD OUT FROM THE CORE

Everything is quiet in the maternity ward of St. Mary’s Hospital Family Birth Center in Madison, Wisconsin, on an early February morning. It’s cozy and warm in the rooms, while outside it’s about four degrees “but feels like minus seven,” according to the local weatherman on the television in the corner. A new mom has just received a bag brimming with photos of her infant, along with some unexpected baby-related swag. The company responsible, Missouri-based Our365, sells photo services to new moms in the hospital. The 63-year-old company has long-standing deals to do so with St. Mary’s, along with hundreds of other birth centers in the United States.

Among the goodies in the bag is a free sample of a Disney Cuddly Bodysuit, the entertainment company’s version of the classic yet boring “onesie” (the generic term for a one-piece T-shirt that snaps on the bottom, which most babies wear). Free stuff: PR at its most personal and basic level. Our365 pays hospitals for exclusive access to sell photo services (money many hospitals need), and, in turn, Disney (and other companies) pay Our365 to promote its products. The onesie giveaway is important because it represents, as of January 2011, part of a new venture, Disney Baby, for the almost 90-year-old media conglomerate. The line was “launched” in The New York Times Media & Advertising section story on February 7, 2011, called “Disney Looks into Cradle for Customers.” It makes complete sense for Disney to capitalize on the trust parents have in the brand to build on their core market—kids—by adding babies to the mix.

Disney has made individual licensing deals with clothing, diaper, and gear manufacturers in the past, but the new line is a concerted effort to unify infant and baby offerings under a consistent brand umbrella that will be controlled and marketed by Disney. According to reports, the model for Disney Baby will follow a similar path the company took with Disney Princess, a brand that launched in early 2007 and unified all the Disney princess characters (think Snow White and Sleeping Beauty) under one roof, which helped Princess merchandise and content go from a $300 million-a-year doll business to a $4 billion multiplatform brand.

The Disney onesie and the surrounding PR is an ideal way to introduce and indoctrinate the consumer to the Disney brand (via their parents or caregivers) from an even younger age. Prediction: Disney Baby will succeed, despite critics’ complaints about the Disney-fication of babyhood. Disney is a strong brand, and its mission to “create happiness” has earned it multiple generations of fans. Even if Disney Baby becomes a money-losing category for Disney, it still makes sense as a brand because the line helps the company to reach core consumers (children and new parents) that much earlier.

THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF INNOVATION

The innovation of Disney Baby extends an area in which the company is already successfully operating—children’s lifestyle and media. PR for the product line will become a seamless extension of current PR efforts because it fits so well with what the company already does with children’s products—perfect harmony. It’s not as if the idea came flying out of left field, as if the company wanted to manufacture lawn mowers. That would be like Colgate toothpaste starting a line of frozen dinner entrees. Oh, wait a minute—Colgate did start a line of frozen dinners. It failed. New business propositions or brand extensions have to be in harmony with the mission and core values and identity of the company.

Starbucks, despite being an amazing brand, hasn’t grown rapidly in Europe as it’s taken them time to understand that the local experience is so crucial to people. First of all, local European coffee shops have great coffee, unlike many American cities and towns. Europeans look for and expect a localized and individual experience from their coffee shops. Even with a great brand and strong PR, Starbucks remains up against the authentic experiences that mom-and-pop coffee shops offer customers in that part of the world. Big brands can’t do that as easily.

Debra Kaye, a global innovation expert and futurist who has conceived new products and business models for clients such as L’Oreal, Reckitt Benckiser, McDonald’s, and Johnson & Johnson, says the problem is that too many times the research and development department is a lone ranger. “R&D works apart from everyone else in a company and then comes out of its corner with a new product,” she says. “They have no idea what’s happening in the consumer or marketing world.” Once they appear with a product, the marketing department takes over. “‘Oh, this looks cool,’ they say. ‘Let’s invent a new consumer need for this product.’”

Innovation isn’t just about advancing technology, creating a new flavor, or finding a new way to deliver content to readers. What happens, says Kaye, when companies see innovation in terms of singular “inventions” that only come from designated “innovators” is that they think around ideas when they should be thinking of innovation as part of the company culture—as a strategy to expand the overall PR message of a brand or business.

When I worked with Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment, Sean Combs and his division heads always asked the interns and other young people in the office a slew of questions about what was hot and what wasn’t. They always made such an intense effort to do so in a manner that I didn’t, at first, understand why these super-smart people cared so much about what teenage kids thought. It was almost a religion there, but they realized the value of finding the smartest, trendiest high school and college interns. And then I got it—the young people saw and heard things others didn’t see. Innovation can come from everywhere. Even Combs’ company, arguably one of the coolest in the world, understood the value of seeing knowledge from outside the executive office or the R&D department—and the value of looking from the perspective of their potential buyer or customer.

We advise clients to ask themselves how a growth strategy or innovation will affect their message and authenticity. Will it alienate core constituents? If you pursue women ages 20 to 40, can you go after women older than 60 without driving away your younger base? Or would you do better going after the 45-year-old who thinks of herself as 35? Can you change your business in one space without adversely affecting another space? Because if you can’t, you’ll face an uphill PR battle. For example, can you change your e-commerce business without impacting sales at the retail level? Can you fill a new audience trend or need efficiently? Do you have the resources to invest in it? Is it worth the effort; will the outcome be worth the trouble?

Follow Your Own Lead

Zappos is a company that has, so far, done innovation right because it goes to great pains to keep growth and change aligned with its mission. That undertaking is also easily expandable in terms of new business ideas and PR, as long as the company maintains its basic promise—great customer service. In fact, there are so many industries that lack good customer service that Zappos has endless new venture opportunities and new ways of using PR, as long as it stays authentic with a formula for service that has won it loyal customers and record profits.

Tony Hsieh, Zappos’ founder, took his company from zero dollars in 1999 to more than $920 million in 2009, when he sold the company to Amazon.com, yet remained as CEO—incredible success based on the simple idea of great service. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when Hsieh told Business Insider’s Henry Blodget that he may tackle the airline industry someday, an industry that could certainly use some of his customer service magic.

“What helps us with growth and the big picture is that mission of best customer service,” says Aaron Magness, senior director of brand marketing and business for Zappos. “We can do anything and get into any category. Unfortunately, it’s not the case for telecommunications or airlines right now. You can have the biggest ad budgets and harp on customer service in commercials all you want, but if it does not translate to the customer experience, it won’t work.” Of course, customer service is not the core mission of airlines.

Smart innovation offers both tremendous growth opportunity and new ways to promote your brand. Stay aligned with your mission and values. The product, service, or idea has to consistently reinforce your stated goal and reason for being. Otherwise, you risk losing consumer trust and brand authenticity. Change and innovation has to be integrated into your business or brand—it can’t be a stand-alone enterprise. Don’t think of media and marketing, public relations, and consumer conversations as afterthoughts made to work around the innovation. PR has to be a part of the innovation process; from conception to execution, PR efforts can gauge public perceptions, reactions, and results. Change need not alienate core constituents. Instead, find out what they expect, and don’t let them down.

Smells Like . . . Changing Perceptions

We were able to shake up the fragrance industry and change public perceptions when we created a campaign for a $30 million privately owned company called Preferred Fragrance. The company sells hundreds of thousands of bottles of scents each year, but chances are you don’t know them because it sells imitation products, such as Tattooed adorned with Ed Hardy–like designs, and a scent similar to the fragrance Romance, by Ralph Lauren, called Remembrance.

Yes, I see the irony of this example in a chapter on authenticity. But stay with me anyway. It gets even better. The owners of the company wanted to capitalize on the shelf space the company has in high-volume, price-conscious stores, so we worked with Preferred to create a celebrity division called Apra, which embarked on its first-ever celebrity scent by partnering with platinum-selling recording artist Jordin Sparks to create a scent called Jordin Sparks: Because of You. Apra launched the fragrance exclusively at Dots, a national chain of retail stores with more than 420 stores in 26 states. The perfume sold more than 33,000 units in less than two months—an extraordinary amount of product in the fragrance category.

We launched the fragrance with Sparks at media events and personal appearances at Dots stores. We hosted an exclusive media breakfast for top beauty editors to meet and chat with Sparks about her new scent. In addition to top magazines like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Lucky, Marie Claire, and Teen Vogue, we also secured major TV crews from news outlets such as Fox News, Better TV, AOL, and Extra, which all featured stories on Sparks and the fragrance. It was an amazing outcome.

The constant media buzz and launch execution created by 5WPR, as well as Apra’s bold launch strategy in creating an inexpensive yet premium celebrity fragrance, led the company to receive one of the industry’s top honors—the 2010 Woman’s Wear Daily Beauty Biz award for “Best Executed Launch Strategy” in the Mass Fragrance category.

There was Apra/Preferred Fragrance, sitting alongside top industry players such as Revlon, L’Oreal, and Estee Lauder. Not only that, but this stepchild of the fragrance industry had also been recognized for fully succeeding in its goal of creating an affordable fragrance well within reach of most consumers. Preferred Fragrance has changed the landscape of the mass fragrance market by giving consumers a quality scent that costs between $5 and $8 a bottle. This is a fraction of the price of similar products from other companies (high-end perfumes from designers like Dior, Chanel, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren can cost upward of $50 or more). It was authentic, too, and changed the perception of the company. It has completely remade the brand of Apra/Preferred Fragrance in the beauty industry and, I’d argue, changed the company’s valuation, reputation, and business in many ways (in addition to launching a successful celebrity fragrance by a non-A-lister, quite unusual in and of itself). Amazing success. The company also had more retail doors open for its core business because Sparks’ perfume allowed them visibility and access they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Ultimately, authenticity—and audience trust that you earn from it—comes because you have touched the spirit of your customer, as our imitation perfume client did by launching a celebrity division.

THE UNDERBELLY OF AUTHENTICITY: THE PR PITFALLS OF KEEPING IT A LITTLE TOO REAL

Sometimes authenticity can go a bit too far past a brand’s or person’s intent, and it can have serious repercussions if not handled well in the aftermath. Illinois-based Allstate Insurance learned that lesson when it found itself apologizing to customers after releasing a “study” that ranked safe driving on the basis of zodiac signs. An outcry followed, with some customers and critics wondering if the insurer actually used zodiac signs as part of a system to set insurance rates for drivers. A couple of days after the press release was published, Allstate pulled it from its website and issued another to reassure humorless critics that the first report was for entertainment purposes only, and in no way did astrology play a part in the underwriting process because it wouldn’t be “actuarially accurate.” No kidding.

This episode didn’t get a huge amount of play in the mainstream media, but it did go viral on the Internet. There was enough critical mass of negative buzz online that Allstate felt the need to reverse itself. This is a story about the slippery slope of trying to be too creative and too “real” when you’re in a business like insurance that customers take seriously, despite the funny little lizards and “mayhem” that insurers use in their lighthearted advertising. PR and creativity have their role, as do timing and tone.

‘Brand You’—The Dream That Can Become aPersonal PR Nightmare

Your own personal brand can also suffer from taking authenticity too far. We represented a celebrity who wanted to tame his wild image and re-create himself as more mainstream. He persuaded a less well-known but tame (in terms of her public reputation) actress to be his “girlfriend.” The girl thought he was sincere (as did we); his high profile would help her brand, so it made sense. We placed media stories about this new relationship as part of the next page in the actor’s life. The problem was, a few weeks later he was caught with another girl by the paparazzi and poof—there went the girlfriend and the new image. Some people have a hard time curbing their less agreeable qualities.

A man I know is the former CEO of a media company and was incredibly successful in that role. He made a lot of smart decisions, hired the best of the best, and was generally on the right side of a lot of trends. As a reward, he was highly paid and widely respected, named “man of the year” by a trade association, celebrated at various industry dinners, and profiled in many magazines and newspapers.

When he finally decided to leave corporate life and start his own consulting business, things were tougher than he expected. He hired bright people, opened a nice office in downtown Los Angeles, and won a handful of high-powered clients. Still, something funny happened. “There were people who I was very close to, or thought I was, who completely snubbed friendly overtures; some didn’t return my phone calls,” he told me. He got over it, of course, and built a successful consultancy but the snubs stung, and he wondered why people who seemed to like him before seemed to relish the opportunity to give him the cold shoulder in his current position. Was it because he was no longer the powerhouse he had been?

Maybe so . . . but I think it’s more than that. He could be brusque with people, charming them one day and ignoring them the next, and he would write terse e-mails off the top of his head. He burned a lot of bridges that weren’t visible to him at the time because of his position of power. People who felt wronged by him in the past were pleased to ignore him now. The guy let his own authenticity and ego get the better of him. A behavior or thought that “comes naturally” might be authentic, but that doesn’t mean showing off every idea that pops into your head or acting on every emotion is good for your business.

There are ways to avoid these mishaps, whether you’re the ambassador for your business or are running the corporate communications department. Find out how you (or your brand) are perceived by coworkers, clients, audience, and customers. This can be as simple as asking someone you trust how others see you, what’s challenging about working with you, and what bothers people most about your style. For businesses, understanding what their audiences care about is primary. Focus groups and surveys are still useful for discovering what customers care about. Allstate should understand that its customers want to know why they have to pay what they pay—insurance is serious business.

Assess honestly. What’s true about your audience’s criticism? What can you learn about the mistakes you’ve already made? How can you remain authentic and comfortable in your skin without alienating your audience? When someone criticizes you, ask yourself if you respect that person and whether that person sincerely cares about you. If the answer is yes, then listen intently. If he doesn’t, then disregard what he says.

Think twice; act once. There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth. It’s to listen well before we speak, to hear what people are really saying before responding. The next time you feel the urge to do the very thing that has gotten you in trouble in the past, is there something else you can do instead? Some suggestions: hold off and do nothing; take a deep breath; ask a trusted colleague or advisor for advice; or think about it for a while. Finally, and sincerely, apologize. Allstate did the right thing by apologizing almost immediately. The media guy can make overtures to those he felt close to and talk to them honestly about how they’re feeling if he, in fact, wants to cultivate their business. He can offer a mea culpa about past transgressions and prove he’s changed by how he behaves moving forward. Ultimately, the old adage is true, that actions always speak louder than words.

Sometimes the solution is sitting right in front of you. This is especially true of the whole concept of authenticity. Ultimately, honesty and respect, and how you express that to your audience, is the essence of authenticity and of the personal aspect of your brand. Every business decision you make should start with the question, “If I were the person on the other end looking at this, what would make me feel welcome and included, even though I may also feel challenged and surprised?” Find and act on the answer and your authenticity will rarely go off course.