Would you rather buy cookies from RC Cookie Inc., or a cute little girl scout?

The girl scout is the overwhelming choice of chocolate chip cookie lovers all over the United States. I couldn’t even tell you the name of the company that puts together the girl scout cookie formula, and had to make RC Cookie Inc. up to illustrate my point.

Now, let’s take that a step further.

Would you rather buy a television from a friend of a friend of yours who happens to sell TVs, or would you rather go down to a store you haven’t been to before?

Or …

Would you rather shop at a store close to you with cold, impersonal sales people? Or would you travel 10 miles out of your way, gas prices and all, to go to the store with the friendly people who remember your name, gave you department store credit, and are offering you a repeat customer discount?

It’s obvious, isn’t it?

As people we go with the familiar over the unknown , we go with the best value over the cheapest price, we go for brands over generics – sometimes without thinking about it.

So which store are you?

Are you the friendly pal of a pal who just happens to sell TVs or the unfamiliar store?

Are you the cookie cutter sales site? Or are you the personal shop who follows your industry and knows the interests of your prospects? Are you the one who constantly provides helpful tips or a place where one might be confused about how to make an inquiry?

We can’t cop out the way we could in the earlier days of the Web by saying it’s harder to make a real connection to another person, or group of people, online.

There are autoresponders that can send out personalized messages and help you target your mailings by interest.

You can blog.

You can have a forum.

You could publish your toll-free number so prospects can call you.

There’s Skype. There are online phone conferences, teleseminars, webinars…

Getting the idea?

In all of these venues, even on a static web site or with the most low-tech, manually recorded streamed audio, you can tell your business story.
Of course, it’s much easier to keep telling your business story if you have the right tools – but a little

You could share the origins of your company. You can share a customer testimonial. You might even use an embarrassing incident to show how you came up with some bright idea.

If you’re a blogger, you could take a tip from the J Peterman catalog and write advertorials that both provide information and feature your products. You’d have material for years to come.

This is just one of the plethora of strategies you can use to connect, but it’s one that is universal to every business.

We all have interesting stories somewhere. And if you’re blogging you can get material to post about out of fellow staff, employees, clients, events – there’s years of material just hanging around in the minutes of your life, waiting to make your entity real to your clients.

An example : You can buy car insurance from anyone, and apparently those companies know this. You might have noticed that many car insurance companies are focusing more on the personal touch, even in their advertising.

The State Farm commercials on television give their prospective buyers the impression that they’re part of their business story.

The Progressive Insurance commericals give you the sense that they care so much about the value their clients get that while you’re still a prospect, they’ll give you the information you need to make a decision.

You can do this too – in addition to cutting and pasting customer thoughts & testimonials on a page at your site, think about writing about the experience (with their permission) in your blog.

Other readers may identify and say "That’s just like the problem I had. I wonder what they can do for me."

Be different. Find your story. Then tell it.