“Too green,” she said about a box of mint cookies. “Funny picture,” she said of another with an illustrated bear. “I like vanilla,” she addressed a package of vanilla sandwich cookies with a see through plastic panel. And this suddenly brought home a critical point about building a brand: the individual is king.

Each customer is different. If the mother had been assessing the boxes, she would likely have come to a much different conclusion of each box than her daughter did, and not necessarily because she was 30 years older. Marketers necessarily have to segment their audiences to conduct research and develop approaches to make the most of valuable resources. But when the rubber hits the road, when your brand is out in the marketplace, you interact with your customers one at a time.

Most companies believe that if they could reach a large group of people their problems would be over. But that’s overlooking a critical aspect of branding. People become connected to brands because they each individually have a personal connection with that brand, and this connection is specific to each person’s desires, situation, foibles, etc. So, whatever you do, think of building a small business brand as you would making friends: you create lasting relationships one at a time.