If you can wade through the Scottish dialect, poet Robert Burns makes a good point. He probably wasn't thinking about corporations, but marketing communication determines how others see us, and since we put thousands of dollars into marcomm, it just makes sense to take a few minutes to see ourselves as prospects will.

Have you ever wondered who pays to advertise on a billboard half hidden behind a tree? Or printed in text too small to read from the highway? It probably looked great in the agency’s or art department’s presentation, but drivers don’t see billboards on an easel at the front of a boardroom.

The same applies to ads, brochures, email, direct mail, and web sites. Your prospect doesn’t see your ad or mailer in the middle of a large presentation board. It’s on page 87 of a magazine or in a stack of mail on a cluttered desk. Your brochure is going home from the tradeshow in a canvas bag full of your competitor’s brochures. And your Internet ad may appear next to a dancing skeleton in a venue where visitors arrive with a click and leave the same way.

Let’s face it; this isn’t Tiffany & Co.; it’s the midway at the state fair. You’re in competition with every other seller out there, and job number one is to be noticed.

Words and images make a difference. If you haven’t read it yet, check out Positioning by Jack Trout and Al Reis. It’s been updated several times since it first came out around 1980, but even the oldest version can be an eye-opener.

In the meantime, get someone to trim that tree in front of your billboard.