“Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth. Trust is the new competitive advantage.”

Fear seems to be the big ruler of large organizations right now. And understandably so. But fear is paralyzing and inhibitive. Exactly what we DON’T need right now. It’s a time of change and transition, but it’s also a time of growth and creativity.

Impersonal and disconnected just doesn’t work in this environment. People want to trust, want personal contact and definitely want a reason to believe. “Because I said so” isn’t acceptable any more.

Consider the strong trend of “social media”. People are looking for personal contact and a feeling of being personally connected. Granted, a lot of the “connections” are strictly virtual, but it’s still a direct connection with the outside world and information. Companies are slowly beginning to understand and several are doing new and innovative things with communications outlets like Twitter. Check out people like @zappos, @SouthwestAir, @JetBlue, @GMblogs and others. They are working to connect directly with their consumers. Some better than others.

One of my personal biggest frustrations when I was working as a creative director at the “big agencies” in New York City was the lack of connection and understanding of the business needs that were driving our assignments. We have so many tactics and medias available today I cringe at the number of dollars wasted simply because major decisions were made almost blindly simply based on gross tactical generalizations.

Now as a smaller agency, our goal is to truly get to know and understand our clients. Not just on the corporate laugh level, but to truly understand their challenges and their consumers and marketplace. That is the best way that we can effectively create a plan and execution that will work as effectively as possible with todays smaller budgets.

We strongly encourage our clients to give us a business challenge or a desired outcome rather than a request for a print ad or a “viral campaign”. This allows us to dig into the myriad of opportunities and medias to create a message that is as targeted and effective as possible. And last but not least, we strongly encourage our clients to be part of the process. The more we know and understand about you, your organization and your product or service, the better we can communicate that to your customers.

It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is, your consumers want to feel like you are vested in them and that you care about them and their business. We have been told time and time again that “it’s not personal, it’s business”. But business now is personal. What we do in business affects people in personal ways. And we should never lose sight of that.

This post was inspired by a post at harvardbusiness.org entitled “Why Small Companies Will Win In This Economy”.