There are several different types of people and several different ways in which they maintain their possessions. For example, my uncle is the type of guy who schedules routine maintenance on all his vehicles — the oil changes are never overdue, and the seasonal tune-ups are timely. He is also the type of guy who flosses daily and never skips a dental cleaning. In comparison, you have a guy like my husband. He avoids the dentist until he has a massive toothache and drives there with the check engine light on.

Business Maintenance

You may not be able to change the oil on your business, but there is maintenance involved in running any business. Let’s take your average insurance-technology companies. They may have datacenters on-site that need regular maintenance. Their proprietary software may need consistent updates. Their websites need to be maintained, and the server in which that site is hosted need some work. How about the sales department? The folks in there must continually scrub their lead and prospect databases.

Brand Maintenance

With all the tasks involved in your business’s upkeep, it becomes easy to let brand maintenance fall to the wayside. You can’t floss your brand, but you can check for consistency in all communications — from web to print. You can also make sure the correct logos and colors are used. And most important, you can make sure your messages remain clear to the target audience.

We may not all be the kind of people my uncle is. And frankly, we all don’t need to be. If there are enough maintainers in your family or company, you will be able to stay consistently maintained. The same can be said about your brand. If you don’t have someone keeping an eye on your brand, maybe you need to find someone.

Confusing your target audience is a mistake you won’t easily fix once your brand consistency  breaks down.