The best way to lead and serve your company in 2009, your “Year of the Brand”, is to quit thinking that your employees and managers are an entity that can be called a “Brand” in the first place, and that they can be turned this way or that depending upon senior management whims. Branding depends, not upon you, but on what the rank and file are doing and the manner in which they are doing it.

I don’t use Senior Lending Network, that’s the lender formerly known as Lender Leads Solutions, the wholesale arm of the retail operation known as World Alliance Financial, a subsidiary of the even bigger KBC, not because I can’t keep track of your branding changes, although they are numerous, but because you want too much control of the file.

The “file” is a living, breathing relationship with a senior borrower who is looking to me to fix a real problem. These folks know more-or-less instantly if I know what I’m doing or not, so I’m not going to risk much with a lender that says, “Just trust me”. Because I don’t trust black boxes. But that’s just me, and your Brand wasn’t interested in aiming at me.

Instead, you marketed your system; it was so good and your training was so complete that you could get inexperienced LOs to submit cases and you could close them with no problem.

Fair enough, we took you at your word. We sent you files from those loan officers who would not agree to partner with a more experienced LO until they knew what they were doing. Thanks, that got these guys off our backs so we could keep our focus. Closing ratio for those LOs at SLN so far? 0%, or 100% of $0, if you prefer.

THAT, Mr. Peskin, is your BRAND.

And Robert Wagner? Okay, some people trust him… even though his most famous role was the lead in “It Takes A Thief”. Fine. But the whole spokesperson thing has got RETAIL marketing strategy stamped all over it.

The folks who go your way just because they admire Robert Wagner are just plain stupid. That may be a large demographic, but not one I deliberately target.

I’m uncomfortable with marketing approaches that try to make anyone feel that one personality is the public persona of their company, which truly consists of hundreds or thousands of different personalities and work ethics and levels of knowledge and dedication.

You want to re-energize your wholesale efforts?

Forget “Branding”; it’s a top-down exercise in self-delusion. What matters to the people that SLN insincerely refers to as wholesale “partners” is how you handle this application and me right here, right now. Find your best people and put Jane Underwriter or Mary Account Manager forth as the face of your company whatever its name will be next year.

Good luck. We’ll be watching to see if this leopard really can change the color of its spots. But we’ll be watching with OPF (Other People’s Files) until we see something operational rather than just new paint and decals.