I enjoyed this article about brading for small businesses vs. big businesses.  Relationships is what matters.

Branding costs a huge amount of money – something many small businesses simply don’t have. Success isn’t immediate – or even guaranteed… if your first branding efforts fail, you have to try again until you succeed.

But perhaps, as a small business you don’t need to worry about branding at all.

Forget Branding - Build Relationships.