Because it seems to me that, except in special situations, people don’t think of businesses in “business terms”. This seems to be an anomaly, because we think of other things such as clothing (flashy, sturdy, trendy), technology (revolutionary, useless, confusing), and food (spicy, sweet, expensive) in their own separate ways.

But when you think of a business, are the first things that come to your mind words like “good cash flow” or “high operating costs” or “entertainment leader for 12-18 year old girls”? Unless you’re a chief investor or are on the board of directors, probably not.

When you think of businesses or brands, you probably think of words like “honest” or “dependable” or “elitist”. And that’s because we’re constantly trying to make your brand into a person, so we can understand it and relate to it. For many people, relating to an abstract concept is tough. You don’t hear “I love Pythagorean’s Theorem” very often. We can’t do that. But when we give your business or brand some structure, and stuff it’s “traits” into a system we understand (a person) it makes that much more sense to us. Just look at Noah Brier’s Brand Tags.

The moral of the story here is that most people don’t know what your balance sheet looks like, or who is in your target market. So don’t approach them that way. You need to embrace, or at least acknowledge, the fact that people are trying to humanize your brand. If I were you, I’d help them.