We’re awfully concerned about marketing these days.

Getting our message out. Influencing others. Even developing personal “brands” - as if being someone depended upon our worldwide celebrity. Yet for most of my career I haven’t had a logo or letterhead or even a SEO strategy.

I’ve just tried to have a message.

Yesterday I was reminded how our smallest actions can be the most effective marketing of all. Our plane was running late and people were still squeezing things into the overhead and the flight attendant was doing a dozen things before takeoff. As she handed out the various drink requests, I accepted a glass of water and fastened my seat belt. Once boarding was complete, she reappeared next to my seat again with another drink.

“You asked for ginger ale, didn’t you, and I handed you water. Sorry about that,” she smiled.

“I wasn’t going to say anything. You were busy, and I wasn’t going to be ‘that passenger’ for you today. That’s not my job,” I replied.

“Well, thanks,” she bowed. “Sometimes you’d think I’d handed someone dirty dishwater when I hand them the wrong drink!”

“I’m glad I could make your day a little easier, then,” I waved my drink up to her.

I talk to a lot of people worried about their marketing plans. They spend an inordinate amount of hand-wringing on messaging and sloganing and influencing concerns. They pay people to think up their key words and set up their search strategies. They’re usually outhinking themselves - turning everything into advertising - when the answer is pretty simple.

Before you can market anything, you have to have something to say.

Just do the little things, and plenty of people will notice. Be nice. Say thanks. Make eye contact. Do kind things. Don’t cut the line. Don’t cut corners, either. Make the least likely person in your day feel like the most important person in the world. And nobody will ever have to check the Google to make sure you’re the right person for the job.

As the plane took off, my seat mate turned to me and said, “That was nice of you.”

“As I said, it’s not my job to make her day tougher than it has to be,” I nodded.

“What is your job, then?”

“Mostly to make people’s day,” I said.

“And believe it or not, I even get paid to do it!”

Reimagine your job not as all the little things you do, the ways you do it, or even the number of times a year you do it. Try starting conversations about the outcome, not the process. Develop a personal philosophy that says, my job is to be a little bit of time well spent for everyone I meet. I’m not going to worry about the ends - handing out my card or collecting another follower - but I’m going to make sure the means of getting what I want is done in the best way possible.

I’m going to be more than a marketing message.

I’m going to be a smile on someone face.

A moment worth remembering.

A person worth mentioning.

And suddenly you will discover that, without too much of a slick marketing strategy,

You’ll make plenty of friends and have all the reputation that matters.