… received an email from the place I bought my car with the subject line: “Customer Birthday.”

It is, in fact, my birthday today. And I commend whomever it is over at Bernardi Toyota for devising a system for remembering anniversaries like this.

But Customer Birthday? As in, I assume, that well known birthday classic, “Customer Birthday to you.”

Wait, it gets worse.

Inside the email, among other things, they told me that they “appreciate my patronage.” Who am I, Benjamin Franklin?

Here’s the point. Companies – even relatively small ones – can’t get out of their own way when it comes to writing and speaking like normal humans.

As solos, therefore, one of our key, competitive advantage is to do otherwise.