We

The standard advice is that people buy from someone they like, which also means from someone they feel like they know. The idea is to give them a sense of who the person is that they are buying from and that is best done by identifying a single person.

Now, what is funny to me, is this is also an example where you should take eveyone's advice, but also apply a bit of your own brain power. I'm a self-publisher and the advice in the self-publishing world used to be that you should talk about your publishing company as "we, here at New Visions publishing" because you didn't want to sound small-time and amateurish. I originally put together my website based on that and my husband looked at it and said, "who is WE?"

In terms of sales copy, I think the advice that people want to buy from another PERSON, not an impersonal company, is the best advice. Write sales copy speaking in the first-person for ONE person, not the company. If you want to use WE, then actually have it be about the founders of the company and include a picture, Stompernet obviously did that pretty damn successfully. And there are some pairs of Warriors that work together that use 'We' but it is a particular pair of people, not "We at Company X".

I think it depends on what you're selling, who your market is, and the kind of impression you're trying to make.

For example, if I'm moving my 50-employee company into a new office, and need to have a computer network installed, I'm likely to feel more comfortable with a big company vs Nick the Neighborhood Network Guy, who works out of his Toyota Rav4. I care less about the individual I deal with than I do about the perceived quality of the products and services I'm going to be purchasing, as well as the likelihood that that same company will be around to service me a year or 2 down the road. And speaking of service, can I call Nick at 2:00 in the morning, if I feel the need?

I suppose a lot of it boils down to money much of the time. The bigger the outlay, the bigger the expectations people have of the company they're buying from.

If I'm being approached by a company the size of IBM or GM, I wouldn't expect a person-to-person first contact. What I WOULD like to see is a promise that I would have a dedicated person to deal with in the future.