Scintillating personalities make a great product exceptional.

Here’s one example:

Wednesday night, after we dropped my 13-year old off at youth group, my wife took me to a little wine bar she’d discovered that sits in the heart of Redmond, WA. Jerzy’s Wine Bar is a converted house bursting with a hip/relaxed/fun European ambiance.

Food? Wonderful. Wine? Excellent. But what will bring us back is the owner, Kasia Radka.

Some headlines about Kasia:

• Immigrated from Poland as a child due to communism and spent time on the streets of Itay, then a few years in a refugee camp there.
• Speaks Polish, Italian and English (all flawlessly).
• Passed her LSATS (which you must pass to get into law school) with colors flying but decided to follow her dream of opening a restaurant. (At a young age she figured out money ain’t gonna bring you happiness.)
• Has a B.A. in psychology and in a few years will get master’s degree.
• Genuinely interested in people. She chatted with us about writing, reading, and sleep deprivation; asked us questions about our likes, dislikes, my novel, and our kids.
• Is a self-taught chef.
• Is only 24! She carries herself with the maturity of a 40-year old.

(She didn’t volunteer this info, we asked her. There’s no ego going on there.)

But, being a marketing guy I can’t help but critique Kasia a bit. Are you intrigued? Do you think it would be interesting to meet Kasia? I’m guessing you’re nodding your cyber head at me. She is a captivating, warm, engaging person with a true heart.

But I see none of this on her Web site-which is the way most people will check out Jerzy’s Wine Bar. So because she hasn’t infused her site with some of her own persona, it appears to be just another quaint restaurant.

Now let’s shine the spotlight your direction.

• Can people discover some of the fascinating, quirky things about you on your Web site?
• Or do you sound like every other business, or person, or author, or speaker etc. on the Internet?

I understand you don’t want your business to be all about you. It shouldn’t be. You want it to be about the customer. Bravo. But there’s a reason People magazine and US magazine and Entertainment Tonight and Extra and Oprah have hordes of fans. People are always interested in intriguing people.

If you have personality to burn like Kasia (and if you look close enough, everyone has a fascinating story), strike a match.

Tags: customer service, Jerzy's Wine Bar, Marketing, personaity, promoting, using your uniqueness, Web site copy