Building Your Internal Brand - Tough Questions You Need To Answer
Let’s say that providing “outstanding customer service” is part of your mission, values, and is promised in your marketing material.
Okay, that’s a pretty good start, but consistently delivering on promises made to customers and engaging your employees so that they are living out the company mission and values is where the “rubber meets the road.”
Promises become empty and your company mission and values are just framed documents on a wall if you don’t put the right type of systems behind them and support them in an effective
manner. Great companies, like Ben & Jerry’s didn’t just “wish” their mission in to place - it’s takes work and focus to make sure customers consistently have experiences that mirror a company’s mission and values.
A great looking external brand can only carry you so far - the more important (and often underdeveloped) brand is your internal one. Your internal brand is your company culture and it encompasses information, measurement and reward systems. An effective internal brand will engage your employees and is the foundation upon which you build your external brand.
When working with a company on building their internal brand, we start with some tough questions that have to be answered. Here are just a few:
- Do you see symptoms that performance (daily work) throughout the organization is not always aligned with your company’s vision, mission and preferred work culture characteristics?
- Does your company have a leadership development plan in place that creates consistent, “branded” experiences for your employees no matter the “personality” that they report to?
- Does your corporate structure, procedures and/or business practices make it easier or harder for people to take initiative to solve problems, be creative and innovate in the field and in the home office?
We’ll take a closer look at follow-up questions to the ones we just posed, next time.
