Your Brand Can Only Be As Good As...
No matter how good your product is, no matter how good your marketing and sales are, no matter how cool your ad agency is ...
Your external brand can never be stronger than your internal brand.
In other words, what your customers think of you can never be better than what your employees think of you. At least not for very long.
It's impossible to fake out your customers. Our world has become very transparent, and your customers can see, clearly, right into the soul of your company. If you want your customers to have clear, compelling, motivating beliefs about who you are and what you do for customers, you must ensure that your company's employees have those beliefs. Otherwise, your marketing and sales promises will not resonate with the reality of being your customer.
I often ask executives if they can name one person in their company who does have some effect on the customer experience, even if that effect is indirect. No one has ever been able to name one person. (Although someone did once mention the character in the movie Office Space who covets his stapler and is relegated to an office in the basement. 'Nuff said.) Yet few companies invest adequately in building the brand inside their company. They figure it's covered by the training budget or, more frequently, they just don't do anything about it.
There is a clear connection between what your employees believe about you and how much money you make. Are you investing enough in your internal brand?
From
BHAG to CCAG
The
book Built to Last made popular the concept of the "BHAG"—the
"Big Hairy Audacious Goal."
You
know what the problem is with BHAGs? They're big and hairy.Over
the past years, I've seen a number of clients proudly unveil a BHAG.
Their pride stems from the idea that having a lofty goal will encourage
people to stretch, and, if they stretch, they'll achieve more than
if they hadn't.
I'm
all for lofty goals and stretching, but I continually see a problem,
in practice, with Built to Last's BHAG. Instead of being excited
and motivated by the BHAG, team members are often confused and disillusioned.
Why?
BHAGs
are often half-baked and poorly communicated. What I often hear
about BHAGs from employees in client companies are things like,
"We can't keep up with the workload now. What will happen if
we achieve this growth?" or, "I'm not sure what this means
to me. What am I supposed to do to help us reach this goal?"
or, "I'm not really sure what the goal is. It sounds visionary,
but I don't get it."
Sure,
the best performers will get it, and be motivated by it. But, let's
face it. Achieving the BHAG requires more than just the top performers.
It requires a broad team.
I
looked back at the article where Jim Collins and Jerry Porras first
mentioned the BHAG ["Building Your Company’s
Vision," Harvard Business Review, September-October 1996].
They defined that the BHAG must be "clear and compelling."
Too bad these all-important words have been lost in translation.
I
suggest we replace the idea of the Big Hairy Audacious Goal with
the CCAG—the Clear and Compelling Audacious Goal.
The
CCAG is just as lofty and just as much of a stretch as the BHAG.
But it is more likely to be achieved, because more people will understand
it and be motivated by it.
As
Michelangelo said, "The greatest danger for most of us is not
that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too
low and we reach it." So true—but I'm sure that Michelangelo's
aim was not only high, but clear and compelling.
How
clear and compelling are your organization's goals to your team
members? Are these goals "big and hairy" or "clear
and compelling"?
Steve Yastrow posted this on 11/30/07.
"We
are now allowed"
I
was conducting a workshop yesterday with hotel industry salespeople.
We were discussing how to have meaningful encounters with customers,
and had arrived at a section of the workshop that focused on getting
beyond the facade of business roles ("salesperson" and
"customer") to see each other as unique, special people.
One participant commented: "We are now allowed to talk about
things beyond business, to ask about our customers' personal lives,
so we can get to know them as people."
I
loved how she articulated that. Her belief—which I share—is
that we have arrived at a point in time where genuine human encounter
in business is more valued than ever. It is accepted and expected
to go beyond the strict bounds of business to create meaningful
business relationships.
And,
of course, this means that it is not only appropriate to seek to
know a customer as a real person, it is important for the person
who is selling to reveal his or her humanity. Salespeople playing
the role of salespeople is out. Salespeople being themselves is
in.
Steve Yastrow posted this on 10/26/06.
Who
Has to "Be the Brand"
I
was speaking yesterday morning to a group of HR-types about how
to encourage employees throughout a company to support a brand strategy,
i.e., how employees can "Be the Brand." One participant
asked about how to deal with outside contractors who represent your
company.
Then,
later in the day I received a telephone call from Sears that really
brought home how important this is.A woman called saying she was
from Sears, and that she could offer me a special deal if I would
extend the service agreement on my hot water heater. I was actually
interested, because it's 5 years old and I sense it's starting to
have some problems.
I
noticed that she started referring to Sears in the 3rd person—"they,"
"them," "they're," etc. Then she asked, "Is
the hot water heater that thing in your basement that heats the
water up?"
The
answer to my audience member's question is simple: Help the contracted
employees understand your brand and what it is you do for your customers.
Your customers will not evaluate contracted employees with any less
scrutiny than they evaluate your "real" employees.
Steve Yastrow posted this on 02/17/06.
Best
First Job
I'm
off to the Cold Stone Creamery annual franchise meeting to lead
workshops on what it means to provide the "Best First Job."
What
do you think makes a Best First Job? Anybody have any great (or
not so great) memories of early jobs?
Steve Yastrow posted this on 01/08/06.
Project
Jalapeño
Yesterday's
"Cubicle Culture" column in the Wall Street Journal discussed
how frequently companies confuse employees with catchy slogans intended
to motivate them. Empty names like "The Big Event" and
"Dare to Be Different" sound great when execs make them
up, but often don't mean anything to employees. The article describes
an old IBM slogan, "A Quarter At A Time," which was designed
to improve short-term results, but was interpreted by a manager
in this way: "I have a $14 million quota. That's a lot of quarters."
We've
all seen this kind of stuff. Why does it happen?
Here's
my take: Internal marketing programs are critical. A company can't
create internal or external brand harmony if its people have conflicting
views about what the company is and what it intends to be.
But,
most companies don't take the process very seriously. They create
slogans with no underlying strategic "genealogy," and
then use clumsy advertising-influenced methods for communicating
with their own employees. Any wonder why employees are confused?
So,
is the problem with the general idea of internal marketing, or with
the way it is typically executed?
Steve Yastrow posted this on 10/19/05.
McD's Fashion
McDonald's
is saying that the goal of the new uniforms they plan to develop
is that crew members will wear them outside of the office. Is it
possible?
Steve Yastrow posted this on 08/03/05.
Internal
Marketing
Recent
recommendation to a client: "We need to start marketing to
ourselves with as much care as we market to our outside customers."
Does
your organization focus any of its marketing efforts within the
company, helping people who work for the company to understand how
to "Be the Brand?" What is the relative balance of resources
devoted to internal vs. external marketing? If you do any internal
marketing, how is it received by the employee population?
Steve Yastrow posted this on 04/22/05.
Disappearing
Service Basics
We've
chided Walgreens on this site before for printing on receipts "Hi,
I'm (cashier name). I'm here to serve you with the 'Seven Service
Basics.'" I asked many Walgreens cashiers—whose names
were printed on the receipts—what the Seven Service Basics
were, and none ever knew.
Well,
Walgreens has finally dropped the promise of Seven Service Basics
from their receipts. It now says "I'm here to serve you."
I guess they finally decided it was easier to drop the program than
to tell their employees about it. Steve Yastrow posted this on 03/22/05
What
Really Counts?
In
a post a few days ago, I chided Rance Crain of AdAge for claiming
that the problems with mass marketing can all be attributed to bad
ad creative. I posited that this is, at most, a peripheral issue.
So
what does count? Great marketing requires brand harmony, where all
experiences a customer has blend to tell an understandable, compelling,
differentiating story. So, what is the key to telling this brand
story?
It
can only happen if all employees in the organization are prepared
and eager to "be the brand" as they do their jobs. More
and more, I have come to believe that the keystone of the whole
process is the set of beliefs within the employee population. Are
there competing beliefs or one shared belief? Are the beliefs about
the past ("what we've been") or about the future("what
we intend to be")?
Summed
up— do the employees have "a shared belief of what we
intend to be." ??
On
this rests the success of your marketing.
Steve Yastrow posted this on 03/07/05.
WSJ
Notices Internal Marketing
Today's
(1/18) Wall Street Journal carries a story on page B1 talking about
how companies are focusing more of their marketing efforts on internal
audiences.
No
doubt. Of course. Getting employees to "Be the Brand"
is critical for success, because every employee in a company has
an effect on the customer's brand experience, even if it is an indirect
effect. (See chapter 6 in my book Brand Harmony for more, or this
article from the tompeters.com Brand Cafe archives.)
The
WSJ article focuses on how advertising agencies are driving this
change. The headline on the continuing page reads "More Companies
Recruit Big Ad Shops To Pitch To Their Own."
My
question: Are ad agencies the ones leading this change? Should companies
turn to their ad agencies for help with internal marketing? How
will ad agencies address this challenge? Will it be the right way?
I'll reveal my opinion in the comments, once a few people post.
Steve Yastrow posted this on 01/19/05.
More
on Walgreens
Following
up on Tom's "Oh, Canada!" post from earlier today, which
compared London Drugs (favorably) to Walgreens—I have a story
in Brand Harmony about receiving a receipt at Walgreens, on which
was printed, "Hi, I'm Robert. I'm here to serve with the 7
Service Basics."
I
asked Robert what the 7 Service Basics are, and he said he'd never
heard of them. I have since asked many Walgreens cashiers what the
7 Service Basics are, as they hand me receipts with their names
printed on them, promising me this service. Not one of them has
yet been able to tell me what the 7 Service Basics are, even though
they are handing out these receipts thousands of times each day.
(One Walgreens cashier actually told me he knew four of them and
then said, "Sh__, Shower, Shave, and Shampoo." No lie.)
Great
idea: Create a customer service program, reprogram all of the cash
registers in 4000 stores to print info about the program on receipts,
but don't bother to tell the people on the front lines who actually
deliver the service.
Steve Yastrow posted this on 11/03/04.
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