Talent branding.
Sales enablement.
Customer experience.
Employee engagement.
Brand ambassadors.
Professional development.
Employer branding.
Brand experience.
There are many ways to talk about the same business challenge we all face in today’s connected world. This collective challenge is how to maintain control of your organization’s brand and your marketing message when you are relying on a countless number of stakeholders to deliver the message for you.
Organizations are often siloed, frequently with conflicting
priorities. Oftentimes, a brand or marketing team owns the central marketing
message, while a corporate communications team owns the message to employees,
sales teams own the message to customers, and human resources owns the message
to prospective talent. Does this sound familiar?
When companies are structured in this way, it often makes it
challenging to instill ownership and a sense of responsibility for the brand
across so many groups.
Here is a situation
that I have seen many times.
A new product is launching within a company. The brand or
product management team is responsible for the launch, which includes educating
internal and external audiences about the new product. Because the product team
doesn’t own the various channels they need to use to communicate their message,
they collaborate with the key groups that own those channels. Typically, this
is a mix of sales teams, corporate communications teams, HR groups, distributors,
and public relations teams. These groups typically put together a launch plan
and get to work on distributing the workload across the various teams, usually
with the bulk of the burden being carried by the product team.
The big day arrives, and the launch plan is executed
smoothly – employees are rallied, the media is engaged, sales teams receive new
messaging, everyone gets some new branded swag – and launch day is soon just
another checked box on everyone’s to do list.
If you have experienced this situation, as I have, you might
be thinking…what’s wrong with that?
What I have learned through my experience is that there is a
gap between these traditional programs and employee’s own individual interests.
Why is this important? Because every one of your employees has a personal brand
– and their individual brands matter to your business success.
Not only that, your employee’s understanding of your
corporate brand, your mission, the products or services you offer, and your
organizational culture all matter to your business success. This becomes an
issue when you are trusting that your launch program was effective and that all
your employees now fully understand the product message, what is expected of
them, and how to execute on your organizational goals.
What is missing from these programs is a focused effort to educate and empower employees at an individual level. Every one of your employees has the power to build your brand or destroy it. This is because how your employees manage their own brands – their communication and people skills, their image, their social media profiles – matters to your business.
For organizations that spend millions of dollars a year on
marketing and advertising, employees are a brand asset, as well as a
reputational risk, that should not be overlooked. This is because your employees
must understand your marketing message; accept your culture; care about your
mission; feel prepared to deliver your message; and, feel incentivized to
deliver on your brand promise to customers. And they need to feel motivated to
do all of this for you while also doing the difficult work of identifying their
own professional goals, remaining focused on their individual performance, and ensuring that they are investing their time
and energy at an organization that is best aligned with their needs and
lifestyle.
When I talk about empowering employees at the individual
level, I am talking about not only educating employees on your organizational
brand, mission, and values; but taking the time to help employees understand
the power of their personal brands. When you help employees identify their own
mission, vision and values, and coach them through the process of aligning their
values and goals with your organization’s, you help them connect the dots
between organizational value and their own. This helps them understand how they
can contribute value at the individual level in a way that is meaningful to
them.
It’s common these days to see organizations trying to answer
the big question for employees – “what’s in it for me?” Why not take some time to help your employees
understand the value they offer and why that matters to your organization’s
success?
If you have responsibility for financial performance or
other business metrics at your organization, I hope you’re thinking about this
issue. Personal branding is a valuable professional development tool for
individuals at all levels of their careers. But it is also a valuable brand
management tool that can help organizations engage their employees, empower
their sales teams, educate the marketplace and mitigate risk.
Personal branding is not just a concern for your employees. Making
sure that your employees effectively manage their brands is just good business
practice. When you think about your business in this way, you must take the
time to ensure that every one of your employees understands your vision, your
mission, and your brand values.
If you’re interested in managing your brand with the help of your employees, here are a few steps to get you started:
- Evaluate the current situation within your
organization and identify any potential gaps that should be addressed.
- Take the time to engage the different groups who
have ownership of the brand to discuss the value of personal branding at the
employee level.
- Create a personal branding marketing strategy
for employees. Identify opportunities to coach them on developing their own
personal brands. Create educational elements to ensure that they understand and
have embraced your brand at the organizational and product levels.
- Provide training programs that allow front line
employees to practice your marketing message, as well as their own. Be sure to
offer useful feedback to help them improve their delivery.
- Create metrics to help you demonstrate the value
of these programs to your various constituents.
- Track your organization’s progress. Survey clients
and prospects where possible. Build evaluation
criteria into your employee assessments that motivate employees to effectively represent
your brand.
- Be sure to properly incentivize and reward your
employees.
- Share what you learn with others. Help more
people understand how to effectively create personal branding strategies for
their employees in their own organizations.
Click here to learn more about my workshop and training programs or contact me for a complimentary call.
