What happens when you change your perspective by 180 degrees? 

Have you walked in the shoes of your workforce recently?  You might learn some interesting things about your organization by taking a trip to the front lines.

Most leaders in an organization look at their companies from the top down.  They collaborate with fellow leaders and come up with great ideas and strategies to drive the success of their brand and to fulfill their promise to customers. 

What happens to those great ideas when they’re passed down the ladder? Are they working? Are the expectations realistic? Do your teams understand why they’re being asked to do things a certain way?  Is the mission and vision clear?  Do they know how to successfully & consistently deliver your promise to customers?

When leaders take the time and exercise the patience to put themselves in their associate’s shoes, they can have an eye-opening experience. Put yourself on the front lines and take a look back up the ladder.  What do you see?  How are messages delivered?  Talk to your front-line associates.  Find out what really happens in their day as they interact with customers.  Dig in to see if they’re clear on their role and truly understand their accountabilities.

Armed with this valuable information, you can regroup with your fellow leaders and start to identify all the places in your organization where you might be misaligned.  Then you can re-shape existing programs, fine tune messages, streamline and prioritize communication, and make any other needed shifts so that you’re on the road to aligning your workforce with the promise you’re making to your customers.  

In more than 20 years of experience working with some of the world’s leading brands, our experience has shown that when leaders make that trip to the front line, they always find opportunity to increase alignment throughout their organization.  When they take an authentic look at the world through the eyes of their associates, they discover ways to simplify processes, amplify messages, reduce clutter, and improve results.  It’s all about leveraging energy.  When you’re able to increase the effectiveness of several thousand people (or more), think about the exponential results that are now possible!

What’s going on at your organization’s front lines?

What is company culture?  Is it a page on your website where you boast about your company’s outstanding work place?  Do you mention things like what great benefits your company has and how you celebrate diversity, work/life balance, and continuing education?   Maybe company culture is what happens in the lunchroom where employees dish about topics ranging from what their boss did this morning to the latest drama on reality TV last night.  Or is company culture what’s written on your CEO’s vision/mission statement that’s buried in a file somewhere?  It might get trotted around for viewing once or twice a year at company meetings, but nobody really knows what it is or what it means to them.

Company culture is all of those things and more.  And whether you like it or not, your company culture shapes your brand.  And of course you know that the value of your brand has a huge impact on how successful you are.

Let’s start with truly defining culture. Any time a group of people comes together and shares a space, a culture develops. This could include the culture within a family, a community, a club, a country, or your company.  A culture within any of these groups includes a set of values or beliefs that guides how the group behaves, performs, and communicates.  It’s a set of unwritten rules or a code of conduct that develops as the group works together toward a common goal.

Leaders within the group can shape the culture by expressing a strong mission and vision for the group to align behind.  But this shouldn’t be confused for the culture itself.  The culture is how the group works toward fulfilling the mission and vision – including their actions and the way they communicate with each other and with people outside of the culture.

Company culture may seem like one of those low priority things.  It probably feels like company culture happens organically.  A culture develops over time.  Your company largely ignores it except when the occasional personnel issues arise.  Or maybe morale seems especially low and someone in your HR department throws a potluck to “boost company culture.”

Most companies are more interested in bigger things – like brand value, profit, and sales.  Lots of money, time, and energy are directed at defining and building your brand through marketing, advertising, product development, partnerships, etc. while the HR people are left to deal with company culture.

Culture isn’t just an HR issue.  Your culture is the foundation for bringing your brand to life.  It’s the way you express your brand to the world through your most valuable brand ambassadors  – your employees.  The culture that your employees work in shapes how they deliver your brand to the world.  And with so many channels for employees to communicate amongst themselves and with the general public, it’s important they have a strong culture to shape those interactions.

Take a look at a leader in the area of company culture:  Zappos.  In his blog, CEO Tony Hsieh wrote: “Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff — like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers — will happen naturally on its own.”

He supported that statement with another very simple one:  “Your culture is your brand.”

So how do you build your company culture?  We’ll take a look at this in future entries, and we invite you to share your thoughts on culture within your company by leaving us a comment.

January is the time that many of us make resolutions to get healthier.  Have you made these same resolutions for your company?  Is your company healthy and aligned so that you can make 2011 your best year ever? 

Here are five key areas within your company that you can examine to see how healthy you are at the beginning of 2011.

1. Customer Promise.  What are you promising your customers, and are you sure you’re fulfilling that promise? Take a step back and see if your promise is really clear and that your employees understand the promise.  If your promise is muddled, fragmented, or confusing, now is the perfect time to clean it up.  If it’s clear already, great job!  Now you can figure out a way to see if you’re delivering on that promise. It doesn’t have to be a formal survey. Find a few key customers and get their anecdotal feedback. 

2. Business Results.  What are the key business results you’re committed to delivering that are tied to your customer promise?  Make sure your results are realistic while also providing a gap that will help you and your teams play a big game. Have you effectively communicated the results to your teams, and do they know what role they play in delivering those results? 

3. Cultural Pillars.  Your company culture is the foundation that supports everything you do.  A strong company culture can empower your teams to deliver on a common mission. A weak company culture can derail your results before you’re even out of the starting blocks. Does your company have a powerful culture that everyone is aligned behind?  The New Year is an excellent time to shape up your culture if it’s not as strong as it could be.

4. Business Functions.  If your culture is strong within your organization, each separate business function should have a clear vision for how they contribute to and support the culture and your customer promise.   January is a great time for each department to review how well they’re doing.  For example, are you hiring the right people (human resources), and are you training them (learning & development)  in how to support your brand? Are you making it as easy as possible for your customers to do business with you (operations or customer service) or have unnecessary policies and procedures gotten in the way? Sometimes the departments that don’t directly interact with customers can let themselves off the hook too easily, but they’re as accountable for delivering the customer promise as anyone else.

5. Tactics and Tools. Are the tactics and tools within your organization contributing to your customer promise and the delivery of your business results? This could include your hiring process, employment brand, product training, sales and service models, coaching and mentorship programs, and more. Everything needs to be aligned up through your organization so that messages are consistent and the customer promise is being fulfilled.

How is your company shaping up in 2011? Are you on track to make 2011 your best year ever?  Share your ideas and thoughts.

Do you love your own brand?  Are you your brand’s own biggest fan?  If not, then you should be. And your teams should be too!  How can you expect customers to love your brand if you don’t love it first?

A little brand narcissism is a good thing, and it starts at the top. When the leadership team actively loves the brand and freely expresses that love, it’s infectious to teams below. It’s not about indoctrination or mind-control.  You can’t tell your teams how and what they should feel, but when your employees hear the leaders actively and enthusiastically loving the brand, they’re more likely to jump on the bandwagon and love your brand too.

A little brand self-love can go a long way toward internal-external marketing alignment. Building a culture within your organization that expresses that self-love can be an excellent first step toward aligning your internal messages with your external ones.

While it may feel like you’re asking your teams to drink the Kool-Aid, the other valuable point about brand self-love is that it can quickly weed out the people who aren’t on board with you.  Employees who are skeptical, cynical, or resistant are not the people you want on your team who might leak their feelings onto a customer. Figure out who your biggest cheerleaders are and then let them express their passion to their colleagues and to your customers.

Who are your brand’s biggest internal cheerleaders? How do they express their love of your brand?  Leave us your comments and share your story.

Effective onboarding goes beyond tactical training and integrates new employees in a brand-right, comprehensive, and strategic program.

Every new employee reflects time and money – not only in the recruiting and interviewing process but in the time it takes to bring them up to speed and make them productive.  Creating an engaging and comprehensive onboarding program will maximize your investment, reduce your overall training time, and generate motivated and enthusiastic new employees who are ready to help your company thrive.

How can Onboarding align your brand and marketing messages?

Many companies view onboarding as simply “orientation” – those first few days on the job where new hires learn how to use the phones, find the bathrooms, and fill out paperwork.  This completely misses the bigger picture.

Onboarding is an opportunity to immerse your new team member in every element of your company – from the basic and tactical to the strategic and cultural.  An effective program will help new employees become ambassadors of your brand and company, which is especially crucial if they have contact with customers, vendors, partners, or anyone outside the company. They will reflect and deliver your brand to the outside world so it’s imperative they do so in a brand-right way.

By integrating brand, culture, and marketing messages into your onboarding program, you will generate alignment and consistency throughout your organization and support the delivery of your brand.

Ten On-boarding Best Practices

1. Reflect the brand. The strength of your brand plays a huge role in recruiting and retaining top talent. The on-boarding process should reflect your brand seamlessly and consistently.
2. Reduce time to productivity. How fast can your new hire be up-to-speed? The sooner they’re productive, the sooner the company will benefit from their contributions.
3. Unify all on-boarding efforts.  There are multiple components and agendas that make up on-boarding – everything from payroll and benefits to security, IT, branding, customer service, and more. A unified and integrated program that covers all on-boarding elements will ensure each topic is trained consistently and according to company standards.
4. Introduce company culture. New employees can impact an organization’s culture. Now’s the time to introduce the company culture, and help new hires understand how they will be expected to meld into it.
5. Roll-out for maximum retention. Don’t overwhelm new hires by cramming all on-boarding into the first few days or weeks on the job. Spread it out to improve retention and provide on-the-job experience that can build better context.
6. Provide coaching & mentorship. It’s easy for new-hires to get frustrated, overwhelmed, and simply throw in the towel. If you lose them, you’ve also lost time and money. Give new employees an appropriate and safe outlet to vent, ask questions, and get coached.
7. Include evaluation and go/no-go checkpoints. Sometimes that person who shined in the hiring process turns out to be not the best fit after all. Build in checkpoints and measures for evaluation to help identify and de-select a poor fit early in the process, before you’ve invested a lot of time and money.
8. Involve managers. Don’t pass off on-boarding to the training or HR departments. Involve managers to establish rapport quicker and help them identify strengths and weaknesses, communication styles, motivation factors, growth opportunities, and more.
9. Keep employees in the work environment. It’s tempting to ship your new employees off to a classroom for onboarding, but they’ll learn faster and retain more if you provide as much training as possible in the actual work environment.
10. Map to a larger plan. Onboarding should connect to and reflect your overall business objectives to support long-term company success. Also, development plans for each employee that are initiated in the onboarding process will improve motivation while building upon larger business goals.

In any business, there will be problems.  A deadline will be missed, a product won’t function to the glory of its glossy advertising promise, a customer will have to wait in line longer than they should.  Problems will happen – they’re inevitable.  By training your employees how to react and respond when there’s a problem, you can minimize the damage ahead of time and help your brand be prepared to weather any storm.

Recently, my husband & I experienced a problem when we took a roadtrip to our old college town to attend a football game. After a hot day of traipsing around to visit our youthful haunts, we arrived at our hotel, ready to check in and freshen up before the big game.  It was nearly 90 minutes after check-in, and our room wasn’t ready.

While the desk staff fumbled around trying to find a room that we could check into, several employees stood in front of us and had a conversation amongst themselves about why housekeeping was being so slow and that rooms were not being turned fast enough.

A problem was occurring for this hotel, which was threatening its brand – and the employees were making it even worse by engaging in idle banter and gossip about housekeeping in front of customers.

When there are problems, your employees can be your best and your worst asset.  They’re the front-line to your customers and how they handle and manage problems can make or break your brand.

By empowering your employees with three simple steps, they can manage problems in the moment, helping to minimize any long term damage to your brand.

1. Acknowledge your customer’s concern. When a customer is upset, it can really take the charge off of a situation when you “get” them – you let them know you understand why they’re upset. In my situation at the hotel, the manager could have said something like “I understand you must be tired and ready to check into your room, and that you were supposed to be able to check into your room over an hour ago.”
2. Communicate your commitment to your customer, and let them know what you’re doing to fix the problem. At the hotel, the manager could have said “We are committed to getting you checked into a clean and comfortable room as quickly as possible so that you can make it to the game on time.”
3. Compensate by finding some way to make it up to your customer, no matter how small it may seem. Standing at the hotel desk while they tried to find us a room, it must have been pretty obvious that we were hot and tired. The manager could have found us a couple of cold bottles of water to drink while they found us a room. It would have been a small gesture, but one that would have gone a long way toward making me believe in their commitment to me – the customer.

Most importantly, when you’re having a problem, employees should know it’s not okay to engage in idle gossip in front of customers or complain about the problem to the customer or anyone else.  Your message to your customers should be one of accountability and confidence.  You’re taking accountability for the issue, and you’re displaying confidence in how you are responding to and correcting the issue.

How do you handle problems for your customers?  What problems have you run into as a customer yourself?  And how have they been handled?  Leave us your comments, and tell us about your experiences.

This was a big week for RadioShack as the 88-year old company announced that it’s reintroducing itself as simply “The Shack.”  According to an article in USA Today, the company is making the change in an effort to maintain its brand heritage while also attracting more tech-savvy shoppers. The article goes on to say that a new ad campaign will focus on the company’s knowledgeable sales staff and the idea that their small stores are easier to navigate than big-box competitors.

Bloggers and Twitterers buzzed about the change all week long – many were quite critical saying the name change doesn’t pull the company out of relative obscurity compared to sleeker rivals like Best Buy.  One blogger wrote that his impression of RadioShack is that it’s a brand that “never made the jump to the 21st Century” and that this re-name doesn’t do enough to give the brand a larger overhaul to make it relevant.

Any time you make a change to your brand, it’s perfectly natural to experience resistance, both from your customers and your employees. What will make this a win for RadioShack will be well-trained, engaged employees who are truly enrolled in and representing the fundamentals of the brand to customers.  This is the foundation of internal-external marketing alignment, and it can make or break a shift in your brand.

This is is critical in the face of competitor Best Buy who recently launched a new program on Twitter called Twelpforce: “A collective force of Best Buy technology pros offering tech advice in Tweet form.”

What do you think of RadioShack’s name change?  Does it impact whether or not you will shop at the store?  Leave us your comments and tell us what’s on your mind.

“They’re throwing guitars out there!” exclaimed the astonished airline passenger as she watched United Airlines baggage handlers on the tarmac clumsily hucking guitar cases off the plane and onto the carts.

Musician Dave Carroll heard these words from his seatmate and braced himself for the worst.  While on tour with his band last year, Dave’s $3500 guitar was severely damaged by United Airlines baggage handlers in a story that makes the perfect case for the importance of internal-external brand alignment. Dave went through an arduous process of trying to be compensated for the damage. He talked to person after person at United – finally to be told they would offer nothing more than some travel vouchers for his loss. You can read the complete customer service saga on Dave’s blog.

To make a point and tell the world that he was wronged by United, Dave proclaimed that he would write and produce three music videos illustrating his misadventures and post them on YouTube for voting by the general public.  The first video (see below) has recently been published and has become an overnight sensation on YouTube. It’s also being actively discussed in the blogosphere, on Twitter, and Dave’s story has been told through multiple media channels including the CBS Early Show, Rolling Stone, and more. His song is now available for download on iTunes.

Dave’s experience is a classic demonstration of how a company like United has a lot to lose by disregarding the importance of internal-external brand alignment.  There are several issues at play that add up to Dave’s misaligned experience, which is ultimately doing damage to United’s brand:

Failure to live up to service promise.
A basic principle of internal-external marketing alignment is the expectation that you will deliver a service experience that aligns with your brand promise. United’s website offers a very detailed statement of the company’s customer commitment. Among other things, it asserts that United’s customers “have the right to expect – to demand – respect, courtesy, fairness and honesty from the airline they have selected for travel.” According to Dave’s story, he was continually given the runaround by multiple United personnel in several cities as he tried to receive compensation for his demolished $3500 guitar. It sounds like this was not just one poorly trained or disgruntled employee, but a general failure by multiple United personnel to take accountability for a mistake and try to live up to the customer service commitment by handling the issue with “courtesy, fairness, and honesty.” In an aligned company, employees would be given the tools, resources, and training they need to handle customer complaints in a way that lives up to the brand promise.

Cultural issues – “it’s not my problem.”
Dave claims he was repeatedly told by multiple United personnel that the issue “is not my problem” or that the paperwork he submitted was not received. This general lack of accountability can perpetuate an internal culture where employees feel powerless or unmotivated to handle customer concerns. Every time a customer encounters the fallout from this kind of culture, the brand will continue to erode.

The transparency of the social media world.
In the old days, it was easy for companies to sweep complaining customers under the rug. In today’s world of the social web, one irritated customer can quickly communicate to millions through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, the blogosphere and more. For this reason, companies need to not only be prepared to engage with their customers in the social space before there’s an issue, but they need to react quickly when trouble arises to avoid a wildfire.

A customer’s heart was broken.
If you believe that a brand is not what the execs in the marketing department say, but it’s an emotional connection that lives in the hearts and minds of customers – then you will understand the magnitude of Dave’s final verse in his song where he says United broke his heart. When he asks himself in the song if he’d ever fly United again, he said he might if saving the world were on the line, and then he goes on to say:

“…And if I did, I wouldn’t bring my luggage
‘Cause you’d just go and break it,
Into a thousand pieces,
Just like you broke my heart.”

When you break that emotional connection with your customer, you may never get them back again.

Dave’s story of the broken guitar ends on an upnote, although it certainly seems a bit too little too late. The damage has already been done – not just to Dave as a customer, but to the United Airlines brand.  Dave posted a subsequent response on YouTube where he says United is offering reimbursement for the guitar.  Although he says reimbursement is not the point anymore, and he’s encouraging United to donate the money to charity. He says “United has demonstrated they know how to keep their airline in the forefront of their customer’s minds, and I wanted this project to expand upon that satirically.”

In fairness, I also have to point out that Dave is building his own brand as a musician through this tale. We’ll see what happens to his personal brand and to United when the second and third videos come out in the future.

Has a brand ever broken your heart? What did you do about it?  Leave us a comment and tell us about your experiences.

Any business leader accountable for management of their company’s employment brand, talent pipeline, or employee engagement should read a new article from Harvard Business Review (July-August 2009 issue) titled How Gen Y & Boomers Will Reshape Your Agenda. The subhead states that your oldest and youngest talent cohorts demand many of the same things in a workplace – and have the numbers to get their way. This article offers an interesting perspective on an issue we hear frequently discussed by major HR organizations as they work to create a compelling work experience that allows them to attract and retain the best talent.

In addition to detailing a vision of what the workplace should include to effectively retain Gen Y and Boomer talent the article provides this interesting portrait of each generation.

Portrait of Gen Y

Ambition
84% profess to be very ambitious

Loyalty vs. Quest
45% expect to work for their current employer for their entire career

Multicultural Ease
78% are comfortable working with people from different ethnicities and cultures

Healing the Planet
86% say it’s important that their work make a positive impact on the world

Networking by Nature
48% say having a network of friends at work is very important

Portrait of Baby Boomers

Staying in Harness
42% project they will continue working after age 65

Long Runways
47% see themselves as being in the middle of their careers

From “Me” to “We”
55% are members of external volunteer networks

Yearning for Flexibility
87% say being able to work flexibly is important

Familial Obligations
71% report having elder care responsibilities

What I find so interesting is that I often hear disparaging comments targeted at members of the Gen Y generation that are often leveled by Boomers. Perhaps, with a closer look, the distance between these groups is not that great.

So what do you think? What has your experience been navigating the generational divide in the workplace. Join the discussion. We would love to hear from you.

We have all experienced it. A slick new marketing campaign peaks our interest in a product or service. It’s usually a bold promise about what we can expect if we purchase a product or sign up for service. We take the chance, engage with the business, and immediately start seeing gaps between what they promised and the actual experience. What happened? Where did the promise go?

Companies that don’t pay attention to the gap between the brand promise and the actual customer experience risk creating a situation where the customer senses a bait and switch. This can quickly erode the integrity of your brand and take years – and millions of dollars – to correct.

The practice of Internal-External Brand Alignment can help ensure that your customer experience reflects the promise of your brand by building a strong culture, providing effective and practical training, and communicating consistently and powerfully to your teams. To get started on the right path, you should first identify the various conditions in your business that have a cumulative impact on your service culture.  Here are a few we commonly see.

Are you clear about your service goal?
This seems like an obvious question, yet it’s surprising how often I ask this question in consulting sessions and get an uncomfortable silence. It’s also surprising how many businesses immediately say they provide outstanding service, but when I dig a little deeper, it’s clear they’re not delivering anything more than the most elementary and basic customer experience. There’s simply no “delight” to be found anywhere. But maybe “delight” isn’t part of the experience you’re committed to providing. If your goal is to provide a solid, basic experience, then call it that. If it’s true delight you’re after, then the elements that make a delightful experience must be clear and tangible to everyone – most importantly your customer.

Are you putting money, and time, where your mouth is?
Here’s a simple question: is your company spending more time or less time on associate training and communication now than you did five years ago? If your answer is “more,” then good for you. Building a strong culture of exceptional service requires time and commitment. If you’re spending less than before, this could be a reason for declining service standards. Over the past few years, many businesses have gradually starved their communication, training, and cultural alignment and are now seeing a widening gap between the brand promise and the service reality.

What does your employee attraction program look like?
Many service businesses have relatively high turnover. Logic would tell you that these businesses should be masters at attracting great workers due to the fact that they are always recruiting. Often the opposite is true. Many service businesses have extremely primitive programs for attracting a workforce that is right for their brand and gifted at providing a great experience for customers. They rely on the most basic elements of recruiting, like posting a help wanted sign in the window or posting an ad on craigslist.  Instead, they could be building a network of qualified candidates who they’ve already determined are brand-right. Leading companies are now focusing on building the employment brand of their organizations to support the larger brand. This employment brand is what will attract the brand-right people into your company and entice them to stay for the long haul and perform to their highest potential.

Does your entire organization know how cool they are?
When working with an organization for the first time, I’m often amazed at how they do what they do, the beauty of their product, the complexity of their execution, and the innovation they foster. Yet, when I point this out to my client they often roll their eyes and shrug off the compliment. What makes their company amazing has become mundane and common in their eyes. Providing excitement and engagement for your customer starts with you being excited and engaged first. Does your organization truly celebrate what you do, what you provide, or how you provide it? Take a fresh look at what you do, how you talk about it, how you celebrate it. You might find that the secret to delighting your customer is first of all re-connecting your organization with a true passion for what you do.

Asking yourself these four questions is a great place to start in identifying where your opportunities may lie. In the second part of this post we will explore the various components of the ecosystem that all contribute to Internal-External Marketing Alignment.

15 Training Tips to Boost Your Retail Success

In the competitive world of retail, training your associates and managers is essential to building and maintaining the right customer experience that supports your brand. Kennedy Communications has had the privilege of working with a number of leading global retailers on a variety of training initiatives. We’ve developed a collection of best practices in retail training as a result of these programs. If you have any additions to this list, please leave us a comment and we’ll update as appropriate.

1. Simplify processes
Concept: Clearly define all processes and keep them simple.
Example: Process training can be overwhelming, and if the processes are too complicated they will not be followed. It is also useful to include memory devices such as acronyms or metaphors to assist retention.

2. Time-release learning
Concept: Break learning down into manageable chunks; spread information delivery over time to avoid bombarding associates with too much, too fast.
Example:  A series of short online learning sessions followed by defined exercises and manager/mentor check-in to reinforce and validate learning.

3. Evaluate ROI
Concept: Evaluate depth of training program by Return On Investment (ROI).
Example:  Base the investment in training on the predictable longevity of the associate and the ROI that will be realized from the cost of training. Also, deliver training in forms that require minimal involvement from other team members to decrease labor costs associated with training.

4. Keep associates on sales floor
Concept: Take associates out of the workspace for as little time as possible.
Example:  Design training that can be done in between regular work responsibilities on the sales floor or will only take the associate off the floor for short (15 minute) intervals.

5. Deliver training on demand
Concept: Deliver training using vehicles that are available on demand for immediate learning and usage of new tools.
Example:  Use video, computer-based training, and self-guided workbooks, as opposed to structured classes that may cause a delay in learning due to scheduling.

6. Align with advancement and competency models
Concept: Align training components with a model that reinforces and supports steps and stages.
Example: Associates will see that investing in their own training will better qualify them for future advancement.

7. Use job aids
Concept: Provide job aids in the work environment to the support concepts rolled out in training.
Example:  Provide workflow or process posters, flash cards,  and summary sheets for associates to use on the sales floor or in the back-of-store. 

8. Incentivize learning
Concept: Support learning culture by tying incentives to ongoing learning opportunities.
Example:  Create a points program or reward structure to motivate and encourage training program involvement. 

9. Follow up
Concept: Follow delivery of training content with exercises and evaluations to validate and reinforce learning.
Example:  Check back in with the  manager/mentor after a training session to review and support the learning. 

10. Provide mentoring
Concept: Offer structured communication and mentoring/coaching processes.
Example:  Many organizations find it useful to provide a mentor for a new associate that may not be their direct manager. 

11. Show commitment
Concept: Develop formalized (or branded) training program that clearly demonstrates the business commitment to training.
Example: A “corporate university” or other recognized program can effectively show a commitment to a strong learning culture. This can also be used as a recruiting tool for associates looking for a job that offers development opportunities. 

12. Communicate program goals
Concept: Develop and roll out company-wide communication about training programs, opportunities, changes, and announcements.
Example: Communicate with associates via learning portals, education update emails, and bulletin boards displaying training updates in stores. 

13. Track efforts
Concept: Track module/course completion.
Example: This can be as formal as a Web-based Learning Management System (LMS) or as simple as a checklist for associates and managers, but is very important in assuring compliance. 

14. Enable associates to hit the ground running
Concept: Focus training for new hires on being able to use tools and content immediately.
Example:  Within their first days on the job, associates should be able to see they can add value. 

15. Encourage self-assessment
Concept: Create and provide self-assessment tools to all associates so they can monitor their progress and choose ongoing training courses that fit their skill development needs.
Example: Assessing performance and skills at regular intervals can also trigger additional motivation to stay with the company, and to continue to develop professionally.

Last week, my colleague Dan Biesma in Europe, wrote a blog post saying the end is near – the end of the recession that is.  I keep waiting to see the headlines in the newspaper and on the Net:  “The Recession is Officially Over! Life Can Get Back to Normal.”  This recession may not have an official “end” – it’s more likely we will gradually shift to a new normal that’s ripe with opportunities for companies who are ready to play big.

The new normal will have some exciting innovations. To weather the recession, we’ve all been forced to be more resourceful, efficient, and creative, which has shifted the way many companies do business.  Companies have become lean and mean, and displaced workers with an entrepreneurial spirit have opened new businesses.

As we begin the new normal, it’s important to take stock of where you are and addresses any internal issues that could stunt your culture if left unattended. Here are three tips to help you get ready to play big in the new normal:

1. Reevaluate and reinvigorate your mission and vision. As you come out of a downturn, be sure that your mission and vision still apply to your business. Make any changes that need to be made, then re-enroll your teams. During the recession, there have likely been lots of distractions, stress, and gossip as layoffs have been made and people have been forced to do more with less. This is a golden opportunity to re-enroll and reenergize. This will also help it become clear who’s with you on your team and who might need to move on to other opportunities.
2. Reassess your marketing promise. Are you still fulfilling on the promise of your brand(s) and the promise to your customers? What needs a tune-up? Examine key processes. Take a hard look at your products and services. Companies who are promising one thing and delivering another quickly lose integrity with customers during a time they need it the most.
3. Re-hire for success. Now’s the time to be poised to hire the best people to support your mission and vision and bring them on-board in a way that empowers them for success. As you begin to add back to your team, make sure you have hiring, on-boarding, and training programs that support your brand and marketing promise.

Smart companies can leverage the end of the recession as a re-birth.  This is not the time to nurse your wounds and feel sorry for yourself but to re-build, re-energize, and recommit to your business in the new normal.  This begins with a clear vision, the right team, and the right communication with your customers and your employees.

We are pleased to welcome a first post to our blog from Dan Biesma, Managing Director for the European Office of Kennedy Communications in Hilversum, the Netherlands.

The global recession is still upon us. As an agency working for global brands we saw it happening last year in conversations with our clients, first in the US, then in Europe. In a few months the topics changed from projects aimed at building brands and people’s capabilities, to communications strategies and tools for change operations, cost cutting programs, and downsizing projects.

Luckily, history proves all recessions come to an end. And the media, as well as companies, governments, and consumers are looking for positive signs over recent weeks. Signs indicate the end of the economic downfall is near. The Fed and the ECB, its European equivalent, are sounding more optimistic than they have been in a long time and the stock markets seem quite stabilized or even trending upwards.

U.S. employers made 539,000 workers redundant in April. According to U.S. Labor Department statistics, this represents the fewest job cuts in six months and far better than the 620,000 reduction that economists had expected. But still the country’s unemployment rate hit a 25 year high.

However President Obama gave a positive interpretation of these figures when he said that America was showing signs of economic recovery.

Like the French say: ‘C’est le ton qui fait la musique’.

During the past 6 weeks, our team has heard a shift in the tone as well as the content in our conversations with clients, global market leaders who move quicker than their competition. The tone has become more positive and reflects the belief that their company and brands, their teams and they themselves will come out of this recession better and stronger. And they want creative, engaging, and solid solutions to make this happen.

As the tone of the conversations has shifted, so has the content. Our clients are showing they want programs in place to help align their companies for long-term, strategic growth. Conversations have centered around programs related to leadership development, on-boarding, diversity & inclusion, employment branding, customer service and sales training.

Strategic thinking like this will help companies build strong cultures from within that will support their external marketing promise – the core of internal-external brand alignment.  Leading companies are ready to refocus on creating and delivering value to their customers and developing their employees.

The end of the recession must be near, which means it’s time to focus on a new beginning. Now is the time to start rebuilding and refocusing on the next phase.  In an upcoming post, we will outline some considerations for business communicators that can help you emerge from a recession empowered and ready for action.  Are you ready for the end?  What’s happening in your company to prepare for your next chapter?

Many of our clients are excited about the emerging possibilities of social media, but often hit road blocks when talking about the social web with company executives.

Concerns often center around damage control from rogue “social” employees, an unclear return on investment (ROI), or a perceived decline in productivity from team members who are now tweeting, blogging, and friending on the web rather then getting their primary job done.

These are all legitimate concerns but need to be looked at from a broader context that includes quickly shifting consumer behavior, the future business communications landscape, and the tremendous positives that many companies are generating from participation on the social web.

It’s not suprising that many executives are skeptical of the social web. I assert that this scepticism comes, in large part, from a very limited understanding, as well as limited participation in the social space by most executives.

Paula Drum, former VP of Marketing at H&R Block put it this way in a recent blog post:

“One of the most popular questions that I get asked is how to build support at the C-level.  Having a clearly defined objective is critically important to gain support of any initiative.  However, everyone is always focused on the ROI or return on the investment.  I have defined ROI a little differently in this new and emerging space as Risk Of Ignoring. There is an absolute change occurring in how we communicate and seek information as a society.  The millennial generation is the first digital native generation with very different expectations of companies and marketing.  In the not so distant future the millennials will be a larger purchasing demographic than the boomers.  Not understanding this segment will be detrimental for future marketers.”

We’ve collected a few current resources that may assist you with building the case for social media with your “C” suite. Most executives honestly do have the current and long term interests of their organization at heart. I look at it as a simple education process to deepen their understanding of a world that appears very foreign. That is the spirit in which these resources are shared. We would also appreciate your comments on the challenges you face, and success you have in building a more complete understanding about the social web in your organization.

An Executive Guide to Social Media: Business Week

How to use Twitter for Customer Service

A Journalist’s Guide to Twitter

Final Idea: Play this video to put the Social Web in context for your leaders.

Who would have known that my new favorite rock star would be sporting a sweater vest and tie, accessorized with a big laminated name-badge on a lanyard? Meet Ajay Bhatt, co-inventor of the USB and the star of Intel’s newest ad campaign dubbed “Sponsors of Tomorrow.”  He can make even the geekiest geek swoon with admiration and a touch of envy.

According to an article on Forbes.com, Intel’s newest campaign is also its biggest in nearly three years and is a first to spotlight the promotion of the Intel brand instead of a processor product. 

The Forbes article quotes Deborah Conrad, Intel Vice President and General Manager of the Corporate Marketing Group.  She says “For more than 40 years, Intel has been delivering tomorrow’s ‘normal’, and our new marketing campaign is a way for the world to be made aware of this fact.  We’re hoping to convey that we’re not just a microprocessor company, but a move-society-forward-by-quantum-leaps company.” 

In essence, this new campaign is one that reflects the culture of Intel – not simply a product.  Having worked with Intel on numerous projects and programs over the past four years, it’s refreshing to see the company break away from “speeds and feeds” to focus on what’s really fabulous and fascinating about the company – its people, their innovation, their willingness to take calculated risks in the effort to push our world forward. 

The Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign is actively leveraging Intel’s company culture to build the Intel brand – a key component of internal-external marketing alignment.  Your company culture is the channel through which you deliver your brand to the world. It’s your people who bring it to life for your customers. 

In the case of Intel, it’s people like Ajay Bhatt.  He may have very few opportunities to interact with Intel customers, but he is a powerful contributor and ambassador of Intel’s culture, which ultimately shapes the brand.

Who are the unseen rock stars that shape your brand?  How do they contribute to the culture within your company?  We’d love to hear from you.

We spent the day yesterday with a favorite client, talking about how to leverage the input, expertise, and agendas of multiple departments to build a strong employment brand. For a variety of reasons, her company has resisted entering the social media space in any sort of official capacity, although it’s undeniable that employees within the company are already participating on their own.  We can see it’s on the horizon for her company, and we had some energizing discussions on how they can best prepare for this shift that will ultimately impact the brand and culture of the company.

Here are four things we’ve read in the past week that continue to fuel our thinking on the topic of brands and social media:

Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester, has become a favorite expert who we follow on Twitter and in his blog posts. In a recent post on the Forrester Blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals, he outlines the five eras of the social web.  This is fascinating stuff.

From Business Week, read about “How Social Networks are Changing Everything.” This article gives some glimpses of how we might manage our on-line identities in the future.

You know lots of companies, both big and small, are launching into the social media world.  We enjoyed reviewing this list of Social Media Marketing examples from Peter Kim. 

Check out this video on YouTube that shows how Best Buy is building social media into the company culture – allowing employees to communicate freely with each other, share ideas, collaborate, and build company culture.

Starbucks has recently launched a new ad campaign that Senior VP of Marketing Terry Davenport calls a “long-term story telling campaign” that will focus on the quality and value of the product and the values of the company. The ads are intended to help build the brand and product value by showing what Starbucks is all about. An article in the Wall Street Journal says the ads are a direct response to competition from McDonald’s, who has also begun a national advertising campaign to promote its new line of low-priced coffee drinks.

No matter what the bottom-line intention of the campaign, Starbucks is demonstrating a powerful example of internal-external brand alignment. The company is leveraging the influence of its employees, or “partners”, as they are called by Starbucks, to support the advertising campaign and integrate it into the customer experience.

In a video posted on YouTube, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz speaks directly to employees about the new campaign. He explains the rationale behind the messages and encourages employees to talk about the ads with customers. He points out that the ads not only represent what the company stands for but are representative of “you” – meaning the employee.

By engaging employees and encouraging the development of a strong internal culture, Starbucks is helping to fulfill its brand promise to customers. As stated on the company’s website, the Starbucks mission is “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” What better way to fulfill that mission than starting with your employees? They’re the ones who can truly create an experience for customers that will bring the mission to life and keep them coming back for more coffee — no matter what the price.

Tell us how your company leverages its culture to build a customer experience. What brands do you think are most successful in this space?

A colleague of mine shared a recent story that I believe illustrates one of the new challenges companies face in managing their brands in the age of the social web.  It also points to the importance of building true internal-external brand alignment in your organization.

Our tale begins at a recent large international tradeshow in Las Vegas where a leading US-based technology company had a major booth.  I am sure the executives who authorized the substantial cost to exhibit at the show viewed it as a fantastic opportunity to connect with customers and promote the many great technologies the company produces.

My colleague, who is a well regarded member of the industry, was touring the show floor and happened across the above company’s booth where she had a rather negative experience. She was treated in a very dismissive way, and she left the booth disappointed and a little irritated.

In the heat of the moment she communicated her disappointment and irritation in a rather sharply worded “tweet” on Twitter through her cell phone, then went on with her day without giving it another thought.

The next day she received several urgent voicemail messages from the Director of Marketing from this particular company, demanding a call back. When they finally connected she was admonished for daring to write a negative tweet about the company, threatened that this company could make her life difficult if she ever said another negative thing about them, and then made to feel guilty for putting the Director of Marketing’s job at risk.  Apparently the senior executives had been monitoring Twitter and were not happy with what they heard in the “tweet” about the experience in their booth.

In so many ways this experience did not surprise me. Many large companies have been able to manage their brand for decades by using their size and industry stature to intimidate and quickly stamp out potential damage to their brand.  These behaviors are often well entrenched in the culture of the organization and employees are encouraged to respond quickly to quiet dissention.  After all, isn’t that one of the benefits of being large?

The leveling quality of the social web has shifted the balance of power forever, yet many companies are still caught in old cultural models that no longer work. Customers and employees now have a variety of channels to communicate both positive and negative messages about the brands they come into contact with. Progressive companies are quickly finding ways to harness the power of the social web to create meaningful connections with customers and employees. They are also educating their teams on how to respond effectively to the comments that inevitably will get made in the social space.

How much more effective it would have been for the tech company in our story to engage my colleague about her comment in a transparent way in the social space. They could have thanked her for her feedback with a quick Twitter reply and worked to turn her negative experience into a positive in front of the social community. No company is perfect.  We all know that. But seeing a company walk the talk and work to truly listen to a customer is reassuring and allows the company to take the high road and further build the brand.

Here is the irony of the story. My colleague is a new member of Twitter with a very small current following, most of whom are family and friends.  Any “damage” done from her tweet was minimal.  But this same colleague has a blog that is read by thousands of industry members each week.  Hmmm, now that this major tech company has decided to use intimidation tactics over a small tweet, I wonder if they have a much bigger problem ahead from a fiery blog post.

The rules have changed and aligning your team behind what your brand stands for is more important than ever.

Have you ever been disappointed that your usual white chocolate mocha from your favorite coffee shop was a little too cold or not sweet enough?  What about when you scored a reservation at a hot new restaurant that’s been getting rave reviews but you were really let down by poor service and bland food?  Maybe you called tech support for help with your home computer and had to deal with a rep who was clueless and a bit hostile.

If this has ever happened to you, then you’ve experienced a brand gap. This is what happens when a customer has an expectation of a brand that has fallen short of reality. A brand gap can leave you feeling ripped off, let down, annoyed.  Your opinion of the brand probably just took a nose dive, and you might even blog or Twitter about your experience.

In his book Zag, the #1 Strategy of High Performance Brands, Marty Neumeier defines a brand as a “person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.”  If his definition holds true, than how do brand gaps impact that gut feeling that you might have about a product, service, or company?

Your company has worked long hours to get your brand where it is today.  But it all comes down to what’s being delivered to your customers that counts.  If you’re not fulfilling on the promise of your brand to your customers, you’re out of alignment, and you’re putting your brand in jeopardy.

This is where internal-external brand alignment becomes a powerful strategy in fulfilling your brand promise and avoiding the brand gaps.  It starts with creating a common vision of your brand that is supported by every function of your business, not just marketing.  Creating that common vision can begin by answering these three questions:

1. What business are you in? This might seem like a simple question, but look deeper than the obvious. What business are you really in? It’s less about the specific product or service and more about the experience you create for your customers. What are you there to create for your customers?
2. What is your promise to your customer? Think about what your customers expect from you – not just the tangible, but the intangible. If your brand is a gut-feeling, as defined above by Neumeier, your business has an emotional deliverable. What do you want the gut-feeling to be?
3. Where are your brand gaps? Talk to your customers. Call your customer service line and pretend to be a customer. Perform an informal mystery shop. Listen to what people are saying about your brand in the social media world. Start to identify all the brand gaps that are currently in place and where you’re most vulnerable to new ones.

Once you’ve answered these questions, you have the foundation to begin leveraging the power of your brand in every corner of your business including marketing, sales, human resources, training, operations, administration, and more.  This is where internal-external marketing alignment begins.  This is where you have the power to truly build your brand, starting at the purest grassroots level within your company.

We’ll talk more in future posts about brand gaps and how to uncover where they’re happening in your company.  Tell us about any brand gaps you’ve experienced as a customer and how they’ve changed your gut feeling of a brand.

There’s been a lot of talk in the social media world over the past week about the Dominos incident. Two employees who thought they were being funny posted a video of themselves doing nasty things to some food they were preparing.   Nobody wants their brand raked over the social media coals like this.

How can you prevent this type of incident from happening to your brand? Build a strong company culture where employees have pride in their workplace and in the brand they support. Yes these are just two fastfood workers in minimum wage jobs. With jobless rates higher nationwide than they’ve been in decades, there are plenty of people who would gladly step up and take these positions.

Here are some things you can do to start building a strong culture – even amongst fastfood workers:

Create Hiring Standards
Build standards within your company for how you hire and what qualities you demand. Put checks and balances in place to help all hiring managers know when the prospective employee they’re interviewing is worthy of representing your brand. Support your teams by creating tools for hiring that help identify someone’s character early in the process.

Build an On-Boarding Program
Then after you’ve hired, bring your new team members on-board with consistent messages about your brand, your culture, and your expectations around service. Find ways to test their knowledge and skills – not just about the tactical details of the job but around the cultural and brand details too.

Provide Ongoing Coaching
After they’re brought on-board, keep the learning alive. Build in regular touchpoints for coaching with training material or personal mentorship.

Leverage the Power of Peer Pressure
A strong culture within your company also becomes a self-policing culture. When your employees truly have pride in your brand and workplace, you can leverage the power of peer pressure to keep an eye on things for you. This eases the burden on management and helps employees feel more accountable and empowered to support the brand.

As that old saying goes about an ounce of prevention – building a strong culture within your company can help prevent incidents like the one Domino’s faced recently. That doesn’t mean you won’t continue to have disgruntled employees who act out, but hopefully you will know how to identify and deal with them before disaster strikes.