Branding for Success (Part 3): Getting Your Employees to Understand the Brand

This month, LowesForPros presents the last in a three-part series on branding: Getting your employees to understand your brand.

In prior features, experts discussed best practices when it comes to launching and then distinguishing your small-business brand. But you’ll find that these efforts will likely go to waste if your employees do not understand or actively support the brand. Here are five ways to ensure branding success:

1. Realize that understanding the brand begins at home
Your employees need to first know what the company’s logo and short branding slogan are and, more importantly, understand what they mean. Whether a brand is cute (think Michelin Man) or a bit esoteric (perhaps the Mercedes-Benz symbol), there shouldn’t be any ambiguity among employees when it comes to interpreting it. And, even more critical, employees need to know why the brand is essential to the company’s success.

So don’t assume. Sit down with your employees and convey the “big picture” being presented, and how they can support this message in the field. If your brand stresses sustainability, for example, then you need to deliver the message that “green” practices are the company’s top, salable assets, and then provide concrete examples of how they can essentially market green in their day-to-day interactions with customers.

“For the owner, it can be hard to understand why employees don’t ‘get it’ instinctively,” says Dorie Clark, a Somerville, Mass.-based marketing consultant who has worked with clients ranging from Google to Big Blue Plumbing and Heating, a local plumber. “But you need to explicitly make clear the connection between their actions and the brand, and the resulting future success of the company.”

2. Like your brand, keep the training simple
While you need to convey a unified sense of what the brand means and why it’s important, you can’t hammer the message to death with your employees either. Incessant tutorials are a turnoff. As are rote-based memorization drills.

“No one is going to memorize a 50-page rulebook packed with ‘if ... then’ scenarios,” Clark says. “You need to convey the general brand-based values that guide the company and allow them to make judgment calls.”

3. Use real-life situations as learning tools
Instead of lecturing in an office, get out in the field and demonstrate what brand-building is all about. Show up with a pressed, clean polo shirt with the company logo, a similarly polished company-logoed vehicle and then demonstrate the person-to-person interaction with a customer that underscores what your message is all about.

“You need to communicate to educate,” says Mike DiFrisco, a Madison, Wisc.-based small-business branding expert. “Anytime you can interact with staff, you have an opportunity to reinforce your brand communications.”

4. Empower your leaders
As the boss, you should know which employees buy into the brand and which ones may need more guidance. Peer-based encouragement is always a great motivator. So make sure each of your crews has at least one leader who realizes that it’s his or her job to get everyone else on board. And make it worth the effort with some kind of tangible incentive, such as a bonus or something more simple, like lunch or a day off, says DiFrisco.

“Front-liners—employees with customer contact—are often overlooked in the branding process,” says DiFrisco. “So when you're articulating the brand "recipe" to stakeholders, it often helps to segment them to more effectively deliver the messaging that's relevant to there are.”

5. Get employees to participate in online promotional efforts
If you have a social-media presence, get employees to take part in delivering the message to provide a real life elaboration on the branding message.

“Employees should be encouraged to post testimonials and success stories,” says Janet Boulter, a Denver-based business adviser. One caution: There are mixed opinions about employees posting company-based observations on their own personal social-media pages. Some companies encourage this, with a few clear guidelines about what’s appropriate and what isn’t. But experts like Boulter advise business owners to have their employees avoid this entirely.

“I don’t recommend company leaders encourage employees to mix business with pleasure,” she says. “Maintaining a positive message takes work—and constant monitoring. You need to be aware of what gets posted about your company and try to control that information.”