Your Personal Brand Values…
I do a lot of work with brands, brand image, equity etc for businesses, but of late I have found myself looking more and more at business leaders (or aspiring business leaders..) and how unaware they are of the way others perceive them, and what their own brand values are.
It becomes a very personal and often emotive issue when you start to explore what others think of you – or how they perceive you. Despite this it is crucial for anybody who aspires to lead a team or a business to be very aware of what values they are associated with – and if those values are not in allignment with those they would like to be associated with, then to make the necessary changes.
Like any shift in perception, it is a slow and often uphill process – first their needs to be an acceptance that the values you are linked with may not be the ones you think you are linked with. Next their needs to be a plan to shift those behaviours that are propogating the values you are trying to change – this will involve others, asking them to point out certain patterns of behaviour and feedback openly and honestly to you on a regular basis. Then comes the actual act of reacting differently to situations that may trigger your old behavioural style – and slowly but surely making those shifts.
There is often a resistance by those that consider themselves good leaders already – after all, they got where they are with this behaviour, so why change now ?
There is no doubt in my mind however, that most business leaders can dramatically improve the way they are perceived, and shift behaviour for the better – and in so doing can unlock more performance and potential from themselves, those that are in their business team and from their clients in the form of brand loyalty..
A word about teams…
Watching some of the recent WC soccer matches on TV and listening to the commentary, there is a lot of talk about how most teams are under performing relative to the amount of talent they have in the various individual players.
There are many theories about why the whole is less than the sum of it’s parts, but the one thing that strikes me is that many of these teams have not really played together as a team that much… Some have practiced together more than others but on the whole they have not done so enough to function as a smooth unit.
In business I see it often – a team in a club or in a store, consisting of a number of talented guys, but that just don’t seem to gel. They don’t know each other, respect each other, trust each other and tend to operate as a group of individuals with a focus on looking after themselves rather than the goal of the team or business.
When I do come across a team in business that is flying, it is immediately apparent in the way they interact and work together – they tend to laugh, joke with each other, prod each other a little – and generally give off a vibe that they “have each other’s interests at heart” These teams spend more time together, in and out of work – they talk to each other more and they ask each other for help or advice more openly and more often. They tend to socialise together more and just plain get to know each other.
It doesn’t often come naturally – somebody needs to take the initiative and make it happen, force it at the outset – but the rewards are great for all…
A dent in Cape Towns’ brand value…;-)
A bit of a tongue in cheek post perhaps, but a relevant one given much of my talk about brands and brand integrity of late..
When I bought my England and South Africa wing mirror socks last week, I was warned by a few people not to leave them on my cars overnight – given that I live in Gardens. My response was that I trusted that, given the spirit of the country and the world cup atmosphere, that nobody would be likely to steal them.. fanous last words.
Over the course of 4 days, and on two separate occasions – all but one wing mirror sock have been stolen.
You may laugh – you were right all along after all – but I am truly disappointed. Not because of the lost money but because my perception of the brand that is Cape Town during the world cup, has been dented severely.
My faith that the people of Cape Town, at all levels and in all areas, would pull together and do the right thing in support of this great event has been shaken.
Why is this relevant – because I had bought into a brand, and what I saw (Misguidedly) as it’s brand values – only to see those values fall away.
Why is this relevant – because the feeling of upset and betrayal is way way out of balance with the actual reality of a loss of R150 and the inconvenience of losing some wing socks.
If someone buys into your brand, and you let them down by not living those values – then no matter how small the incident or how insignificant it might seem to you, never underestimate the size of the fallout…
I have been thinking a lot lately about what really separates the men from the boys when it comes to brands, and those responsible for driving them in the market. There is no doubt that there are some brands that seem to have it all going for them, and yet for some reason I just cannot buy into them. The same goes for people, you may be doing business with somebody who seems to be the real deal, yet for some reason you feel uncomfortable committing to them.
The realisation that I made, is that for me there needs to be an emotional connection…
I need to feel that the brand or the person I am considering committing to, is something or someone I can connect to on a deeper emotional level. I need to feel that they have a cause, a belief, a purpose – one that I buy into – and that they are committed to, and will fight for and honour that cause.
When I have that feeling about a person or a brand, I will forgive mistakes and stay fiercely loyal – as long as they stay true to the cause and keep their integrity intact.
As soon as I feel that integrity or belief begin to shift, then I get worried and I begin to doubt them – I get upset and angry that the brand I have bought into and supported, is now taking the easy route and making a mockery of my loyalty all this time.
Brands that succeed and the people that succeed in driving them, are those that form strong emotional connections with us as customers – and stay true to the cause and values that we as customers bought into….
I have done a lot of work on Brand Values & equity in the past year or so, and am always fascinated by how the perception of a brand in peoples eyes can shift. It is an almost imperceptible change at first, slowly gathering momentum, until it becomes something that can define a brand – for better or for worse.
In some cases, brand value shifts are carefully planned and implemented – take Harley Davidson Motorcycles, who shifted from being the brand of choice of dangerous underworld bikers, to being the steed ridden by many upper income professionals. In other examples brands just lose focus on what really mattered to them at the outset. Sometimes this is due to financial pressure, or external investors forcing through changes, sometimes due to fast expansion reducing the influence of those who care and at other times it is just a drift that starts so slowly that nobody pays it enough attention until it’s too late.
One of the brands that has been a focus of mine lately has been the South African coffee outlets of Vida e Caffe. Vida, as they are known by their regulars, have been around for about 9 years and have grown to 45 stores at present. They are known for their great vibe, local staff, cool branding, and decent coffee at a fair price. They only sell coffee (On the drinks side) and so are very focused on one core product, and have always been at the cutting edge of the coffee shop market. Their brand loyalty has always been very high – people are passionate about their “Vida” and often refer to it as “Going to get a Vida” rather than a “Coffee”
It all sounds textbook, but over the last 6-12 months their has been a barely perceptible shift in the brand values. For whatever reason, quality and consistency of the product have begun to slip, service has fallen off slightly, key team members have left, to be replaced with less skilled or friendly staff, attention to detail has dropped off.
What started as a few small issues has now begun to gather momentum and is now eroding the brand values that were so carefully put in place and guarded. The social media platforms such as Twitter have facilitated this erosion, as clients can now post of their experiences in real time and connect with others feeling the same way. Just as this can grow a brand, it can also speed up the erosion of one. In times past a client might have felt they were the only one experiencing something, but now they are linked with other clients experiencing similar problems.
With Vida, as is often the case when this happens, they seem to be struggling to accept the reality, and maybe consider it to be a “blip” that will get ironed out over the course of time. It is a great shame to see such a well cultivated and high integrity brand, begin to slowly lose it’s core values; Excellent coffee every time along with fun, high energy, but efficient and fast service.
The issues they are facing now may seem relatively small, but they are the very values that put them at the top of the tree and distinguised their brand from the others. The coffee market in SA is becoming more and more competitive, with ever more players offering great product and service, and customers becoming ever more discerning – now is the time to capitalise on brand equity and loyalty, not to let it erode.
Twitter – use it to get an edge..
How many businesses can afford to pass up an opportunity to gain an edge over their competitors when it comes to building brand equity, gaining exposure, or even getting a simple straight up referral ?
I speak to people on a daily basis who are in some form of business or other, small or large, and when the subject of social media or Twitter come up, most of them know what it is, and that they should probably look at it – but most are not really aware of what it can do for them or simply blame a lack of time for their non participation.
One feature that most of them are not aware of, is the ability to set filters and searches to find mentions of your brand, or that of a competitor – in so doing you can monitor what others are saying about your business and be sure you participate and engage when the opportunity arises – communicate directly, add value to the interaction – build loyalty.
It is worth the time and investment of any business to build a social media strategy- what platforms to use, what goals or outcomes in mind, what form the interactions will take, what promotions can be run and, of great importance, who will run the programme.
Get in the programme and get up and running – mail me to set up an appointment to disucss it…
Making it happen..
I was giving a workshop this morning on Developing your team, to a group Cyclelab employees. This was a combination of Managers and Sales assistants along with Technical staff – young and old, experienced and not so experienced.
One of the exercises we did was to look at what we all felt made for an effective team. All of the attendees wrote 10 words describing their perfect team. It may not surprise you to find out that of the 15 people who completed the exercise, most of them used the same words to decribe their perfect team.
In other words, they all wanted the same thing – yet most of them are not operating in teams that show these traits that they all desire. It was a realisation for me that so often we know what we want, and we know how much better things would be if we acted in a certain way – but for some reason or other we don’t make the necessary shift to get there.
Why is this – my feelings are these may be some of the contributing factors;
1. It is easier to be selfish and just go with the flow rather than challenge yourself and others
2. It is easier to blame other team members or the company for what is not going right, rather than accept ownership and responsibility for doing what YOU can to improve things
3. It is easier to be static than to push forward
4. Teams need to support and trust each other, need to rely on each other – have each others back. Too often teams disintegrate into selfish protection when things go wrong
5. Inexperienced or selfish team leaders don’t allow the players to explore, find different solutions or make mistakes safely – in case this makes them look bad as a leader..
6. Teams don’t spend enough time interacting as a team – in and out of work. They establish basic relationships and leave it there, never really knowing or understanding how their team mates tick. Teams that spend time together out of work build stronger relationships
It is one of the most challenging tasks any business faces – but one of, if not the most important…
When things go wrong…
No matter how hard you work at giving the teams you work with ownership and self belief, systems and procedures and all the other tools they need to deliver excellent customer service, there will be times when it all goes wrong..
It can be tough when faced with this type of situation – you may feel the desire to brush it under the rug as a one off occurrence – these guys make so few mistakes that it will do no harm to let this one slide, and after all you don’t want to damage morale.. The flip side is to jump all over them and over react completely – how could they let this sort of thing happen after all the training and support thay have had …
Neither of these responses will do the team justice, nor will it help them to police themselves and minimise the risk of the issue repeating itself.
My advice is to bring it to their attention with as much detail as you can put together, and in as unemotional a way as you can manage, and ask them what happened ?
It is ok to express disappointment – you are only being honest after all.
Let them discuss it amongst themselves and put together a plan, not only to rectify things (if possible) but to look at systems and procedures that fell down, or accountability/ownership that was not taken. Follow up after a suitable time and get an update, what they have done, what they plan to do, how they have made it right.
And then leave it there – finished, lesson learned and integrity and pride left dented but intact…people don’t enjoy messing up and letting the side down, so if you trust them they will generally learn and try harder next time.
I read another great blog post by Simon Sinek this morning here about employees taking ownership and making calls off their own backs that build incredible brand loyalty – in this case an employee “buying” a customer a small chocolate when the customer has no change. A great example of a few dollars buying a company some serious good will and loyalty.
A few years back I heard a successful businessman tell a similar story with the opposite outcome – in this case he was checking in to a hotel that was part of a chain he used many many times for all his company’s business travel – in this case he was contemplating booking a family holiday in the same hotel based on how much he liked it. The check in went well until he realised he had forgotten his razor, and on asking the receptionist, was very helpfully presented with a shiny new disposable razor in a packet – on starting to walk away he was told by the embarassed receptionist that he owed them $1 for the razor please… He duly paid and never used the hotel chain again. A classic example of a system implemented by a business to save money, and an employee not empowered to make a decision – leading to a loss of business and good will.
So, we all know that we need to empower our employees to make the right calls when they need to – but the real challenge is in helping them to learn when to draw the line and trusting them to make the right calls. One of my clients is a large cycle retailer who are faced with the same challenge, but have many examples of employees taking ownership but making inappropriate calls – letting a guy take his new R50k bike home with no payment made, letting a guy exchange a part he no longer wants but has had for 6 months and many others.
So it appears to me that in order to make a system like this fly, takes a lot of work – training and education on the values of the business so that they can act as a framework for those “empowered” decisions and help the employees make the right calls most of the time. In addition there is a requirment for patience and support when the employees make the wrong calls – honest and constructive feedback, and the trust relationships that allow for this need to be in place.
The bigger the business, the harder this gets – in a business like my old employer Virgin Active, with 90 odd units and 500,000 members, there is clearly a need for systems, procedures, rules and regulations – and consistency of application. The trouble is that consistency of application and empowered, owned decisions do not always go hand in hand – I remember cringing on hearing a very disgruntled member on a radio show, complaining bitterly about not being able to transfer his membership to his daughter despite valid reasons. I knew that the call centre agent was just doing what she had been told to do – enforcing company policy. I also knew that in this case it was a ridiculous decision and should never have been made. In this case the guy and his family were lost forever – and all his friends I’ll bet.
So, picking the right team, trusting them,drilling your vlaues into them every day, helping them, supporting them when they get it wrong and retaining a level of flexibility are some of the many things that go into getting this right – oh, and not sacrificing values for financial gain…not easy in these tough financial times when profit, returns and savings are the order of the day..
Good luck.
Cape Storm are a company that values their brand – they trade strongly on the values they have built the business around. When you buy a Cape Storm garment you buy into those values and feel a part of the family..
Recently Cape Storm have been using their Facebook presence, a none too small 3277 people, to engage their clients in the business and it’s values even further. A simple series of competitions, requiring people to answer simple questions about the brand, and the prizes – some nice Cape Storm gear.
Think about it ;
1. Engaging the loyal brand followers with a chance to win something – we all love simple competitions
2. Reinforcing the brand values to the clients and any others that come across it
3. In this last case, asking the brand followers to describe the brand – far more powerful than doing it yourself
4. Rewarding them with a piece of branded clothing to wear and tell others about
Simple, effective and clever use of Socail Media..
