An Inside Job

A great brand is a wonderful thing -- a representation of your products and services; the story of you and your team; a powerful beacon that attracts new business, keeps buyers from jumping ship, and earns you a prime position in the market's mind.

After spending resources out the wazoo and earning some ever-so-distinguishing gray hair, it seems like all this branding stuff should be flying high by now. You've got the logo, a punchy tagline, and even a slick brand manual, so what's up with the occasional brand breakdown?

The marketing department is cranky because every employee you ask about the company brand says something different. The non-marketing folks think it's all propaganda. The CEO is delusional, proudly touting the invisible brand peacock that no one has ever really seen. To make the day complete, potential customers and clients view your offerings as just another sad-sack commodity. And existing customers and partners are irritated because the majority of your employees act like they hate their job -- and life, too.

Sound familiar? Hopefully you're not experiencing all of these symptoms, but even if you're experiencing only a few of the above leading indicators, effective internal branding can turns things around and significantly impact your organization's overall health and well-being.

It starts inside.

The brand -- which is the mental mark held in the minds of all the people in your potential markets -- needs to be tattooed onto your internal employees and representatives as well as your external partners and service providers in order to leverage its full value.

Leaders who miss this aspect of the brand building process -- because of the cost, time, or energy required -- will likely pay a much higher price than those who don't.

Delivering engaging internal brand communications can impact your bottom line dramatically. A study by Watson Wyatt showed that a significant improvement in communication effectiveness is associated with a 29.5% increase in market value.

The employee factor is the soul of a brand.

Without the support, buy in, and conviction of your troops, a brand is just another lifeless enterprise.

"Brands are not surface matters; they live in the work culture," says Julie Anixter, a strategic director for the LAGA/Tom Peters Co. Alliance who counsels companies on internal branding issues. That means that all organizations have a brand. Brands happen. The question is: Is the default state of your brand truly contributing to your success?

Steven Overman of Jack Morton Worldwide, an international corporate experience firm who pioneered the practice of audience alignment, is careful about how to label internal branding. The word "brand" is a lightning rod in some organizations. The discipline also falls into the category of organizational effectiveness. Selecting the right language for an internal branding effort is often the most critical difference between employees resisting or championing the organization's goals.

Branding inside can positively impact an organization on many levels. Here's where and how to do it:

As universal marketing momentum.
Add high-octane fuel to your external market outreach by creating programs that empower all staff to become ambassadors of the brand and to carry the torch even farther.

Under CMO Arun Sinha's leadership, 33,000-employee Pitney Bowes Inc. transformed its "postage meter" brand into a company that provides "information solutions." The $10-million rebranding effort included extensive internal initiatives. Sinha and his team personally met with more than 7,000 of the company staff face to face to communicate the reengineered vision and customer promise. Results included a 140% increase in C-level awareness as "an integrated mail and document provider," accelerating their selling success.

As a talent magnet.
Become an employer of choice.

"The brand inside not only attracts top talent, but more importantly, finds and keeps 'the right fit' talent," says Chris Pierce-Cooke, an executive vice president at Right Management Consultants, an organizational consulting and career transition firm.

Right Management developed a process it calls PeopleBrand -- essentially developing and articulating an internal brand for a company that supports its HR goals. The methodology is a 3-D relationship: define a distinctive promise to key talent, then declare and demonstrate that promise.

"The internal brand work payoff is more than turnover savings," Pierce-Cooke explains. "Top performers outperform and outproduce average performers by 50-125%."

As a culture consummator.
Serve as an organizational centerpiece by aligning core values, competencies, and brand personality.