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Let Culture Inspire Your Brand
- 1. Let Your Culture Inspire Your Brand Columbus Chamber of Commerce Webinar Presented June 12, 2012
- 2. Sandy Fekete Jim Smith President, Marketing Works President, Elford Construction Author, Companies Are People, Too
- 3. The Culture-Inspired Brand • Discover the essence of your company – what makes it tick • Understand why amazing customer service is a consequence of corporate culture • Learn how to define, live, and breathe your culture – every day in every way • See examples of companies who let culture be their guide
- 5. The more we accept each other as who we are with our individual preferences, the happier and more productive we will be, as long as we base our decisions on the preferences and values of our company.
- 8. 5 Keys to Brand Synergy 1 Be true to yourself 2 Know what matters most 3 Put the words in action 4 Show up 5 Stay the course
- 9. Mission Statement Core Values Passion Statement Brand Promise Tag Line Brand Logo
- 10. 1 Be true to yourself • First, discover your strengths • Experience-based • Data-driven • People-validated
- 11. Dixon Schwabl Best Small Company to Work for in America
- 12. LUV
- 13. Culture creates a consistently positive customer experience The impact of culture is amplified by social media A strong culture helps organizations manage constant change
- 14. 2 Know what matters most • Core Ideology (Built to Last) • Vision (aspiration 100+ years from now) • Mission (vehicle that gets you there) • Values (guiding light)
- 16. Fun and a Little Weirdne ss 4. Be Adventu rous, Creative , and Open- Minded 5. Pursue Growth and Learning 6. Build Open and Honest
- 17. “Your culture IS your brand”
- 18. 3 Put the words into action “Core values are two dimensional until you bring them to life—with the right people and energetic guidance.” •Continually reinforce commitment to culture •Make it visual •Make culture the focus of orientation •Train, support, hire, and use discipline to enforce what’s important to you
- 19. The Answer is Yes. What’s the Question?
- 20. Milkshake Story
- 21. 4 Show up
- 22. Whole Foods Whole People Whole Planet Core Values Rap
- 23. Walter Robb, Co-CEO, Whole Foods Sustainability is rooted in Whole Food’s core values and by following its core principles. “That’s what is truly sustainable, because that doesn’t change. That informs how you act. That informs how you grow. That informs how you make decisions. You put your decisions up against your purpose and values if they don’t square up you don’t do it. They give you guidance on how to grow your company. That’s sustainability, in my view, from the inside out.”
- 24. 5 Stay the course • Assess and Reassess • Empower and Reward Staff • Check Your Pulse • Get an Annual Check up
- 25. An uplifting experience that enriches peoples’ daily lives
- 26. STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY, 1996 Core Values Passion for what we do Integrity in how we do it Pride in winning Respect for our partners Entrepreneurial spirit Core Purpose To provide an uplifting experience that enriches people’s daily lives. BHAG To build a great, enduring company with one of the most recognized and respected brands in the world, known for inspiring and nurturing the human spirit. Strategy Build the brand one cup at a time, based on three key ingredients: the quality of the coffee, our own retail stores, and selective brand extensions. Build a powerful economic engine fueled by customer loyalty to the brand. Five-Year Base Camp 2000 stores by the year 2000
- 27. 5 Keys to Brand Synergy 1 Be true to yourself 2 Know what matters most 3 Put the words in action 4 Show up 5 Stay the course
- 28. Reputation Management What happens when internal and external brands don’t mesh—because of the actions of an employee or employees
- 32. Synergistic Reminders • Articulate your purpose and values • Live your purpose and values • Happy employees = satisfied customers • Actions speak louder than words • Be authentic • Don’t make promises you can’t keep • Check in daily Marketing Works, Inc.
- 33. It takes a village to build a brand Marketing Works, Inc.
- 34. Free Trial www.companiesarepeopletoo.com/chambe r Sandra Fekete Marketing Works 614-540-5520 sfekete@companiesarepeopletoo.com
Editor's Notes
- Built to Last, and Good to Great companies understand and act on this premise. CAPT is a doing model.
- How it began. Truthful marketing messages. Promises that could be delivered Consensus as a platform for discovery
- I don’t care what size company you are — start-up, mid-size, big corporation or gargantuan conglomerate — it’s worth every hour you spend, and every dime you invest, to insure you have synergy between your company’s mission and core values and your external brand promise and brand position. What exactly is brand synergy? Very simply, it means that what you truly believe is the crucial heart of why you are in business in the first place — and how you live that belief inside your business — is accurately reflected in the brand position that you convey outside of your business.
- Who You Are Why you exist What you do How you dress Mirror, mirror on the wall
- Interestingly, this is not all that easy to pull off, it does take work, and you might not get it right the first time, or even the second and third time. But it is really important to try to get it right at some point. Your “internal brand” is best reflected in 3 ways: Your mission statement (and yes, you should have one of these). Your core values, these can be stated or implied, but they are understood by everyone who works in your business whether you’ve written them down or not. Trust me on that one. Your “passion statement.” Lots of companies have mission statements and core values. But not everyone has a passion statement. It’s a simple sentence that begins with, “We are most passionate about…” When you and your core team can fill in the blank and really genuinely care about what that sentence really means, you are on to something. I always liked the reference to NASA back in the early days. When asked what is NASA about, everyone who worked there understood one thing and one thing only, “We’re going to put a man on the moon.” Now that is a big, hairy goal and a wonderful passion statement. We should all aspire to the same level I think. And then looking at your brand externally, your mission and your passion are most commonly reflected in three ways as well: The promises you make to customers through your communications. Your tag line, if you have one. Your brand logo and everything that that logo embodies, especially over time. Where it’s used, how it’s used, what it says about your business is a slow but relentless build the longer you are in business. Your internal and external synergy doesn’t mean your mission statement is the same as your tag line, but you need to be able to see and understand the relationship between the two. And so do your employees and customers. Because here’s the thing, when who you are and what you do really is a passion, and you have successfully conveyed that both internally and externally, it’s what I call a “Rocky Balboa” moment. You know the one I’m talking about. This is the point in the first Rocky movie when Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) has finally realized he wants to be a champion, and what it’s going to take to get there and most importantly, he finally believes he can really do it. Once he gets both passionate and positive , next thing you know he’s dancing around on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art with his arms over his head with one of the most motivating music soundtracks of all time playing right along with him. It’s exhilarating and thrilling and so amazingly positive. That’s what brand synergy should look like, feel like, and sound like.
- Who are you? Discover your strengths with CAP2 Assessment, interviews based on experiences employees and customers are having with your company. NOT what you want to be, but who you are is the starting point Add it up. Invite employees and customers to participate. We first talk to the company employees and leadership and then to the customers. Should be consistent messages
- Our culture is different. It makes us uncommonly effective. Sure bowling on Monday, band practice on Tuesday, softball on Wednesday, ice cream on Thursday, and parties on Fourth Fridays make working at Dixon Schwabl feel less like work. But our culture is much deeper than that. It is unwavering respect for the people we work with. It is a fundamental drive to do great work as a united team. And it is a steadfast desire to give back to the community, because it’s simply the right thing to do. But why does that matter? Happy, respectful, dedicated teams of talented people, driven to provide exceptional service. That’s why.
- Would you really want to build your business around the word Love? Sounds rather hokey doesn’t it. But as anyone who regularly travels SOUTHWEST will tell you – they make you feel great – each and every time. Each employee lives and breathes LUV and it reflects in the service that each customer experiences. From day one of operations, co-founder Herb Kelleher let it be known that Southwest was committed first and foremost to the customer experience. Southwest Airlines is the textbook example of a company that takes its core values dead seriously. Southwest Employees try to Live the Southwest Way by displaying the Warrior Spirit, acting with a Servant’s Heart, and embracing a Fun-LUVing Attitude. To that end, the company took great pains to hire only enthusiastic, outgoing and friendly employees who took pride in their job and bought into the corporate culture Kelleher & Co. had established. Applicants deemed to be lacking in these traits are reflexively turned away, regardless of how impressive their résumés might otherwise be. Of the 100,000 applications that Southwest receive each year, only 2,000-3,000 individuals are hired. Southwest’s corporate culture has been a major driving force behind its continued success. Southwest was the only airline to remain profitable after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, due in large part to its workforce (and its fuel buying strategies.)
- In an interesting article by the Washington Post ( What you can learn from Southwest Airlines’ culture ) Micah Solomon addresses lessons about organizational culture and why culture matters. The article illustrates these lessons using Southwest Airlines as an example. The author then outlines the following steps to create a strong culture: Articulate your philosophy Elaborate with a statement of core values Make philosophy and values inspirational to capture the hearts of the employees Constantly reinforce commitment to values, not just at the annual company picnic Make the philosophy and values visual Make them a part of the orientation process Reinforce them through training, hiring, and discipline practices
- Why you exist What do you aspire to be? What did your founders envision? What’s your purpose beyond making money?
- Tony Shay Acquired by Amazon in 2009. Holds tightly to its culture.
- 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.”
- What you do (99% rule) Reinforce your commitment to these values continually. You may want to go as far as to devote five minutes every morning to stress one value, or an aspect of one value, at your departmental meeting. (This is what the Ritz-Carlton does.) Dixon Schwabl’s “Keeper of the Personality” involves a monthly team to reinforce the core values with activities. Whether you do it daily, weekly, or monthly, don’t save it for the annual company picnic. Annual anything is the enemy of ‘‘core.’’ Make it visual. The Ritz-Carlton has ‘‘credo cards’’— laminated accordion-fold cards that each employee carries during work hours. The brand’s entire core beliefs, plus shared basics of guest and employee interactions, fit on that card. Zappos highlights one of its core values on each box it ships out. One way that FedEx shows that safety is a core value is via the orange shoulder belts in its vans: Everyone can see — from 25 yards away — that the driver’s wearing a belt. Make values the focus of orientation. That way, if safety is one of your core values and you stress this at orientation, on day two, when the new employee’s coworker tells him, ‘‘In this restaurant, we stack the high chairs in front of the emergency exit when we need more room to do our prep work’’ (this is a real-life example, unfortunately), the new employee will experience cognitive dissonance and work on a way to align the actions of the company with the core values they’re supposed to reflect Dixon Schwabl, Zappos Culture Book. Cameron Mitchell Restaurants’ Milkshake story. Most of all, train, support, hire, and, if necessary, use discipline to enforce what’s important to you. ‘‘ Maintaining a culture is like raising a teenager,’’ says Ray Davis, president and CEO of Umpqua Bank. ‘‘You’re constantly checking in. What are you doing? Where are you going? Who are you hanging out with?’’
- Find Your Milkshake Metaphor The first thing a company has to do is to find its best above-and-beyond stories and then choose the most significant one that will serve as the example to inspire similar behavior. Once a company has this story, the next thing they do is to create the symbol, logo, or picture that represents their best story. Eventually words will be unnecessary; when employees see that picture, they will instantly be reminded of the culture they work in and the legacy they have to uphold.
- Cameron Mitchell Restaurants not only has removed the word no from the vocabulary of its 2,000 associates; it also has a great service brand promise: “ Yes is the answer . . . what’s the question?” This is not just lip service. Nearly everyone in this company walks this talk. This company has created such a strong above-and-beyond legacy that nearly all its employees try to outdo each other daily with unconventional ways they can exceed their guests’ expectations. Cameron Mitchell himself created a brilliant metaphor on which the company’s service philosophy is founded. It is known as the “Milkshake.” Legend has it that several years ago Mitchell and his family were customers at a restaurant, and his son asked if he could have a milkshake. The server said, “No.” There’s that word again. Mitchell knew the restaurant had ice cream, milk, and a blender, and he couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t accommodate a guest on such a simple thing. So the milkshake became an icon to remind everyone at Cameron Mitchell Restaurants about finding a way to say yes. Having three young boys myself, I can’t tell you how many times this exact scenario has happened to me. Similarly, more than a few times we have been in a restaurant where one of my sons - didn’t like anything on the kid’s menu and asked if he could have a grilled cheese sandwich. Again, nearly every time the answer was no. Once I asked the waiter, “Do you mean to tell me that your restaurant doesn’t have bread and cheese that someone could throw on a stove?” and the waiter responded, “Yeah, but I wouldn’t even know how to ring it up.” I responded, “I don’t care if you charge me the price of a steak. You don’t want my kid upset because he can empty this restaurant faster than a fire can!” The milkshake has grown into a life of its own at Cameron Mitchell Restaurants. The company does an incredible job of creating constant awareness of what the milkshake represents. They start every company meeting with a “milkshake toast,” and they give a Milkshake Award to the associates who best demonstrate the spirit of their Service Brand Promise, “Yes is the answer . . . what’s the question.” In any of their locations, you are likely to see several associates wearing milkshake pins and milkshake icons on posters and pictures. Outback Steakhouse’s original Service Brand Promise was similar: “No Rules, Just Right.”
- How you dress Show up with consistency – external brand = face of the company
- The following list of core values reflects what is truly important to us as an organization. These are not values that change from time to time, situation to situation or person to person, but rather they are the underpinning of our company culture. Many people feel Whole Foods Market is an exciting company of which to be a part and a very special place to work. These core values are the primary reasons for this feeling, and they transcend our size and our growth rate. By maintaining these core values, regardless of how large a company Whole Foods Market becomes, we can preserve what has always been special about our company. These core values are the soul of our company.
- The following list of core values reflects what is truly important to us as an organization. These are not values that change from time to time, situation to situation or person to person, but rather they are the underpinning of our company culture. Many people feel Whole Foods Market is an exciting company of which to be a part and a very special place to work. These core values are the primary reasons for this feeling, and they transcend our size and our growth rate. By maintaining these core values, regardless of how large a company Whole Foods Market becomes, we can preserve what has always been special about our company. These core values are the soul of our company. Selling the Highest Quality Natural and Organic Products Available Satisfying and Delighting Our Customers Supporting Team Member Happiness and Excellence Creating Wealth Through Profits & Growth Caring about our Communities & Our Environment Creating ongoing win-win partnerships with our suppliers Promoting the health of our stakeholders through healthy eating education.
- Mirror, mirror on the wall Reassess
- For Starbucks, the brand promises great coffee and a great experience. Starbucks tells you what they promise: Your drink should be perfect every time . More than that, there are numerous implicit promises: Your experience will be uplifting . You can come here and take a break from your job or rest from your busy day. Your experience may have some surprise and delight in it. This is critical. Baristas who are forced to follow a scripted routine can’t surprise and delight a customer. True, all baristas have to be working together as a team to make great things happen, and there must be protocols to create some predictability to the experience, but they’re not robots and can’t act like that. Each and every baristas is vested with the discretion to find a way to make a customer’s day bright. I realize that many customers just want to hurry in and out and get their coffee, but a fixed script or the inability to act freely is what would instantly turn the experience into, ‘would you like fries with that latte?’ Your baristas should be knowledgeable . This is critical, and unfortunately in my experience, an area that needs great improvement. I hate to say not nice things about Starbucks, but these days there seems to be little emphasis on being knowledgeable. I have witnessed countless episodes where barists could not explain the registered card benefits to the customer standing in line ahead of me. I have met tons of baristas who are unaware that ANY registered card may be at the “Gold” level of MyStarbucksRewards and receiving gold level perks. During brew on demand phase, I encountered many baristas who didn’t understand why an Americano is not the same thing as brewed coffee. The concept that brew method and kind of bean affects the flavor of the drink seemed to be not well-known. Actually, being not being knowledgeable can be overcome by being genuine and honest . Last week I was at a Starbucks late in the evening at 7th and Pike in downtown Seattle, and ordering a beverage with vanilla syrup. I handed him my old black card to pay (my 10 percent discount has long since expired, but it is registered and has Uncle Howard’s autograph on it, so I continue to use it) and the barista gave me a total. I think I said something like, “well that’s not the real total because it will take off the Vanilla charge.” The barista was confused. It was clearly the first time he had seen the black gold card and he didn’t understand that it too would have all the perks of My Starbucks Rewards. Rather than trying to bluff his way through the situation, he just looked at me with very genuine eyes and said that he was new, and then he listened with open ears as I explained that any card may be used to receive the benefits of My Starbucks Rewards. Now that is a great partner. In all honesty, I don’t care usually if a partner isn’t very knowledgeable if they’re nice about it: If they have sort of a curiosity to know more. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to feel defensive when one feels like he or she doesn’t know enough for the demanding moment, and that interferes with being geniune and a good learning process.
- Who You Are Why you exist What you do How you dress Mirror, mirror on the wall
- Internal and External brands working in synergy……stronger together. Stronger than ever.