Leaders, Do Your Employees Understand Your Organization's Brand?

The PPAI Publications™ blog has covered a keynote speech from this year's PPAI Expo given to attendees by business marketing expert David Avrin. In his speech, Avrin stressed the importance of finding a niche in your industry, then branding it properly so consumers can find you.

In one thought-provoking line, Avrin posed:

“To what question are you the answer?”

This is great leadership food for thought. Consider:

• Does your organization know what exactly it is answering out there in the world of needs? Does your brand have a carved-out niche?
• Does your organization have a mission statement that conveys this answer? If so, does it have the branding and communication in place to effectively promote this mission, this driving purpose to the public?

These questions got us thinking about not only the role of leadership here, but also the role of employees.

We think a suitable follow-up question to ask yourself is:

Does your team know what question you are the answer to?

It’s essential for leaders to identify your company’s niche and establish a killer mission statement. It’s also up to you to make sure that your employees understand that mission statement, and that they’re engaged in your company’s culture, so that they can be brand ambassadors for what your company believes in and offers.

There’s a lot of thoughtful discussion today about why employees make the best brand ambassadors (some relevant articles from Forbes can be found here and here). In many cases, your employees are the face and voice of your organization, the ones often at the interface of customer interaction, so it’s essential to have them on board with your branding and what you stand for.

Unfortunately, research by Gallup shows that many companies are currently failing at connecting their mission statements to their employees. This is a challenge for leaders. Even after you establish your niche, your brand, you need to drive it home to your employees.

So, to piggy-back off of Avrin's question, we invite you to ask yourself:

Leaders, do your employees understand your organization's brand?