At Resound, we believe that your company’s brand should drive everything else. In our first post this month we set out to make our case for this position. Then last week we looked at how you might saturate your company culture with your brand. This week we want to help you plan and execute one simple exercise that you can do within a week to start that process.
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A Quick and Easy Exercise to Become More Brand-Driven Today
Like we mentioned last week, no company will become brand-driven unless those who are leading the company become brand-driven. Today’s protip will focus on the leadership of your company. Your leaders are the ones everyone in your company is looking to for guidance and understanding — if they aren’t fluent in your brand, no one else will be either.
Schedule a 45-minute meeting for all company leaders at a time when everyone can make it. You may want to extend the meeting time depending on your leadership team size. Then, at the meeting, lead them through this exercise.
- Hand each leader a copy of your brand values. You don’t want to put them on the spot or assume they have internalized your values. This exercise is meant to empower, not discipline.
- Next, walk them through each of these values. Remind them of why each value is so important to the work that you’re trying to do. Tell stories that inform these values or highlight their importance.
- Then invite them to write down why each of your values is important to them, their team, and their client. Sometimes we get so busy doing business that we forget why we do things or how we should be doing things. This will give them time to take a step back and evaluate the bigger picture. Most importantly it will give them the opportunity to practice explaining your values.
- After that, have them identify ways their areas of business succeed in embodying those traits — and where they fail. By doing this while the values and stories behind them are fresh in their minds, they’ll be able to more clearly see what’s working and what’s not. Remind them that this isn’t a witch hunt or a trap — you’re gathering as leadership to grow in appreciation and awareness of your own brand values. That’s it. This is just one step of many to improving your brand-centered approach.
- Finally, facilitate a discussion where people can share how they feel they’re doing well and how they’re struggling. Invite others to listen and give suggestions of what has helped them in certain areas. This is a win on multiple levels. Not only is your leadership team getting more practice speaking about and to your values, but they’re also learning to share their struggles and suggestions freely with your other leaders. As they grow in their comfort with both, you’ll need to be less involved with the day-to-day. Then you can focus on driving your brand and company forward.
One of Many Small Simple Steps
This same exercise can be taken by your leadership and used with their teams and contractors. Exercises like this are simple, actionable steps you can take to create a brand-driven culture. It’s a process and can take some time, but it’s well worth the investment over the long haul.
If you found this exercise helpful and want to dig in more, we’d be happy to join you on this journey. We’re committed to helping remarkable people like you develop remarkable brands. Get in touch and we’d be happy to answer any of your questions about branding and why it’s so important. And if you’d like to learn more about our approach to branding, consider signing up for our book email list. You’ll receive exclusive nuggets of wisdom like this and behind-the-scenes content as our brand experts hash out Resound’s key convictions on branding. We believe those insights will be extremely valuable and helpful — or we wouldn’t be writing a book about them.
