PEOPLE BRAND!

I can promise you after founding 2 companies from scratch on 2 continents and growing them both to a national size, that your people are the single most important component of your business.

They are also your brand; yes every single person in every position affects the brand, its message and its impact in the marketplace that you are competing in.

I believe that they are so important that sometimes you should be prepared to lose a client or customer if it comes down to making a choice. I have had to make that decision more than once in my career and both times I went with my people over the client.

Once was when we actually could not afford to do it, the particular client in question was my biggest customer by far and without going into all of the details, they were asking us to work to a quality that was not in sync with where I and my employees wanted to be. Honestly we realized that we were doing it for the money, and that's just not a good enough reason, this will certainly kill your brand's reputation in a hurry, as well as lose you staff's respect if you don't make a change!

So we fired the client and lost about 25% of our business overnight! Was I scared? Sure I was, but it was the right thing to do and you know what, we replaced the business within 1 month with 3 great clients.

The second was when we were asked to pitch for a nationally known tobacco brand. I decided that while I knew the money would be great, it would not sit well with at least some of our people. So we put it to the vote, and the majority (including me) said "NO", so we turned them down.

The reason I mention both of these stories is that you have to respect your people and give them a voice in the running of your business; it's their life and future too. The fact is that in every piece of research on what people want from their work, money is never at the top of the list, it's usually around #4. They come to work to primarily do a good job, get better at what they do, get respect and acknowledgement from management and of course enough money to take care of their families.

It takes a great deal of effort to get the right people in your company' it also takes time, because it should be an ongoing effort that I call "Hiring is a Process, not an Act".

(Want a copy of this section from my book - Growing small business into Big Brands?  Just send me an e-mail info@jacksims.com and I will send it to you by e-mail with my compliments)

If you want to be a brand leader you should be consistently looking at upgrading the quality of the people in your company.

Otherwise this is a scenario that if you have not experienced, you will soon. It's Monday morning and Fred comes to see you, "Guess what, Jim just quit". Your reaction is like most people, "What the heck are we going to do; we need somebody quickly, with experience". And there folks lies the problem, you need someone a) quickly and b) with experience and of course where do you get them. Well if you haven't been looking for star performers on a regular basis and don't have a drawer full of people you have already been interviewing, then it's an ad in the newspaper and a kiss and a prayer, good luck!

MISSION STATEMENTS DON'T WORK!

As I alluded to earlier, all of your people affect the brand and its something that you can, with some effort become one of your biggest assets. They have to understand your culture and that everyone who is currently there is working with a clear understanding of what your "Brand is Committing to doing". Yes a Brand Commitment Statement is not only something that each employee is able to quote, but live by, to the ultimate benefit of the company and the customer.

I coined the phrase "Brand Commitment Statement" after continually hearing about "Mission Statements" that great brands have. In my experience Mission Statements just don't work, they are self serving and usually written to front a request for funding from a bank or some other institution. I have given hundreds of speeches across the US and every time I ask an audience to quote their Mission Statement I get silence!

Create a Brand Commitment Statement that every employee will eagerly get behind, support and enact to the best of their abilities. Get them to support and understand it and your brand will seriously benefit because of it.

HIRING

I always "Hired for Life" in my company, not for 2 years or until the person quit. It is the company's obligation to educate and upgrade what the person was doing; the payoff for the company is usually way above the investment. Make sure that you help your people be all that they can be, otherwise I promise you that the really talented people will go where they are encouraged and helped to grow.

EMPOWERMENT

Another thing that you can do to help your brand grow is by "Empowering" your people. We have all experienced the situation where a sales person is in front of a customer and when asked a specific question they stall and eventually say something like "Let me get back to you on that" or maybe "Let me call the office to check". This is embarrassing to not only the sales person but the customer feels that the person they are dealing with has no power and certainly is not trusted by the company, not a good scenario!

A few years ago I was told a story by a friend of mine about a company owned by Rick Rose who created and implemented an empowerment program that in my opinion is the best I have heard, and here it is. If your employees ever get into the situation where they have to "Call home" tell them to ask themselves the following 5 questions:

1. Is it right for the customer?
2. Is it right for the company?
3. Is it something that they are willing to be accountable for?
4. Is it ethical legal etc
5. Is it generally in keeping with our business practices?

If they ask all of these questions and can say "YES" to all of them, don't call home, don't even think about it, "Just do it".

LAST THOUGHT ON PEOPLE

People are your brand, they are the ones who answer your phones, yes that's your brand at work, and it better be the message that you want the brand to say, not the opinion of the person who answers the phone. The brand is represented by the accounting department when they are chasing money, talking to the accounting people at your customers or vendors. Yes every single person in every department in the company is your brand and if you don't give them the tools and train them in how you want your brand represented then you will not have a chance to get any consistent messages or impressions.

Hire great people, look after them, train them, empower them and encourage them to make mistakes and will deliver for you!

Finally: If you have any specific areas about Branding and Business that you would like me to address in future editions of BRAND NEWs, again, e-mail me at info@jacksims.com

Click here to see previous issues of BRAND NEWs

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As part of my preparation for my speaking for various corporations and associations around the country I have been using Survey Monkey to find out more information from my audiences.

And as some of you know I did ask you to participate in a small survey about what you would pay for a pair of .5 carat earrings.

I asked 3 sets of questions, the first was if you bought the earrings from Wal*Mart what would you expect to pay. Then I asked 2 additional groups the same question except I used a local jewelers and finally Tiffany's as the store and the results were as follows:

Wal*Mart - $200 or less.     

Jewelers - $600 or more

Tiffany's - $800 to $1000

Wow, what a difference, and it's all about the brand impression, because one assumes that .5 carat diamonds should be the same quality, or do we? Isn't that what it's about, how we feel about the place where we buy, that emotional connection is the same for you in your business with your customers? Make your customers feel special when they do business with you and this will help them go out of their way to get to you and pay a premium price too!

American Idol

OK I admit it; I am a huge American Idol fan. My wife is of course embarrassed that I am telling you this, but in "full disclosure" I have to do it. I just love the concept that the TV audience (read customers) is uniquely involved in the process of what the show is and what makes it a success. Isn't this you should run your business, ask your customers what they want, not what you want to sell them. Involve your customers and see how quickly your brand will become the brand leader in your market place

Can you believe the amount of publicity this whole thing with Sanjaya and Howard Stern?

The thing is that Howard Stern is trying to get his audience to vote to keep Sanjaya from getting booted off. This is good for Sanjaya, right?

But I think that it's a great piece of publicity for Howard Stern, I mean how many people have tuned in to Sirius recently. Maybe its one of the best things that Howard Stern could have done, he needs the ratings, not American Idol.

 Golf Product

Well the bad news is that I did not make the next round of the Golf Channel inventors show. Not for a lack of trying, or because of having a Simon Cowell on the panel. Actually they were all  very nice to me.

The reason I did not make it was that I cannot produce the product here in the US and bring it to market at a price American audiences will pay for it. Yes it was too expensive according to the panel. $14.99 is too expensive? I will update you next month on where we are going with it. But suffice it to say "It aint over till it's over".