Your Brand Has Two Faces

in a prior miscellaneous rambling i discussed your brand and its customer experience component.  no matter how much you spend on branding and marketing, it doesn't take many customer screw ups to significantly devalue your brand.

the other way to materially devalue a brand is to fail to address the company internal image of the brand.  almost every customer interaction, even if it occurs electronically, is in some way dependent upon the actions of your professionals and staff.  if they don't understand and internalize the mission, vision, brand, and strategy, i can assure you that the brand value will get damaged.

so one face of your brand is external and usually receives lots of attention from you and your management team, while the other face is internal and is often ignored.  a deadly mistake.

every one of your management team, professionals, and staff needs to understand and internalize your "service excellence value chain". they need to live the mission, vision, brand and strategy on a daily basis.

so how do you accomplish that understanding and commitment.   ideally professionals would experience the mission, vision, brand and strategy through company actions on a daily basis and participate in the development of the business strategy, so they feel ownership, not pressure from the top.  continuous education on business critical new and emerging skills and technologies is also imperative.  professional and staff culture building and education is a foundation investment and living adventure.