Employee Reality Check

Welcome to another installment of 10-minute branding.

10-Minute Branding Refresher: How do you build your brand 10 minutes at a time? You start small, and you simply begin. An excellent way to convince yourself to get going is to plan your ending. You can even set a timer. Then, be sure to bask in the success of your huge accomplishment of actually beginning and also appreciate the amount of work that got done. Then, repeat the process tomorrow. And the next day. And so on. You will be amazed at your branding progress . . . 10 minutes at a time.

Walking the Walk/Talking the Talk

Large companies generally have Mission and Vision Statements that summarize their product and service philosophy and (either directly or indirectly) establish standards for employee/customer interactions. Realizing the potential value of such a written manifesto, many small businesses have adopted their own as well . . . though a few with perpetually lean staffing and operations probably never get around to creating a formal document.

However, that does not mean no written record exists. In such cases, you often find the small business has a motto or byline that serves a similar purpose. When you hear a good slogan that has been around for a while, those words have usually succeeded in capturing the philosophy, the goals, and the essence of the brand – and, therefore, becomes another way of figuring out what that company’s mission might be.

So, What Is Today’s 10-Minute Branding Assignment?

We suggest spending this time meeting with your employees to perform a checkup on the way branding values are being implemented on a daily basis while using the opportunity to:

reiterate your ideal.

OR – perhaps –

learn a lesson from reality.

To get this training exercise off to a fast start, read your mission statement or slogan to your employees and ask them whether those words accurately reflect their daily reality. Depending upon the feedback you receive, you may want to remind your people about your ideal brand values and suggest ways they can integrate those qualities into their daily interactions with customers. If, however, you did find that your ideals are no longer based in reality, ask your employees to help you modify the statement to better reflect their daily experience. In the case of the former, you could end up with a better employee and better brand. In the case of the latter, you just might get a more accurate Mission Statement and/or slogan to live by AND help generate future sales.

Depending upon what you find, several 10-minute sessions may or may not be required to discuss the reality of your brand and retrain staff behavior OR brainstorm a new message. However, the process will be worthwhile and a good reality check. If you were one of those businesses that never took the time to develop a Mission Statement, you may find that now is the ideal occasion to do so.

Click this link to learn more about Mission Statements. And Vision Statements.

Click this link to learn more about creating Company Slogans,

As always, we welcome your comments and questions.

Visit a Competitor’s Web Site

Looking into a Looking Glass

Visiting a competitor’s web site can be a very useful way of holding a mirror up to yourself to better understand and measure the effectiveness of your own brand (while taking the pulse of your position in the marketplace in relation to a company that’s out to secure the same business).

What You Should Look to Learn
(i.e., Your Checklist of Considerations)

When you visit your competitor’s web site:

Determine whether the content is brochureware (i.e., strictly informational) or transactional (i.e., providing interactive tools to place orders, pay bills, request a quote, etc.).
Read the description of their products and services and compare the features being highlighted to your own.
Ask yourself whether your competitor has succeeded in communicating a distinct brand and determine the kinds of qualities being emphasized (ex: staff expertise, locale, ease of doing business, history and track record, use of latest technology, etc.)
Learn what service promises and commitments are being made (i.e., 100% satisfaction guarantee, 24/7 availability, etc.).
Ask yourself whether a particular visual style has been used that you can immediately associate with your competitor (ex: use of a corporate color, font, byline, logo, etc.).
Determine how often new content is posted (daily, weekly, monthly, only upon revision to the site).
Get a quick sense of whether SEO has been taken into consideration; when you search for a product or service you both offer, whose comes up first? How far down in the search results is your listing?

Once You’ve Completed This 10-Minute Exercise, Ask Yourself . . .

Was this experience almost like looking into a looking glass and seeing your own reflection?

Did this looking glass show you the brand you’d like to become in the future?

Did this glimpse at your competitor make you feel better about yourself?

Obviously, your answer to those questions is determined by your findings during your 10-minute visit, so your next job is to analyze your results and – if necessary – develop a game plan for improving.

Next Steps for Future 10-Minute Branding Tasks

Take a close look at each of the 7 Checklist items above. In any instance in which your competitor fared better than you, develop a strategy to enhance your results. For example: If your competitor features Internet sales and service and you only offer brochureware, start putting together a plan of action to learn the enabling activities involved in expanding your web-based operations. (A very big mission begun as a result of a quick 10-minute branding task!)

Once you have considered each item on your checklist, try to step back and consider the overall picture you see. Does this current view reflect the company you want to be? If not, is the time right to revisit your Vision Statement and refresh your brand, knowing that a better defined and executed brand will ultimately translate to better sales and operations?!

How to Write a Vision Statement (Including Definitions, Examples, and a Vision Statement Generator)

Your business’s vision statement communicates your ultimate goal.

Since mission and vision statements are usually discussed in the same conversation, your mission statement is what you do, while your vision statement is the view once you’re done.

Below are a few formal definitions to elaborate on the concept.

DEFINITIONS

According to . . .

[A vision statement is] an aspirational description of what an organization would like to achieve or accomplish in the mid-term or long-term future. It is intended to serve as a clear guide for choosing current and future courses of action.

Similar to a mission statement, a vision statement provides a concrete way for stakeholders, especially employees, to understand the meaning and purpose of your business. However, unlike a mission statement – which describes the who, what and why of your business – a vision statement describes the desired long-term results of your company’s efforts. For example, an early Microsoft vision statement was “a computer on every desk and in every home.”
“A company vision statement reveals, at the highest levels, what an organization most hopes to be and achieve in the long term,” said Katie Trauth Taylor, CEO of writing consultancy Untold Content. “It serves a somewhat lofty purpose – to harness all the company’s foresight into one impactful statement.”

EXAMPLES

Want to see those conceptual definitions in action? Below are a number of examples to scroll though to see the different ways famous companies communicate their vision.

Google: “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.”

Amazon: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

Target: “Guided commitments to great value, the community, diversity, and the environment.”

Ebay: “To be the world’s favorite destination for discovering great value and unique selection.”

Nordstrom: “To serve our customers better, to always be relevant in their lives and to form lifelong relationships. And while serving our customer face-to-face is the foundation and hallmark of how we’ve historically served them, today customers seek our service in new ways. Speed, convenience, innovation, and personalization have become cornerstones of the customer experience. Guided by these new needs, we continue to invest in the cross-channel experience, combining the accessibility of pure online experience with the high-touch inclusivity of our stores.”

Versace: “To make women and men feel beautiful and empowered.”

BBC: “To act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.”

Netflix: “Becoming the best global entertainment distribution service; licensing entertainment content around the world; creating markets that are accessible to film makers; and helping content creators around the world to find a global audience.”

The Bank of New York: “Improving lives through inclusion, innovation and investing.”

J.P. Morgan: “Aspire to be the best; execute superbly; build a great team and a winning culture.”

Walgreens: “To be America’s most-loved pharmacy-led health, well-being and beauty company.”

CVS: “We strive to improve the quality of human life.”

United Way: “United Way envisions a community where all individuals and families achieve their human potential through education, financial stability and healthy lives.”

Make-a-Wish: “To be able to make every eligible child’s wish come true.”

General Motors: “To create a future of zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion, and we have committed ourselves to leading the way toward this future.”

Tesla: “To create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles.”

Apple: “We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing.”

IBM: “To be the world’s most successful and important information technology company.”

Starbucks: “To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles while we grow.”

Taco Bell: “To grow into the largest fast-food provider of Mexican style cuisine in emerging markets.”

Burger King: “To be the most profitable QSR business, through a strong franchise system and great people, serving the best burgers in the world.”

McDonalds: “To move with velocity to drive profitable growth and become an even better McDonald’s serving more customers delicious food each day around the world.”

ANATOMY OF A VISION STATEMENT

As you may have noticed, most vision statements are comprised of the same basic components. I’ll use our vision statement here at Brand Building for Small Business as an example:

While I have the different parts listed numerically for clarity, the order isn’t important. As you’ve seen throughout the dozens of examples, these components can look very different from one company to the next. All that matters is that you’ve clearly and fully communicated the vision of your company.

VISION STATEMENT GENERATOR

Now it’s your turn. Try creating a vision statement for your business based on the structure below.

Here’s another example for good measure . . .

Have any questions? As always, we’d love to hear from you. Scroll below to the “Leave a Reply” section. Happy vision statement drafting!