As business leaders, our job is to make sure the money and resources we invest are going to have rich, multi-layered returns that will impact the success of our company. In other words, we want our investments to be efficient and effective at moving our business forward in as many ways as possible. An investment in branding has the power to do just that. It positively impacts every piece of our business and every stakeholder we have, including our employees, whose contributions can make or break our success.
For the purpose of our conversation, when I say ‘branding’ I’m referring to all the different variations and stages available to us: strategy, creation, development, positioning and messaging, repositioning, redefining, reimagining. All of it.
Now normally when I talk about branding, it’s in regards to identifying a way to differentiate the brand from the competition by harnessing the uniqueness from within and aligning it with consumers’ needs and wants, so that we can create something cohesive, authentic and compelling that allows us to win in mindshare and wallet share. But what I rarely talk about is the power that branding, with all of its strategizing, defining, envisioning, and reimagining, can have on employee morale and engagement.
The potential is enormous. Your investment in branding can have a profound impact on employee morale and engagement because it
Whether it’s a long-time employee with deep company history, a brand new team member with a fresh perspective, or someone in between, being able to contribute to this process allows them to share their perspective, their expertise and their experience. It gives them a chance to be heard and have an impact on something of importance.
There are few things more powerful in the effort to inspire and mobilize a team than having well-defined vision, mission and purpose statements. They can drive culture, fuel passion and provide clarity. These directional statements of where, what and why can harness the imagination and dedication of employees, and provide meaning to the daily ins and outs of the business at hand.
Words matter. And once you have the right words - the ones that capture what the business really does and what really makes it different - employees will have a better understanding of the business amongst themselves based on your new language, which will help them communicate more effectively. This creates a sense of unity, camaraderie and alignment.
The process of branding is invigorating. It injects the company and the teams within with a renewed excitement around the potential of what they’ve been building. Being able to see the potential, to envision an even more successful future, and having the words and visuals that make it real can bring a team to life.
How do things look when you don’t live and breathe a brand? Your team has no idea. They’re on the inside, and perspective is one of the hardest things to achieve when that’s where you are. Bringing in a branding expert to provide an impartial, external perspective gives your team a chance to see the brand through a different lens. It expands their idea of where the company is, how it’s perceived and what’s possible.
The process and product of branding allows your team to become experts on your brand because they are able to more fully understand it, communicate it and live it. When a brand is too squishy or ill-defined, things like words, strategies, and visuals move and shift too fast to feel grounded. Employees want to be regarded as the authorities on your brand and will excel when they are.
Branding doesn’t end when the brand guidelines are finalized. The work of branding is continuing to enforce the consistency and power of the brand itself. For the marketing team, once you complete the branding process, they have the power to really drive brand stewardship internally and externally, consistently advocating for the brand, defending it, upholding it, and living it.
This is what we are. And this is what we aren’t. A little black and white never hurt anyone. In fact, there’s a sigh of relief when lines are drawn and direction is given. Branding gives clarity around what makes you different and what defines you. And whether you never knew before, or you knew it but outgrew it - this clarity will please your team to no end.
There are so many reasons that the hard, top-level, strategic thinking gets put on the back burner - fires to put out, daily customer demands, only so many hours in the day. But with branding, you’ve committed from the top down, which realigns priorities. It gives your team permission to dedicate time and prioritize the thinking and collaborating that would otherwise be skipped over… because, really, who has the time.
At the end of it all, when the words have been written and the fonts and patterns created, one of the greatest, most compelling and powerful things to come out of your branding will be a cohesive team of people who believe in a shared vision of what’s possible and are armed with the tools they need to make it a reality.
