1+1: Aligning your internal brand + Branding deep-dive

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Here's one leadership idea and one resource I’ve found beneficial in the past two weeks:

1 idea: Aligning your internal brand

Recently, I was in Ohio training CEOs on how to humbly ask better questions and give better feedback to their people. The event was hosted at City Apparel & Merch, a marketing and branding company in downtown Findlay. As you’d expect from a branding company, their office was beautiful. The industrial brick and glass structure was punctuated by artful neon lights, bold banners, and a golden chandelier. The whole atmosphere communicated tasteful intentionality. If I was a customer walking in the door, I’d instantly have confidence in their capabilities.

I loved that first impression, and it got me thinking about my own brand experience for customers. But the feature that struck me as the most unique and powerful wasn’t about their external brand--it was their internal one. 

As I passed through the office area to find the restroom, I was struck by something I’d never seen on a manufacturing line before: beauty. In the middle of the assembly space stood a wall of greenery that starkly contrasted with the tan and white interior. Presumably set up as a sound-absorbing feature amongst the noisy equipment, it provided warmth in an otherwise windowless room. Squares of green around the exterior also brought life to the space. The neon signs nestled in the middle popped with energy. These few square feet of unnecessary beauty changed the feel of the entire room.

When many leaders think of branding, they focus on the customer experience. Like City Apparel, they carefully craft first impressions that position them as the solution to their customer’s problems. But few go the next step and create an internal brand that aligns with their externally-facing one.

Anni Kramer, the president of City Apparel, knows two things that few other leaders know. The first is that our team members can only provide to others what they’ve been given themselves. If you want to provide exceptional customer service but you treat your employees like trash, that poor experience will bleed into their phone calls with clients. Hurt people hurt people.

Similarly, if you want to provide beautiful work to your clients but your people are starved for aesthetic inspiration, your work will be sub-par. We must pour into others what we want them to pour out themselves.

But the bigger insight here is much less profit-driven. The folks at City Apparel know that our employees are worthy of care and beauty.

Even if decorating a workspace did nothing to improve employee engagement, morale, and retention (which it does), it is a worthwhile endeavor. Caring for our frontline staff is valuable because we should always leave our people better than we found them. When someone moves on from your company, they should be smarter, more capable, and more confident for having journeyed with you. Business can—and should—be a force for good in the world.

These investments aren’t usually expensive, but they do take intentionality and integrity. That’s what makes them so rare and valuable.

As you think about the people who experience your brand, think about all the people—those inside and outside your company. Creating a truly coherent brand experience for everyone not only maintains your integrity—it also provides a competitive edge and a meaningful contribution to the world.

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• What do you want your customers to think or feel toward you?

• How could you translate that brand into your visuals and processes?

• How could you create that same experience for your team?

1 resource: Branding deep-dive

If you want to go to the next level in thinking about your brand, these 35 thought-provoking questions will get you moving in the right direction. 

PS: Napoleon's missing hand? It's his brand.