As a business owner or leader, if you can proclaim to have excellent people in the correct roles, all working together and loving what they do, (in other words, you have an awesome culture) then you are doing so many things right!! But did you know that an extraordinary culture can have an impact on tangible business results such as achieving business goals or attracting top talent?
A solid company culture is a proven contributing factor to positively affecting bottom line. Even more, our culture (or lack thereof for many) can define how your prospects and customers perceive and identify with you, often determining how well you’re able to generate and retain new business.
Here’s a reality for so many businesses - you aren’t just selling your company or your product offering, you’re selling your people and hopefully their ability to deliver, service, impress and delight! As business owners, it’s natural to maintain a laser-like focus on branding efforts outwardly and overlook the essential component of ensuring that external promises are well-understood, embraced and executed internally. Your PEOPLE are your secret sauce, the meat and potatoes if you will. You could be sitting on a marketing and promotional goldmine and not even realize it! Creating a culture of brand immersion influences employees to become effective brand representatives and loyal employee advocates, which ultimately has a direct impact on client and customer happiness. After all, there’s no one who knows your company, products, services and values better than the people who work for you!
If you’re not feeling like the collective team of people you’ve amassed have the ability or willingness to be help you solidify a valuable culture here are three ways you can motivate them:
- Share your vision with them: Let your employees know what plans you have for the company and its products/services and keep them informed of your values and goals so they feel included in your long term plan and see themselves as an integral part of your current and future success story.
- Keep them in the loop: With a few financial exceptions, you should never keep secrets from your employees if you want them to truly feel embraced as an asset to your organization. Tell them everything you know that they need to know in order to help run your business. Your employees should understand that they have the ability to help impact the bottom line of the company, and that positive business results equate to career and/or compensation growth potential (or other logical advantages of being an advocate for your company’s success!).
- Reward them for building relationships with customers: Instead of providing commissions for employees who sell something to a customer why not encourage the building and strengthening of relationships, accompanied by rewards for maintaining customer loyalty? This could become a powerful vehicle for employees to use their inner “brand ambassador” if they know they will be rewarded for creating authentic relationships with customers.
When it comes to your brand, there’s no question that you should be doing everything you can to ensure the most positive and polished image possible. Looking internally at the people who can work day in and day out to create and enhance this image, is where it all begins. Not sure how you can leverage your people to become your secret sauce? Find out how Stratus was able to reach this achievement and how your company can do the same by downloading our free guide, How-to Guide for Creating a Company Culture that Can Win You New, Better Business.
