Marketing & Brand Engagement

The 10 Commandments of Change Communications

2011-11-30T08:02:00.001-08:00

Itwas 14 years ago that we first started building our own brand identity. At thetime, many companies faced large-scale process redesign and reengineering programs.Reportedly, close to 50% of those programs were failing, and 80% of the creditwas given to reasons related to company culture clashes. Our thinking? Whatcould we do to help organizations deal with enterprise change and internalbranding?

Whatwe came up with was remarkable. Instead of focusing on external audiences, weapplied traditional advertising and communications planning methods tocampaigns created for associates and employees. We offered organizations new,exciting and relevant ways to involve, inspire and empower their internalconstituencies. By giving their employees a prominent voice, we showed them howto make the desired changes in their companies happen. Employee engagement notonly accelerated internal acceptance but also saved a lot of money and angst.Being able to get the job done in a quarter of the time for half the amount ofmoney charged by a traditional ad agency? Amazing!

Interestingly,there’s not much difference between a company’s employees and their targetcustomer audience, especially in consumer segmentation. The same people whomake Campbell’s^® Soup are also buying it. The key insight here? Manyof the approaches used to motivate external audiences have the same affect on acompany’s own people internally. When you look in the mirror do you see yourcompany’s biggest advocate and customer? Or do you see someone with doubts whodoesn’t have a voice? If you’re missing the spark necessary to move yourcompany forward, it’s probably time to make some changes.

Letme offer you the 10 Commandments of Change Communications, guidelines I believeare essential for a company’s internal branding success:

1). Engage Your People

Employees andassociates want to know they’re being heard. It’s important for them to feeltheir input and efforts are valued by your organization, regardless of how bigor small contributions may be, and they want to be a part of the success, too.

2). Appreciate Effort

Show recognitionto and for the people contributing to the success of your company. Whether theappreciation comes in the form of cash, promotions, awards or a simplecertificate, showing gratitude by acknowledging such efforts goes a long way.

3). Message with Meaning

Keep it relevantand meaningful at all levels. It’s critical for core messaging to be aligned,but a one-message-fits-all approach just doesn’t work. Speak to all yourconstituencies – corporate, business units, field, etc. – in ways that areappropriate and effective in order to achieve your overall goals. Messaging iscritical. Take time to make it brilliant. Once a messaging architecture is inplace, train management on expressing it in simple and convincing ways – stayon point, repeat it frequently and build continuity. Make them believers, andthey become your best brand advocates.

4). Open Communication

If you can hear apin drop in a room packed with people, you’ve got a big problem. Creating acollaborative environment where people can tell stories, share ideas and bethemselves is important. Be open to their humor, laughter and light-heartedconversations. You’ll be amazed by what your fellow employees have to offer.

5). Train. Coach. Repeat.

Like learning,internal branding should be viewed as a life-long process. Designed much likecurriculums used in formal education, you’re not done with internal brandingafter just one exposure. Training and coaching your people until they get itright is critical. Instead of being made up along the way, it should berepeatable and built with content and process that incorporates learningfoundations and principles that are well thought out. It needs to be formal soit can be enhanced year after year, allowing your people to train others sothey can train even more people.

6). Align Communications

It’s difficult tokeep core messaging aligned when multiple departments within your organizationdistribute communications. Avoid the release of conflicting messaging by makingsure everyone, including public relations, advertising, human resources, sales,recruitment and talent branding, is aligned and shares the same goals. Justlike competing messages can create confusion, so can communications withdifferent looks and personalities. Be sure communications are consistent with acommon look/feel, tone and personality as well.

7). Internal Branding Non-Reinvention

If donecorrectly, the internal branding wheel won’t have to be reinvented each timethe evaluation process rolls around. It should be designed to be repeatable,trainable and coachable. Tactics and messages can change with your overallgoal, but the methods and processes used to design and manage your programsshould be constant and able to withstand continuous enhancements.

8). Champion Your Brand Advocates

Use your bestbrand advocates to change the way you spread the news and facilitate informalcommunications within your organization. Allowing these ambassadors to makedecisions within a framework of freedom gives them the platform to championyour cause and help convince others to embrace change. Train them. Nurturethem. Support them. And, most importantly, acknowledge them publicly for doinga great job.

9). Lead the Way

When it’s time tochange your company’s pace, find a face employees can relate to. Choose aninternal brand sponsor, an executive company leader, who should be up to dateon the initiative at all times. In addition to being able to publicly endorsethe plan, defend it when necessary and explain it to colleagues, he/she shouldalso be willing and available to provide support for internal launches,presentations and social media efforts.

10). Embrace Social Media

An effectivesocial media strategy doesn’t cost a fortune, and it’s very efficient forengaging your staff in communication. Don’t be afraid. You can set communitystandards and still provide a framework for freedom of expression without goingoverboard with rules or legal supervision. When positioned properly, the communitiesyou establish will develop all of the content and bring communications to lifein a whole new way.

Internal Branding? What Is That Exactly?

2011-04-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows what a brand is, and everyone knows what advertising is. Some of us may be confused about promotion and merchandising but most have a basic idea, at least, of what they are.

Lately, a lot of people have been asking me about internal branding. What exactly is internal branding? It's definitely a hot topic, on which seminars and workshops are offered all around the country. By my count, seven major internal branding conferences were held over the past year and a half, and we participated in four of them, and even chaired the American Strategic Management Institute's Internal Branding Summit last year, where we heard some outstanding presenters address the topic.

It's hot, but what is it? Very little is written that defines internal branding; so as one of the pioneers of this new branding phenomenon, I decided to pound a stake into the ground with my definition. We have earned the right to do this, because, for six years and more, since we started our firm, we have been promoting the power of internal branding with our Inward Marketing Methodology: we really are the internal branding company.

Before I explain what internal branding is, let me clear up some misconceptions. It is NOT letting your employees know about your new advertising campaign. It does not consist of handing out t-shirts and baseball caps to announce a new strategic initiative, name change or company vision statement. Really, it is not anything remotely like these things.

So what it IS internal branding? Why is it important? When should I do it?

Here is Inward's definition: Internal branding is a cultural shift within an organization, where the employees become more customer focused and more business focused. You achieve this by an organized, communications and behavior driven process, which leads to a desired end state. Meanwhile, at all levels in the company, one big question is answered - "What's in it for me?" After they hear and learn about the internal brand initiative, every single employee should understand what job behavior you expect from them, and how they contribute to the company's success. You need to reinforce the behavior you want, and bring it into line with HR policies, internal communications and corporate marketing efforts and strategy.

Effective internal branding brings huge benefits. Companies whose workforces understand how they operate and make money perform better. Committed employees provide stronger performance and higher customer satisfaction.

Important data that supports this connection between understanding and internal change was released recently. This study (produced, much as I hate to admit it, by our competitor, McKinsey) concludes that change-management programs succeed only when employees at all levels-senior managers, middle managers, and the front line-share the will and the skills to change. McKinsey studied change programs at forty organizations, and found a strong correlation between good skills for managing change and the value an organization carries away from these programs. These skills, I would add, are the product of effective change communications and internal branding programming. The more knowledgeable, convinced and supportive the workforce is, the faster you can implement change. Strongly accepted change is sustainable, and that saves both time and money.

When all is said and done, successful internal branding lifts brand equity, customer focus and ultimately shareholder value. One of our high tech presenters at the April conference shared startling numbers that demonstrated a powerful correlation between internal branding efforts, external branding efforts and shareholder equity. It's all about the facts, the data, the metrics and accountabilities.

So the question becomes, "How should a company do internal branding or Inward Marketing?" Here are some of key elements/best practices we've gathered from studying this topic for the past seven years.

* A brand is a process driven, long-term proposition. Not a deliverable! And so is internal branding.
* Internal branding follows a sequential process; through which employees achieve internal brand success. There is a difference between communicating a message, getting it understood, and changing behavior.
* You must have senior leadership participation and involvement throughout the process of internal branding. You can't delegate this or let the managers drive it.
* Start with a clear company vision and purpose. If you don't have one, work with the senior team to establish one and communicate throughout the company by both words and action.
* Set clear objectives and well-defined roles at the outset, and revisit them throughout the process.
* Consider assigning dedicated people to internal change communication and internal branding. Let them create a sense of such urgency that staff see no alternative to change.
* Conduct an audit of the enterprise understanding of the business objectives and strategy so you can address areas where people don't "get it".
* Internal branding, done well, allows employees to transition from being "Informed," to "Understanding" the information, to becoming "Committed", so that they "Change Their Behavior' in support of the company goals. As a result they should "Receive Recognition & Rewards" and positive reinforcement for changing their behavior.
* Recognize the importance of the customer and all their points of contact with your company: call and service centers, sales associates, statements/invoices, advertising and more.
* Align your brand externally & internally. Let your inside be like your outside: what you say externally should be the same thing you say/do internally.
* Go for participation, consensus and employee dialogue. These work better than edicts and policies that travel down the hierarchy.
* Having "Employee Brand Ambassadors" is critical--involve a cross section of employees from all levels, who will promote the brand internally through experiential communication.
* Obtain metrics and measures before, during and after program implementation. Research your employees regularly and track their progress over time.
* Hard, Simple, Easy - Work hard to make complex concepts and ideas simple, so they are understood and communicated easily.
* Seek outside help from experts and consultants in the field - this is hard work, but with help in methodology and process, it can be done effectively.

If you are thinking about an internal branding program, or need help to create internal support to initiate a program, let us assist you. We have proven methodologies, delivery teams and the thought leadership to lead your company to a much better place. We will also be very appreciative if you share our ideas with others who may be thinking about internal branding, or send them to our website.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Inward

2010-12-21T15:44:00.001-08:00

Happy Holidays from Inward Strategic Consulting

Here's wishing you a very joyous holiday season and prosperous New Year from all of us at Inward Strategic Consulting.

May the Holiday Season fill your home with joy, your heart with love, and your life with laughter.

Sincerely,

Allan Steinmetz
CEO
Inward Strategic Consulting

Take Part in Inward's Second Annual Brand Ambassador Benchmark Study

2010-10-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

This October we are celebrating our 12th anniversary as the single source for Internal Branding. To commemorate and celebrate this occasion we are repeating our Brand Ambassador Survey for 2010 to provide benchmark findings in comparison to last year's results. We are anxious to see if there have been any dramatic changes from the previous year.

Last year, even though employee brand advocacy was the third most important factor in building brand equity according to the ANA, over 68% of the people we surveyed said that their companies did not fully embrace the concept of brand ambassadorship programs to promote brand values and new behaviors to support customer centricity. Only a third (32%) felt their companies fully embraced this idea. And in comparison to the previous year, 25% believed that their companies will invest less time and money for employee advocacy and brand championship programs. These were startling findings in our opinion.

In addition, we learned that very few companies utilize new tactical techniques for engaging employees such as internal Web 2.0 technology, experiential learning, peer to peer recognition, etc.

We would appreciate it very much if you would help us spread this survey link to your colleagues and business associates inside and outside your firm (through your contacts and social networks) as well. The questionnaire is relevant to anyone who works in a company. The more people who participate, the better the findings will be. We have high expectations for a great response.

Click Here To Take The Survey Now:

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e3315kf1gfjz0qqt/start

Lastly, I would like to thank all of our friends, affiliate partners and especially our clients for your continued support and enthusiasm over the last 12 years. We have been fortunate to work with the great clients who have become close friends and sources of numerous referrals. Our first client was Sapient, and we grew to serve many others such as Jordan's Furniture, BD, Pitney Bowes, Campbell's, Patni, Ontario Power Generation, Oxfam, Fidelity Investments, McKinsey, Ericsson, Zurich Financial Insurance, L&T Infotech in India, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Keystone Partners and HP just to mention a few. Thank you all so much for your continued support and referrals. We appreciate you all every day!

Thank you for taking our survey and helping celebrate our 12 year anniversary.

Sincerely,

Allan Steinmetz

CEO

Post Recession Marketing Theory and Practice

2010-08-19T09:24:00.001-07:00

Recently, I came across an interesting research report by Accenture. They completed a study and issued a report called "Onward and Up - How marketers are refocusing the front office for growth. It grabbed my attention for different reasons.

New Market Reality

The research was conducted with over 400 front line CMO's - the findings postulate an idea that customers are weary of traditional marketing channels as a result of the recent economic downturn. They further suggest that as a result of slashed budgets, plus the demand for products and services have been altered as well. To reverse this trend, marketers will need to rethink their communications to address these changes, often with limited or declining budgets. Now that's a challenge! Let me summarize, less loyal consumers, shopping in new ways (getting opinions on line by experts, more comparative shopping, seeking advice from trusted advisors from bloggers, no risk free shipping/no fault returns) seeking more value and quality with fewer marketing dollars to create demand and change perceptions.

Accenture suggests that companies need to address these challenges and must "fundamentally change the structure, skills, practices and approaches of their marketing organization to meet these changing needs - within the same budget parameters or with less." The report continues, for the companies that grew revenue, they described themselves as having stronger abilities in four specific areas; 47% invested in ROI and productivity, 68% achieved above average performance in analytics, 64% achieved above average innovation capabilities and 41% reported effective use of digital channels.

What does that all mean for you?

Customers have changed, whether they were BtoB or BtoC channels, as a result there is a greater need to know and understand who they are and what motivates their buying habits and needs. Don't take your current customer understanding for granted. That means you need to do new research. But with limited marketing budgets - you should consider new types of methods of research, like triads instead of focus groups, conducting studies with fan and customer social communities like LinkedIn and Facebook, relying on digital research channels and panels to gather findings and derive insights.

Seek out best practices and success stories within pockets of your own company and leverage the innovations and broaden the scope to other parts of the company. Never rest on the laurels of the past - but seek out new ways to learn about the customer and adapt new messages/channels to influence their thinking. Share the best practices with the staff through effective internal brand communications and internal social networks. Innovation and fresh ideas can come from anywhere within the company, but it has to be encouraged and rewarded by positive recognition.

Rely of new channels of social media. Overcome the fear that customers might say something negatives about your products and brands. Use the communities to learn, populate fresh ideas on how to think about and use your brands. Understand the role the opinion leaders and influencers and how they can make the difference between having a brand that shines or fails. Recognize the power of bloggers, know who are the ones that follow your business category. Monitor what they say and start a transparent dialogue with them.

Odds are that your budgets will continue to stay the same or shrink some more. Therefore, be proactive and initiate productivity improvement efforts within marketing. Examine organizational redesign within research, brand management, headcount redundancies, brand consolidations, retiring old non-performing brands and their investments. Take the savings and reinvest the money in efforts that have the highest ROI and leverage your limited funds!

Consider new technologies and platforms especially in the area of shopper marketing and wireless applications where marketers can offer instant promotions and incentives to their shoppers when they are actually in the store or online. Macy launched a program this week called Shopkick - They are offering instant rewards to their shoppers on their cell phones for simply walking into their store. Amazing.

Re-evaluate your people and vendors to insure that you are getting the highest levels productivity at the lowest cost. In this economy, people and vendors are tuned on to work harder, smarter and longer than in the past. Are your people and vendors carrying their weight and adding value? If not, consider replacing them with new talent who are hungry, smarter and more ambitious than the ones that serve you today.

If you have additional ideas and thoughts on how to address the new marketing economy, please share them with me. I would love to hear them.

Now that I have challenged you are wondering where and how to start, give us a call. We would love to have a productive conversation with you regarding these ideas and some of the challenges your company or organization is facing. We can share some of the work we have done for our clients to help them be more productive. One thing is for sure, based on this research; branding and marketing as a discipline is going to continue to be challenging and difficult with more pressure put on it. Marketers need to rethink what they are doing, be innovative, be more productive and challenge the status quo. Let's talk soon.

Allan Steinmetz

CEO

Register For Inward's Free Webinar: Transforming Zurich Financial Services Into a Customer Centric Organization

2010-03-09T07:26:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 18th @ 11:30am - 1:00pm EST

Dear YASH,

The financial markets globally have changed forever. In the last year, we have witnessed the decline of confidence on Wall Street, governments taking over institutions, bank failures and insurance company bailouts. It is imperative to get back to basics and demonstrate customer value and re-build trust.

Even before the global financial crises, Zurich Financial Services had already started to transform itself and drive customer-centricity as the core of a successful business model.

We invite you attend our complimentary Inward Webinar with Zurich Financial Services and Femi Macaulay, Group Head of Marketing Operations who will share his thoughts on "Transforming Zurich into a Customer-Centric Organization" and share how a company-wide effort is creating genuine differentiation in the insurance industry.

In his talk Femi will discuss the following topics:

How they embarked on an ambitious research project to understand what drives customer behavior with the goal of understanding how they could shift consumers from merely accepting their insurance firm, to proactively recommending Zurich.

How they arrived at a compelling brand concept building on Zurich's existing differentiated values.

How they launched the most extensive global campaign in Zurich's history in the midst of one of the worst financial meltdowns of all time.

How "Zurich HelpPoint" has become a transformative global communications platform aimed at treating each customer as an individual, not just a policy number, and making it clear that "help is on the way" by delivering when it really matters most.

How Zurich motivated, inspired and enrolled their employees to get behind the program and embrace customer centricity.

Share tangible examples of how Zurich employees deliver HelpPoint when customers need support the most.

About the Speaker:

Femi is an international business and marketing professional with 25 years experience at senior levels in insurance and financial services. He is currently Group Head of Marketing Operations at Zurich Financial Services, a position he has held since 2007. He has two key responsibilities:

Developing and executing a strategy to drive customer-centric transformation within Zurich.

Designing and implementing a Target Operating Model to create a globally aligned marketing organization that helps to deliver the desired customer experience and drive profitable growth.

Previously, Femi was Director of Brand Management at HSBC North America Holdings Inc for 4 years. He worked extensively on leading the implementation of marketing programs to raise awareness of the HSBC brand in North America and drive growth. Femi played a key role in implementing "Your Point of View" and "The world's local bank" HSBC brand campaigns in the US, led the strategic airport brand advertising program and the re-branding of Household International, a major strategic acquisition by HSBC.

Please join us for the free exclusive webinar, where you are assured of learning new and exciting tactical ideas and have a question and answer period with an industry innovator.

Moderated By Allan Steinmetz
CEO, Inward Strategic Consulting

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Join me online at The Conference Board's Webcast: Conference KeyNotes: Extending Your Brand to Employees Energizing Employees to “Own” the Brand

2010-02-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

Conference KeyNotes: Extending Your Brand to Employees
Energizing Employees to “Own” the Brand

Date: February 24, 2010
Time: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET Time Zone Converter

This Conference KeyNotes Webcast will provide highlights of The 2009 Extending Your Brand to Employees Conference (November, 2009). Video footage of two headline presentations will set context for live questions and answers with the presenters.

This webcast will discuss:

Building a brand wise organization at Prudential
Engaging employees in the entire Prudential brand experience
How McDonald’s developed and implemented a global employee value proposition

Panelists:

Carol Robbins, Chief Branding Officer, Prudential Financial, Inc.

Brian Ray, Senior Director, Global HR Design Group, McDonald’s Corporation

Moderator:

Allan Steinmetz,CEO, Inward Strategic Consulting Inc.

Who Should Attend:

Senior executives responsible for branding, brand management, employee engagement, talent management, and employer branding.

Pre-Qualifications to Attend the Webcast:

No prior knowledge is needed to participate in this webcast.

For more information and to register visit:
http://www.conference-board.org/webcasts/upcomingWebcast.cfm?id=2101

10 FREE RESOURCES for your Journey with Social Media in the Enterprise and Employee Engagement

2010-01-25T11:53:00.000-08:00

From PollyPearson.com:

My friend Allan Steinmetz of Inward Strategic Consulting and I just finished a Webcast featuring EMC's story on building an employment brand and engaging employees by leveraging web 2.0 and social media behaviors /tools.

I discussed how the body of work started, our strategic approach, how the brand was built out across multiple mediums and social properties, and how along the way organic brand ambassadors emerged and started making real magic happen.

This topic always draws a large audience and today was no exception.

For those who want to start the social media/Web 2.0 behavior and tool movement at your company, I thought I'd share a few resources which could help:

1st: This white paper, "A Journey in Social Media," by EMC VP and Marketing CTO Chuck Hollis. Chuck was instrumental in this movement at EMC and kindly dedicated his personal cycles to pulling some of our strategic inflection points, key learnings, and approaches together in this white paper. The white paper is marked "draft" and his promises likely typos within it -- no matter, this is GOLD for anyone about to start the journey. It is a superb documentation which should save you a ton of headaches and unnecessary consultant fees. It is also filled with the type of frankness you just don't seen enough in businesss. Like this, which addresses the likely request for a business case, an ROI justification, or another means to counter the concerns of your Chief-Bummer-Executive.

One of our most effective justification techniques tended to be slightly manipulative given our corporate culture. We frequently pointed out to people that -- due to the extremely competitive nature of EMC and our business -- we would not want to be in a situation where our competitors had a significant competitive advantage through social media proficiency that we did not have. People tended to understand that concept in a very visceral manner. ----> I love that explanation! It is very "real world."

2nd: The blog, "Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang." Jeremiah is the top rated analyst in the social media and the enterprise space. He has the top blog on the subject, has been named the top (and most trusted) analyst on Twitter ... and puts out non-stop gems via his Twitter feed and blog.
3rd: The blog, a Journey in Social Media. Chuck Hollis documented EMC's journey over the first year or so on this blog. He doesn't post any longer, but the content is awesome and could answer lots of questions for those companies of this FORTUNE 500-size.
4th: The blog, "Confessions of an eBiz Junkie." It is written by EMC's Web Master -- the guy behind those .com, and Knowledge Management Platforms of the '90s ... which are morphing into the social platforms of the 21st Century. Len has been the guy getting his hands dirty in this technical stuff from the beginning -- and today serves as our head Social Media Strategist as well. Check out his tag cloud on this blog -- that will give you a feel for what he writes about all the time. I think you'll enjoy following his work.
5th: The blog, "Social Media Musings." It is written by EMC's Jamie Pappas, Len's parter in social media strategy and the woman who was chief community manager and chief Road Show Pitch Person at every staff meeting at EMCin the early 2.0 days doing show & tell on how this social network thing worked. Jamie is in the top professional organizations and can give you the inside scoop on worthy and waste-of-time things to consider as you move forward.
6th: My blog, "Building and Branding Careers, Culture and Cool." Hardly a post goes by here where I don't reference the positive transformation evidence at play in cultures, careers, brands, and business strategy as a result of the behavior models and tools in our 2.0 world. This blog provides case studies and stories, along with strategy and reports on our latest thinking with regard to engaging people and building brands.

And for those individuals who are still on the journey of understanding how this all works and getting personally comfortable with the tools and the career benefits, I recommend these resources:

7th: The blog, "Community and Social Media," by Chris Brogan. Chris offers a ton of free eBooks, a free newsletter and a very friendly blogging style which taught me a lot. Now he's a top consultant, and author in this area as well.
8th: The "blog roll" of every one of the above blogs. This is generally a list, listed on the right or left rail of the blog, of the favorite blogs these authors read. Poke around in there. See who these people are following.
9th: Twitter. Sign up and then leverage Twitter Lists or Twitter Search and type in words like "Social Media." Follow the pre-populated lists of people who write about that subject. Save Twitter, or a more robust version like "Tweet Deck" on your desktop. Visit it a couple times a day -- like when you need a stretch from email. See what content the gurus in this space are attaching, forwarding, and talking about. You'll be up-to-the minute in no time!
10th: Google Reader. This is your new daily newspaper and on-line mentor for how this world works. You pop all these blogs onto this one space, set it as your home page, and experience the learning start to happen! If you have an internet-enabled mobile device, be sure to bookmark your Google reader so you can have your "newspaper" with you where ever you go!

Okay, that's 10 Free Resources that will get you smart in no time. I'm talking about 30-60 days if you dedicate just a little bit of time each day on your Google Reader (it will also suggest blogs to you as well, based on who and what you show an interest in!), and on your Tweet Deck. You'll learn even faster if you join the discussions, post a comment and -- horrors -- start a blog.

For those who have a decent Gen Y dynamic at play in your company, here's a bonus:

#11: Personal Branding Blog. Get in the head of the 2.0 movement via this blog's 20-something leader, author, speaker, and career counselor, Dan Schawbel. Dan has been my reverse mentor and chief cheerleader in gaining a hands-on experience in this space. I encourage you to get a reverse mentor of your own (someone of any age or rank who gets excited about this subject and clearly seems to 'get it.') Until you get that person, subscribe to Dan's blog. It is loaded with fresh research and insights and shows you how this 2.0 world can put a brand, including a personal brand, on steroids.

EMC Free Webinar - Social Media and Employee Engagement

2010-01-13T06:57:00.000-08:00

Friday, January 22nd @ 2:00 pm - 3:15pm EST

Learn How to Use Social Networks to Build an Internal Brand:

EMC, one the world's leading IT products and services firm has successfully tackled the challenge of creating an employee platform using social media and leverage their internal brand and culture.

Hear first hand how EMC:

Transformed internal branding and employee engagement while reducing costs and improving effectiveness

Drove culture change and built a social/business collaboration among employees

Influenced of purchasing decisions in all markets

Provided early warning system for negative and positive opportunities

Provided market intelligence and barriers to entry from competitive threats

Demonstration of the EMC brand in action

In my opinion, EMC has created one of the BEST INTERNAL EMPLOYEE SOCIAL WEBSITES I have come across called Global/One. We are fortunate to hear from EMC's VP of Employee Brand & Strategy Engagement, Polly Pearson who will share her journey of development and companywide acceptance.

Their goal was to build relationships on a one-to one "personal reference" level amongst staff and the corporation with virtually zero-budget toward branding.

Over the last three years it has become the driving force behind a cultural shift in a collaborative environment that is spurring innovation, global collaboration and solutions that solve client's problems.

It has created social media "rock stars" within the company who are becoming recognized leaders for their blog writings as the go-to opinion leaders who people respect and follow for their thoughtful ideas and inspiration.

This exclusive presentation as our way of bringing the best and smartest practices to our friends and clients and to start the year off with a positive learning experience.

About the Speaker:

Polly Pearson is a communication and branding leader as well as a professional public speaker. She has applied these skills in several leadership roles relating to corporate image such as investor relations, public relations, corporate marketing, brand, advertising, human resources and as communication counsel to CEOs.

Today she leads the CEO's goal of transforming EMC into a Best Place to Work, and engaging EMC's global workforce with the company's Information Infrastructure strategy and opportunity. She's bringing forward new offerings for employees in the realm of Web 2.0 technologies, flex time, healthy living, mother's programs, career mobility and wealth creation. In addition, she founded and leads the EMC Employment Brand Office which markets EMC as a best employer globally, leveraging compelling messaging, social media and the voice of EMC people.

Please join us for the free exclusive webinar, where you are assured of learning new and exciting tactical ideas and have a question and answer period with an industry innovator.

Moderated By Allan Steinmetz
CEO, Inward Strategic Consulting

Quick Links

Visit Our Website

Marketing & Brand Engagement Blog

Connect With Us On LinkedIn

Follow Us On Twitter

Contact Us

Free Webinar:

2010-01-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

Social Media & Employee Engagement @ EMC with Polly Pearson, Vice President Employee Brand and Strategy Engagement

Friday, January 22nd @ 2:00 pm - 3:15pm EST

Learn how EMC tackled the challenge of creating an employee platform using social media and leverage their internal brand and culture.

Agenda:

Using Social Networks to Build an Internal Brand:

Hear first hand how EMC:

Transformed internal branding and employee engagement while reducing costs and improving effectiveness

Drove culture change and built a social/business collaboration among employees

Established brand presence on emerging social platforms

Built relationships internally on a personal reference level

Influenced of purchasing decisions in all markets

Provided early warning system for negative and positive opportunities

Provided market intelligence and barriers to entry from competitive threats

Demonstration of the EMC brand in action

Social media applications are being deployed within corporate cultures as a medium to facilitate effective change/communications to the same degree that Facebook and LinkedIn are having an impact on consumer community building. Corporate social media is now being used to unify, and establish collaboration, create innovation, solve global client problems, establish corporate standards across large multinational corporations and the list goes on and on. In my opinion, one of the BEST I have come across is Global/One @EMC

Here are a few poignant examples of how EMC's Global/One Social Community has made a difference.

Their goal was to build relationships on a one-to one "personal reference" level amongst staff and the corporation with virtually zero-budget toward branding.

This exclusive presentation as our way to bring the best and smartest best practices to our friends and clients and to start the year off with a positive learning experience.

About the Speaker:

Polly Pearson is a communication and branding leader as well as a professional public speaker. She has applied these skills in several leadership roles relating to corporate image such as investor relations, public relations, corporate marketing, brand, advertising, human resources and as communication counsel to CEOs. For more than fifteen years Polly has worked on behalf of EMC Corporation, a B2B high tech company that leads the market category for on-line information management and storage. EMC is a peer to Cisco, Microsoft, Intel and Oracle and is one of the ten most valuable information technology companies in the world.

Polly became the first woman at EMC to be promoted to Vice President at EMC. She has worked directly for two of the company's CEOs and well as working closely with EMC founder and Chairman Emeritus Dick Egan in the realms of global investor and public relations.After more than a decade in investor relations, Polly led the company's corporate marketing functions covering brand, research, globalization, web portal, field publishing and global event management operations for three years. In this role, she launched EMC's Information Lifecycle Management strategy to the marketplace. She also led EMC's brand strategy during a time in which EMC invested nearly four billion dollars to acquire numerous companies including VmWare, Documentum and Legato.Polly joined Human Resources in 2005 to help launch the company's Total Customer Experience program.

Today she leads the CEO's goal of transforming EMC into a Best Place to Work, and engaging EMC's global workforce with the company's Information Infrastructure strategy and opportunity. She's bringing forward new offerings for employees in the realm of Web 2.0 technologies, flex time, healthy living, mother's programs, career mobility and wealth creation. In addition, she founded and leads the EMC Employment Brand Office which markets EMC as a best employer globally, leveraging compelling messaging, social media and the voice of EMC people.

Please join us for the free exclusive webinar, where you are assured of learning new and exciting tactical ideas and have a one on one question and answer period with an industry innovator.

Moderated By Allan Steinmetz
CEO, Inward Strategic Consulting

Internal Branding Series & Employee Engagement Series

2009-12-29T14:18:00.000-08:00

Fourth and Final Internal Branding Thought Leadership Piece

Here is our fourth and final installment in the series on Internal Branding/Employee Engagement. In our last email, we discussed our framework called Inward's Internal Dialogue Marketing™ Framework, which takes the theory and makes it practical. In this email we will spotlight Inward's Brand Alignment Process - How to Operationalize the framework into four phases and creation of an execution/tactical plan.

Inward's Brand Alignment Process - How to Operationalize the framework into four phases

Our process is a four-phase engagement with multiple steps. The four phases are:

Phase 1 - Setting direction, conducting research among the company's associates/employees

Phase 2 -Internal Dialogue Marketing Planning and Training Curriculum Development (Communications Strategy)

Phase 3 -Tactical Implementation Planning and Design

Phase 4 - Implementation Launch & Roll out, Measurement

Within each phase are a series of sequential steps. These steps have a wide variety of activities and deliverables that become dependent on creative ideation, scope of work, budgets, timeline, etc. In addition, the processes and steps should be customized to the company's internal branding requirements and unique culture.

Internal Brand Challenges

Having a codified process is not enough however. A company must anticipate the internal brand challenges in advance and be prepared to address them. Here is what we believe are the critical success factors that should be incorporated into planning an effective four phase tactical plan.

Acknowledgment and recognition that internal branding is a process, rather than a deliverable. It requires sufficient planning, implementation, maintenance and patience to transform an organization and align with new brand values and behavior.

CEO commitment of time, resources, budget and patience by identifying the internal branding initiative as a high priority strategic imperative so that the company can become more responsive to the needs of the customer and their own employees by re-dedicating itself to the company's brand vision.

Clear statement of corporate vision, mission and values, as well as proper alignment with the brand, HR processes, effective communications, training, incentives and recognition/rewards.

Benchmark measurement and tracking of associate/employee awareness and understanding of what the "brand and desired behavior" are, and how it affects their performance and on-the-job behavior.

Apply continual process improvement procedures by reviewing and adjusting tactics to ensure message/creative continuity for maximum efficiency and impact.

Having a recognizable (branded) internal brand initiative that associates/employees understand and talk about by use of creative metaphors, symbolism, storytelling and anecdotes. It should be obvious when it is working properly. People will get it.

Designing an integrated internal branding program that is engaging, fun and easy to understand, and that remains relevant by involving everyone in the process through brand ambassador programs, peer-to-peer recognition and incentive programs.

Establishing a recognizable and active brand ambassador program where employees promote customer centricity and satisfaction at every customer touch point.

Summary

So there you have it. Internal Branding is an organized, outcome-driven approach to get to a desired state while continually answering the question ...

"What's in it for me?"

Companies must work HARD to make the working environment relevant and important to every employee through SIMPLIFIED relevant communications, so that they change their behavior and know what to do to reinforce positive customer experiences every day, which makes it EASY to live up to the corporate brand values and external brand promises.

The company's employees are its brand. Employees must be educated, motivated and inspired about the customer experience - and realize the power personally. It doesn't happen naturally.

People deliver the brand promise - when they don't, there is brand breakdown.

It is about the customer experience and how associates/employees perform their jobs, as well as personal behavior in support of positive customer experiences.

We are eager to share our ideas with you and your staff. If you would like us to come by and conduct a half day seminar or webinar, we would be happy to do so. Just give us a call and we can set it up.

We hope you have found our four part series educational and helpful. Please be sure to pass the series on to your colleagues and friends inside and outside the company. Also we invite you to visit Inward's newly redesigned Web 2.0 website where you will find numerous thought leadership pieces and white papers. Also you can sign up and become a member of our Inward community.

Thank you again for your time and support. We also welcome your comments so drop me a line.

Sincerely,

Allan

Internal Branding Series & Employee Engagement Series

2009-12-29T14:09:00.000-08:00

Third of four installments. Keep an eye out for the whole set.

Here is our third installment on Internal Branding/Employee Engagement. In our last email, we discussed internal branding by sharing an easy to follow model called Inward's Internal Communications Model. In this email we will spotlight our framework called Inward's Internal Dialogue Marketing™ Framework, which takes the theory and makes it practical.

Inward's Internal Dialogue Marketing™ Framework - making the model come to life

Our codified framework is designed to be a practical consensus-based process designed to move employees through four phases of tactical communications with specific outcomes and goals in mind.

First is informing the organization through experiential tactics using simple value messages, such as all-hands meetings, emails from the CEO, screensavers, Post-it note pads, embedded videos via e-mail, employee brand book, internal advertising campaigns and direct response using dimensional items, periodic podcasts by the CEO that can be downloaded to cell phones and iPods, etc. It is important for the tactic to be aligned with the message. Often companies make the mistake by giving out premium tee shirts and baseball caps that have no meaning at all with the message they want to convey. Choose a tactic that has meaning to the overall message and desired behavior.

Second is gaining employee understanding through curriculum and training programs that teach individuals what is at stake and how to adopt new behavior. These could be video games, classroom workshops, puzzles/games, online tutorials and workbooks/collateral, in-store training sessions, regional managers meetings, with incentives and rewards attached, etc. Don't assume that if the employees know about the brand, that they understand the brand. The education process is a critical step.

Third is changing behavior by conveying specific messages that result in personal commitment. This happens by implementing peer-to-peer recognition programs and appraisal systems aligned to the brand values and new behavior. It can include creation of local, regional and international brand ambassador programs that will create surrogates and internal brand advocates. The HR group should also play and active role in setting annual goals, appraisal programs and managing the feedback to employees.

Fourth is to reinforce behavior through implementation of companywide recognition, incentives and reward programs. Some sophisticated tactics could include an internal social Web 2.0 website with relevant content/messages regarding the initiative that identify people who are living the brand, updates from senior management, a dialogue (asked the CEO) exchange with transparency, 'living the values' blogs, peer-to-peer recognition and reward programs, tutorials/training online, contests and incentives, employee of the month, online/off-line prize/premium incentives, mystery shopper recognition programs, etc. More simplified ideas are employee of the month/year programs, special bonus pools, etc. The main idea is to recognize people for doing the right thing.

When these four phases are planned and executed sequentially with a strong creative metaphor idea and common messages; directed to the right audience at the right time with the right incentive - a company can achieve powerful alignment and behaviors that they could never have imagined.

AFC/Tellabs - Case History

Before - AFC, after a long, thoughtful process, repositioned itself with a new external brand marketing communications program built around a new theme called "AFC - The Acronym for Access". This new brand represented a significant departure from their former positioning which was old-fashioned and engineering centric. The new branding, which was young, spontaneous and smart required all employees to adopt a new attitude and behavior to support the program. Inward was hired to help plan and implement a comprehensive internal brand communications with their ad agency. The plan was designed to inform and educate the staff about the change, as well as incent and reward employees to embrace new behavior that was consistent with the new brand of values.

After - Inward, in close consultation with the client and their ad agency, established an internal communication architecture/platform to explain why the company was embarking on such a dramatic program. Once the message architecture was complete we created an experiential communications program that was engaging, entertaining and relevant to their intellectual/engineering needs. It resulted in an employee population that was supportive and enrolled behind the brand with new behavior and attitudes towards the company and the marketplace as a whole.

The creative included an experiential launch event at an art deco theater, as though it was a movie premier, with all the gala accoutrements of a red carpet for employees, look-alike celebrities, spotlights, ushers who were senior management, playbills and the feature presentation - the new ads. This was followed by departmental training and signed commitment posters for each department. By examining their employee population, they learned that the majority of their workforce had young children, so they created a bed-time story-book about the new brand that could read to their children and learn about it themselves. In addition, we established a brand ambassador program where any employee could be quizzed about the brand by a designated roaming brand ambassador and if they got the answer right, they received a stamp in their brand passport, which were also distributed to all employees in advance. Once filled with passport stamps from the brand ambassadors, employees could redeem the passport for valuable prizes.

The result, in the end, was that the employees really got behind the brand and started to live the new values to distinguish it from the competition. They understood their company's role and how their individual efforts could contribute to the success of the company. After substantial market success and a growing stock price, the company was acquired by Tellabs just before it implemented the last phase, a post-campaign, all-hands employee recognition and reward program.

Summary

If you would like to discuss the model in greater depth, please let me know and I would be very happy to walk you through the steps and make it relevant to your company.

In our next email, you will receive a spot light on how to operationalize the framework into an action/delivery process called Inward's Brand Alignment Process.

We hope you are enjoying the series and encourage you to save the emails and forward them to your friends and colleagues.

Sincerely,

Allan

Internal Branding Series & Employee Engagement Series

2009-11-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

Second of four thought leadership pieces - Keep an eye out for the complete set

Here is our second installment on Internal Branding/Employee Engagement. In our last email, we discussed internal branding by simplifying the complexity of the theory into; 1) an easy to follow model called Inward's Internal Communications Model, 2) followed by Inward's Internal Dialogue Marketing™ Framework, and 3) operationizing the framework into an action/delivery process called Inward's Brand Alignment Process.

In this email we will focus on Inward's Internal Communications Model specifically.

The model recognizes that effective communications and change requires a sequential order - funneling through the hierarchy of effects which informs employees, educates them regarding how well they personally understand the consequences of the brand, gaining their commitment to adopt the brand into their attitudes/opinions, and finally to be recognized and rewarded for outstanding performance aligned with brand values and behavior.

Secondly, these steps must correspond with a variety of cause/effect related and sequential tactical media and programs, such as broadcast corporate messages, training and workshops, peer-to-peer recognition and HR appraisal systems aligned with the brand values and, finally, rewards for living the brand values and adapting new behavior. Each tactic builds on the previous step to achieve greater personal relevancy.

Thirdly, as employees filter through a media hierarchy funnel towards recognition and reward, there must be correspondent message architectures (Hierarchy of Relevance) that inspires the employee with personal relevant messages, delivered in such a way that it becomes valuable in their lives and daily behavior. This is often referred to as "WIIFM" (What's in it for me?) This is achieved through a message architecture process, whereby we create highly relevant/valuable corporate messages - why is the company doing this? Next comes a highly relevant individual message delivered from the local level --why is this internal branding important for me as an employee? Finally, an individual message given by the manager or supervisor to their employee that conveys what new behavior or attributes the employee must embrace in order for them to adopt new behavior - what does the company want the employee to do differently as a result of this new internal brand knowledge, and how will the employee be rewarded?

Fourth, to round the model out, we recommend that when speaking at the value level, communications should come from corporate and be distributed in a common fashion company-wide. When distributing the message at the regional or local level or segmented employee level, the message should be at the benefit level and address their segment's needs. Finally, when speaking to an individual one-on-one or in small groups at the attribute level, the message should come from their direct supervisor or office/store manager/HR. No matter what the message is, or the form it is communicated in, there should be continuity of look, feel, tone and manner to convey one vision, a common purpose and one set of brand values and behavior.

This sequential order contributes to employee engagements and higher productivity and support for major corporate-wide strategic change to adopt new behavior.

If you would like to discuss the model in greater detail, please let me know and I would be very happy to walk you through the steps and make it relevant to your company.

In our next email, you will receive and spot light on making the model practical with Inward's Internal Dialogue Marketing™ Framework - making the model come to life.

We hope you are enjoying the series and encourage you to save the emails and forward them to your friends and colleagues.

Sincerely,

Allan Steinmetz
CEO & Founder
Inward Strategic Consulting
asteinmetz@inwardconsulting.com
617-558-9770

Internal Branding Series & Employee Enagement Series

2009-11-11T12:37:00.000-08:00

Internal Branding and Employee Engagement Series

A Bit of History

Inward practically invented the concept of internal branding 11 years ago, this month, when we formed our firm to help educate, motivate inspire and enroll employees to support major change initiatives like reengineering, new brand launches and strategic M&A’s.

We were encouraged create the firm by the late Michael Hammer. Dr. Hammer who founded the reengineering movement in the late 80s/early 90s realized that unless you get your key stakeholders engaged and enrolled behind change, the likelihood of a corporate transformation was less likely to occur. So while I was the SVP, Worldwide Director of Marketing and Communications at Arthur D. little, I formulated an "Inward Marketing" methodology that would encourage employee buy-in and engagement through a sequence of persuasive communication techniques. I tested these ideas with a major pharmaceutical company that had made a recent merger and global acquisition that needed to enroll the employees of the combined company with a common vision mission and values. That experimental engagement turned out to work immensely well. Our credo at that time was, “Corporations have to educate, motivate, inspire and engage their people for the company to achieve its strategic results”. We still believe in this credo today.

Moving Forward

We are proud to say that we most likely are the first to recognize that employee engagement and internal branding can improve performance and enact cultural change. Because of our history and thought leadership, we have been able to invent and codify an internal branding model and framework that works. We engage employees to become involved in our process. In addition, we established the industry definition for internal branding which has become the category standard.

Inward’s Definition of Internal Branding

Internal Branding is an organized, outcome-driven approach to get to a desired state

while continually answering the question …

“What’s in it for me?”

Companies must work HARD to make the working environment relevant and important to every employee through SIMPLIFIED relevant communications, so that they change their behavior and know what to do to reinforce positive customer experiences every day, which makes it EASY to live up to the corporate brand values and external brand promises.

• The company’s employees are its brand. Employees must be educated, motivated and inspired about the customer experience — and realize the power personally. It doesn’t happen naturally.

• People deliver the brand promise — when they don’t, there is brand breakdown.

• It is about the customer experience and how associates/employees perform their jobs, as well as personal behavior in support of positive customer experiences.

Simplifying the Complexity - Establishing three theoretical steps

We approach internal branding by simplifying the complexity of the theory into; 1) an easy to follow model called Inward’s Internal Communications Model, 2) followed by a framework called Inward’s Internal Dialogue Marketing™ Framework, and 3) operationizing the framework into an action/delivery process called Inward’s Brand Alignment Process.

Watch for our Internal Branding/Employee Engagement Series

Over the next few weeks, in celebration of our anniversary, I will be sending you additional emails devoting specific thoughts, ideas and examples of our theory to illustrate the how it all works together. Keep an eye out for it.

Lastly, I have to say thank you for all your support, encouragement and business all these years. We would not be a success if it weren’t for our devoted clients and friends.

Sincerely,

Allan Steinmetz

Internal Branding Challenges and How to Overcome Them

2009-10-05T08:32:00.001-07:00

Quite often, and even as recently as last week, I get asked the question, "What challenges do you anticipate within the company when launching an internal branding effort and what strategies have you used in the past to overcome similar ones?" Well I decided to write them down and share them with you. Here are Inward's "Top Ten Internal Branding Challenges and Pitfalls."

There will be many pitfalls and challenges that most companies will have to overcome to have a successful implementation. Here are some of the challenges we have had to address over the last 11 years that get in the way of a successful internal brand program.

Challenge: Overpromising through external brand advertising without preparing employees to deliver on the customer expectations as a result of lackluster communications, training, recognition/commitment and rewards systems.

Solution: Companies have to address this challenge by implementing effective communications and training programs that orientate and prepare employees before the external campaigns are launched and incentivize and teach them what is expected in their behavior.

Challenge: Failing to integrate brand-building initiatives with other internal efforts. Often internal branding is an afterthought and part of the external marketing program.

Solution: Internal branding needs to be integrated with other corporate-wide HR, process redesign and strategic planning initiatives by demonstrating how individual brand behavior and values can contribute to the success of corporate wide strategic initiatives and not just the advertising alone.

Challenge: Over-relying on external communications to build the brand-driven organization. When the organization employs multiple thousands of people it is easy to communicate the message to employees through mass advertising.

Solution: Internal branding is a process-driven approach that incorporates training, peer-to-peer recognition, alignment of appraisal/assessments, as well as rewards. Internal branding cannot be delegated to pass through advertising alone.

Challenge: Over-relying on internal communications that is the same for everyone, everywhere to motivate employees.

Solution: Here, too, the company must recognize that an integrated communications program and experiential communications and dialogue are necessary to inspire people to change their behaviors. It often requires different messages, different media directed to different audiences, while keeping the original intent the same. It is not about one off communications. It is about process and integration of tactics with common design/themed elements that build on one another over time.

Challenge: Not enlisting support from senior management, operations, manufacturing, sales & marketing and HR to overcome cross organizational barriers.

Solution: In order to have an effective internal branding program, senior management, marketing and HR have to be "attached by the hip" and partner with marketing/communications. They will need to reconsider changing their business processes for appraisals, feedback and incentive compensations so that they are aligned with the brand values.

Challenge: Not backing up internal branding with sufficient planning and resources.

Solution: Often we see that internal branding is thought of as a tactic rather than a process. Therefore, insufficient resources and money are not budgeted to maintain a sustained program over time. We recommend allocating a third of resources and budgets to planning, a third to tactical rollout and a third to maintaining the program for at least three years.

Challenge: Going overboard so that employees perceive the internal branding initiative as corporate brainwashing, over the top, flamboyant, costly tactics/events can also counter the brand's message.

Solution: Here, too, there has to be the right combination of tactics, messaging and symbolism to gather the attention of the rank-and-file so they can realize that the initiative is for real and not just another "one off" that people will forget about in a month or so. You need a proper balance of message and tactics.

Challenge: Over-depending on IT to disseminate brand knowledge sharing.

Solution: The new buzz phrases are webinars, Web 2.0, social networking, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The list goes on. All can be facilitated by IT, which is wonderful. However, technology innovations and applications still need content that can be leveraged. And messages and creativity need to have the desired impact based on clear objectives and goals.

Challenge: Not changing employee performance measures to be aligned with brand behavior.

Solution: It is not enough to realign all of the other components of an effective internal branding program and not realign employee feedback/appraisals and incentives, too. At the end of the day people are motivated by an inspiring message and incentives/rewards that demonstrates that the company is serious.

Challenge: Changing behavior is a slow proposition and does not happen overnight.

Solution: Clear expectations of results, as well as patience and sufficient delivery timelines are important requirements so that management understands expectations, deliverables and changing behavior over time. A great mentor of mine once reminded me, "Sometimes you have to go slow before you can go fast".

So if you are planning an enterprise internal branding effort or change communications program to engage employees to change their behavior, heed our advice. Or just call us. We specialize in marketing strategy development, change management, internal branding, change communications, market research and all forms of qualitative research. After 11 years in business there is no challenge we have never seen. Let us help you overcome the challenges. If you would like to learn more about this topic visit our all new web site at InwardConsulting.com.

If you would like to share your internal branding challenges, add your thoughts to our community dialogue on our web site, drop me a line or call.

Happy Fall!

-Allan Steinmetz

Inward Celebrates 11th Anniversary With Launch of New Website

2009-09-14T08:46:00.001-07:00

I am pleased to announce we are celebrating our 11th Anniversary. On reflection, a lot has changed in the 11 years. Here are just a few things we have observed:

We witnessed the meteoric growth and rapid decline of the dot com boom

An Increased interest in the learning organization

Expansion of employee advocacy and customer centricity

We saw the decline of mass advertising/sponsorship towards a shift to online brand presence

In-store shopping marketing has become a sophisticated tool with rigorous analytics and econometric measures

More recently, we have witnessed the Internet evolve from Web 1.0 to 2.0 with the explosion of social networking and building of online communities. This growth has established iconic brand names such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace

Marketing power has shifted to the consumer with strong community advocacy and online buyer power, blogging and endorsements

All these developments at first appeared as fads with a short lifespan. But that didn't happen. At Inward, we see all these marketing phenomena as sequential events that have generated incremental productivity, efficiency and effectiveness at managing marketing and brands. We believe that each innovation leads to the next and this created a plethora of abundant marketing methodology, processes and tactics that has made marketing and branding better for the future.

In celebration of our 11th year in business we are contributing to the evolving nature of marketing and internal employee advocacy with a totally redesigned Web 2.0 website. You can now join our community dedicated to being the single source for internal branding by logging on to InwardConsulting.com .

You will see valuable information, numerous cases histories, tutorials, interactive discussions, as well as access to my blog, numerous videos and thought leadership from industry experts and so much more. It represents a totally new look for us and puts us on the cutting edge of internal marketing community building and thought leadership. We see it as our 11th year celebration and contribution to the marketing/branding of thought leadership.

Please send me your thoughts and ideas on how we can improve our site by joining our community and building an abundant mentality about internal branding and employee advocacy. Also, feel free to e-mail me directly with your thoughts and comments. I am eager to hear from you.

Lastly, thank you all for your continuing support as we enter our 11th year in business. We are nothing without your encouragement, business and friendship. While these past 11 years have certainly been both terrific and challenging, I wake up every day doing something that I am passionate about and enjoy very much. Thank you for that opportunity.

-Allan Steinmetz

Internal Branding? What Is That Exactly?

2009-09-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

New Innovations in Marketing Leadership Councils

2009-07-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

Introduction: What Is a Global Leadership Council?

A Global Leadership Council consists of successful, principle-oriented company CMOs. These leaders, visionaries, and marketing-change proponents demonstrate a powerful commitment to the betterment of marketing across their organization. The Council’s purpose is twofold: to enroll, inspire, and align programs and services for marketing units, and to share best practices to increase efficiencies.

Creating a More Strategic Role for Marketing: The Greatest Challenge

One of the greatest challenges today is to transition marketing from a purely tactical to a more strategic role. With respect to new product development in particular, the need is acute. Marketing must do a better job of identifying unmet needs in the marketplace, offering competitive intelligence, and then assuring that new products are relevant and solve real customer problems. This last objective, identifying the “voice of the customer,” is particularly important and often lacking.

When marketing is only involved at the tail end of the process, with a rather limited charter to make products seem desirable to the target audience, chances are that there won’t be a desirable product to market.

There are several areas of great interest to global corporations for CMOs to explore in frequent Council meetings, including the major themes and trends outlined below.

Setting Mission and Vision

One of the Global Leadership Council’s first activities must be to draft and achieve agreement on the group’s mission and vision as well as establish guidelines for participation and responsibilities. Clearly defining who is responsible and empowered for what types of actions or decisions is critical. Inward Strategic Consulting recommends a Visioneering™ Session, a facilitated workshop to create team-wide mission and vision.

A key topic these days for any marketing organization is accountability in all of its facets: brand value, advertising effectiveness, promotional payout, etc. Equally important is quickly building an apparatus that measures marketing and advertising impact with speed and efficiency, and has credibility with the entire senior leadership team.

Reviewing Marketing Operations

Another timely topic for the Council is to address its own marketing operations. How does the Council compare to peers and best practices, and how can its effectiveness be increased? An industry benchmark study would shed light on this topic.

Going From Selling-In to Selling-Out…Internal Branding is Important!

A major leadership challenge today has to do with employees. Many executives are asking a single over-arching question:

“How do we get the most out of our people so that we achieve the company’s profit and long-term growth objectives?”

We’re not just considering marketing people here but all employees—from the executive councils to mailroom operations and security desks.

The concerns and worries from marketing executives with regards to the employee challenge generally fall under five categories:

1. Inspiring and Influencing: This point relates to the executive’s leadership skill itself, the ability to command attention and respect, to draw and inspire followers, and to motivate them towards a vision and a goal.

How do we instill in our people the same degree of enthusiasm and commitment that we have for the company’s vision and mission?

How do we encourage employees to commit to “stretch” goals, and how do we help them achieve these goals?

How do we inspire our people to come to the office filled with energy and enthusiasm, ready to take on all the possibilities and opportunities that the day presents? How do we turn our company into a humming, thriving hive of human activity where great ideas pour forth in endless succession amid the din of competing voices and laughter?

2. Teamwork: Executives are faced with the challenge of bringing together people with different backgrounds—academic, technical, cultural and ethnic, political and religious—and getting them to work as a team. This challenge takes on gargantuan proportions in multi-category global settings where executives must lead international teams from several disciplines towards a common goal.

How do we channel all the intellect and energy coming from so many sources into a single focused beam?

It’s hard enough to get consensus from a few talented and outspoken people sitting around a conference table. So how do we do this with a hundred people from a dozen countries? How can we get them all to talk as one?

And then how do we get these people to act as one? How do we do it without over-centralization, without slowing down speed-to-market, without dampening individual and local initiative?

How can we improve our use of technology for this purpose? And can we do it without losing the human element?

3. Innovation: Competitive pressure—not just from players within the same industry but from other wholly unexpected sources—has made innovation an imperative to corporate survival. The challenge many marketing managers face is promoting innovation, especially in those large and successful organizations whose key executives indulge, paradoxically, in feelings of complacency and false invulnerability.

How do we drive our people to think out of the box? We need scientists who can tweak molecules into breakthrough product formulations. We need production personnel who can consistently make on-standard products at the least cost possible; marketers who can magically differentiate our brands from the competition’s. Advertising, PR, and promotions agencies must be able to thrust our brands in the face of consumers and communicate our message in provocative and memorable ways. Salespeople must place our brands wherever our consumers shop, merchandising them in ways that cannot fail to grab attention.

How can we train our people to think more like entrepreneurs? How can we get them to ask the question: “If this were my own business, what would I do if I was faced with this situation?”

How do you encourage risk-taking? How do you push people to the edge and give them the courage to jump and find out if they can fly? What if they have a fear of flying?

4. Customer Service: With most competing products offering comparable performance, often the differentiating advantage belongs to the company that gives the best customer service.

How do we motivate our front-line people to give the best customer service? To provide the most memorable and delightful experience possible, so that customers cannot help but rave and refer us to their friends?

Likewise, how do we motivate back-office and support teams to help the front-liners in this goal of turning customers into raving fans?

5. People Retention: Many marketing managers are very concerned about the painstaking process and huge cost of screening, hiring, and training people.

How do we attract the best people in the industry? How do we create a reputation among top university graduates and practicing professionals that our company is the industry Mecca for job challenge and empowerment, compensation and benefits, and skills development?

How do we retain people once they’re in? What environment—cultural and physical—should we create that will encourage them to stay? What is the optimum pay and perks package that will satisfy and keep them from considering a move to another company?

How do we help our people keep a proper work-life balance, prevent them from burning out, and ensure that they receive support for what they do at our company from the people who matter to them most—their families?

Focusing on Customer Service/Experience (Through the Brand)

CMOs have similar concerns about the teams they manage:

How well is the team integrating product solutions that will provide a seamless experience for the customer, not just our customers?

Does the team have a collective view of who the customer is?

How much do team members know about the health of a well-known brand in each of their markets? Often there is confusion between brand salience and brand comprehension. This could be a particularly important distinction if customers have been affected by the recent mortgage meltdown.

How well does the team understand the online channel for customer acquisition and customer management? How about strategies for developing alternative business practices, such as collecting payments in developing countries?

Sharing Success Stories

Sharing success stories and pinpointing strategies that can be leveraged in other geographies have major benefits, helping break down two common syndromes:

"Not invented here."

"They didn't come up with it/pay for it, so why should I share what I did? Will I get the credit?"

Identifying Internal Experts

Identifying the internal experts and best-practice centers for various skills and topics creates a framework for networking internally.

Assessing Competitive Intelligence

A fairly accepted practice is anticipating the next moves your global competitors are likely to make against you and run an exercise where you actually try to beat yourself. In other words, think like your competitors and create products, strategies, programs, and processes to out-compete yourself. This excellent exercise forces you to leave your own comfortable thinking and assumptions and look at your organization and offerings from your competitors' point of view.

Using Analytics, Measurement, and Web 2.0

Here are three issues for the Council to consider:

Use marketing analytics to improve marketing ROI and reallocate resources to reflect this mission. Marketing automation should also be explored.

How do you collectively measure success? Measurement is important! While it has always been on the agenda, it has definitely risen in significance over the last few years. And, if nothing else, measurement can extend a CMO's tenure in these days of "24-months-and-out" thinking on the part of CEOs.

There is a lot to share and learn in of all the Web 2.0 activities. Many interesting topics for discussion and analysis can be generated by looking at trend forecasts, such as demographic/firmagraphic and World Future Society.

Playing War Games and Simulations

Take time out and think of your company as the competition to yourself:

Examine your strategy. Conduct an exhaustive analysis the same way you do when you plan a new marketing program against your traditional competitive set.

Reexamine your key unique differentiation, personality traits, leverage points, and messaging platform.

You’ll come up with some fresh ideas that can be implemented as brand extensions and product innovations.

Conclusion: What’s next for the Global Leadership Council?

In summary, Global Leadership Councils are a wonderful way to incorporate best practices, communicate with peers and your marketing groups, leverage existing talents inside the organization and instill a sense of openness and communications within marketing departments. When they are done right and led from the top, they have the potential to instill change and inspire leadership from all employees.

We hope you have found this thought leadership piece insightful and helpful to your marketing challenges that may lie ahead. If you would like to chat with us about your specific marketing/communications issues or would like Inward to help you build a Global Leadership Council, give us a call or email us at any time. We’d be happy to brainstorm unique solutions for your specific situation. If you have any suggestions for future thought leadership topics you would like to see addressed, please let us know and we will do our best to provide you with information that best focuses your challenges.

Regards,

-Allan

Inward's Brand Ambassador Survey Results are In

2009-06-10T12:56:00.001-07:00

I am very excited to share the findings of our first Brand Ambassador Survey. We had a good response which yielded some dramatic findings and surprises. Here are a few top line flashes, however we suggest you click on the link below to review our full whitepaper analysis and call us to schedule a personal in-depth PowerPoint presentation on line.

While employee advocacy and brand ambassador programs are considered to be a strong leading indicator of brand equity, two thirds of our sample feels it is not endorsed or embraced fully within their companies. That is amazing.

The biggest surprise was that despite employee brand advocacy being a high contributing factor to brand equity, only over 68% of the people we surveyed said that their companies did not fully embrace the concept of brand ambassadorship programs that formally promote brand values and new behaviors. Only a third (32%) felt their companies fully embraced this idea. And in comparison to the previous year, 25% believe that their companies will invest less time and money for employee advocacy and brand championship programs. These are startling findings in our opinion.

The second big news headline is that in addition to not embracing brand ambassador programs, few companies are effectively deploying process and tactics successfully within their company.

Respondents cite not having a sophisticated tactics in place, lack of process or integrated plans, limited resources, lack of senior management support and generally an uncoordinated program that does not have an orchestrated goal and objective in sight. We know from our experience that the best employee advocacy companies use social networking and Web 2.0 platforms have highly engaging company wide training programs, and integrated HR appraisal and recognition rewards systems. They also employ groups of people who are charged with the responsibility of championing and promoting the corporate brand promise. The survey results indicate that these techniques are not being deployed in large numbers.

Very few companies according to our survey are relying on an integrated internal communications platform or process and only utilize limited effective tactics to achieve employee brand advocacy.

In the detailed analysis, we provide our top ten take-a-ways that will help you design and measure an effective employee brand ambassador program. The prescription for success is addressed in a simple fashion so that all internal communication professionals can achieve greater success with their brand ambassador programs.

Please click on the link below to see the analysis and order a detailed report. Also, call us to schedule a personal presentation appointment on line. In the near future will be having an on line webinar presentation as well, so keep an eye out for our announcements.

http://www.inwardconsulting.com/docs/Brand-Ambassador.pdf

Last but not least, thank you to all the people who participated in the survey. You helped contribute significant insight to our learning community of Brand Ambassadors.

Happy Reading!

-Allan Steinmetz

Take Our Brand Ambassador Survey

2009-04-06T13:22:00.001-07:00

Over the last 10 years we have been asked what represents best practices in internal branding and brand ambassador programs. To this end, we have decided to embark on a significant study of companies and their employees to determine the commitment and measurement of organizations that have invested in internal branding and brand ambassador programs. The results will be disseminated to all the people/companies that participate in the study. The results of the study will provide insights as to current best practices and the extent that brand ambassador programs are being implemented and managed properly.

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2i0sl2eft7g71n9/a007ft7iy2k3/greeting

Inward defines Brand Ambassadors as "Employees of an organization that embody the brand values, culture and behavior that provide great customer experiences and positive perceptions that exemplify the brand image of the company. Brand Ambassadors activities can be exemplified through their corporate knowledge, promoting and communicating ideas to peers and customers, changing personal behavior and attitudes supporting the brand and recognizing and rewarding colleagues for their proper actions and behavior."

We invite you to take this ten minute survey. In addition, we kindly request that you help us forward the questionnaire to as many people as possible, through your social media networks and communities (LinkedIn. Twitter, Facebook), among colleagues, friends and relatives and through list serves you may be part of. The questionnaire is relevant to anyone who works in a company of any size. The more people who participate in completing the survey, the better the findings will be.

Our goal is to have as many as 2000 participants complete the survey.

Many thanks in advance of your participation. After taking the survey, drop me a quick line and tell me what you thought while going through the questions. I am always interested in your feedback.

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2i0sl2eft7g71n9/a007ft7iy2k3/greeting

Happy Spring!

-Allan Steinmetz

Using Social Media to Promote Your Internal Brand

2009-03-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

Lately, it seems that every time you open a newspaper, read a blog (a blog is also a social media app) or surf the Internet there is someone commenting about social media applications, such as Facebook, MySpace and more recently Twitter. Social networking Web sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, now attract more than 100 million visitors (the most recent stats I have seen say Facebook has 175 million users and MySpace has 110 million) a month and are valued in the billions of dollars. Those statistics are staggering.

The past four years has proven social media is no longer an Internet phenomena but rather something that is here to stay that drives innovation, collaboration and unleashes human potential. It brings people closer together to create abundant conversations around topics that range from consumer topics like pregnancy to business topics like production throughput.

From a consumer perspective it has created an environment where the collective knowledge of a group is leveraged to the benefit of the individual user. For instance, I recently joined Facebook, because my son posted some photographs of a recent trip he took with his wife. As soon as I joined I was inundated by friends, relatives and old acquaintances that requested that I befriend (term is "friend" them ("befriend them" - I didn't even know that was a term until two months ago). My first reaction was how much time do these people spend on the sites? When I started digging deeper I realized it wasn't just for passing gossip and reconnecting with acquaintances, I realized that real knowledge on a variety of subjects is being conveyed.

Social Media Applications Work For Business Too

Some of the most popular consumer social media are real people promoting their own views and sharing with others who have similar interests such as Moms talking to Moms, gamers communicating with gamers or political junkies talking to whomever. A simple Google search of blogs on your favorite topic will yield limitless results. The same can be said for business topics:

Blogs: A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. Check out the Inward Consulting blog as an example: http://inwardconsulting.blogspot.com/. We use Twitter to allow our readers to follow what we are doing every day. http:twitter.com/shteinman.

Social Media: Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies that is intended to facilitate communications, influence and stimulate interaction with peers and with public audiences, typically via the Internet and mobile communications networks. Sites such as LinkedIn, and even Facebook and MySpace are very useful in disseminating and collecting information. Check out my LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/43/333.

From a business/professional perspective I have been a member of LinkedIn from its inception (at least four years ago) when a professional colleague who I respect asked me to join his LinkedIn group. At the time I had no idea what I was doing, why I was doing it or what benefit I would derive from making these connections? However, if my professional colleague made that request I couldn't deny him. Over the four years I've come to realize that it indeed is a very powerful tool for business development, asking probing questions and receiving advice, and finding talent for filling vacant positions

The referrals I receive through LinkedIn are substantial and have benefited the growth of our company in many ways. More importantly, I have been able to expand my relationships with people all around the world, in several networking groups to clients and friends in ways that I would otherwise rarely have a means to communicate with them. I now have 289 connections and 28 recommendations. If you would like to join my network, send me an email invitation, or let me know and I will invite you to join mine.

Using Social Media to Promote Your Internal Brand

To take it one step further I started to investigate how the aforementioned social media applications are being used within corporate cultures as a medium to facilitate effective change/communications. What I found was amazing. I found that social media is now being used through corporate platforms to unify, and establish collaboration, create innovation, solve global client problems, establish corporate standards across large multinational corporations and the list goes on and on.

Here are a few poignant examples:

EMC has an internal social platform called Global/One:

Their goal was to build relationships on a one-to-one "personal reference" level amongst staff and the corporation with virtually zero-budget toward branding.

IBM has created a similar platform called Beehive:

Beehive is an internal social networking site that gives IBMers a "rich connection to the people they work with" on both a personal and a professional level.

The Beehive team created the site to help IBM employees meet the challenge of building the relationships vital to working in large, distributed enterprises today.

The team is also exploring if Beehive can help IBMers discover people with common interests or the right skills for a project, whether learning more about someone -- either personally or professionally -- facilitates making contact, and to what extent it entices people to learn about ongoing projects and activities beyond their immediate team.

Google uses social media tools as a reporting mechanism:

The company's engineers use blogs and wikis as a way to report work progress.

Managers stay abreast of their progress and provide direction by using tools that make it easy to mine data on workflows.

Engineers are better able to coordinate work with one another and can request back up help when needed.

Pixar has a video wiki for animation collaboration:

The company started with text based-then moved to video based wikis to share information about films in production and to document meeting notes.

Once the system was installed, critique lead to increased efficiency and faster film development.

Change Management Mindset

Social media advances are getting so much attention that McKinsey recently conducted a analysis and assessment of what major corporations were doing and what some of the impediments and obstacles were that were preventing more wide scale participation in social networking technologies. The result of their analysis was reported in the February issue of McKinsey Quarterly.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Six_ways_to_make_Web_20_work_2294

In summary there are six initiatives/ideas that are promulgating effective use of social media. McKinsey sees it as a major development within corporate cultures with potentially higher success factors in comparison to the CRM and ERP initiatives of the late 90s. It is not just a timely phenomenon that will likely pass with time, but rather a rules changing paradigm shift that will dramatically change how companies will compete and conduct business. Some of the items they suggest are as follows;

The transformation to a bottom up culture needs help from the top. Social media channels need senior leaders using it as an example to gain credibility and traction. Senior executives need to become role models and lead through informal channels for it to catch on across the board.

The best uses come from users-but they require help to scale. Applications that drive the most value through participatory technologies often aren't those that management expects. When management chooses the wrong uses, organizations often don't regroup by switching to applications that might be successful.

What's in the workflow is what get's used. Adopt social media as part of the daily work routine-not just something extra on the side.

Appeal to the participants egos and needs-not just their wallets. Recognize and reward employees' positive participation in social media experiments publically. Like EMC, shower contributors with public praise, make them "Rock Stars" and reward their enthusiasm, acknowledging the quality and usefulness of contributions.

The right solution comes from the right participants. Getting the right audience to participate is critical to the quality the social media channel. Select users who will help drive a self-sustaining effort (often enthusiastic early technology adopters who have rich personal networks and will thus share knowledge and exchange ideas). And be committed to create collective value.

Balance the top down and self management of risk. A common reason for failed participation is discomfort with it, or even fear. In some cases, the lack of management control over the self-organizing nature and power of dissent is the issue. In others, it's the potential repercussions of content-through blogs, social networks, and other venues-that is detrimental to the company. Make sure the content and participants in any social media channel are managed and expectations are set so there is a balance. Include all stakeholders in the discussions to resolve potential issues before they arise.

As all the current thinking suggests, there are major employee mind set adjustments and change management communications requirement with implementing an effective social media strategy inside your company. Change management communications were also required during initiation and launch of reengineering and process redesign in the mid 90's and CRM systems after the millennium. If you don't motivate your people to embrace the new technological change by educating them, by demonstrating how the change is relevant to their lives/jobs, the acceptance/adoption of new habits will never occur and your firm will fall behind on this new technological social media movement.

We have put together a timely PowerPoint tutorial explaining the trends with advice on how to get started. If you would like us to set up a time to review that with you and your team or would simply would like a copy, reply back to this email. Also at Inward, we are curious how social media is changing the rules of engagement, so if you have stories from your own experiences and ideas to share with us please reply back to this email as well.

So jump into this new social media world. You can decide to dip your toe into it or your whole body. Let us help show you the way. We have the skills, strategic relationships with some of the best social media designers, strategists and technologists around and the change management communications capabilities to insure your success.

Internal Branding? What Is That Exactly?

2009-03-09T08:34:00.001-07:00

Internal Branding Canada Conference Workshop

2009-01-23T07:54:00.000-08:00

I wanted to let you know that I will be facilitating a workshop at the “Internal Branding Canada Conference: How Branding And HR Communications Drive Employee Engagement And Improve Your Organization's Bottom Line,” March 30-April 2, 2009 in Toronto, Ontario. This conference will focus on how to create brand champions and advance your organizational goals. Since I am participating in the conference, and you are one of my valued blog readers, you can save $200 by mentioning email code "SPK" when registering.

My workshop topic will be:

“A Step-By-Step Framework For Implementing New Internal Branding Processes For Organizational Effectiveness:
How To Operationalize Employees To Understand, Be Motivated, Inspired And Engaged Through Effective Internal Branding, Messaging And Fresh Creative Ideas”

For more information or to register, see below or click http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/internal_branding0309/index.htm to go to the conference website.

Hope to see you there!

-Allan

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Internal Branding Canada:

How Branding And HR Communications Drive Employee Engagement

And Improve Your Organization's Bottom Line

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

March 30-April 2, 2009

Link to the detailed conference agenda:

http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/internal_branding0309/index.htm

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SPECIAL PROMOTION:
---------------------------------

Register by February 12th to lock in EARLY BIRD rates and save your organization’s budget $400.

In addition, mention EMAIL CODE “SPK” when registering to get an extra $200 discount.

RAVE REVIEWS from Past Conference Attendees:

"I loved the practical examples. All speakers were great with real stories to share that I could relate to. The voluntary networking sessions were FANTASTIC – well orchestrated across the lunch, dinner & cocktail hours and incredibly worthwhile."
--- Brand Manager, MD FINANCIAL

"All the speakers were excellent. I learned something new from each one. The participants were excellent as well - fully engaged, shared experiences, etc. The best conference I have ever attended."
--- Internal Communications, DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE, GOVERNMENT OF CANADA

"I have learned so much over the past two days! I'm anxious and excited to apply some of these lessons to my communications plans."
--- PR Manager, Graphics, COREL CORPORATION

"I have no problem recommending your future conferences to co-workers and executives."
--- Inspector, OTTAWA POLICE SERVICE, ONTARIO, CANADA

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For more information or to register:

*******************************************

Call: 773-695-9400 x1

Online: http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/internal_branding0309/index.htm

Inward Strategic Consulting Announces A New "Talent Branding" Practice to Coincide With Its 10th Anniversary

2008-12-12T10:07:00.001-08:00

Inward Strategic Consulting Announces A New "Talent Branding" Practice to Coincide With Its 10th Anniversary

New partner Jeff Cordes to drive practice and joins Phil Hornthal in the Chicago office

READ JEFF'S NEW ARTICLE ON DRIVING RESULTS THROUGH TALENT BRANDING!

Boston, December 11, 2008. Inward Strategic Consulting, an international internal/external brand, communications, and market research firm, is proud to announce on its 10th anniversary the launch of a global Talent Branding practice. Attracting and retaining the best talent is a strategic imperative for organizations that strive to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

In making his announcement, Allan Steinmetz, CEO and founder of Inward Strategic Consulting, said, "Without doubt, one of the more important issues we hear about from our global clients is how to effectively communicate with their staff to ensure their loyalty and long-term retention while recruiting the best and brightest in the marketplace." The Talent Branding practice compliments Inward's internal branding, external brand, team alignment, and market research capabilities. According to Steinmetz, "With this service line we can finally help clients integrate all their brand initiatives, from their recruitment and retention messages to external marketing and advertising efforts, with their internal brand. We now have all the component parts to provide a full-service suite that senior HR and marketing executives require."

Inward's Talent Branding practice will be championed by Jeff Cordes, a seasoned, highly recognized talent-acquisition professional. Jeff is the President of talentRISE LLC, a full-service recruitment outsourcing and talent optimization company. Prior to talentRISE, Jeff launched and was the Managing Director of CareerBuilder.com's global talent acquisition consulting division. Jeff has more than two decades of experience with such companies as IBM, Home Depot, and Ryder Logistics. Jeff was also Chief Talent officer for Xpedior (an Inward Client), Apropos Technology, and NCI. At IBM Global Services, and James Martin, he led the recruitment and HR consulting practices.

Steinmetz continued, "I have been aware of Jeff for several years and would often ask his advice and counsel informally. Now, to be able to have him as a partner and to offer his capabilities to clients directly makes me feel complete. Jeff's credentials and experience will help clients deliver results, especially in today's economic environment where managing talent is a priority. He is a terrific person and a gentleman who truly cares about employees and will add substantial value to our clients HR issues."

To help launch this new Talent Branding practice, Jeff Cordes has written a thought leadership article discussing the components and integration of successful employment branding.

Please click on the following link to read this insightful thought leadership:

http://www.inwardconsulting.com/docs/Talent-Branding-Drives-Results.pdf

The new Talent Branding practice will be located in Inward's Chicago market, where Jeff will work closely with Phil Hornthal, Managing Director of the Chicago market. Hornthal continues to provide a full suite of capabilities within the area. "Phil's integrated marketing and strategy experience, coupled with his sports marketing knowhow, makes him an ideal choice to expand our presence further in the Chicago market," explained Steinmetz. "Phil has the right strategic insight and creativity combination that clients appreciate."

Phil has worked for some of the most prestigious and respected consulting firms in a variety of integrated marketing roles. At Accenture (then Andersen Consulting), he was a member of the worldwide marketing group that served the consulting-practice area and marketing director of the Central Region. At AT&T, Phil helped launch a new consulting practice; generating qualified leads and revenue for the AT&T Solutions division. He also worked in sports marketing sponsorships, sales and marketing leadership training, and experiential-event marketing.

"I am very excited Jeff is joining me to partner in the Chicago market. I've seen how Inward's participatory workshops help organizations accomplish their objectives. Adding Talent Branding brings incremental value to our suite of brand offerings," said Hornthal. "I'm looking forward to continuing growing Inward's presence in Chicago with Jeff's and Allan's help. We will become a critical resource for Chicago-area companies with recruitment, external branding, internal change communication, marketing organizational alignment, and market-research needs."

Jeff can be reached at jeffcordes@inwardconsulting.com or (630) 561-7390. Phil is at phil@inwardconsulting.com or (312) 560-9000.

ABOUT INWARD STRATEGIC CONSULTING
Inward Strategic Consulting has offices in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Orlando. The company specializes in marketing strategy development, change management, external branding and internal change communications, and now, talent branding. Inward also offers a full suite of qualitative and quantitative market research including benchmarking, employee brand/engagement surveys (called ChangeFX), and best-practices research. The firm conducts both public and private workshops and training. To learn more about Inward, please go to www.inwardconsulting.com.

Stop The Negativity

2008-10-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

There's no question about it. The unpredictable rise in energy costs is having a dramatic impact on every industry and every individual. For both service providers and customers, it is causing frustration, tight budgets, lost jobs, and escalating pricing. But most of all, in my opinion, it is affecting how employees and customers are reacting to the circumstances and treating one another. Companies must address this and reverse this negativity to preserve goodwill and create loyalty.

Companies need help reversing this negativity to preserve goodwill and create loyalty. Employee marketing programs and behavior need to be closely coupled with external consumer marketing programs. It's long past time to retrain employees how to treat customers. Whatever happened to "the customer is always right" and "say it with a smile"?

Airlines: the best (or worst!) example

The airline industry is probably the best example of this negativity, causing havoc among the consuming public, shareholders, and airline employees.

Like many of you I am a frequent domestic and international traveler. We have all witnessed angered customers and ticket agents coming close to throwing punches, impatient gate agents curtly corralling customers like cattle (no eye contact, no thank you, no have a nice flight), baggage claim managers who laugh at customers with lost luggage woes. Perhaps most startling of all, we overhear flight attendants, right in front of customers, badmouthing their own employers for a lack of appreciation. Employees wear strike buttons and tell customers that the airlines don't know what they are doing.

And airlines don't make it easy on their employees. JetBlue's recent announcement that the airline will charge passengers $7 for a pillow-and-blanket kit, even though it comes with a $5 coupon to any item from retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond, will be a tough sell for flight attendants.

"Replacing our old, recycled pillows and blankets with this state-of-the-art, high-quality take home kit is an eco-conscious, health-conscious and customer-conscious decision," is how Brett Muney, general manager of product development for JetBlue, spun it. "We are constantly seeking ways to enhance the in-flight experience for our customers, and providing them the option to purchase the world's cleanest travel pillow and a fleece blanket at an affordable price delivers on that promise."

State of the art? Customer- and eco-conscious? World's cleanest? Does JetBlue really think we're falling for this self-serving line? It's painfully obvious the airline figured that charging for pillows and blankets would add incremental revenue to the flight, plus reap a bonus by blending the charge with a promotional coupon through a sponsor. Flight attendants will have a tough sell ahead of them, and the negative effect of trying to sell this program to passengers affects the attendants' ability to be positive brand ambassadors. I bet the whole idea will be abandoned when JetBlue gets an all-too-predictable backlash from its customers.

Are your customers, employees, and shareholders facing a similar situation?

Confidence is broken in the airline business on all sides. There is an urgent need to instill employee engagement and reverse this unfortunate situation. Many will ask, how can you afford to do this in an era of cost cutting and unexpected oil-price increases? My question, however, is this: How can you not address this urgent situation and make your people brand advocates and emissaries for what you need to achieve? Companies who recognize that employees are the face to the brand and manage effective internal communication and advocacy provide an incremental 19.5% shareholder value, according to a recent Watson Wyatt study.

Inward Strategic Consulting is a leader in successful change management and behavioral communications. We help companies transform their employees into customer advocates and change their behavior to support brand values. The experiential methods we have designed are creative, and they work.

If you and your team would like to learn how to achieve internal and employee branding that changes behavior and wins over your own people, please contact us. Put a stop to the doom and gloom by recognizing that your people are the face of your brand, and that their behavior needs realignment.

A Tribute to Michael Hammer 1948-2008

2008-09-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

The business world lost one of its best and brightest business gurus this past week. Dr. Michael Hammer unfortunately passed away at an early age as a result of a devastating brain bleed. He was a visionary who shaped the reengineering revolution in the late 90s with his book "Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution". He was a counselor and mentor to many of the most successful CEOs and helped countless corporations improve performance and efficiency while attaining the highest levels of quality and throughput. He trained armies of thousands of people through his public workshops and training programs with a focus on process redesign and organization transformation. His ideas and processes touched many.

On a personal level, Michael was a dear and close friend of mine as well as professional mentor. Ten years ago at a Labor Day BBQ at my home, he encouraged me to establish our firm and create a proprietary approach to engage and enroll employees around change, effective communication and process redesign. He said at the time, "That unless companies motivate and inspire employees to accept change, the company will never be successful at obtaining buy-in and accelerated performance." Indeed, in a 1996 interview with the Wall Street Journal, he admitted that he and other reengineering proponents hadn't paid enough attention to people. "I wasn't smart enough about that," Dr. Hammer said, "I was reflecting my engineering background and was insufficiently appreciative of the human dimension. I've learned that it's critical." After the millennium, he often talked about the importance of employee buy-in and acceptance of change suggesting focusing on the advocates of change and the eradication/elimination of the opponents of change.

He was the brightest person I have ever met with a wide variety of interests and curiosities. He enjoyed antiquities, ancient maps, modern architecture and design, global exploration to his far off places and Jewish biblical scholarship and study. He was a pillar within our close community and a very generous yet private philanthropist. Most of all he was a loving husband, father and a good friend. I will miss him dearly.

-Allan

Forrester Research Confirms Value of Customer Advocates

2008-08-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

Recently, Forrester Research embarked on a groundbreaking research project on transforming employees into brand advocates. As part of its due diligence, several company executives, academics, and industry thought leaders were interviewed. I was fortunate enough to be included and spent an hour with researchers over the phone. The results of the report are further proof and acknowledgment, through major case studies, that companies can successfully use employees as their brand advocates.

Forrester interviewed a number of experts besides me from consulting firms and academia as well as marketing executives from organizations representing telecommunications, hospitality, airlines and healthcare. The report said that "Marketers spend significant dollars to promote their brands. However, if employees aren't aligned with and rallied around that brand, then delivery of the brand promise is broken, leading to suboptimal customer experiences, missed opportunities for brand differentiation, and even customer defection. A first step in building internal brand advocacy is the assessment of the current level of brand engagement of employees. To help this assessment process, Forrester provides a framework to segment employees into four groups based on their level of brand advocacy: brand resisters, brand learners, brand believers, and brand advocates." ("Stimulate Employee Brand Advocacy", Forrester Research, Inc., April 2008).

Through its Leadership Board programs Forrester's clients leverage a combination of proprietary research, analyst expertise and the collective wisdom and experience of their executive peer group. Turning Employees into Brand Advocates is just one example of the ways in which senior marketers have benefited from their participation in these communities. To learn more about Forrester, the Leadership Boards and view some of our research briefs, please visit http://www.forrester.com/Leadershipboards/CMOGroup.

How Inward Can Help

The independent report from Forrester Research hit our sweet spot - at Inward, we are pioneers in creating successful programs that inspire employee brand advocacy and enable it to thrive and prosper. We'd welcome the opportunity to chat with you about your current issues and advance your plans for putting a proper employee brand advocate program in place. Let us share with you our internal-brand credentials presentation, and Change FX - our Employee Engagement Measurement tool, with a demonstration including several case histories and best practices.

If you would like to see either of these presentations created by Inward, please let us know and we can arrange an on-line demonstration for you and your staff.

Enjoy the rest of the Summer!

-Allan

Hard /Simple/Easy

2008-06-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

Over the past few years I have talked with many CEOs, Marketing Directors and HR Directors regarding their greatest assets and challenge, their people. In each instance, I am told that all the process redesign, organizational transformations and technology innovations that were planned in the new millennium are nearly completed. But despite the monetary investments and the ensuing internal chaos created, the anticipated payoffs are not having the large payout everyone expected.

When their plans worked successfully, it was because their people, not software or technology that implemented the innovations, and embraced the change. People are making the difference.

They cite the critical factors to be:

An effective understanding what the change is all about
Communicating a relevant message explaining how employees should adjust their behavior
Introducing new fresh experiential communication ideas for gaining their attention and buy-in

Sage advice; "Hard/Simple/Easy" - Paul Hingham, the retired CMO of Wal-Mart Stores once spoke at our regular Inward Breakfast Forum in Boston. In his talk to over 75 senior business executives from notable companies throughout New England, he said something very profound that has stayed with me ever since. He conveyed an idea he called "Hard/Simple/Easy."

He explained that Wal-Mart executives realized early on that they had to work "hard" to make complex concepts "simple" so that employees throughout the organization could understand what was expected of them and change their attitudes and behaviors accordingly to support an idea. He said getting processes to be simple may be very difficult at first and may take a long time. However, when they do get to where it becomes "Simple", everything gets "Easy". "People understand "Easy" a lot more than "hard"", Hingham says. "When it becomes "Easy", its like cheating!" Everything falls in place. The employees, the company and customers, through the employees, know what is expected of them and what to expect from others. Work happens faster. People know how they will be judged. Employees are happier and customers are more satisfied. Quality improves. Profits go up. It becomes a repeatable cycle that revolves and gains internal momentum with each turn.

Business executives have a responsibility to improve enterprise efficiency and effectiveness and grow revenue while reducing costs. (Sounds hard, right?) The complexity of attaining this goal can be extremely difficult for even the "best of the best" executive. All of us need to work "Hard" to make complex processes "Simple" so that all our efforts become "Easy". The first step in this formula is recognizing the importance and power of employees as important assets who need to get on board and support the strategy just as much as you do.

If you want the productivity and growth investments you have made to pay off, you need to combine the idea of recognizing the importance of your people as assets with the notion of Hard/Simple /Easy. Sometimes getting through the first step is also hard if you have never done it before and therefore many companies need help. If this is something you would like to learn more about, drop me a line and I'd be happy chat with you on how to get started.

Regards,

-Allan

India Vs. India

2008-05-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

Last year we helped a major Indian conglomerate re-brand itself for a global launch. It involved multiple visits to on site locations in India, but with each trip comes a new learning lesson. Visits to exotic places are always full of intrigue and anticipation: But since I had been to the region before, I knew what to expect. Or so I thought.

But on this trip I was stunned by a dramatic integrated advertising campaign launched by the Times of India, called India vs. India. The Times kicked it off on New Year's Day, on the front page. That's right; no news appeared on that morning's front page. This was followed by major, spectacular billboards and posters, which appeared everywhere, arriving overnight as if by magic. Next came a parade of Indian celebrities who endorsed the "Anthem" (as they called this) on TV advertisements. This was a highly orchestrated campaign that quickly became celebrated, espousing the idea that there are two India's, working against one another and preventing India from being the global power that it ought to be. It was a call to arms to unite around the idea of one India, to be progressive, to heal the country's divisions, and to look toward the future. The thought was summarized with a tagline: India poised-Our time is now.

The copy reads like poetry. Here are a few lines.

There are two India's in this country. One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been showering recently upon us. The other India is the leash. The other India says, give me a chance and I'll prove myself. The other India says, Prove yourself first and then maybe I'll give you a chance. One India lives in optimism of our hearts. The other India lurks in skepticism of our minds. One India wants. The other India hopes. One India leads. The other India follows.

It's powerful copy.

As an American, after seeing this campaign unfold, I couldn't keep myself from wondering whether this idea is just as relevant here. Do factions and discord within our political and business arenas hold us back from becoming even greater than we are now? Is it time for the marketing and media community to do something as dramatic as India vs. India to unite the country or its industry around a common purpose and a vision of the future?

My thoughts then wandered over to our marketing industry. Can we make an India vs. India comparison? Do we even have unity around the value of marketing? Are clients and agencies/PR firms on the same page? Who is the "leash" and who is "straining the leash" in our industry? Clients seem to concentrate on growth, attracting new customers and growing market share, while agencies and-yes--even consulting firms, frequently focus on creative ideas and new technologies. They often win awards, but do little to attract new clients. Some of them are fixed on the almighty 30-second TV commercial, while others on rely on interactive internet marketing. Are we suffering from Marketing vs. Marketing?

The answer, in my opinion, is marketing integration. Marketing should never be exclusively one thing or another. It should do whatever it takes to solve the client's problems and unite around that solution. Use all available techniques, media, creativity and technology to help the client's business grow and improve its market share. That does not mean simply doing what the client wants, but providing new ideas, insights and perspectives, no matter what creative medium might be used.

No more Marketing vs. Marketing. It's time for Marketing AND Marketing.

Is it time to examine America vs. America? Or marketing vs. marketing? Please send me your thoughts. Let me know your opinions on this topic and let's see if we can apply the same logic to our business and political culture.

Happy Spring!

-Allan

Culture Clash

2008-04-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Recently, I read a shocking piece of business news in the Boston Globe.

An article reported 81% of executives surveyed believe their people work in isolation from the rest of the company because of negative manager attitudes that cause friction between departments.

Why is this a surprise? Anyone who has worked in a large cross-functional organization knows this is the way it is today.

The American Management Association, who sponsored the study, went on to report that:

59% blamed their corporate culture for preventing departments from working together
50% said some units place their own priorities ahead of employees goals, resulting in friction
When asked what the most pressing problems they have faced because of isolations; 74% mentioned wars between managers 72% pointed to lack of cooperation, 60% said power struggles; 51% said putting unit goals ahead of company goals.

I believe this cultural clash, a direct result of senior management mistakes, causes the loss of productivity, reduces employee retention, contributes to loss of profits and efficiency, and ultimately produces poor customer experiences.

Why does this occur? Because management takes employee commitment for granted. They expect employees to act and behave in accordance with the interests of the company, but it does not work that way. In fact, according to recent Gallup survey, 80% of employees are minimally committed to their company’s goals.

So what should companies do about this epidemic problem? Here are our specific actionable solutions.

The senior management team must articulate the culture and behavior that is expected within the company through a process called Visioneering. It starts with personal vision that grows into a team vision and blossoms into a corporate vision, with defined action steps and deliverables. (Take a look at our site for details or give us a call)
Management must reinforce the behavior with personal, team and corporate accountability for their actions. Deviant behavior and lack of collaboration should never be tolerated. The credibility of the company is at risk and is more important than individuals.
Inward Marketing is necessary to communicate the change experientially so that employees see the message as relevant to their jobs. They need to understand what the consequences of effective cultures can achieve.
Recognition and Reward programs that celebrate successes. Celebrate actions that focus on customer interaction, positive experiences and wins. Do not focus on internal strife and negative cross-functional behavior.
Measure behavior and actions through employee research with the help of Inward’s ChangeFX. It will illustrate success and failures by different employee groupings and offer prescriptive diagnostics for improvement.
Segment your employee populations just like you would an external marketing campaign. Do not allow the message and the medium to be the same for everyone. People react differently and comprehend messages in their own way.
Plan, execute and reinforce the program in thirds. Spend a third of your time and budget on planning the strategy for your culture; a third on rolling out the communications so people understand what it means and the final third reinforcing the message for several years so that it takes hold. All too often, this final reinforcement if overlooked and results in lost spending.

What would you rather have: a company that is focused as a unified team on the customer and trying to displace the competition or dysfunctional silos of people working against each other and fighting turf wars where little ever gets done?

If your company is dealing with a culture clash, please call us. Or forward this email to others in your company who may find this information beneficial (CEO’s, HR Directors, VP’s of Strategy, VP’s of Marketing, VP’s of Communications or Branding). Help us spread the gospel. At the very least, visit our web site to view our white papers and case histories on these topics.

As always, we would appreciate any referrals. If you know of other organizations or associations who could benefit from our approach in marketing/branding, change management, HR communications, team alignment and market research please pass our name to them. We promise to provide the very best service and support.

Spring is in the air!

-Allan

New Innovations in Marketing Leadership Councils

2008-02-29T09:25:00.000-08:00

Introduction: What Is a Global Leadership Council?

Creating a More Strategic Role for Marketing: The Greatest Challenge

There are several areas of great interest to global corporations for CMOs to explore in frequent Council meetings, including the major themes and trends outlined below.

Setting Mission and Vision

Reviewing Marketing Operations

Going From Selling-In to Selling-Out…Internal Branding is Important!

A major leadership challenge today has to do with employees. Many executives are asking a single over-arching question:

“How do we get the most out of our people so that we achieve the company’s profit and long-term growth objectives?”

We’re not just considering marketing people here but all employees—from the executive councils to mailroom operations and security desks.

The concerns and worries from marketing executives with regards to the employee challenge generally fall under five categories:

How do we instill in our people the same degree of enthusiasm and commitment that we have for the company’s vision and mission?

How do we encourage employees to commit to “stretch” goals, and how do we help them achieve these goals?

How do we inspire our people to come to the office filled with energy and enthusiasm, ready to take on all the possibilities and opportunities that the day presents? How do we turn our company into a humming, thriving hive of human activity where great ideas pour forth in endless succession amid the din of competing voices and laughter?

How do we channel all the intellect and energy coming from so many sources into a single focused beam?

It’s hard enough to get consensus from a few talented and outspoken people sitting around a conference table. So how do we do this with a hundred people from a dozen countries? How can we get them all to talk as one?

And then how do we get these people to act as one? How do we do it without over-centralization, without slowing down speed-to-market, without dampening individual and local initiative?

How can we improve our use of technology for this purpose? And can we do it without losing the human element?

How do we drive our people to think out of the box? We need scientists who can tweak molecules into breakthrough product formulations. We need production personnel who can consistently make on-standard products at the least cost possible; marketers who can magically differentiate our brands from the competition’s. Advertising, PR, and promotions agencies must be able to thrust our brands in the face of consumers and communicate our message in provocative and memorable ways. Salespeople must place our brands wherever our consumers shop, merchandising them in ways that cannot fail to grab attention.

How can we train our people to think more like entrepreneurs? How can we get them to ask the question: “If this were my own business, what would I do if I was faced with this situation?”

How do you encourage risk-taking? How do you push people to the edge and give them the courage to jump and find out if they can fly? What if they have a fear of flying?

4. Customer Service: With most competing products offering comparable performance, often the differentiating advantage belongs to the company that gives the best customer service.

How do we motivate our front-line people to give the best customer service? To provide the most memorable and delightful experience possible, so that customers cannot help but rave and refer us to their friends?

Likewise, how do we motivate back-office and support teams to help the front-liners in this goal of turning customers into raving fans?

5. People Retention: Many marketing managers are very concerned about the painstaking process and huge cost of screening, hiring, and training people.

How do we attract the best people in the industry? How do we create a reputation among top university graduates and practicing professionals that our company is the industry Mecca for job challenge and empowerment, compensation and benefits, and skills development?

How do we retain people once they’re in? What environment—cultural and physical—should we create that will encourage them to stay? What is the optimum pay and perks package that will satisfy and keep them from considering a move to another company?

How do we help our people keep a proper work-life balance, prevent them from burning out, and ensure that they receive support for what they do at our company from the people who matter to them most—their families?

Focusing on Customer Service/Experience (Through the Brand)

CMOs have similar concerns about the teams they manage:

How well is the team integrating product solutions that will provide a seamless experience for the customer, not just our customers?

Does the team have a collective view of who the customer is?

How much do team members know about the health of a well-known brand in each of their markets? Often there is confusion between brand salience and brand comprehension. This could be a particularly important distinction if customers have been affected by the recent mortgage meltdown.

How well does the team understand the online channel for customer acquisition and customer management? How about strategies for developing alternative business practices, such as collecting payments in developing countries?

Sharing Success Stories

Sharing success stories and pinpointing strategies that can be leveraged in other geographies have major benefits, helping break down two common syndromes:

"Not invented here."

"They didn't come up with it/pay for it, so why should I share what I did? Will I get the credit?"

Identifying Internal Experts

Identifying the internal experts and best-practice centers for various skills and topics creates a framework for networking internally.

Assessing Competitive Intelligence

Using Analytics, Measurement, and Web 2.0

Here are three issues for the Council to consider:

Use marketing analytics to improve marketing ROI and reallocate resources to reflect this mission. Marketing automation should also be explored.

How do you collectively measure success? Measurement is important! While it has always been on the agenda, it has definitely risen in significance over the last few years. And, if nothing else, measurement can extend a CMO's tenure in these days of "24-months-and-out" thinking on the part of CEOs.

There is a lot to share and learn in of all the Web 2.0 activities. Many interesting topics for discussion and analysis can be generated by looking at trend forecasts, such as demographic/firmagraphic and World Future Society.

Playing War Games and Simulations

Take time out and think of your company as the competition to yourself:

Examine your strategy. Conduct an exhaustive analysis the same way you do when you plan a new marketing program against your traditional competitive set.

Reexamine your key unique differentiation, personality traits, leverage points, and messaging platform.

You’ll come up with some fresh ideas that can be implemented as brand extensions and product innovations.

Conclusion: What’s next for the Global Leadership Council?

Regards,

-Allan

Shaking Off Change Fatigue

2008-01-28T11:17:00.000-08:00

A large financial services company once called us in to discuss a pressing change communications challenge. What could they do to shake off Change Fatigue and get their organization inspired and motivated again? What a great question--many companies are facing the same challenge right now.

From the late 90's through early 2000, this company had benefited from growing revenues, and expanded their staff and facilities, benefits and outside resources. But going into 2004, they have worked through poor financial performance, massive layoffs, cutbacks of 401k contributions, facility closings, and outsourcing-even offshoring-of IT jobs. As a result, the morale of the remaining staff was terrible.

Now, every time the company announces a new initiative, the reaction is less than enthusiastic. Once, the mood of the company was positive, spirited, committed and enthusiastic. But now, the organization is tired after so much bad news, cynical about the future, distrustful of management, and wary of changing their habits. In a nutshell, the employees are taking a wait and see attitude, everyone still wondering if they will be the next to go. And, as the economy improves and more jobs become available, the risk grows that disillusioned employees will take off with the company's intellectual capital and know how, and create even more problems.

Is your organization also suffering from Change Fatigue? Is your company depressed? Are there pockets of unhappiness? Is a culture of skepticism taking hold and spreading? What can management do? How can you stop this from spiraling and paralyzing performance?

Obviously, economic recovery and improved financial performance will help. But apart from improving the bottom line, what else can management do? The first step is for senior management to seriously demonstrate commitment to their employees. They must show them that their morale is strategically important to the company's future, and that they are committed to improving the situation.

Some additional suggestions for effective change management communications and shaking off Change Fatigue:

- Be proactive. Develop a clear plan to communicate the status of the key issues that affect employee morale. Make it clear how positive behavior in support of the business objectives will improve the situation. Let employees know that they can help and enroll staff to contribute to the solution.

- Keep the lines of communications open, between the CEO and every employee, and between middle management and their staff. You need to convey a feeling that managers are really accessible, and that they care about their employees' feelings.

- Focus on issues that matter most. Explain the facts contributing to each problem, what options you had for resolving them, and how you reached your decisions. Most important, your communications should emphasize what actions and decisions mean to the employee, in a relevant and honest fashion. If you don't have an answer, say so. Never lie, never duck answering.

- Establish a regular, scheduled communications calendar that people can rely upon: for instance, an email from the CEO the first Tuesday of every month at 4:00, or a weekly Monday voice mail message. Name these events to lend them importance, so that people look forward to them and seek them out. The Ford Motor Company calls an important news announcement a "Blue Letter," while the President of the United States talks to the people every Saturday in radio "Fireside Chats."

- Use your regular communications sessions to provide updates and progress reports on each of the core topics that matter most. Remember to stay on point.

- Make sure the message and communications are meaningful and relevant, and conveyed them in a way that resonates with employees. Avoid premiums like t-shirts and hats, and don't go over the top with gimmicks like sky writers or parachutes dropping down with banners. Your medium should reflect your serious message: it's OK to have some fun, but you need to strike the right balance.

- If possible, encourage small CEO interactions and meetings. Employees should hear first hand what the company is doing, and learn why decisions are being made and how they will impact people as individuals. Prepare and rehearse key talking points and reinforce these points frequently during the sessions.

- Create a place on your intranet where people can retrieve factual information, and see what management has to say on the issues and what they are doing about them. Update it regularly. If you withhold honest, factual information the rumor mill will work overtime to fill in the gaps and create a new problem.

- Avoid unscheduled and untimely news jolts that scare the organization or can be taken out of context and misinterpreted. Manage the implications of the news, just as you would an external PR campaign.

- Conduct research and seek out employee feedback on the major issues that affect them, their attitudes and their behavior. The research should be hands on, conducted by senior people to demonstrate that they care about the situation and are committed to improving it.

If you would like to explore your specific Change Fatigue situation and how to address it, let me know. I personally will assist you. And if you know a company that would benefit from our help, please pass the link to this blog on to them and ask them to visit our web site at www.inwardconsulting.com

While I have your attention, do you have issues you would like me to address in the next blog posting? If so, please drop me a line and I'll be happy to share my ideas with you.

Meanwhile, here's to a productive 2008!

Best Regards,

Allan

"It's My Way or The Highway" - An Inward Case Study

2007-12-21T10:18:00.000-08:00

It's always at this time of the year where I reflect on the year's best examples of companies that have set (or tried to) implement strategies based around internal branding and team alignment. Even though this year we saw some big names take on tough internal branding issues, one of the best examples that keeps coming to my mind was one which we reported on 2 years back at Ford Motor Company. Although it involves the actions of a CEO who is no longer serving that role, the principles behind the story hold true for many companies today. In case you missed the original report, here's a copy below.

Also, I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy holiday from all of us at Inward Strategic Consulting. We wish you peace and prosperity in the New Year and hope to work with you soon.

-Allan Steinmetz

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

An Inward Strategic Consulting Case Study Example:

"It's My Way or The Highway"

Ford Motor Company CEO Bill Clay Ford tells employees he's serious about changes, but is this the right strategy to get your employees enrolled and on board with a company's new vision? Inward Strategic Consulting takes a closer look at the actions and reactions of this aggressive strategy.

Last week, William Clay Ford Jr., sent a company wide email and voice mail to all employees stating that those who could not support the company's drive for innovation should find something else to do.

"Anyone who thinks or attempts to convince you that it's business as usual at Ford is wrong and would best serve us all by pursuing their interests elsewhere," Ford said in an audio e-mailed message. Ford continues in the email message, "Our heritage of innovation must be reclaimed and renewed or the greatness of our company will become part of our past. It's that simple."

According to Bryce G. Hoffman of The Detroit News, which first broke the story, Bill Ford has said he wants to marshal all of the automaker's manpower and resources to transform it into a more innovative and environmentally friendly company.

But will he encounter some skepticism from employees who have been through numerous restructuring efforts already?

Let's look at the premise, action and reactions of this aggressive strategy:

Premise:

Ford Motor Company is going through a major restructuring, and they need to have everybody on board.

Bill Ford's comments come as the automaker prepares to eliminate 4,000 salaried positions by the end of March.

Mark Fields, recently promoted as head of Ford's Americas division, sent an internal message to employees calling on staff members to fall in line behind Bill Ford's banner of "innovation".

In the accompanying e-mail, Bill Ford told employees Monday that the message was the first in what will be a series of less formal communications he has dubbed "Ford on Ford."

In the message, Ford stressed that the company's efforts were not a case where it would "quickly declare victory and move on." Nor was the effort simply a marketing campaign, said Ford, who talks about the push to be innovative in the company's latest television ads.

Actions by management:

"Getting the right people working together as a team will be one of my first priorities," according to Mark Fields. "The most successful businesses in the world have a group of individuals that know how to create as a team."

Bill Ford also announced a new Web-based system that allows employees to submit ideas directly to his senior management team. It asks employees to classify their ideas as technical innovations, business improvements, operational efficiencies, competitive advantages or ways to improve relations between the company and its workers, suppliers or customers. Some industry insiders report that the Web site also asks employees to rate the potential impact of their ideas. Are they on par with the sort of innovations that made Ford great? Will they change the lives of consumers? Will they open new markets? Will they lead to industry-firsts or improve Ford's competitive position? Ultimately, employees reach a screen that lets them type in an outline of their proposal or submit a previously prepared document.

Reactions:

According to David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, these dispatches from the top are seen as "a renewed attempt by the great-grandson of Henry Ford to assert control over the company that bears his name."

Creating a system that allows employees to directly submit ideas to senior management can have obstacles. "Sometimes our bureaucracy can be ponderous and not always receptive to a different approach," Bill Ford said.

"The bureaucracy at any company is a tremendous challenge. You want to shake it to the roots in a period like this. That's what he's saying: We're going to change." said David Cole.

My question, "Is the Ford Motor Company doing and saying the right things?" A good part of my professional life was tied to the Ford Motor Company when I was a Senior Vice President at Y&R Detroit working on the Lincoln-Mercury and the Ford corporate advertising accounts. I have great affinity for their management and products and believe it is in our economy's interests for them to be successful.

So I decided to offer some observations, advice and insights from our seven years of change management experience to guide Ford go down this new path.

Personally, I think they are on the right track. However, like any good change management initiative, they need a framework and process to manage this communications dilemma.

First and foremost, Ford is correct in having their CEO, William Clay Ford Jr. lead the initiative and be the internal and external spokesman. This strategy demonstrates internally that the senior management is engaged, serious and involved in this change and has not abdicated or delegated the task to more junior executives. As a result, employees will view the change as more substantial, real and endorsed by management. However, sometime in the future Ford employees should take over from the CEO and become the spokespeople both internally and externally.

It is not enough to simply inform employees that the company is going through change and is embracing a new strategy focused on innovation. The next step is for Ford to have a four step sequential communications plan and change process in place that goes from:

It starts with informing the employees (which they have already done), through effective internal communications. Basically, the CEO has went public first and told the employees second. If this is what he has done, it may have been a mistake. The CEO should have communicated to the staff first to tell them what the company was doing, why it was important to the company's future and what it means to the individual employee in broad terms. He should have gone public only after he has informed his own people. Going public first and then internally second generally causes mistrust and skepticism, that the change is just another marketing campaign. This may explain why his statements were so strong on Monday, perhaps to address some of that skepticism.

The next step of the process is educating employees as to why this change is important for the company and to them as individuals. This requires different communications techniques such as experiential communications, training/workshops and events. Often it takes time and is too slow which is why many corporations skip this step. It would appear that Ford has taken the quick route and may have skipped over this step too. We advise clients that sometimes you have to go slow, so that you can go fast later. That is what communications process and discipline bring to the table.

The third step in the process is motivating people to change their behavior and embrace new activities that support the change. This is achieved by articulating what you want them to do differently. After all, if you don't tell them how to change, people won't when left to their own volition. Bill Clay Ford Jr. has come out strongly in this regard by outlining the consequences of not changing. Public firings go a long way at demonstrating that the company means business. Also saying clearly what behavior/actions will not be accepted or tolerated makes it very clear what behavior is within the scope and which is outside of the scope. It also creates peer pressure momentum to act accordingly and do the right thing and be a team player.

The fourth step is to establish a program for reinforcement and recognition. As people embrace the change, adopt new behavior and contribute to the results the company aspires to, it is imperative that the company recognizes and rewards these individuals and results through celebratory encouraging communications. At Ford, that means changing the incentive compensation system to support innovation and new ideas, promotions and advancements should be based on performance and individuals contribution to innovation. Best performers should be recognized publicly with proclamations and spot bonuses. Recognition and rewards should not be done arbitrarily, but rather, in a systematic drive and communicated fashion so that people understand what they need to do to meet these new evaluation criteria.

Next major area to consider is having a message architecture, which means saying the right thing to the right people at the right time. Anything the company says should be timed to the sequence of the overall framework. Here are the four types of messages:

Informing messaging should be general announcements such as what the company is planning and why and when the change will occur and end. (Value Message)

Educating messages should be thoughtful and provide explanations and details in regard to what is in store for the company, the group/division and for the individual. (Benefit Message)

Commitment messages should specifically tell people what behavior is expected to help contribute to the change and what behavior will not be tolerated or accepted. (Attribute/Action Messages)

Reinforcement/Reward Messages should be celebrations and demonstrate the logic and provide answers to why the company is doing this, why it is important to change, here is what people are doing to embrace the change and this is how we are recognizing people for their support. (Full statement messages)

William Clay Ford Jr. and the management team can't achieve their goal on their own. They need to build an employee's movement that empowers peer pressure to support for his agenda. Establishing a change ambassador group that represents a cross section of people around the world that has the responsibility and authority to become champions of change do this. These are the people other employees come to get answers to their questions, who are opinion leaders and respected by their peers. The faces of these employee champions should be the ones delivering the message internally and externally after the CEO.

Not so long ago, in 1980, Ford launched another major change initiative to improve quality of its vehicles, which were rated poorly in comparison to imports at that time. In fact, I remember hearing focus group respondents say that FORD was an acronym for Fix Or Repair Daily. The company launched a new mission to improve quality and make it their number one priority. They first met with employees, UAW representatives, suppliers and dealer groups to make them aware of the problem. Next, they had seminars and workshops with employees to instruct them on how to improve quality on the assembly line and at the dealership. They were made accountable with new metrics and quality performance standards.

After Ford started seeing real improvements in quality and felt confident it would continue, they launched a very engaging corporate advertising campaign with a slogan "At Ford, Quality is Job1". It showed employees on the assembly line and dealerships saying that it was their responsibility to insure that quality was the company's top priority with the rallying cry, "Quality is Job1". The entire change effort worked. It improved quality in reality and perceptually. The lessons of the Job1 effort should be applied today to Ford's innovation mission. Start with your people, inform and educate them about the problem. Capture their hearts and commitment to change and reward them for their hard work. Then tell the public what you have achieved. You have to win your own people over, before you win the public over.

I can go on and on but time and space does afford me that luxury. If you would like to know more about what Ford or your company should be doing to drive a major change initiative, drop me a line or give me a call. I would be happy to give you some additional ideas and insights. I think the Ford Motor Company is trying to do the right thing to remain relevant to our lives and economy. It would be a shame if they failed because of ineffective internal support and adherence to the status quos. Let's hope that does not happen.

Learning From AdAge

2007-10-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

Last year, I was leafing through Ad Age. Four stories grabbed me. There was enough content for me to pontificate on for a whole year. Beside the stories they told, the articles also revealed interesting themes. They all support the idea that our industry is in transition, and that ad agencies, PR agencies, marketing consulting firms and clients need a new way of thinking. I still think these ideas are very relevant today; Let me share with you some of what I wrote.

Nike CEO William Perez (former CEO of SC Johnson) was fired after only thirteen months on the job. The headline read: "The CEO forgot: Ads Rule at Nike." The subhead explained:"...behind the scenes: Perez viewed ads as expense, and it cost him his job."

Here's my translation of this event...culture is everything. Perez failed to understand that ads had built the aura and the brand which Nike stands for. Phil Knight was not about to allow someone to play with his passion. This wasn't about money savings or efficiencies: At Nike it's about "doing it". Perez underestimated both the nature of the Nike culture and its power when he made his cost-cutting moves. At Nike, management is a team sport, and consensus, buy-in and enrollment are imperative if change is to happen.

The Second Story...

"Ford Motor Company engaged the consulting firm Accenture to conduct a far reaching media optimization and media measurement program that could greatly influence its ad launches, spending and media mix. The program could potentially affect the type of work Ford's agencies do." (As it happens, I used to be the Director of Worldwide Marketing at Anderson Consulting, Accenture's predecessor).

I can see it now...Ford's ad agency staffers at Y&R, JWT and Ogilvy are probably panicking, running through their hallways shouting, "That isn't fair...we should be doing that work!" The fact is, they are right. Perhaps the ad agencies should get the work. But there's a good reason why they didn't. They just don't provide the same rigor and the same process methodology that a consulting firm does. Agencies should be asking themselves why they aren't getting opportunities like this. WPP's CEO, Martin Sorrell's nightmare, of agencies losing ground to consulting firms, is coming true and picking up momentum. I think it can only get worse for the agencies--unless they rethink what they do, what type of talent they hire and where they add value beyond creating advertising.

Now for the next story...

"Jim Heekin, newly installed CEO of Grey Advertising, is dismantling Grey's old systems. He's installing critical account planning to be on par with creative and account management. This represents a marked change for Grey." Good for Jim! The article goes on to tell us how Grey's strategy had little clarity, how they would often waste the time of creative teams hunting for a creative strategy insight. Guess who paid for that wasted time?

I have always endorsed the idea that creatives should be focused on creative ideas not on the message or the strategy. Creatives just don't have the training for that; after all, they are art directors, writers and designers, not strategists, analysts or researchers. McDonald's calls it a "Framework for Freedom." They say, let the client management, researchers, and strategists come up with the key messages, target audiences and buyer motivators. Then let the creative teams get on with their job-creating the design, sound and motion around the idea. That way the creative output is more focused and compelling.

I would go one step further. I say that the agency should take the leadership role. Agencies need to become facilitators, working side by side with the client's management, marketing and sales teams, together with the ad agency's team of media, account management, creative, planning and production departments. Everyone should be collaborating, all together at one time at one table. This saves time, ensures buy-in and produces better ideas.

Nice going Jim. Keep stirring up the pot...change in the ad agency world is good. One caveat, one piece of advice...move the culture along with you...don't let it bite you in the rear the way it did Bill Perez at Nike. Win over the clients, and win over the internal agency staff. If you don't believe me just look what happened to your counterpart Ann Fudge at sister WPP agency Young & Rubicam. Internal politics, a strong insular culture, fear of change and being an agency outsider prevented her from being successful in the job.

The last piece..."Ford is putting the consumer at the center of their rebirthing marketing program with hopes of turning around the company fortunes." Ford had no choice, we're told, but to change to meet the demands of the market rather than the other way around.

This is news? Where have they been for the last twenty years? The Ford Motor Company I knew and worked for from 1981-1991 (when I was a senior ad executive at Y&R) always put the customer first. It was about Quality is Job #1; Lincoln - What a Luxury Car Should Be; and Have You Driven a Ford Lately?Those were consumer insight campaigns. They answered consumer questions and they helped satisfy the buyers' needs and wants with products that they wanted to drive. Remember the Mark VI, the XR4Ti Merkur from Germany and the Mercury Sable and Ford Escort? Wonderful cars, terrific insights and great market successes. I'm glad to hear Ford is finding its way back to the insights that contributed to its most recent glory days. But, as the company has said, Ford must also win over its own people in order to lead the market. Ford's employees need to become educated, motivated, inspired, and enrolled to recognize what the pursuit of a consumer driven strategy can yield in the way of success and market leadership. I hope they get it straight. I want them to succeed.

So what's the common thread to these stories?? What key messages can we learn from them? I see many lessons here.

Sharing Strategic Marketing Responsibilities. The ad industry (and some clients) still doesn't recognize that marketing should not be centered just on the creative product. Focus should be the shared collective responsibility of the client, the agency, the sales channel and the customers. Together they can create products, marketing strategies and award winning advertising that will meet the needs and wants of the market and present the right message and image. No one group should abdicate its role to the other. This work needs to be done together.

Rigor, Process and Methodology. In a world of investment bankers, strategy consultants, and greater value accountability to shareholders, agencies have to step up to the plate and incorporate new rigor, methodology and process into their planning and accept their responsibility for results. The old way just doesn't work, and neither will moaning about the loss of consulting assignments and revenue. Agencies must go way beyond planning the new ad campaign and refashion themselves to gain deep analytical understanding of their client's business operations and challenges. They need to get themselves invited to the board room table out of respect for their strategic insights and counsel and the confidence they convey, not just to get approval for their new ad campaign.

Culture. Everyone involved in marketing has to recognize the power of culture and the power of the employees when it comes to embracing a new strategy or marketing initiative. Company culture does matter. Respect it, and make it work in your favor by helping the internal constituencies become educated and informed. Help them become motivated and inspired and--eventually--enrolled and engaged. This will take time, patience and process, and the knowledge to do it right. Don't leave this important task to chance. Deploy change management experts who have methodologies and processes that can help.

Abundant Mentality. Marketing people on both sides of the table need to embrace the notion that a great idea can come from anywhere. What's more, when everyone adds to an idea, it can only get better, brighter, more compelling. Every great idea is a shared responsibility based on an abundant mentality about solving consumer problems with compelling solutions that grab people's imagination and attention.

Leadership. Current advertising models fashioned back in the sixties and seventies are not relevant today. The marketing industry needs fresh ideas, new approaches and leadership to recognize that. The industry needs leadership that recognizes a need for new, outside-the-box business models. Marketing people need to rethink old management structures--incorporate new media, the internet, buzz marketing and 1to1 marketing--and establish new metrics and accountabilities so clients will value what they do. Leadership should come from both the clients and their agencies, both immersed in freshness and innovation, not stuck on a single idea. Leadership needs to re-examine everything: compensation, accountability, media optimization, market research methods and integrated strategies and costs.

So. What I garnered from reading my four Ad Age articles can be summed up this way: Our business is changing. We can react and let it change us, or we can take the lead and we can change it.

What do you think?

Happy Halloween!

-Allan

Save a Seat for Marketing at the Table: Avoid a Merger and Acquisition Blind Spot

2007-09-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

Over the Summer, I read a wonderful article in The Wall Street Journal, in the "Business Insight Journal Report." I was excited after reading the piece because it validated many of the tenets upon which I founded our firm nearly nine years ago. The article was entitled, "M&A Blind Spot. When negotiating a merger, leave a seat at the table for a marketing expert." Unfortunately, this rarely happens.

The article talked about the integral role of marketing in securing and consummating a deal through internal acceptance by the organization. It reminded me of a statistic I heard nine years ago to explain M&A failures. Dr. Michael Hammer said "that 80% of mergers and acquisitions fail and that 50% of the reasons that they fail are due to personality and culture clashes between the companies and their leadership." This is just as true today as it was a decade ago.

In my opinion, marketing and branding are lynchpins of a successful merger and acquisition. All too often, however, marketing is just an afterthought. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants have a place at the M&A table to ensure that the deal lives up to its potential in regards to risk minimization, asset evaluation, and legal due diligence. But where are the marketing experts? They should be at the table as well to ensure that the organization embraces the merger, positioning it with positive benefits inside and outside the company. Effective communications and messaging can win over all the critical stakeholders and ensure success.

Ensure success with marketing and branding

Find me a lawyer, accountant, or banker who can manage all this:

1. Vision and direction

The company must have a clear sense of direction and vision after the M&A plan is laid out. The vision should be in simple language (with examples) so employees can relate to it and understand the benefits for themselves and their company. Marketing departments and their leadership are trained and experienced at creating this kind of messaging.

Creating a new, combined vision is clearly the role of marketing. Imposing one company's vision on two merged entities often alienates half of the people the instant the merger is launched.

2. Overcoming uncertainty through employee engagement

Without doubt, uncertainty is the number one issue after announcing a merger or acquisition. Overcome it by enrolling the staff through relevant messages and experiential communications programs.

Marketing professionals understand consumer insights and motivations that translate into actionable tactics and communications. With knowledge and understanding, employees gain motivation. After internalizing the merger value proposition, they finally gain inspiration. They will be engaged and enrolled.

3. Understanding where your employees stand on issues

Companies should segment their employee audience the same way they segment and analyze their external audiences to measure their acceptance of change and learn the best ways to communicate with them.

These are the types of questions that marketing will answer:
- What motivates employees?
- What inspires them?
- What are their opinions of management and the corporation?
- How do employees relate to management and management communications?
- What forms of communication do the employees prefer?

Marketing professionals are analytical. They are in constant search of insights and buyer values that can be deployed toward an internal employee audience as well as an external one.

4. Experiential communications

Particularly in an M&A situation, old forms of internal communications are no longer relevant or successful alone. New and more creative methods, with involving and entertaining communications, are more appropriate for adult learning.

Media should vary by audience: video games, gadgets, viral campaigns, role playing, one-on-one meetings with senior folks, skits, outings, company-wide challenges, events, internal trade shows, a staff radio station, a webcast-whatever draws them in. The key idea is to engage the employees to participate in the exchange and learning.

5. Developing the message

Like any other marketing campaign, internal branding starts by understanding the change readiness of the organization, followed by developing messages that are relevant and meaningful at all levels-corporate, team and department, and individual. The company needs a clear positioning and sense of what it aspires to be.

The messages should be presented by the leaders of the organization who know their business and the marketplace best.

6. Establishing brand ambassadors

Seek out the critical internal stakeholders and opinion leaders for their support and help first, then build consensus within the organization.

Involve the full spectrum of employees. Ask for their input into the program-they know the customers and the business from all angles.

7. Project management, not ad hoc effort

Treat the plan like a program-management launch. Assign a great program manager and allocate the proper monetary and HR resources for the effort to succeed.

Reinforcement is critical. Your employees need to see the message all the time, in lots of different media via different channels. You can emblazon it on a lapel pin, a parking-lot sign, a redesigned uniform, or a lunchroom banner. Or anywhere else that it makes sense to remind people.

8. Measurement and Feedback

Take measurements and make adjustments. The campaign will need fine tuning as it gains momentum. Gauge how the organization's culture is receiving the message and reacting to it. Then modify your emphasis as needed.

Budget for post-campaign analysis and an audit of effectiveness. Conduct before-and-after employee surveys to measure business literacy, brand awareness, and awareness of M&A messages and corporate initiatives.

In the end, what matters is an educated and aligned workforce motivated to get behind the sale, acquisition, or merger. You want your people to be inspired to work for your firm. They should be proud of what it stands for and what they do. If they care about being part of the process, they will spread the word to your clients and to each other. By enrolling your employees, you will accelerate the changes you have planned and get down to business faster, with fewer internal squabbles, and with a steady stream of re-energizing successes that will sustain itself over time.

Is your company facing a merger or acquisition, or just going through major changes such as ERP implementation or re-engineering? Don't forget to reserve a place at the table for professional marketing counsel. With marketing present as an equal partner with the lawyers, bankers, and accountants, you will ensure success of the merger and win over your employees, who are ultimately responsible for making it all happen.

Give us a call and let us describe how we help companies as they face acquisition or sale.

PS, Click here to enjoy the WSJ piece the way I did.

Happy Reading,

-Allan

Effective Communications: A Leading Indicator of Financial Performance 2005/2006 Communication RIO Study

2007-09-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

As the Summer winds down and we enter the Fall season, many companies begin to examine their financial results in anticipation of those December year end result reports. This is a good time to examine your communications programs in an effort to help increase financial performance. Effective communications is the lifeblood of any successful organization. This statement is a mantra in companies of all sizes. They use it to explain their improved financial results.

Now we have solid proof that it's true. Watson Wyatt, a major and respected HR consulting firm, recently conducted a revealing study that links effective communications to financial performance. The results of their analysis are staggering, a must-see; and critical information for every CEO and CFO.

Companies that communicate effectively have a 19.4 percent higher market premium than companies that don't.

At Inward Strategic Consulting, we have always believed that effective communications, through internal branding and change communications campaigns, creates more educated and motivated employees. They embrace change and adopt new behaviors to support it. The findings of this 2006 study substantiate our claim: they amplify the call for internal branding efforts, employee communications and the use of staff to create team alignment and awareness.

We have taken the liberty of summarizing some key findings to share with you. If you would like a complete 20-page PDF of the Watson Wyatt Report (a $45.00 value - sold online), just write me back and I will be happy to send you a copy for free.

Three amazing conclusions:

Companies that communicate well have a 19.4 percent market premium over companies that do not.

Communications effectiveness is a leading indicator of financial performance.

Firms that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement than firms that communicate less effectively.

Study Highlights: What characteristics define effective communications?

Helping employees understand your business

Educating employees about your culture and value

Sharing financial information and objectives

Exhibiting strong management leadership during organizational change

Alignment of employee practices with customer needs

Explaining and promoting new programs and policies, i.e., employee integration.

What the study found:

Link to shareholder value: Companies with more effective communications experienced a 57% higher total return to shareholders over a five-year period than those with less effective programs.

Increase in market premium: Communications effectiveness is associated with a 19.4% overall increase in market premium.

Effective communications is a leading indicator of financial performance: If a company invests in communications and implements or improves its communication practices, it can expect up to 20% higher financial returns.

Reduction in reported turnover: Companies with high levels of communications effectiveness are 20% more likely to report low turnover rates than their competitors. Lower turnover translates to improved continuity, better understanding of the business and less need to train and re-educate staff.

Practices at highly effective companies:

Communications programs are in place and ready to support organizational change efforts when needed

Documented internal communications strategy in place

Open communications with employees about events that affect them and the reasons for major decisions

Sharing business plans and goals with employees

Linking communication objectives to business objectives

Linking pay and benefit programs to achievement of the business strategy

Treatment of managers as a key audience, and sharing advance information with them

Regular transmission of communications counsel and insight to the CEO and senior management team

Eliciting the support of senior managers, and engaging them in the communications process

Effective coordination of internal and external communications

What areas could you improve?

Every organization always has room for improvement. More and more organizations are starting to improve their communication processes, but look at these trends:

Less than 50% of high effectiveness companies (only 25% of low effectiveness companies) do any proactive communications planning. Some companies are reluctant to plan far ahead given the current pace of change. But where no plan is in place, firms typically lose sight of the big picture.

Less than 1/3 of companies actually give employees the ability to add their insight and input to decisions. Companies must educate their employees on how to communicate effectively and develop channels for two-way communications.

Over 60% of companies have an intranet enterprise portal, yet companies need to document their electronic communications strategy. Use emerging technologies such as blogs and wiki's to get the message across.

Global communications is still North America centric! While 60% of companies surveyed in this study have international operations, the study found that few companies really communicate effectively with employees and business units around the world. You can improve this area by integrating the global communications plan into the company's overall communications strategy. Form a global advisory group to identify local needs, customize messages and secure international buy-in at the micro level.

Conclusion: The elements of effective communications

The study identified characteristics of organizations with successful communications programs, using a comparative index of successful communications policies, programs and behaviors from various organizations.

If you're interested in improving your communications, consider the following characteristics of the high performers:

A comprehensive communications program is an essential part of the organization's business strategy.

Senior management bases its communication efforts on a clear, well-defined communications strategy.

Communications programs are developed proactively rather than reactively.

The organization has a well-defined, two-way communications philosophy.

Employees are kept in the loop about how their firm is doing at meeting its goals.

Employee communications programs focus on helping employees understand the business.

Employee communications programs focus on providing information and feedback to motivate and improve job performance.

Managers at all levels are rewarded for communicating effectively.

The essential message of the 2005/6 Communication ROI Study is clear: financial success does not lag far behind when senior management takes the time to plan, identify and reward effective communications, Thoughtful strategic planning and development of internal communications initiatives correlates directly with financial success.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss how an effective communications plan can help improve your organization's financial performace. I'd be happy to share some insight, tips and best practices on how we have helped many companies improve their bottom line.

About the study:

The 2005 Watson Wyatt Communications ROI Study visits the relationship between an organization's communication practices and its business performance. The study's goal was to identify where communications practices have the highest returns.

Its 335 participants came from large companies across North America. (The average participating company has revenues of $3.9 billion and 13,000 employees.) Survey questionnaires included questions about employee engagement, global communications, and the relationship of the communications function to senior management and emerging technologies.

The study was broken out into two separate parts, each with its own findings. The first shows, basically, that companies with effective communication practices can earn a significantly higher market premium over their competitors. The second part concludes that effective communications practices can earn a market premium for the organization and can identify the key metrics for instituting an effective communications program.

Here's to a profitable Fall season!

-Allan

Internal Branding? What Is That Exactly?

2007-08-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows what a brand is, and everyone knows what advertising is. Some of us may be confused about promotion and merchandising but most have a basic idea, at least, of what they are.

Lately, a lot of people have been asking me about internal branding. What exactly is internal branding? It's definitely a hot topic, on which seminars and workshops are offered all around the country. By my count, seven major internal branding conferences were held over the past year and a half, and we participated in four of them, and even chaired the American Strategic Management Institute's Internal Branding Summit last year, where we heard some outstanding presenters address the topic.

It's hot, but what is it? Very little is written that defines internal branding; so as one of the pioneers of this new branding phenomenon, I decided to pound a stake into the ground with my definition. We have earned the right to do this, because, for six years and more, since we started our firm, we have been promoting the power of internal branding with our Inward Marketing Methodology: we really are the internal branding company.

Before I explain what internal branding is, let me clear up some misconceptions. It is NOT letting your employees know about your new advertising campaign. It does not consist of handing out t-shirts and baseball caps to announce a new strategic initiative, name change or company vision statement. Really, it is not anything remotely like these things.

So what it IS internal branding? Why is it important? When should I do it?

Here is Inward's definition: Internal branding is a cultural shift within an organization, where the employees become more customer focused and more business focused. You achieve this by an organized, communications and behavior driven process, which leads to a desired end state. Meanwhile, at all levels in the company, one big question is answered - "What's in it for me?" After they hear and learn about the internal brand initiative, every single employee should understand what job behavior you expect from them, and how they contribute to the company's success. You need to reinforce the behavior you want, and bring it into line with HR policies, internal communications and corporate marketing efforts and strategy.

Effective internal branding brings huge benefits. Companies whose workforces understand how they operate and make money perform better. Committed employees provide stronger performance and higher customer satisfaction.

Important data that supports this connection between understanding and internal change was released recently. This study (produced, much as I hate to admit it, by our competitor, McKinsey) concludes that change-management programs succeed only when employees at all levels-senior managers, middle managers, and the front line-share the will and the skills to change. McKinsey studied change programs at forty organizations, and found a strong correlation between good skills for managing change and the value an organization carries away from these programs. These skills, I would add, are the product of effective change communications and internal branding programming. The more knowledgeable, convinced and supportive the workforce is, the faster you can implement change. Strongly accepted change is sustainable, and that saves both time and money.

When all is said and done, successful internal branding lifts brand equity, customer focus and ultimately shareholder value. One of our high tech presenters at the April conference shared startling numbers that demonstrated a powerful correlation between internal branding efforts, external branding efforts and shareholder equity. It's all about the facts, the data, the metrics and accountabilities.

So the question becomes, "How should a company do internal branding or Inward Marketing?" Here are some of key elements/best practices we've gathered from studying this topic for the past seven years.

A brand is a process driven, long-term proposition. Not a deliverable! And so is internal branding.

Internal branding follows a sequential process; through which employees achieve internal brand success. There is a difference between communicating a message, getting it understood, and changing behavior.

You must have senior leadership participation and involvement throughout the process of internal branding. You can't delegate this or let the managers drive it.

Start with a clear company vision and purpose. If you don't have one, work with the senior team to establish one and communicate throughout the company by both words and action.

Set clear objectives and well-defined roles at the outset, and revisit them throughout the process.

Consider assigning dedicated people to internal change communication and internal branding. Let them create a sense of such urgency that staff see no alternative to change.

Conduct an audit of the enterprise understanding of the business objectives and strategy so you can address areas where people don't "get it".

Internal branding, done well, allows employees to transition from being "Informed," to "Understanding" the information, to becoming "Committed", so that they "Change Their Behavior' in support of the company goals. As a result they should "Receive Recognition & Rewards" and positive reinforcement for changing their behavior.

Recognize the importance of the customer and all their points of contact with your company: call and service centers, sales associates, statements/invoices, advertising and more.

Align your brand externally & internally. Let your inside be like your outside: what you say externally should be the same thing you say/do internally.

Go for participation, consensus and employee dialogue. These work better than edicts and policies that travel down the hierarchy.

Having "Employee Brand Ambassadors" is critical--involve a cross section of employees from all levels, who will promote the brand internally through experiential communication.

Obtain metrics and measures before, during and after program implementation. Research your employees regularly and track their progress over time.

Hard, Simple, Easy - Work hard to make complex concepts and ideas simple, so they are understood and communicated easily.

Seek outside help from experts and consultants in the field - this is hard work, but with help in methodology and process, it can be done effectively.

If you are thinking about an internal branding program, or need help to create internal support to initiate a program, let us assist you. We have proven methodologies, delivery teams and the thought leadership to lead your company to a much better place. We will also be very appreciative if you share our ideas with others who may be thinking about internal branding, or send them to our website.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

-Allan