Think about your favorite brand, the one you always end up bringing up in conversations with strangers.
What makes it a brilliant brand? Maybe it has a great product or service.
But beyond that, how did the brand win you over as a loyal customer?
The best brands have teams that deliver consistently on their brand promise.
The good news is that you can get your employees to do the same. How? By aligning your brand and culture.
The Secret Sauce to Building a Stand-Out Brand
The best brands don’t turn out great by accident. No matter their size or type, stand-out brands tend to have one thing in common: an aligned company culture.
That means every element of their internal culture works together to support the brand.
These companies understand that how they operate on the inside is more important than how they look on the outside. Their internal culture—how their employees communicate and behave—defines the brand more than their logo or website.
In other words, their culture is their brand strategy.
Consider this: No organization has failed because of its logo. But many have failed because of their internal culture.
So what should does an internal culture look like?
Company Culture Defined
Company culture is your organization’s internal environment. It’s the sum of all the actions and decisions made by your team. Culture dictates how you operate on the inside, and it shapes how your people behave.
Company culture is multi-layered. It starts with organizational values and expands to include everything from how you hire and how you fire, to the words your team uses and the stories they share at the water cooler.
Even mundane things matter when it comes to culture, such as the types of snacks you offer and the expense report software your finance team uses.
These invisible aspects of culture define your brand.
In other words, your brand is only as successful and profitable as your culture allows it to be.
Brand Is Culture, Culture Is Brand
Let’s take stock of your company culture.
How would you define your culture? Would your employees describe it the same way?
If you’re like most business leaders, you probably haven’t invested enough into creating a clear company culture that has everyone on the same page.
You’re not alone. Many executives treat company culture as an afterthought.
And we get why. Leaders are busy. With so many things competing for your attention, it’s easy to push culture to the wayside and let it evolve on its own.
But here’s the kicker: Culture exists whether or not you pay attention to it.
If you ignore your company culture, it will evolve on its own. You’ll miss out on an opportunity to harness it to empower employees to deliver on your brand promise. Even worse, you’ll risk it becoming your biggest liability and driving your brand into the ground.
Simply put, your brand is your culture, and your culture is your brand.
How to Get Employees to Behave On-Brand
The best brands lead with culture in everything they do. They infuse it into their internal operations, hiring practices, benefits packages, and more. In doing so, they turn every employee touchpoint into an opportunity to reflect the brand at its best.
This immerses team members into the company culture.
And it’s a foolproof strategy because that culture is the key to shaping employee decisions and actions to consistently deliver on the brand promise to customers.
Your culture shapes how your staff members behave and engage with customers.
Build a Brand Culture That Keeps Your Promise
So is your company culture producing the right behaviors in your team?
Is it leading them to offer a brilliant product or service?
If not, it’s time to start reining in your company culture and redesigning it so that it sets up your team to authentically represent your brand to the world.
Only then will your brand be able to consistently deliver on your promise and turn your customers into raving fans.
Ready to cultivate a culture that makes your brand stand out from the competition?
Read how to get started with the Marquee Culture method.
