Today’s Tip
Best Practice: The power of a brand is when everyone: customers, employees, vendors, owners and investors are connected with the brand and it is transparent.
When your open the door to your business be transparent .
Today’s Article: Transparency: On the Same Page
Today we live in a more transparent world due to the internet, social media, and cell phones with video capability.
Branding has two phases: brand development and brand implementation. When developing the brand, build in transparency, honesty and integrity. When implementing the brand, be transparent and operate with honesty and integrity. When a mistake is made, be up front and make it right, do not cover it up.
In creating a brand, look at company personality and culture: vision, values, practices, people, content and place. The downfall for a brand many times can be found in values, practices and people. Examples:
Values: On Dec. 2, 2001, Enron declared bankruptcy. Thousands of people were thrown out of work, and thousands of investors — including most of the company’s employees — lost billions of dollars as Enron’s shares shrank to penny-stock levels. The company had made about a dozen “partnerships” with companies it had created, and it used those partnerships to hide huge debts and heavy losses on its trading businesses.
Practices: December 2014 – Six banks have agreed to pay $4.33 billion in fines to global regulators to resolve allegations that they attempted to manipulate foreign exchange rates. Citibank (C), HSBC (HSBC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), RBS (RBS)and UBS (UBS) will collectively pay $1.4 billion to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and about £1.1 billion ($1.75 billion) to the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority.
People: Every year billions of dollars are lost by businesses nationwide to employee fraud and theft. In their 2012 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) reports that small businesses suffered a “disproportionately large” median loss of $147,000.
The true power of a brand is when everyone: customers, employees, vendors, owners and investors are connected, inspired with the brand. Brand transparency requires values and practices that are built on a solid foundation of honesty, integrity and hiring the right people to match the brand.
Action Step: How do you connect with and inspire the following brand audiences:
___ Customers Answer:
___ Employees Answer:
___ Vendors Answer:
___ Owners Answer:
___ Investors Answer:
___ General Public Answer:
Additional Resources
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