You've heard the saying, "Charity begins at home." It suggests that before you concern yourself with the needs of those outside your home, you should deal with the needs of those inside your home. If you do not, your home could collapse from the inside. The same is true with branding. If a company focuses on external branding without taking care of internal branding issues, collapse is certain.

There's no question that external branding, the branding we've all been hearing about lately, is relevant to a company's success. It forces a company to focus its communications on a singular promise every time. It's the only way to truly connect the positive attributes of your company, product or service with the wants and needs of your consumers. Many organizations are realizing that branding works and it can draw people to their brand. However, once drawn to a brand, it's your employees who are ultimately responsible to deliver the promise. If you fail to earn "buy-in" from your employees, they will deliver inconsistently, take less pride in their performance and literally drive customers away.

There are many benefits to Internal Branding:

1) Delivering on corporate brand promise - as mentioned earlier, your brand, or promise, is only as valid as the people who deliver it to your customers. You need to create an environment in which your employees embrace your brand and brand identity so thoroughly that they take pride in their performance and reinforce your brand with every customer contact opportunity.

2) Keeping employees - Not only do your employees need to have pride in their performance, they need to have pride in who they work for. Without a clearly defined internal brand, employees don't feel part of a team. Instead they feel like competing entities within an organization. Each individual and each division fighting for their own agendas. A well-positioned and presented internal brand will give employees the attitude that each one is striving for a common goal and in turn give them more reason to take pride in their employer.

3) Attracting new employees - Who do potential employees get their information from when considering an employer? The employees, that's who. Your entire workforce constitutes your Branding Department. Whether they are interfacing with customers, vendors, partners, stockholders or potential employees, your staff can present your organization as average, below average, or in a way that actually resembles boasting. It can create a reputation of being an employer of choice. The effect on potential employees creates leverage for the organization in the hiring and negotiating process.

4) Helping employees to internalize the company's values - This is somewhat deeper than the points made earlier because before an employee can truly embrace the organizations brand, they need to believe in the company's values. An internal brand campaign can help employees to better understand the company's values and make it easier to internalize them by personalizing how those values are put into action.

5) Instilling brand values in to key processes - Another subtle benefit of an internal brand that pays extraordinary dividends in the long run. We've all heard the difference between the cost of retaining a customer versus the cost of earning a new one. Internal branding will instill brand values in to such key processes as customer service.

The bottom-line is that before a corporate brand can become successful, the internal brand needs to be developed, presented, embraced and implemented. The development of an internal brand is based on similar components of the corporate brand with special attention paid to the existing corporate culture and a deep understanding of the intended audience, the employees themselves. Once developed, the internal brand can be presented through a multitude of vehicles from off-site retreats and employee rallies featuring speakers, premium items and exercises that demonstrate the brand and its values. Developed and presented properly, employees will embrace the brand and hunger for the tools they need for implementation including procedures and other tools of empowerment.

Kilmer Kilmer Marshall Duran is a strong advocate of the power of branding. To learn more, please call us at 505.260.1175 or 800.260.1165. Our e-mail is kilmer@k2md.net.

© 2001 Kilmer Kilmer Marshall Duran, Inc.