Brandcology

When you hear manufacturers complain about how hard it is to find good people, do you share the same frustration?

Your answer to this question will give you insight into the appeal your brand has among the “good people” (or top producers) in your industry – in other words, those employees you need to help you achieve your goals, grow your business, care about your company and win.

When you post a job on LinkedIn, hire a recruiter, or place an ad on monster.com and receive an abundance of resumes or applications from highly qualified candidates, you should rightfully consider it to be a testimony to your brand’s good reputation and character. And nobody knows better than you that you aren’t sought after by great people because of luck.

The brand you built is one that people believe in and want to be a part of. Your company is the place to be.

However, if you find yourself shuffling through a very short stack of resumes or applications submitted by candidates who don’t possess the skills, strengths and experience you need to help your company be a force to reckon within your industry, your brand; your employer brand is to blame.

Building a brand to attract the caliber of employees necessary to help you deliver on your brand’s unique claims of distinction, win new business and keep customers loyal and happy is just as important as building a brand to win new business.  

You know that average employees produce average results, do average work and provide average customer experiences. And you know that average is the biggest barrier to excellence. 

If you want to fill your company with top producers, you’ll need to compete for them with the same focus and vigor you have when competing for new customer relationships.

It starts with your employer brand. To attract these hard-to-find top producers to your company, you must first understand what they are looking for – what they are expecting. 

So I’ve created a list of what top producers look for in an employer, which is also available in the script of this podcast for you to download and review. 

So here it is…

1.    People want to work for a company with a great reputation supported by a brand and vision they understand and can believe in. In other words, shared beliefs, values and attitudes

2.    They want to be part of something bigger than who they are and to know how their individual contributions make a positive difference in the lives of your customers. 

3.    Opportunities for personal and professional growth.

4.    To be paid more than an “average” salary. 

5.    Opportunities to do what they love to do in an environment where they can learn from their mistakes

6.    To be asked their opinion, to be heard and respected

7.    Autonomy - to be trusted once it is earned and not to be micromanaged

8.    Strong, consistent leadership. Crappy leaders push good people out the door.

9.    To know what they are working for and why they are doing it

10. A sense of purpose and pride in what they do

11. To be challenged. Your people want to learn and to grow.

12. To know what it means to win – not just new business and growth, but to know how winning is defined in their specific role

13. To be recognized when a job is well done

14. And finally, to know you care about them as people – not just hired help.

Print this list out circle those things you currently provide. Next, distribute this list to your employees and ask them to circle those items they believe you provide to them. 

When you get your feedback, you’ll know what to do to create the culture you need to attract the top producers in your industry. 

We suffered one heck of a roundhouse kick with COVID-19. 

Health concerns aside, business owners and employees were bracing for impact from day to day, and many times hour by hour as news developed, mandates went into place, and lockdowns took effect. 

Even though some things seemed to have settled, many businesses still face uncertainties about the future as cases begin to rise and some states go back to imposing restrictions.   

After speaking with several CEOs and senior executives who have led their companies not only through COVID but through other times of chaos, I’ll share five things I’ve learned from them that I think you’ll find valuable to keep everyone at your company in a healthy frame of mind.

1. Communicate with people every day, even if there was nothing significant to report. Whether it was through Zoom or a simple email, they let everyone know how things were going at the company. To maintain a sense of comfort and normalcy, some shared sales updates, projections, bits of good news, and reinforced the importance of an all-hands-on-deck approach to survive. Most importantly, all said daily messages were closed on notes of optimism. 
2. Don't dwell on this crisis. After relevant facts are shared, move on to business as usual. The more a crisis is talked about, the more it preys on everyone’s mind. Busyness in times of chaos is a welcome distraction, and it serves to keep everyone focused. Also, (and this is huge) it is important to maintain a sense of humor.
3. It's essential to be as flexible as possible with your employees. With so many schools switching to virtual learning, parents need to juggle their work responsibilities while making sure their kids are successfully adapting to a different way of learning. When a crisis like this extends into people’s personal lives, employers need to understand that something needs to give, and often it will be work-related engagement and performance. 
4. It’s also important to maintain a “business as usual” culture even though your people may be working from home. Communicate expectations, hold people accountable, don’t cancel meetings, and do the same things you’ve always done. In times of stress, people find comfort in what feels normal and familiar.
5. One business owner stated the COVID crisis has brought him closer to his people because his way of keeping morale as healthy as possible was to have one-on-one conversations with each of his employees. He wanted to understand their worries and concerns and what he could do to help. He understood that just being a good listener was all many people wanted even though so much of what was going on was out of his control. As he said, “These conversations and moments of bonding would never have happened if we didn’t have to deal with COVID. The positive outcome of all this is that I have a better relationship with my people.”

Many CEOs believe that the most effective thing they can do as a leader, whether in good times or bad, is to meet with their employees regularly. In fact, some spend upwards of 70 percent of their time doing this to build relationships and maintain a healthy culture and stay in the know of what is happening at the front lines. 

If you typically hang out in your office, now is the time to get out of your chair to walk your floor and chat with anyone still coming in each day. Also, start to schedule phone calls and video chats with those still working from home. Ask people if there is anything you can do for them. They will appreciate these gestures more than you can imagine.

A good friend of mine said he got a call from the owner of the company he works for and said he made it clear he’s not calling about business. He was simply calling to ask how he was doing. He said it was the nicest thing he’s ever seen the owner do.

What’s the name of your favorite hotel? 

Okay, now let’s assume you’re booking a trip, and that hotel has no rooms available. What’s your second favorite? 

So, now you have your “shortlist” of your preferred hotels. Now think about all the hotel brands that didn’t come to your mind. They won’t get your business, and for them, that’s a problem.

Now suppose you need to rent a car. What’s your favorite rental car company? Let’s assume they have no cars available. What’s the name of the next company you would call?

Again, think of all those other companies that didn’t come to mind. They won’t get your business, and for them, that’s a problem.

You can play out these scenarios with any product or service – whether it’s a hotel, toothpaste, an attorney, or where you do your business banking. 

In nearly every case, a very short list of brands will come to mind that you prefer over others. Conversely, you could easily think of quite a few brands you would avoid or never consider.

My point is that the very people you want as customers also have a shortlist of companies they prefer over others when they need the products and services you offer. Are you on that list?

The cold and brutal fact is that making a sale, winning a customer, or forming a relationship comes down to how people perceive your brand!

I’m going to share the eight steps you can take to elevate your brand and make that shortlist so that when people do need what you sell, your brand has a better chance of being one of the first to come to mind.

1.     Start by measuring the health of your culture through an internal culture assessment. 

2.     Do a brand assessment among your employees, customers, and channel partners to gain insights into your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities from their perspectives. 

3.     Start spying on your competitors.

Here’s a tough question: If you were on the other side of your desk, would you do business with your company?

4.     Answer this challenging question: If you were going to build a company that competes against you, how would you do it? How would it look? 

5.     Invest heavily in your people through training. Not just technical, but training on leadership, communication, problem-solving, conflict-resolution, sales, marketing, branding, crisis communication, and any other training that better prepares them. When you do this, your company to be a force to reckon with. 

6.     Become a visionary. Keep your fingers on the pulse on the trends in your business and industry and think in terms of your next big idea, even if you’re working on something right now that you believe will disrupt your industry or change the game. It’s a fact that you are only as good as your last idea, so think several steps ahead. 

7.     Start courting top-tier people to be a part of your team and vision. It’s tough finding great people who will share your passion and determination to succeed. Network, have your people network, and be visible at trades shows and industry events. Focus on building awareness and build your company to be a natural habitat for top performers. 

8.     Formalize and perfect your exit interview process. When done correctly, it is the best way to get candid feedback on the health of your culture. The healthier it is, the greater the chances of your success.

That’s enough for now. If you do these eight things, elevating your brand into greatness is guaranteed. 

Of course, if you’d like some help getting started, let’s talk. Building great brands is what we do!

A lot of companies refer to their work groups as teams. Let’s talk about that for a moment.

Imagine you’re at the World Series, and you saw the outfielders staring at their iPhones while the opposing team was at-bat. Or, what if the quarterback of your favorite football team wandered onto the field while yawning at the beginning of a game? Or, if you’re a basketball fan, what if, during a playoff game, half the team stood around with their hands on their hips talking to each other while their other teammates were hustling on the court?

I’m quite serious. Statistically, there is greater than a sixty percent chance you have people like this on YOUR team – coming in every day doing less than the bare minimum to get a paycheck.

So, how about a real-life example. 

Several years ago, in one of my roundtable groups, there was a business owner who often talked about the struggles she had with her business partner. They had opposite personalities, which should have benefitted the growth of the business, but unfortunately, it was a detriment. 

Her partner was brilliant in terms of industry knowledge and the ability to bring in new business, but his alter ego was that of a bully for his style of leadership. Morale at her company was low and the turnover was high. 

She had reasons to believe some of the key players and top producers would resign if things didn’t change.

I was hired to do an internal culture assessment, and after numerous interviews with her people, her fears were confirmed. The culture was very unstable.

When the two partners were presented with the evidence, they agreed to restructure their relationship so that she would be in charge of managing, leading, and nurturing all employees. He was going to play to his strengths in growing the business by focusing more on sales, managing vendor partners, corporate strategy, and being the visionary for the company.

Once the employees were aware of the change, I provided a strategy and framework for building a culture of high-performance, accountability, and continuous improvement. 

Here are the components:

1.     Replace the dreaded annual review with ongoing face-to-face, in-person, real-time feedback. 

2.     Keep employees in the know about what is going on at the company through newsletters, summits, an intranet, and town hall meetings. 

3.     Invest in training. A few thousand dollars and a couple of days out of the office for sales, service, leadership, technical, industry or human resources training generates a very nice ROI. 

4.     Invest in modern tools and systems to improve efficiency. 

5.     Implement a culture of learning from failures.

6.     Organize semi-annual appreciation days. The only way people can understand and respect the role of their counterparts is to spend a day in their shoes. Once every six months, production spends a day with salespeople, and salespeople spend a day in production to understand each other’s challenges and struggles. 

7.     Clean house. Going through the office to declutter is both healthy and invigorating. 

8.     Subscribe to a process for solving problems efficiently and effectively. One of my favorites comes from Jake Knapp, the author of “SPRINT” – a book that provides a method for solving big problems and testing new ideas in as little as five days. 

Do you really need a unique value proposition? 

According to dictionary.com, unique means "having no like or equal; unparalleled; incomparable. Based on this definition, it won't always be possible to own a "unique" value proposition. And, the good news is that it's as essential as many marketers think it is.

You can confront the competition head-on and win new business without a unique value proposition! Many growing, thriving, successful companies do not own or even claim to own a "unique" value proposition .The urgency and anxiety over defining one's unique value proposition has been declining for quite a few years as many CEOs are discovering that the process of unearthing a truly unique value proposition is not always achievable. And even when it is, many unique value propositions are susceptible to one or more of the following issues:

·      If it fails to align with what customers or channel partners value the most, it'll be meaningless. 

·      Some unique value propositions, no matter how compelling, risk losing their appeal as soon as a competitor launches a superior product or service. 

·      The pressure to own a unique value proposition forces some brands to create one that orbits around what their formidable competitors are saying, which is nothing more than "me too" marketing. 

Take the case of a manufacturer boasting the unique value proposition that its gear drive is the most reliable in the industry. 

Although a seemingly strong unique value proposition, its relevance, and significance in the eyes of customers are based on four variables

1.    The company must provide proof of its claim by citing a legitimate source. If it doesn't, customers will be skeptical. 

2.    Assuming the claim is valid, the value of the proposition will be directly proportionate to how much more reliable their gear drive is compared to competing gear drives. And this must also be backed up with evidence. 

3.    If the gear drive is, in fact, the most reliable, it must also closely match the performance and capabilities of competitive systems, such as technology, power, and ease of maintenance. If not, the value proposition is again meaningless.

4.    Most importantly, the unique value proposition will only be relevant if the company has a respectable reputation in the industry.

So, are unique value propositions overrated? Absolutely not. Owning one or more plays an integral role in attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. 

However, if you struggle, you have several options to help build a compelling brand that attracts customers:

First, group your top three or four value propositions and focus on how you can enhance each to the point where they far exceed customer expectations.

The second thing you can do is think of positive experiences you've had with companies in your personal or business life, and how you may apply similar experiences to customers in your business. 

Also, you can and should build a culture where people love to come to work every day inspired to perform at their best. Delivering exceptional service and manufacturing great products require it. 

Next is to know what your customers want and value the most, and give it to them. 

And finally, focus on developing and nurturing your personal brand and those of everyone at your company who touches customers to add value to the overall customer experience.

If you devote yourself to focusing on these areas for the next 6-12 months, you'll be surprised at how much stronger of a competitor you can become, and how many more customer relationships you will win. Owning a "unique" value proposition is only one component of the equation. 

Some taglines are really confusing.

I'll admit that whenever I see Addidas' tagline, Impossible is nothing, I can't figure out what that means. I also wondered what McDonald's was thinking when they promoted their new menu item with the tagline, Open your snack hole. And my favorite, most confusing tagline of all time was Blockbusters' which was, No more late fees. The start of more.

In the manufacturing industry, there's a company that, for a brief time, used the tagline, The true leader. And, a metal fabrication shop that simply says, Customization happens here.

This is what happens when the desire to be cute, witty, or even profound gets in the way of what a tagline is meant to do: provide a memorable and concise statement that sums up the essence of a brand. 

If people you are targeting don't understand your tagline, or if they need to think about what in the heck it means, or if it's just meaningless, it's not doing your brand any favors. 

Let's talk about your company. 

If you're in the process of developing a tagline for your company, avoid the other mistake of focusing on the mechanics of your business – in other words, what your company does in terms of your business model as well as your product and service offerings. The reason is that it is probably nearly identical to what your competitors do. 

Instead, focus on the value you bring to customers, channel partners, and other stakeholders that is better or different from what your competition brings. 

Let's go through a few examples:

Let's start with the AVIS rental car company. What Avis does is rent vehicles, just like Budget, Hertz, Enterprise, and many others, hoping to get your business. However, the essence of the Avis brand – the value they provide, is going above and beyond, which was intelligently communicated through their tagline, We try harder. 

Another example is Apple. What Apple does is design and manufacture cool computers and digital devices. However, the essence of Apple's brand is challenging the status quo. They communicated in their prior tagline, Think different. The bonus to this tagline was that it was also a call to action for consumers. Brilliant.

One of the taglines we created was for Waukesha Bearings. After a full brand analysis, we discovered that the two primary values they brought to the table were expertise in engineering and results. As these were brand attributes they could back up with evidence ─ things they can consistently deliver on ─ their tagline of Expert Engineering. Proven Results. was both natural and perfect for them. No confusion there! 

So, back to you. What is the essence of your brand?

If you manufacture gear drives, that's what your company does. And, so does every other company that makes gear drives. This is precisely why defining your brand and adopting a compelling tagline is so essential to the success of your company. 

It helps customers and channel partners understand precisely why they should be doing business with you. Without a proper tagline, they will have a harder time distinguishing between your company and others, and that could cost a sale. I think you would agree that's a problem!

This is the reason I firmly believe that decisions to buy and not buy are tied to a company's brand.

Your value propositions should focus on those intangible traits or characteristics that you bring to the client relationship and experience, such as trade secrets, expertise, specializations, patents, accreditation's, processes, business practices, awards, and other things that would interest potential customers. 

So now it's your turn.

What is a short, memorable, and concise statement that sums up the essence of your brand? 

If you've ever thought about it, your brand must jump through one helluva lot of hoops to make a sale.

If the buyer's journey experience doesn't feel quite right, you risk losing a prospect to a competitor. 

I'm going to walk you through the buyer's journey and shine some light on the brand touchpoints that influence a purchase or partnership decision. As I do, I want you to think through each of them and ask yourself if there could be any improvements made to your brand’s touchpoints.  

It all begins when someone has a need or desire for what you sell. My first question for you is, how confident are you that your brand will be one of the first to come to mind? If you're not sure, you'll need to work on building brand awareness.

Let's assume that your brand does come to mind. And hopefully, it does so in a positive light. If it doesn't, you have some steep hills to climb. Consider doing a customer and channel partner brand audit to find out how your brand is perceived.  

At this point, research begins, typically through an online search of your company name. 

Type your name into Google. What appears in the results? A BBB rating? If so, what is it? Does a Glassdoor.com review appear at the top? Or is there an article about your company? 

If Glassdoor appears, what's your score? If you have at least a three-and-a-half out of an average five-star review, you're in good shape. However, if it's lower than three stars, it's a sign of an unhealthy culture and possible high employee turnover, and that could spook a potential customer. 

You can also count on the fact that your prospective customer will probably search the names of companies you compete with to make some baseline comparisons.

Your brand will be compared to competing brands. If you place yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer, what kind of first impression do you believe your website gives? Think about the quality of your website in terms of content, ease of navigation, value propositions, and calls to action. How impressed are you with your brand compared to others?

Does your site clearly define and differentiate your brand and product's competitive strengths? 

It is also likely that your prospective customer will seek recommendations from others.  So, here's another question ─ does your brand come up in those conversations? What is being said?

At this point, your prospective customer will have a strong feeling about whether or not they want to take the next step by emailing or calling to speak with one of your people.

How quickly are emails and calls returned? How professional is the person who responds? Does he or she have excellent communication skills? Are your salespeople trained to listen well, understand needs, offer solutions, overcome objections, and make the potential buyer or partner confident? 

Assuming there is good chemistry between you and your potential buyer or partner, price, terms, conditions, and negotiations will begin. 

Hopefully, for you, your brand is selected. However, as you know, the sale not yet complete. Every move your company makes will be analyzed and scrutinized from this point forward to make sure you deliver upon the expectations you set during the pre-purchase stage of the sales cycle.

My own experience has taught me that many companies can convert prospects to clients, but not all of them can deliver a great brand experience. I'm sure you've experienced the same. 

If your brand performs well, you will likely earn referrals and recommendations from your clients. 

The burning question for you is this: Would you do business with your own company? Why, or why not?

Take some time to think this through, and also ask others in your company the same question. I promise it will be worth it.

Often times in the manufacturing industry, companies end up “settling” for a weak brand.

A weak brand is one that fails to adequately distinguish or differentiate itself from competing brands. 

If you can’t explain to customers and channel partners what’s so special about your brand, there isn’t anything special about your brand. Hence, you’re losing sales opportunities. And I think you would agree that’s a problem. 

The purpose of this blog is to be the bulldozer by getting six common roadblocks out of your way so that you have an easier time defining a brand that does distinguish and differentiate you from your competitors.

Some of these roadblocks may surprise you.

Let’s go through them, one by one:

1. Confusion over what a brand is. I’ll break this down into two parts. A brand is what people think about when they hear your name or see your logo. Brand development, which is what you want to focus on, is identifying the distinctions your company owns that make a positive and noteworthy difference in the lives of your customers and channel partners. 

2. Not knowing where to start. Begin by placing yourself in the shoes of your customers and ask yourself why specifically they should buy from you instead of your competition. This second part of the question is important because you do have competitors and you are losing business to them. You can’t improve your brand unless you ask yourself and your team this burning, painful question. 

3. Ego. Let me tell you what I mean. Before embarking on any brand initiative, it’s crucial to gains insights into how your brand is perceived by employees, customers, and channel partners through a brand assessment. After all, you need to know where your brand stands in their hearts and minds so that you know how it could be better and stronger. 

But, some CEOs don’t want to do an assessment because they’re afraid of what people might say about them, personally or their company. Those who have this fear claim they already know what their employees and customers think and doing any sort of assessment would be a waste of time and money. 

4. The presence of a dysfunctional culture at the top. If you have a crappy culture of petty politics, conflicts of values, and poor leadership, what kind of culture do you think the rest of the organization has? Think of it this way – culture is defined as the social construct of an organization, and if that social construct is dysfunctional, your brand’s going to be in trouble. Typically, the only remedy is a new president or CEO who will come in and clean house. 

5. Internal resistance. Remember the last time you pushed an idea on a group of people, and they all agreed to it with a big smile? Exactly. Part of the reason an internal culture and brand assessment is so necessary to the success of the brand is because you are inviting your employees to provide their insights, views, and opinions about the brand.   

Even if some don’t completely agree with the brand you create, they will have appreciated the opportunity to contribute to the purpose and cause for creating a new brand. 

6. Fear of change. The process of identifying your competitive distinctions is much easier than making the necessary internal changes to bring the new brand to life. Whether it is abandoning a part of your business, restructuring your company, re-writing your business plan, making new investments, or requiring people to change their habits and ways of thinking, large-scale change will be necessary. 

So there you have it! If you can overcome these mindsets and challenges, you’ll be much more successful at building a brand that will help you grow your business.

Measuring and monitoring the health and performance of your culture, which drives productivity and operational performance, cannot be achieved simply by getting feedback from your people during annual reviews or optimistically counting on them to bring urgent matters to your attention. 

One of the most popular strategies to measure the health and performance of your culture is to seek insights and feedback from employees through annual or semi-annual internal culture assessments. These are done through a combination of questionnaires and one-on-one interviews.

However, as effective as these assessments are, they may not always paint the full picture of issues that may be contributing to possible dysfunctions in the workplace. Some people may be afraid to say what they really think needs to be said in fear of possible retribution or being labeled as a company snitch. 

To compensate for this, consider formalizing and perfecting your exit interview process as part of your retention and continuous improvement strategies. 

Let’s go over the critical elements of an effective exit interview strategy:

1.     When to schedule the exit interview. Exit interviews should never happen within that two-week timeframe between the submission of the employee’s resignation and the farewell lunch on his or her last day. The reason is that most people are very anxious when submitting their resignation, and they want to get the process over with as quickly as possible. 

According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, Making Exit Interviews Count, the ideal time to facilitate an exit interview is one month after the employee’s departure.  The conversation will be more relaxed, and like I referenced earlier, potentially strong emotions harbored while still on the company’s payroll will have dissipated. 

2.     Ideally, the CEO or president of the company or division head should be the person doing the exit interview. However, the likelihood of the former employee agreeing to meet will largely depend on how the invitation to the meeting is presented. If human resources reaches out on behalf of the CEO to schedule a time to meet, the request may fall on deaf ears and blind eyes as he or she will feel they aren’t important enough to be contacted directly by the CEO. 

More appropriately, the CEO himself should reach out with the message of wanting to learn more about why the employee left. In this scenario, the former employee will be more inclined to accept the meeting. 

Now if you, as the CEO, have unflattering feelings toward the employee, keep in mind that he or she seemed to be a good hire and fit in the beginning, and you need to know what went wrong that led to his or her departure.

3.     Think about retaining an outside consultant experienced in conducting exit interviews. Consider the following benefits:

·      The expertise of knowing what questions to ask to determine what went wrong in the employer/employee relationship

·      The ability to ascertain whether or not the employee may have been a bad hire

·      If the employee was indeed a good hire and internal factors pushed him or her out the door, such as dysfunctional leadership, uncompetitive compensation or culture, the consultant can advise the employer of what was learned so that the CEO can take steps to prevent further attrition.

Exit interviews are being employed (no pun intended) at more and more organizations as a strategy for living a continuous improvement culture. The good news is that ex-employees are typically more than willing to engage in productive exit interview conversations. All you need to do is ask.

How can you make the best out of having your people work remotely? I have seven thoughts:

First, encourage people to enable their cameras during video conferencing. Communicate the importance and benefits of people being able to see one another during meetings and discussions. Let people know that you don’t care if Fluffy is on their lap during an internal meeting, but maybe not for a client meeting. In other words, be the understanding and empathetic boss during these times of stress. You could actually have a lot of fun with video conferencing to lighten the mood.  What if you started each meeting with a humorous ten-minute show-and tell before getting down to business?

Second, schedule teams to video conference one-another to prevent involuntary isolation therapy. It’s one thing to incorporate what many refer to as jam time where people work uninterrupted to get stuff done. But, remember that in many ways, your company is a family. It’s healthy to see one-another. And, as you always should, start on time, end on time and send an agenda before each meeting. What’s an agenda? An agenda is a document that identifies a list of items for discussion, complete with objectives, timelines and actionable steps.

Third, do your best to maintain team-building activities, assuming you’ve done team-building activities before some of, or maybe even all of your people were sent home. One of my favorite and most effective ways to keep teams alive and intact is through the implementation of an All Ideas Matter program. Encourage and incentivize your people to contribute ideas of how to improve metrics such as communication, efficiency, morale, retaining good people, sales and generally becoming even a better partner for your clients. 

Fourth, don’t discuss coronavirus. Your people need a break. Even though we’re told the worst may be behind us, the preponderance of the news is still focused on the awful stuff, and much like being subjected to Christmas music at retailers in the month of September, negative news is almost impossible to avoid. Don’t waste your time or energy adding to it.

Fifth, if business is slow, take advantage of this time to think about how you will need to reinvent your business as we emerge from this pandemic. We already know that being successful requires reinvention to stay current and relevant, so start thinking of how you can do so. Better yet, ask your people to contribute their ideas and offer rewards for the best ideas submitted. Perfect for that All Ideas Matter program I talked about a minute ago.

Sixth, again, if business is indeed slow, think about stalking your competitors – those companies doing whatever it takes to survive, which includes courting your customers. Learn about them. Find out what they are up to. Look through their websites and google them. And yes, compare your brand to theirs because your customers are doing the same. If you think this is the time for hitting the brakes on your marketing, think again. Cash may be tight, and you may have needed to lay off or furlough, but when we emerge from this, the brands that pulled over to the side of the road and stopped their marketing will be challenged to regain customer relationships. I digress.

Okay, seven. Much like people are questioning whether the government was properly prepared for this pandemic, you can ask the same of your company and your brand. As of this very moment, does your company and brand have the ability to adapt not only to this pandemic, but to what the new, undefined normal will be? Have you figured out a way to make your brand relevant during a crisis?  

This whole crisis we are going through reminds me of a scene in Crimson Tide which happens to be one of my favorite movies. For those of you who are unfamiliar, in the movie, Gene Hackman was the commanding officer of a nuclear submarine, and Denzel Washington was brought in as the submarine’s executive