A brand is not a Mission Statement, a Logo, a Tag-Line or a brochure. A brand is the character and personality and reputation your organization brings to a ‘customer relationship.’ It’s about maintaining your organization’s relevance to its ‘customers.’ Your brand is real whether you like it or not – it could be a hanging-on-by-a-thread ‘Zombie Brand’ or it could be a brand that accidentally prevents engagement – so have a good, hard look because your current brand may actually be working against you.
If you’re in the business of employment inclusion, you need business on your side. How do you show employers that you’re an expert, that you provide them with value and recognition, that you can be trusted? Do you have staff who are designated as ‘Marketers’ provide tri-panel brochures with a bunch of preachy rhetoric about disability services and no clear description of your value to the business?
If so – stop.
Take your team to the board room and lock yourselves in with three employers and a seven year old child. Arrive at 100 words or less that describe what you do, why it’s valuable to the employer and what your specific ‘brand promise’ is. Ensure that these words encourage further engagement.. When the seven year old can pitch your service to the employers well enough that they smile, nod and say “That sounds like something I would want to know more about.” – you can go home. Ok, yes, this is a metaphor but you get the idea.
Day 2 – change your job title and get some new business cards; nobody wants to book a meeting with someone called a ‘Marketer.’
