It takes a village to build a brand.
So believe the leaders of Skoda
Minotti, so much so that when they set about formulating a new branding strategy last year, they wanted to get everyone
at the 140-employee business and financial consulting firm involved.
Greg Skoda, the firm’s co-founder and
chairman, says that your employees are the
face of your company, and if they can’t project a clear picture of what your company
stands for and wants to accomplish, then
your customers will be left in the dark —
and that can spell trouble.
“If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, if a customer calls and doesn’t
get the service they want, if we fall down
on any step, it’s likely we’ll run the risk
of either alienating or losing a customer,”
Skoda says.
Skoda Minotti started six years ago as
what Skoda calls a “small, tightly knit
group of professionals with a common history.” And when Skoda and his partners
decided to refocus the company’s branding
strategy last year, they wanted to recreate
the same small-firm atmosphere but across
a company that now carries a work force
numbering in the triple digits.
There was no magic formula, Skoda
says; it was simply a matter of spending
many hours soliciting input, not only
from employees but from those outside
the company, as well.
“When we went through this process, we
spent a lot of time talking to every one of
our employees, from partners to receptionists,” he says. “Then we spent time talking
to customers, ex-customers, prospects,
industry experts, people we refer work to,
to get their perspectives, as well.”
Skoda Minotti’s leaders sought many different perspectives for one main reason:
Your company is not the company you
think it is, it’s the company your employees
and customers think it is.
“We look in the mirror and see one picture,” Skoda says. “When somebody else
wakes up in the morning and looks in the
mirror, they see a different picture. We’re
trying to provide value-added services
and products to (customers), so it gets to
what they think is important. If we’re not
aware of what they think is important,
we may totally miss the mark.”
Skoda divides the people a company must serve into four categories: employees, clients, business contacts and the
surrounding community. If your new
branding strategy gets lost in translation
to any of those groups, it could damage
your company.
“If you fall down in any one of those
areas, you are not going to succeed and
achieve what you want to achieve because
you’re not going to be delivering what
they’re looking for,” he says.
That’s why Skoda says you must find
out what the people you serve want from
your company, then construct a branding
strategy that reflects your ability to give
them what they want and need.
He says a properly aligned branding strategy that involves both internal and external
input can attract not just the right kinds of
clients and customers but the right kinds of
employees, as well. Those employees, in
turn, can continue to attract and retain the
customers you are looking for.
“A brand, properly built and out there,
can really be one of a company’s
strongest assets,” Skoda says. “It’s going
to allow people to attract the right kinds
of employees, the right kinds of business
partners, the right kinds of clients and all
the things people are looking for.
“If everybody understands what we’re
trying to accomplish, we’re going to succeed wildly.”
HOW TO REACH: Skoda Minotti, www.skodaminotti.com or
(440) 449-6800
Patience is a virtue
If you are considering a complete
facelift of your company’s brand,
Michael Minotti has a message for you:
Don’t expect an instant reaction.
The president and co-founder of
Skoda Minotti says it takes months,
possibly years, to plant the seed of a
new brand, wait for it to grow, then harvest the benefits.
“One of things you need to have is a
lot of patience,” Minotti says. “There are
a lot of companies we’ve seen that start
the process, then come out with a brand
that doesn’t immediately hit the mark.
Once you’ve developed the brand, it
could take months, or even a few years,
before you see any return on your
investment.”
Minotti says you have to allow your
brand to develop its own momentum in
the markets you serve. The most effective way to accomplish that is through
your front-line associates and managers, the people who have the most
direct contact with your customer base.
But the only way they’ll be able to do
that is if you and your management
team have provided them with a
detailed, well-thought-out strategy that
they can present to customers.
“Our front-line employees are our
ambassadors, and if we don’t give them
a good plan, they’re not going to be able
to sell and defend our brand. That’s why
you really need to be able to differentiate
yourself from the competition, with a
strategy that is well-thought-out and can
be well delivered.”
And never forget, says Greg Skoda,
firm chairman and co-founder, that
building and maintaining a brand is an
omnipresent task.
“It’s a full-time job for everyone in the
organization,” Skoda says. “If we’ve
done our work right, everyone has participated in building the brand, maintaining, developing and enhancing the
brand, and can help deliver on the promises we make to our customers.”
