Branding from Inside Out is an in-house workshop designed for business professionals who understand that their company should speak with one voice to all its target audiences. 

A few examples of why you and your company should be interested in Branding from Inside Out:

• Your company is global (or expanding), and you want to maintain consistency of your messages in many different cultures.

• You are an entrepreneur growing "out of the garage," and you want to maintain and sustain your unique qualities as the company expands and changes.

• You are high tech (or otherwise specialized), and you want all your target audiences to understand you and what you can offer to them.

• You are a financial institution, and you want to distinguish yourself from all the other financial institutions in this increasingly competitive business environment.

• You are a manager in an enormous company, and you want your team or department or division to reflect the overall mission of the organization and yet distinguish itself from others.

• You are a professional business person, and you want your professional image to reflect your professional goals so that you will achieve the professional reputation you desire.

Defining Brand

As with many terms, there is some controversy about the definition of “brand.”  Fortunately, we have moved way past simply “logo.”

“The sum of all feelings, thoughts, and recognitions—positive and negative—that people in the target audience have about a company, product, or service.”
--Adcracker.com

“A collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer.”
--BuildingBrands.com

Managers must insure that the organization speaks with one voice by aligning internal and external communications with corporate strategy.  When all key constituencies of an organization perceive that organization’s communication to be consistent, the result is usually a positive corporate reputation and thus successful execution of the organization’s mission. 

Branding from Inside Out

This workshop will focus on the cross-functional interaction between corporate strategy, integrated (internal and external) communications, and the resulting reputation of your corporate brand.  Upon successful completion of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Define the key constituencies (audiences) with whom the organization communicates through the distinct yet overlapping functions of corporate communication: employee communication, product advertising, corporate advertising, public relations, investor relations, corporate philanthropy, government relations, and crisis communication.
   

• Evaluate the effectiveness of corporate communication efforts to all constituencies of the organization and in all functional areas:

1.  Identify corporate objectives with internal and external audiences, based on executive decisions, vision statements, mission statements, and other corporate goals.

2.  Recognize the ways in which the organization presents its identity to its constituencies.

3.  Analyze the constituencies’ perceptions of the company’s identity and determine whether those perceptions match the original company objectives. 

• Design a branding and communication plan for the implantation of key communication improvement recommendations for your organization, based on an intention-to-reputation model.

The ultimate goal is to understand that the organization should speak with one voice—to all constituencies through all media—and that consistent identity results in a consistent image (your BRAND) which yields a credible corporate reputation. 

 
Over the Course of the Day

We will analyze the overall internal and external communication strategy of the organization for consistency and effectiveness.

Who are you?  The company (mission, external environment, corporate culture) 

Who are your target audiences?  The constituencies (customers, employees, media, competition, etc.) and information about them (facts, attitudes, wants, needs, consistent concerns)

Who inspires you?  The traits of the companies you most admire

How would you like to be perceived?  Corporate objectives (intention) with this constituency, based on mission statements, executive decisions, etc.

How should you present yourself in order to be perceived that way?  How your organization presents or wants to present its identity.  This is where the branding fun really begins because everything counts!  Of course, identity is the name and the logo, but it’s also everything the company does and says, including actual products and services, employee relations, customer service, product and corporate advertising, investor and government relations, corporate philanthropy—everything in both every day and crisis situations. 

How is that different from how you are perceived now?  Image: Evaluation of how constituency currently perceives company’s identity and/or how constituency will perceive company identity after receiving messages (your BRAND!)

What is your BRAND?  The collection of all of the perceptions of all the constituencies is brand.

What are your next steps?  If the image reflects the company’s original intention and consistent across all constituencies, then your organization will earn a credible corporate reputation.  If this is not the case, answering the questions above will put you on the right path. 

Branding from the Inside Out is where you start in your process of building your brand.  Process.  I offer no guarantee on how far we will get in one day.  I do promise that the work we will do is core work:  it will support everything you do in the future.