I believe companies make CULTURE (and BRANDING) much more difficult to understand than it needs to be. Companies talk about their “t-shirt and sandals” or their “Friday beer parties” or “ping pong and foosball tables” or a whole host of other things they get to experience working at the company as their “culture.” THIS ISN’T CULTURE. These are benefits.
There is an easier way to think about what the CULTURE is in your organization...
There are three questions I would encourage every business leader to ask their customers if they truly want to know their perspectives on their company. None of these are technical questions. They are all questions your customers knows with complete accuracy and details. They are what I call my “KILLER QUESTIONS” because they are so critical helping a business DIFFERENTIATE themselves from their competitors.
1
The FIRST “killer question” is, “How would you describe the culture of the company?”
It is a killer question because it always causes them to stop and think. Most of the time they don’t know what the culture is for this company. Understandable. Or if they do describe it, it revolves around words like “fun,” or “easy going,” or “laid back.” Is this really the culture of the company…or the one you want your customers to know you by? Having a culture your customers clearly understand and can concisely describe gives you a tremendous competitive advantage. Think about it as if you were the customer. Wouldn’t it be great to understand and feel the culture of the company you buy from? Wouldn’t it help you feel more connected and involved with this company? Wouldn’t it give you more comfort in working with them if you truly understood who they were and what they were passionate about as a company? I know, rhetorical questions, but this is what you get when your customer understands your culture and can clearly express it to others, like me.
2
The SECOND “killer question” is, “Please describe for me how they treat you as a customer.”
Customers always get this one 100% correct…because it is their own experience. They can easily describe the elements of their experience…they are experts at telling me how they were treated. They can remember excruciating details of their experiences and how they have been treated during their interactions. This is an easy question to answer. It is also the easiest question to help us understand the “true company culture.” If your employees deliver an “over the top” amazing customer experience and treat your customers like they are special and important (which they are) you have definitely established a competitive advantage. The customer experience is the number one thing a customer will remember AND talk about to others. Why? Because it is the one thing they can talk about with 100% accuracy…unlike your products or services. They can speak with authority and certainty about how they were treated. How do you treat your customers? Would they tell me they feel incredibly special and important?
3
The THIRD “killer question” is, “How do they make you feel?”
How you make your customer feel is the NUMBER ONE thing they will remember well after their experience is over. It is the one thing that has incredible memory to a customer. They may not remember what they bought or the details of the interaction down the road, but they will always remember how you made them feel. We all do…it’s human nature. We want to feel like we matter. We want to feel like we are important to them. We want to feel like they truly cared about us. Who doesn’t? If you are simply buying a commodity, maybe you don’t. But who wants to be in the commodity business? I certainly don’t want my future to always be determined by whether or not I have the best price or delivery schedule…do you? I want my customers to feel like they are incredibly special to me and that I truly care about them. And, by the way, this is a critical cornerstone to getting someone to tell others about you. If you made them feel incredible (or terrible), they will tell others. They don’t talk about feeling like a commodity or average…only the exceptional. How do you make YOUR customers feel? Do you even know? If not, find out. It’s one of my most favorite questions to ask…it opens a plethora of feedback!
Culture isn't something you just say you have, it's "how you act."
And how you treat employees is how you act. It’s really hard for an employee to put on one face for the customer and then switch back to something else when just around employees. Sure, they might be able to do this occasionally, but not consistently. Ultimately, they default to treating the customer how they interact with each other.
I started off by saying that culture is easier than we make it. The reason this is the case is that we try to “dress up the pig” when talking about our culture. We know what “we would like” it to be, so we create lots of verbiage, slogans, and taglines in hopes others will believe it. THEY DON’T. What they believe is what they see, feel, and experience. This is their truth, not what we tell them.
Why complicate it? Here’s a simpler way to think about Culture.
Let’s approach this from a different perspective…we will end up at the same place. What is your “BRAND?” No, not your tagline, or logo, or cute saying you put on your trucks and on your business cards. I mean, what is your true brand? What is it PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU AREN’T AROUND? This is your true brand! It’s actually what they tell others about you. Do you even know?
Check it out in your own organization. Walk around and ask a variety of people in your organization to tell you what your brand is from their perspective. Ask 50 people…you’ll probably have 50 different viewpoints of your brand. This, by the way, is what we call “brand confusion.” It is what happens when we don’t have a clear and concise brand that our employees know AND our customers understand. Customers need to understand your brand “intellectually” AND how it makes them “feel.” This is what makes up your actual and true brand. Without going into an entire discussion on brand, let me share with you how your culture and your brand are linked.
HINT: YOUR CULTURE IS YOUR BRAND.
Maybe you figured this out already. Maybe this is an entirely new way to think about culture. Either way, I would challenge you to define it (or both your brand and your culture, since they are essentially one in the same). What do you want it to be? What would the ideal brand be for your company…what you want your audience to say about you when you aren’t around? Do you want your employees to effectively communicate this to your audience through their actions? I know, that was another rhetorical question.
STOP getting hung up with making Culture more difficult...it doesn't have to be.
We start by asking ourselves, “What do we want to our customers to say about us to others (word-of-mouth).” This is an awesome place to start. Spend some time with this one. Get a facilitator to help you through this discussion. When I do this for companies, it can take us up to a day sometimes to ferret this out and really define what we want. How we want our customers to communicate this message clearly and concisely to others. We don’t want to leave it up to chance and “hope” they say the right things. We want to arm them with the right things.
WARNING: THIS IS NOT BUILDING MORE MARKETING SLOGANS. This isn’t about marketing…it is about how we interact and treat our customers. Our customers won’t ever be able to communicate all the technical stuff about our business, but they will (with 100% certainty) be able to talk about how we treated them and how we made them feel. This is a huge part of your brand!!
For example, if someone asked your customer why they work with you, what will they say? We can control this by the experience we give them. How would your business change if your customers said…
“They have great products and services that really help us do what we need to do. But above that, and even though theirs are a little more expensive than others, we really enjoy the way they treat us. They make us feel important and special and are truly invested in our success. We could get a cheaper price, but we really would miss all they help us with to make us successful. They really have our backs.”
Would your business improve? Would you potentially be more profitable? Would you have a higher CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)? Would you have higher loyalty and lower turnover (churn) of customers? Would your customers become your advocates? And, the Holy Grail of a customer, would they tell others about you and how they should work (buy) with you? Again, rhetorical questions…the answer to all of these is a resounding YES!!
If this happens, you have established an amazing and incredible brand in the market. One that is super supportive and one that a customer can easily share with others…consistently and concisely. They can do this because IT IS THEIR TRUTH, not yours. This becomes your BRAND. This also becomes your CULTURE.
The key is to focus on your BRAND MESSAGE.
Build the necessary experience and processes so your employees can easily deliver it to your customers. When you do this, it becomes WHO THEY ARE and WHAT YOU DO…it becomes YOUR CULTURE. When you think of CULTURE in this way, it becomes much easier for your employees to get their arms around and to know what to do. It becomes (as I like to call it) the DNA of your Organization. It is who you are and what you do. It is your identity.
Now, when I call up your customers and ask them to tell me about your culture, it is an easy question for them to answer because they fully understand your brand. It is about them, and they can tell me (and many others) who you are and why they should be buying from you instead of your competitors. Isn’t that the ultimate goal we all want to have as a business?
Change your thinking about Culture...
STOP listening to all the culture guru’s tell you how complex culture is to change. Granted, it takes some time and hard work like anything else you want to do in your business, but your employees will get it much quicker and implement it much faster. I know I’ll be getting some hate mail from all the “culture consultants,” bring it on. Stop making something more complex than it needs to be. You can kill two birds with one stone…your brand and your culture. And make it easier on your employees (and customers) to embrace and communicate to others. At the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want?
Take the challenge and blow up all the nonsense about Culture.
It will change your company forever. And both your employees and your customers will love it and embrace it. That’s a win-win. If you have any questions or just want to talk more about how this can actually happen, shoot me a message. I’m happy to share some more thoughts on this topic with you (complimentary of course) so you can get your arms around it. Then you can decide what’s best for you and your company. Give me a shout if you would like to hear more and see how you can change it in your own organization. Simple is always better than complex because that’s what employees and customers want.
My NEW Book
I referenced earlier that I have a new book. It is finally here. It will change your business…forever…guaranteed. Unfortunately, I can only give you the insights and direction in a brief article like this one. The book shows you exactly WHY you might want to be Customer Obsessed, HOW you can get there, and WHAT you need to do to execute. It’s transformative. I hope you get a chance to read it. But even more, I hope you take the plunge and actually execute it. It will definitely change your business…unlike anything you probably have ever done. Let’s do this…
