It's March and it's a good time to remember that you don't just build your brand during the summer time. In fact, it's a great time to remember that you are building (or tearing down!) your brand with every phone conversation you have, every letter you write, every cabin you clean (or not), every trailride you lead, every ropes course initiative you guide, etc. Everything you do either builds up or tears down your brand.
So right now, before the season heats up is a good time to review at least four things you can do right now to really build your brand and keep it strong.
- Be remarkable. Never forget, it's the remarkable ideas that spread. People love to talk about remarkable stuff. They simply won't talk about average stuff or stuff that doesn't surprise, amaze, or intrigue them. Seth says that if you see one cow grazing on a hillside you might remember it but hundreds of grazing cows are normal. But if you were to see a purple cow…now that would be something worth talking about. Be the purple cow. Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle throws fish, Lambert's Cafe throws rolls, Doubletree Hotel gives away warm chocolate chip cookies upon checkin. What are you doing that's remarkable? What are you doing that people will talk about?
- Hire for attitude. Train for skill. Although you probably have most of your summer staff hired by now, never forget to hire for attitude first. If you've got the right person, you can train them to do just about anything you need them to do. As a camp director, more than once, I forgot this simple rule. I hired for skill and tried to train for attitude. It never worked. Never. If you have the right person in place, the person who "gets" customer service, the person who understands sacrifice, the person who buys in to your mission…you can easily train them to do what you need to do. To try to do it the other way just doesn't work.
- Transfer the DNA. This is really just a continuation of #2. But take a hard look at your training. How much time do you spend vision casting? How much time do you spend covering the "soft" issues like your mission and your passion? This is critical stuff. Certainly, you need to spend the time necessary on certifications and processes. But you want to be sure that when that counselor is with her campers, that she would address a situation the very same way you would address it if you were there. A McDonald's Quarter Pounder tastes the same in Colorado Springs as it does in Tulsa and that's because the team has been trained in the McDonald's way of making QP's. You need to make sure all your staff…top to bottom…know your DNA and are ready to follow it.
- Keep your ear to the ground. How are you going to know how you're doing if you don't listen? Be intentional about gathering information on how you're doing. Beyond handing out user surveys, do you have a way for people to go online and give you their review of their experience? You should go to eCompliments now and set up an account and begin to direct users there to leave their comments. Then point prospects to that eCompliments site to see what others say about you. Do you have a video camera roaming around on pick up day to gather comments from kids and parents alike? Do you solicit camp stories on your website? Remember, even Jesus asked his disciples, "who do they say I am?" The stories you aren't hearing could be the very ones that are defining your brand.
Your brand is your responsibility. And although you can't control your brand, you can direct it and manage it.
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