Engaged

Gregg Lederman is a professional speaker and the CEO of Brand Integrity, Inc., a software and consulting firm which specializes in culture change and customer experience design. Mr. Lederman also teaches MBA students at the University of Rochester and is a columnist for the Rochester Business Journal. He is the author of Achieve Brand Integrity and the owner/operator of TG Marketing, a retail and wholesale bakery and ice cream business. Mr. Lederman is a graduate of the University of Rochester and Ithaca College.

Customers love doing business with any company which has a highly motivated workforce who are enthusiastically dedicated to delivering a great experience. To arrive at that happy (and profitable) destination, three things are required:

1. You have to define what living the brand looks and feels like — your living the brand system.
2. You have to keep reminding people day by day what's required to live the brand.
3. You then have to quantify how you're doing and make the ongoing adjustments required to fine-tune and improve.

Pure and simple engaged employees live and breath your brand. They know your mission, buy-in to your values and deliver those day-to-day experiences which bring your brand to life. The more engaged they are, the better. It makes sense to treat your people well so they will do the same to your customers.

1. Four Principles for Defining Your Living the Brand System. All businesses operate with systems. To create an engaged workforce, you need to create a system for getting everyone to live your brand. This can't be restricted to any one department but must be owned and operated company-wide. It's vital that you clearly define the branded experience you aspire to deliver. If you don't have everyone on the same page and working towards delivering the same experience, you don't have a prayer. Define what living the brand means

2. Four Principles for Reminding and Quantifying the Customer Experience. Once you get your ideal branded experience clearly defined, your next challenge is to create a performance-based culture where everyone lives it. To do this, you use tools to measure what's happening and then regularly remind everyone what they need to be doing better in the future. Metrics are what matters most when it comes to improving your ongoing performance in living your brand.