When a business is young and small maintaining consistency in brand and purpose (what you stand for and why) is a pretty simple task. As a business grows in both size and success, maintaining that consistency can become a pretty daunting challenge. How then does a firm that is grappling with expansion and all of the associated tasks such as hiring, opening new offices, penetrating new markets, developing new products, etc., manage to not lose sight (or control) of the very things that made them a success to begin with?

It starts with a commitment very early on in the maturation of the business to build systems that safeguard and institutionalize the organization’s brand. The buzz word that is permeating the branding world at the current hour is Internal Branding. Whatever you want to call it, internal branding is essential to managing growth and smart businesses have been doing it for decades.

The Platform
It starts with a well defined brand platform that can be clearly articulated to all stakeholders within the organization. The brand platform is a simple device that, when used properly, can take a lot of the guess work out of managing the growth of an organization’s brand. It provides a framework by which employees of all stripes can make informed decisions related to the positioning of the organization. It starts with a mission, but it doesn’t end there. Understanding why you’re in business is critical, but it’s only the first step in developing a cohesive brand platform that will grow with your business. Once the mission of the organization is clearly defined, it must be translated into a set of values, an overarching promise, and concise positioning (the value proposition) that supports the mission.

The Process
The process of defining your organization’s brand platform can take several forms and will be informed, to a large degree, by whom you choose to partner with in the process. We have a standardized process that we take our clients through called BrandSpring®. It’s comprised of a series of interactions that include: brand audits, stakeholder interviews, competitive research, immersion groups, and employee workshops.

Once a clearly defined platform begins to emerge it’s time to codify the findings and begin the work of translating those findings into meaningful expressions of the brand that resonate with employees and partners. Increasingly we’re finding clients are interested in engaging us for the explicit purpose of internal branding and only then turning the attention to how they communicate their brand to the marketplace.

Implementation
Internal branding is not just about defining the truth of your organization, it requires a high level of rigor to implement and relies heavily on senior management’s commitment to educating the rest of the organization. If the brand platform is just posted on the employee intranet or turned into a poster that’s hung on the wall of the lobby, then consider the engagement a failure. In order to succeed, the engagement will require a significant investment on the part of everyone that participates. To succeed, a brand champion (or champions) must be identified and their never-ending role will be to make sure that the internal brand is protected, nurtured, and shared by the entire organization.

Why it matters
It’s essential that this exercise doesn’t start with a list of “stuff we need”. There will always be a need to develop intranets, and employment manuals, and the like. But, the heart and soul of an internal branding exercise is to clarify and articulate what makes you special and why people would even want to work for your organization. When done well, a properly executed internal branding campaign can be not only the best recruitment tool you’ve ever invested in, but the most effective tool for retaining top talent as well.