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Mine Your Own BusinessStep 3: Mine it!Comment on this newsletter at yastrow.com I'll cut to the chase: Your business is laden with untapped profit potential, and it is the job of everyone in your company to mine those profits. Now, I'll give you the details. In the last three issues of this newsletter, I have described a process for developing the hidden profit potential in your business:
In this issue, I will focus on the third and final step in the "Mine Your Own Business" System: Mine it!. This is the step where concept meets action. This is where the rubber meets the road, where the chicks are hatched, where we harvest our crop. In short, this is where we actually take action to create profit results. The following graphic illustrates the The "Mine Your Own Business" System:
The connection between employees, customers and profits The "Mine Your Own Business" System, as shown in the graphic above, illustrates the connection between employees, customers and profits:
Let's talk about the role everyone in your company plays in mining your latent profit. Yours is a company of miners Your ability to unleash the latent profit in your business depends, directly, on what everyone in your company does. Everyone in your company is involved in driving profits. They may not know that this is their role, but, nonetheless, it is their role. Sure, your sales people, senior executives and other key players may play the most visible roles in mining latent profit, but there is no one in your company whose actions do not affect the bottom line. Brand habits:
"Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to, I can tell, the way you do the things you do." This line from The Temptations' 1964 hit single, "The Way You Do The Things You Do," makes me think of the connection between the actions your employees take and the success of your company. Is there "a way" that your people do the things they do, which is shared throughout your company? Do your team members act according to a set of "brand habits" that help them know what to do, in any situation? Do these habits, as they are performed throughout your company, create a cumulative, compelling story for your customers? When the actions of everyone who work for a company are guided by a shared set of principles and guidelines, i.e., brand habits, magic happens. Employees act in concert, automatically. Customers "get it." Customers love you more. So, why would your team members want to follow a shared set of habits? Employee Beliefs Drive Employee Action In our last issue, discussing the "Design it!" phase of The "Mine Your Own Business" System, I made this point: Your customers don't do what you tell them to do. They do what they tell themselves to do. Customers' beliefs drive their actions, and these beliefs are formed by the free speech going on in their own minds. The same thing can be said of the employees in your company. They don't do what they are told. They do what they believe. The way to get employees to act according to your company's set of brand habits is to ensure that these employees deeply, sincerely and passionately believe that it is in their best interest to do so. Your Internal Brand Is Your Most Important Brand
The beliefs your team members have about your company represent your internal brand. Building the brand inside your company comes before building the brand outside your company, for a very simple reason: The actions of your employees build your external brand, and those actions are driven by the internal brand. Your external, customer-facing brand is limited by the power of your internal brand. The Apple Store is a great example where employees enthusiastically engage in brand habits because of a strong internal brand. The employees learn habits to help them create engaging customer experiences. Part of that is helping customers find the right product for their particular needs. Employees are not commissioned, which enables them to spend time with customers to find the right solution. If someone comes in asking for a $400 iPod Touch, and the employee discovers the $79 Shuffle would be better for her, the employee knows to suggest the Shuffle. Why do Apple Store employees do this? Their behavior is driven by a strong internal brand. Apple employees believe in the product, believe in the process and recognize their personal role in helping Apple attain sustainable success. Creating a strong internal brand A core, fundamental belief of mine (it's easy to see this belief: It is practically tattooed on my forehead) is that it has become near impossible to "brand" customers through the traditional advertising-driven "brute force" model which ruled the marketing world for the last 75 years. It is Brand Harmony, not brute force, that creates powerful brand impressions in customers' minds. The same holds true for building strong internal brands. You can't beat an internal brand into your employees' heads through training programs, internal newsletters, button campaigns and rah-rah videos alone. Sure, these tools can play a role in your internal brand building, in the same way that advertising and direct marketing play an important, but limited, role in your external marketing. As with marketing to customers outside your company, you must create a strong sense of Brand Harmony inside your company if you hope for your team to share beliefs that drive shared actions. Every aspect of the employment experience must create a strong "I get it" message that guides employee beliefs and actions. "Let My People Do" There are many reasons that internal branding programs fail, but the saddest, from my perspective, is when employees come to believe in the internal brand and want to engage in appropriate brand-supporting behavior but are unable to because of constraints the company has put on them. Sometimes a company has rules and policies that are in the way of brand-supporting behavior. Les Bentley, former president of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, gave me a great example of this. During Les's tenure, Wyndham focused heavily on employee empowerment. One day Les walked into the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Dallas, and a front desk person challenged him on the company's sincerity with empowerment. "Last night a guest checked into the hotel, and when I told him the rate at which his reservation was booked, he said that he was told a rate $30 lower at the time of reservation. I was sure he was mistaken, but I also thought that the best thing to do was honor the rate. However, I'm only authorized to decrease a rate by $25 without a manager's approval, and the manager was not available, so I couldn't reduce the rate." Les said to the front desk agent, "You're right. We're wrong. I'm changing the policy today. If you're truly empowered, we should let you decide the right thing to do, regardless of the amount of the discount." You can't ask employees to be the brand, and then not let them do it. Often system constraints get in the way of appropriate employee actions. Just today a doctor was telling me about how his hospital has inadvertently made it difficult for nurses to engage with patients in the way they've been asked to engage with patients. The hospital has introduced a complex electronic medical records (EMR) system that forces nurses to have their eyes glued to a computer screen as they interview patients during an intake session. These same nurses have been through training programs that stress the importance of eye contact and human interaction, yet the cumbersome EMR process makes this near impossible. Take Notice As a customer, pay attention to your interactions with several employees at a company. Is there a way they "do the things they do?" What habits can you identify? Does your customer experience seem to be improved because of these habits? How do you compare? How many (good) habits do employees of your company share? What would your customers notice after interacting with several employees from your company? Try This Complete the "Mine Your Own Business" exercises from the rest of the series. First, Find it! (The untapped latent profit in your business) Then, Design it! (What actions do your customers need to take? What beliefs will encourage them to act?) Now, engage with your team members. Share the Find it! and Design it! steps with them, ask them to read this newsletter, and start developing habits and shared beliefs together. Foster truly open communication and be ready to change policies and systems that get in the way. The results will be impressive if it's done company-wide or just in your department. Mine it! Employee engagement feels good, but it is about so much more. Employee engagement reduces employee turnover, but it is about so much more.
I'll have a lot more to say about the connection between employees, customers and profits in the near future, but for now I encourage you to embrace the ideas in The "Mine Your Own Business" System and begin to put them into action. Profit creation isn't a mystery, but that doesn't make it easy. The "Mine Your Own Business" System gives you a framework for unleashing the latent profit in your business, no matter what your current situation is, and no matter what's going on in the world outside your business. Major profit breakthroughs are lurking just below the surface of your business... go ahead, Mine it!
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Buy Steve's new book, We: The Ideal Customer Relationship In We, you will find: We is both a manifesto and a how-to guide that will change the way you interact with customers ...and change the way your customers think about you. More praise for We “When
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storyteller, a sophisticated purveyor of ideas, and an effective change
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and ‘engagement’. Bravo!” "This is a fundamental shift in thinking that offers up a what's-next-beyond
experience marketing." Buy We at Get More Steve Steve's Internal Branding posts on tompeters.com The DNA behind good habits is your Brand Essence Newsletter introducing the "Mine Your Own Business" System Step 1: Find it! of the "Mine Your Own Business" System Step 2:Design it! of the "Mine Your Own Business" System Free Readiness Teleseminar MP3 and Learning Guide
"I had to buy two copies. The first one is so dog-eared and underlined I couldn't read it any longer." - Seth Godin Orchestrate your customers' total experience with your company by using the concepts in Steve's first book, Brand Harmony. Chapter Six of Brand Harmony is dedicated to helping you and your employees, "Be the Brand." Buy Brand Harmony at Helpful Links: See this newsletter in your browser |
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Engaged employees, who believe in your brand and act according to appropriate brand habits, are the key to mining latent profit in your business. Employees are profit miners, because their actions are what influence customers to act in ways that improve your results. 
How to help your employees develop habits to mine your latent profit.