Kenny Chapman (the Blue Collar Coach) urges business leaders to prioritize brand communication by training frontline team members to consistently represent the brand. Using a retail price-discrepancy anecdote, he illustrates how lack of training and unclear expectations at the store level can create negative customer experiences; he recommends leadership-driven training, spot checks, and clear guidance for staff.
Hey everybody, Kenny Chapman here, the blue collar coach with just a quick message mid week here where I want you to think about your brand. We're getting ready to head into the second quarter. In fact, at the time of this recording, we're a week away from quarter two, 2015. So here we go. Are you ready? Well, ready or not, here it comes, as they say. So think about brand for a moment. I want you to think about brand execution. I want you to think about brand promise. I want you to think about what your brand represents, what it means, what it feels like, what it looks like, what it resonates, what it commun communicates when it comes to your clientele. Now we get that picture. You've got logos, you've got advertising, marketing colors, USPs or unique selling propositions. All these different things behind who you are, how you can quickly and effectively communicate to your potential client base and current client base about what that looks like, but who really communicates it. You and I can buy trucks, we can logo trucks, we can wrap trucks, we can put things on the side, we can buy fancy smart cars and cute little vehicles for comfort advisors and team members to drive around and to draw attention to what our brand visual perception is. But what's the major brand communication? When working with live schools, I always teach technicians, owners, service managers, everybody that we have, in fact marketers as well, that brand communication, no matter how many brands you have or how many frontline team members you have that touch clients, potential clients, people that know clients, people that know potential clients. So pretty much everybody people we're coming in contact with, somehow, some way, could have brand communication from our front line. So that goes back to training. What are you giving them in the way of how you want your brand communicated in the way of what you want specifically brought to the universe, brought to your marketplace, brought to who you are and what you're really about, if you don't do training, you don't have them effectively engaged in what you really represent, what you really want to happen, then you're just flying in the wind. So earlier this week, Christy and I, lovely Christy and I were at this chain, like a retail chain, big retail home chain. I'll leave their name out of it for now just for the sake of the exercise. But we're going through and we're buying a new pizza cutter we got into. We're making pizza at home on our own. As many of you know, we're pizza lovers and we're trying to master this Italian style pizza at home without A pizza oven. So we're doing the best we can as we learn this process. So we're buying some utensils, whatever. And there was a price that was $10.99 on this particular pizza cutter. So the little label thing said 10.99, but on the box it was marked $9.99. So Christy said, oh, well, they'll honor that. We'll just take it up there and tell them. So we get up there, and there's this late teen, early 20 girl that is waiting on, is helping us. And she rings it up. And so Christy says, well, did it charge us $9.99 or $10.99 for that? She said, oh, well, it charged $10.99. That's what's in the computer. Okay, well, that's fine. That's what's in the computer. But this is what's on the price tag right here in front of us that was marked by your store. She goes, oh, well, it just happens when it comes up in the computer. Now, remember, we're talking about a dollar here, but for me, this isn't about the dollar. This is about fundamental. This is about doing the right thing by the client and this and that. So she says, well, hang on, we'll get a manager. And then we're waiting. We're waiting. I'm like, you know what? I don't have time for this. It's not worth the dollar. It's not her fault. And we made it clear. But here's what Whose fault is it? Is it corporate? Is it the store manager? Is it the shift leader? Is it the team member? Where does the responsibility lie? It lies on us in leadership. It lies on us to train it, to communicate it, to test it, to know that there are certain things. She doesn't know what the company represents when it comes to something being mismarked, when it comes to price in a retail environment. Do you think that could happen a little bit now? What about us? What are we training our front line? What are we training our technicians, our maintenance techs, our salespeople, our customer service agents, our dispatchers, our warehouse team, the people that are touching clients, potential clients and people that might know clients and potential clients. What are we teaching them that we want them to say? I'm not talking about scripting and putting people in a box and making them anything that they're not. I'm talking about education. I'm talking about buy into a brand. I'm talking about the fact that you are incredible at what you do. And you drive the most value in the marketplace and you want your team communicating that. Make sure you're training. Make sure your frontline understands it. And spot check it periodically so you don't create a negative taste in somebody's mouth like what Christy and I had. Over a dollar. Until we talk again, have a better than fantastic week and I'll see you next time.
