The New Brand Ethos: The brand on the outside is only as strong as the brand on the inside.

“Marketers trying to build a strong brand without collaborating with HR is like developing a website without a dynamic SEO strategy.”

“Trying to build a strong brand without leveraging the personal brand strengths of sales and other customer-facing employees is like owning a smart phone without any apps.”

“Using internal communications as the only internal branding tool is like using a tablet computer without a connection to the Internet.”

For most organizations building a strong brand requires a new set of tools and a collaborative effort throughout the organization.  In this new context brand becomes the guiding principle that aligns all employees with the distinctive qualities of the organization’s brand and engages everyone to consistently apply them to create value for customers.

Our firm was founded in 1984 and for the last 10 years has focused our efforts on developing and implementing internal branding programs.  We have developed the most innovative internal branding tools and processes.  One of our unique competencies is our intrinsic understanding of how to leverage the combined strengths of an organization’s product, corporate and personal brands in a single framework. Our tools are based upon contemporary organizational development practices and designed to foster effective collaborative efforts across the organization.

Our singular focus is connecting the brand potential on the outside with the brand power inside. We have helped organizations in virtually every industry, profit and non-profit, apply the following four core competencies to build stronger brands.

Defining a Brand. The most powerful brand positioning strategy is the one that is most authentic and provides the most distinction. We are experts at identifying the authentic qualities of an organization and crafting a brand platform, anchored with a compelling brand promise that is distinctive, relevant and can be consistently delivered.  This is how we do it. 

Brand Assessment Research. We believe in the power of using proven quantitative research methods to assess a brand’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. Our clients benefit from our over 25 years of experience learning how to customize the most powerful, proven research methodologies and deliver the results with the kind of business sense that appeals to all levels in the organization. This is how we do it.

Internal Brand Building. The key to building a strong corporate brand is cultivating a strong aligned culture. Strong brands are driven by strong aligned cultures, aligned around the authentic qualities of the organization and delivered in a way that matters most to customers. Thousands and thousands of employees have experienced our patented Brand Alignment training workshops and programs.  Here’s how we do it.

Personal Brand Tools.  Integrating the personal brands of sales people and other customer-facing employees is likely one of the most underleveraged brand-building strategies for many types of organizations. Developing strong personal brands that are aligned with a corporate brand can be the missing brand-building link in organizations where an employee’s relationship with a customer is viewed as important as the corporate brand to sustaining customer loyalty.  Our innovative personal brand building and alignment tools create “blue ocean” brand-building opportunities for many organizations.  Take a look at our personal brand building tools.

As our name implies, we have the proven “tools” to take on the assignment, the experience and know-how to make our clients look like heroes.