Who is the most important brand ambassador at your company?

Is it you, the CEO, whose job it is to motivate, inspire, and exude confidence in your company, its products, and its services? How about your business development team, whose sole purpose is to funnel new client lifeblood into your veins and arteries? Or is it the marketers, who toil to define and develop your brand and make it ready for prime time?

What if I told you the answer is none of the above?

In fact, in today’s world of digital sharing, transparent authenticity, and empowered consumers, your front-line workforce may be the only credible brand authority that truly matters to a finicky and enlightened public.

Recent data from DSNM8 underscores this shocking reality: Audiences increase by a whopping 561 percent when a brand message is shared by employees versus shared via a corporate channel alone.

This means the elevator pitch has given way to the quality conversation – and if each of your employees isn’t indoctrinated into the stewardship of your messaging, your values, and your brand promise, you risk losing significant ground to competitors who are already doing this.

So, what has led to this change?

You need look no further than the device in your pocket to understand why the fundamentals of contemporary communication have shifted in this manner. Easy access to digital channels has flipped the concept of corporate dialogue on its head. Your brand – like it or not – is being defined, and refined, by the second, by consumers who are more than willing to share their experiences in graphic and unvarnished detail. They are skeptical, at best, of your polished prose and glossy ads, and pull no punches when your attempts to engage them “where they live” seem inauthentic.

But employees – considered several steps removed from the monolith and who enjoy a more human-like alter ego among friends and family – are best positioned to break through the digital static and deliver a clear message.

One recent study concluded that “the role of employees in the brand-building processes is increasingly crucial in the era of social media and digital conversations. Companies should focus on this relevant issue and foster these brand-building behaviors among employees.”  

To many of you, this may be considered quite a departure from the days where speaking on behalf of the company was expressly limited to senior leadership and other designees. And, in some respects, opening up the complexities of your brand message to a broad and varied group does carry some risks.

But, when managed correctly, you can develop a messaging architecture that will play anywhere and allow for individuality and authenticity – creating a foundation upon which your employees can build stories and bring your messages to life.

Let’s start with the general structure of this messaging architecture. Again, we want to avoid imposing strict standards or creating letter-for-letter speeches that will seem inauthentic. Instead, favor a set of guidelines that follow these general rules:

• This should not be positioned as an elevator speech, but a conversation
• The foundation of this is a non-linear mind map built around an overarching central message that serves as the “common ground”
• Categories for this messaging should be around markets, product offerings, benefits, and the like
• Messages should vary from qualitative to quantitative, and people can use them and order them in their comfort zone, appropriate for their voice, a specific setting, the audience, and the purpose of their communication.

With the fundamentals of your messaging architecture in place, now comes the real challenge – instilling this ethos in a way that will resonate with impact, with a group of people that represents the broadest variety of the business spectrum.

Here are some steps I’ve seen used to introduce this type of messaging to the general workplace population:

1. Introduce the messaging to employees in mixed-function groups. The goal is to offer the employees the opportunity to learn from each other, so there is authenticity in discovering the impact of the architecture when they use it to talk about each associate’s work in relation to the brand.
   
   
2. Engage in role plays, where they have scenarios in which to use the messages. If it is said that practice makes perfect, then you’ll achieve the most success by providing a platform for rehearsing these messages. Be sure to eschew any sense of bias based on the individual employee’s function – these role-plays need to be realistic and authentic.
   
   
3. Rehearse a variety of role plays based on real-world acceptance of your product, service, or brand reputation. Role plays should range from the softball to the challenging. Remember, when you deputize each associate as a company ambassador, they likely will get a variety of feedback about your company – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
   
   
4. Teach the art of storytelling. One final key aspect is to help employees understand and get comfortable with an easy approach to storytelling for business. This is a skill that can help not only with leveraging the messaging architecture for ambassadorship, but also for spreading strategy, knowledge, and engagement internally (which further builds the engagement of your employee brand ambassadors).

Whatever your approach, be sure to commit to this employee-forward posture as soon as possible. Like it or not, the dialogue has forever shifted -- and the conversations are ongoing. If I can be of assistance to you as you develop and roll out a messaging architecture, please reach out.