I often get asked “how do you have so many employees who act as ambassadors of your company?” So I will start with the basics. If you want to have employees who act as ambassadors, or as I like to say, raving fans for your company, start with these steps:

 1) Have a compelling core purpose. It’s hard to get employees excited about representing your company if they aren’t excited about what your company does to begin with. And it doesn’t matter what you do – its WHY you do it that makes it exciting.

 How did Southwest Airlines become such a unique airline? Their employees cared about why they existed. It is much easier to become passionate about “Giving People the Freedom to Fly” (they started out by competing with bus lines at a time when it was too expensive for bus commuters to fly) then working for the big airlines who existed just to get people form one place to the next.

2) Have a vivid description of the future. Otherwise known as the “envisioned future” or the “painted picture”, it is the vivid description of WHERE you are going and what you look like in the future. And the more vivid and detailed it is, the easier it becomes to galvanize people around your vision.

I just met with an employee of a company whose founders just split – and the founder who remained didn’t believe in the company’s painted picture. Guess what? A lot of their employees are leaving. Why? They were all rallied around the same, vivid, vision and when that changed, they started to leave in droves because that is why they were there.

3) Have strong, well defined and clear core values that truly reflect who you are; and make sure they are “alive” in your company. Your core values are your actions that define who you are as a company. Having a strong set of core values that are “alive” causes a “bee’s to honey” phenomenon where you are attracting the right people who want to do the right thing for the company. And if your company is hard wired to live these values, day in day out, it creates an undeniable sense of pride within the organization. Get this part right and you will have employees who will always stand up for your company.

At Nurse Next Door, we get hundreds of applications for every position we hire for. Why? Because there are a lot people out there that resonate and connect with who we are, and they want to work at a company that aligns with what they stand for.

4) Hire employees who get it. Have a great core purpose but that new employee doesn’t really care about it? Have a crystal clear vision that gets you jazzed but your new employee only cares about their own job? Have core values hard wired into your company’s DNA but the new employee doesn’t live them? Then all of the above is useless. It will never work. Give up, pack it in, you ain’t getting anywhere.

And for those current employees who don’t get it? Get them off the bus….fast!

5) Build your brand around your core purpose and core values. Make it easy for your employees to “get it.” By building your brand around your purpose and your values, it re – enforces why you do what you do and how you do things on a minute by minute basis with your employees. Get this part right and your employees will never forget it. Get it right and your customers will know what you stand for.

Zappos is a company who has done this the right way. Sure, they are an Internet company who re-sells shoes (who cares, right?). But through their core values, they have built an incredible culture that delivers superb customer service (a big differentiator for them). And through their purpose, they “deliver happiness” with every box of shoes that comes to your door. Acting like this causes them to go from just being a re seller of shoes on the Internet to a brand that people flock to because of what they stand for and how they do things.

At Nurse Next Door, we are in the process of looking at every single customer touch point and asking ourselves “how do we really “Make Lives Better” with this experience? It is a great way to start ensuring that your employees connect your purpose with what they do.

When your employees act as ambassadors for your company, things get easier. Start from these five rules and you will start to see your employees go from being just mere “employees” to becoming raving fans of your brand.

This entry was posted on May 9, 2011 at 12:14 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Brand Core Purpose core values Culture Hiring The Envisioned Future Vision by admin 3 Comments