A Company's Most Valuable Asset

The most valuable asset for any company are its employees
Without the employees a company could not be where it is today.  The employees no mater the job all have a roll in the company and its success or failure.  With the current economic downturn many companies are neglecting the most valuable asset to ensure a profit.  As a business student I understand the occasional need for cutbacks.  As mentioned in When is it Time to Change the Status Quo blog post "There is no perfect business, formula, or strategy each and everyone can be improved and refined" There is not a perfect business with 100% efficiency and they all can be improved, so instead of resorting to layoffs and cutbacks first look for ways to improve efficiency.  Or invest in your employees, happy, motivated employees are more productive and efficient.  To make the employees content and motivated might not cost anything, employees care about more than just money.  I highly recommend that you watch this video by RSA Animate Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us and the other RSA Animate videos.

Treat your employees right and enjoy the rewards
The best employees are the motivated employees, so as a company you need to find a way to motivate them.  Google recently gave its employees a bonus and a raise to keep them happy and motivated.   If you watch Undercover Boss on CBS they show examples of the best employees who are motivated and who might also have a touching story.  Those are the individuals companies want to employ.  A motivated employee takes pride in what they are doing and understand their importance in the company AND the company understands the employees importance.  The difference between a motivated employee and an unmotivated or disgruntled employee is clear.  The difference is even clearer in the areas of customer service and quality control.  A motivated employee takes the time and effort for the customers behalf not their own.


Not all employees are right for your company
A company is like a machine it is made up of a lot of parts (people) and they all have their place.  If a individual does not fit in where they currently are or is not motivated the machine will not run efficiently.  The part is either in the wrong place or doesn't belong in the machine.  Don't force the part into the machine if it doesn't fit, it will damage the part and maybe the machine.  If the person doesn't fit or isn't motivated to do a proper job then their boss and the company needs to find a way to motivate them so they do or find someone who will.  The departments of Customer Service and to some extent areas that need quality control have high turnover rates.  Those employees no longer fit in the machine.  Once one part goes bad it starts to effect the rest of the parts in the machine.  Either repair or replace that part those are the only two options the company has.

What do you think are the most valuable asset?  How do you make sure to keep employees motivated?  Do you notice a difference between motivated employees and non-motivated employees when you deal with customer service or other areas?  

Brand Loyalty - A Symbiotic Relationship

Brand Loyalty is something that is established at an early age.

From commercials for what cereal to eat to what shows you watch for what products to buy. The relationship with the brand grows and strengthens over time, as does your loyalty. The loyalty you show the brand is returned with continued great service and

products. Many brands have also established loyalty programs for their valued customers.

For the quality brands your relationship strengthens over time and the brand already has a product or service for you in your next stage in life. For instance McDonald's, they have a happy meal for when you are young and meals for when you get to old for a happy meal. Other brands don't have this ease of transition. Once you reach your a cut off age where that brand is no longer cool or popular there is nothing more that the brand can offer you. All that brand loyalty that was built over the years has vanished. A personal example was my younger brother who loved Barney, he had Barney & Friends toys, games, clothes, bed sheets. But once he reached that age where Barney wasn't cool he got rid of all of that.

What could Barney have done?

Not much could have been done when you focus on an age demographic and have no follow up once they get beyond that age range. Once the brand locked themselves in with the 1-8 age range they were stuck with it. They could have attempted to make a spin off show for an older audience of 5-12 to run with the original. But with such a narrow demographic the brand was doomed for a cliff of brand loyalty. Some brands that managed a better job are the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus brand with a larger demographic and numerous complementing industries. The brand has movies, music, video games, clothes, jewelry and much more that appeals to a wider age range than the original brand. Two other brands are my childhood favorites of Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For me I started with the cartoons at a young age, 5 or 6, and expanded into their toys. Over time expanding further with their video games and movies. With the additional arenas for me to follow the brands to my loyalty and fandom grew and expanded.

Ways brands can destroy the relationship.

There are many ways of destroying the relationship and loyalty.

1. No Room to Grow -As stated above one way you can destroy the brand loyalty is by not having a way to continue to evolve the relationship once it reaches a point (age range or end of brand product line).
2. Poor Customer Service/ Brand Deterioration - can whittle away at the established brand loyalty as described by Scott Stratten in his blog post Why I changed my coffee religion.
3. The Competition has Arrived - Someone else has came and has a bigger, better, and/ or cheaper product or service. But if you have brand loyalty they should wait for you to come out with a similar product, as long as you let them know.
4. Any others I have missed besides these big three let me know.

What brands are you loyal to and why? What have they done that others haven't?

If you enjoyed this post you can read my post on Brand Value - It changes with the tide

Photo Credit to ArbyReed