Professional Communication: project an image, don't be creepy

How to create an image? How to communicate professionalism? Are there standards which can help us enhance the communication strategy?

Study Case

The answers to those questions are correlated and almost impossible to find separately. However, there are quite a lot of companies out there trying to cut down the communication costs while making efforts to score high on image rankings. I have in mind a recent experience from a big international corporation operating in the office space renting business. The experience included both online company research and visiting the local office. The research phase showed non-existing CSR policy, non-existing employee benefits, accusations of careless behavior in connection to the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center a few years back, and company-produced marketing videos. The visit at the local office revealed a high rate of employee turnover, very unusual hiring policy (hiring only for lowest hierarchy positions with no requirements for education and experience, on minimal wage), and deceiving job descriptions.

When walking through the door you are greeted way too eagerly by the staff which makes you almost uncomfortable. What they pride themselves for is great flexibility in services and high level of professional customer service. The only customer feedback is available through the corporate marketing videos though.

Communicational no go

What was observed at that company is an absolute communicational no go. The non existing CSR policy and the lack of personnel benefits in a country as Denmark where CSR is becoming more than a standard and employees are treated with special care as assets is a sign of unprofessional management. The smile of the receptionist is not enough to make up for corporate mismanagement or irresponsible behavior. It also needs to be in line with services, surroundings, corporate culture and needs to be rooted in a thorough policy. Otherwise it comes across as insincere and creepy. Smiling while doing your job needs to be just as professionally distanced as your work style. Are you flirting with the customer or servicing them? Make it clear.

Image: communication standards and guidelines

Image management, even though there is such a discipline, sounds very wrong as image management is nothing but the tip of the iceberg. Hiring a professional to work on your image does not make a lot of sense if you have not clarified what the company stays for and how it wants to be regarded by your stakeholders. Stakeholders are all individuals and groups that are or can be affected by the operating of your business and/or have an interest in your business.

You need therefore to start from identifying your business’ core characteristics and analyzing the strategic stars for your brand. After clarifying what is desired and what is possible you need to get very practical and analyze in what ways your vision and mission can be embedded in your culture and business operations.

While you make considerations about communication practices, image building and communicating your values outside of and inside the company you need to get acquainted with the professional communication standards which will be your guarantee that your communication strategy is not going to backfire by earning you critics or even lawsuits in connection to unethical behavior.

 

After you manage to create a thorough and working communication strategy completely aligned with your business operations you might want to go one step further and consider CSR. There are countless studies showing that a CSR policy is considered a plus and sometimes a definitive criterion for choosing your company as a partner, provider or employer. For the policy to work though, you once again need to be consequent. Just as you need to make sure that you have implemented a communication policy that fits your business profile you also need to do the same when engaging in CSR. If you are not careful about this you might end up being accused of using CSR as a promotional tool instead of as a sincere expression of your concern for your stakeholders and the environment. You might for example decide to fund poor children in Africa but you have to explain why it is the poor children in Africa getting your support and not the local caner organization, for example.

After completing your communication strategy you need to make sure that it covers as a minimum mission, vision, development strategy, internal communication and employee management, HR policy and benefits, corporate culture, online and traditional marketing activities, branding, crisis communication, media relations, external stakeholder management, customer relations specifically, community care and involvement, and CSR.

When you are ready you will find yourself under a stack of thick guidebooks addressing the separate topics. You will have to always make sure that they are aligned with strategy and updated regularly. Among those guidebooks you will find the one describing how you need to treat customers in order to communicate the desired corporate image.

Do you now understand why smiling a lot is not professional but creepy?

 

DIDI

Strategy development, stage 1

CONTENTS

1.      The Perfect Chaos

2.      A strategy – how to manage the chaos

a.       How to prepare for strategy development

b.      Strategy development

 

THE PERFECT CHAOS

Some companies do not understand the importance of strategy it seems. My personal experience with such a company made me aware of some worrying tendencies which one should absolutely avoid if the company is to survive on the market.

First, it seemed that after a relatively recent merge between the company and another company operating in the same general market segment nobody had bothered to evaluate the results in terms of qualifications, working environment, customer relations, company and business structure, etc. Nobody noticed that the company had turned from a small to a middle company. Then nobody understood the necessity of changes in terms of policy, structure, synergy, strategy, consumer segments, competition, market development, and so on.

The problem was that everything was driven on an emerging basis: we stumble upon it, so we should deal with it. However, that resulted in confused customers, dealing for more than a year with a double entity (both companies co-existing under one management); no clear concept about business structure or heading; no vision, mission or image which usually means problems in terms of finding a niche or a stable customer base; no visual image – no business cards, no logo, no presentation materials.

The worst mistakes though came in the form of lack of understanding of strategy. Chaos was created by trying to centralize the control and the administration even though there were two offices operating on different tasks with different customers and with completely different needs. The lack of marketing strategy (and business strategy for that matter) resulted in financial pre-crisis at the smaller office and absolute confusion about how to handle the insufficiency of clients.

The biggest problem though, was that the HQ management did not develop a strategy managing the issues on hand. The understanding and inclusion of all key elements characterizing the business and giving it a fighting chance seemed mission impossible. No wonder there – managing a small office is different than managing two bigger offices. Furthermore, strategy is a specific field and requires competences. You should not believe that knowing your field qualifies you as a strategist.

That is why, before everything falls apart, please understand:

 

A STRATEGY SHOULD BE DEVELOPED BY A STRATEGIST.

In line with that comes the last paradox in the story. Buried in problems, the small office had a great core competence that clients were interested in. However, not understanding what a strategy implies and what the business logic requires, development suggestions given by splendid professionals in their own field included ideas as offering a predefined service to customers (instead of learning to listen and adapt to clients’ needs) and mixing the successful service with different unconnected activities to ensure revenue (thus risking an image that has a chance to be established). Last but not least, one can even argue that the relative success so far has only been a coincidence as the short-termed action strategy – contacting possible customers – cannot ensure the achievement of any of the typical business goals – sustainability, growth, prestige.

A STATEGY – HOW TO MANAGE THE CHAOS

How to prepare for strategy development?

A strategy is crucial, as shown above.

Preparations for strategy development include full analysis of the available resources, of the market, the consumers, and the competition. Resource analysis should include:

1.      Personnel – number, location, qualifications, network, image (in some cases);

2.      Buildings – what does the company own or rent, how much does it cost, what is the location, what is the use of the buildings, what are the eco-characteristics of the buildings, etc.

3.      Management – what is the managerial structure, who are the managers, which are their qualifications, what network do they have and how good they can use it, what is their public image;

4.      Partners – qualifications, resources, CSR, public image, financial state, contracts and agreements, network;

5.      Supply chain – companies, CSR, qualifications, resources, public image, contracts and agreements, network.

6.      Finances – what is the current state of the company, debts, interests, investment, how are the resources managed;

7.      Image – how do our stakeholders see us and why, do we manage to broaden and retain the customer base, what is our strongest feature, what is negative about us, are we known, have we promoted our core competences effectively, have we reached all the stakeholders we needed to reach.

8.      Core competences – licenses, limited knowledge, special type of a service or a product difficult to copy, innovation, etc.

9.      Product – expected frequency of use, demand, price, quality, development, stage in the product life cycle, primary target groups, etc.

After finishing the internal corporate analysis, an external research should be launched to get a detailed picture of the market situation. It should absolutely include:

1.      Competitors – bench marketing, consumer segments, core competences, possibly future strategy, types of products, financial state and public image.

2.      Market – rules and regulations, supply and demand, financial stability, customers’ ability and desire to buy, market tendencies and branch tendencies, etc.

3.      Political and social situation – development and freedom of the market, legal systems and necessary steps to legalize the business, expectations of local communities, political interests and cross-border connections, war, etc.

4.      Consumers – brand dependency, expectations regarding product quality, price, socially responsible practices, levels of consumer awareness in connection to the product’s characteristics and the business practices, local communities, customers of other brands/companies, etc.

5.      Other stakeholders – mapping of all groups or individuals with an interest in the business or interest affected by the business or affecting the business.

Those factors do vary depending on the type of company, on the branch, and the country you operate in. The important part is to analyze comprehensively all factors that have impacted, are impacting or might impact the company. Only then you are ready to talk strategy.

Strategy development

Strategies are developed in close collaboration between the company’s finance manager, business administrator, marketing manager, development/innovation managers, sales managers and possibly stakeholder representatives. It might be that a smaller company will hire outside help if not housing all the needed experts, but it should not happen that any of the core business areas is overlooked.

After establishing the status of the company, vision and mission should be defined. At first they would typically encompass only the financial and growth goals but in the formulation process they will come to encompass everything from resources and company interest to marketing, communication and stakeholder interests. Mission and vision are closely connected to the existing (if any) image of the company and to the desired one. That is to say that setting goals should not only be based on perceived abilities but also on stakeholder expectations.

With the appropriate choice of mission, vision and image goals the first major step in strategy development is over. From here on follows the development of a company-specific operative plan meant to lead the way to realization of the corporate goals.

A very important point here is that mission, vision and image have the purpose to channel the company’s efforts, thus maximize outcomes. However, this also means failure if mission, vision and image are chosen inappropriately. Last but not least, a note which one easily can find in any management textbook – the strategy must be a process, not a campaign with a clearly defined deadline.

DIDI