The Law of Impact 💥💫 EBH
Employer brand has real value because companies are just people
Get a quick taste of what my latest podcast looks and feels like. If you like it, check out TheBrandPlan.show or subscribe wherever you get your podcast fix.
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Law #1: The Law of Strategy (video)
Law #2: The Law of Focus
Law #3: The Law of Perception
Law #4: The Law of Ownership
Law #5: The Law of Impact
The brand can (and should) touch everything.
Let’s get something clear from the jump. People are not your company’s greatest asset. People are your company. Full stop.
Without people, a company is a taxation number and a set of legal rules. The entire purpose of a company is to enable a group of people to do more together than an individual could do. By itself, it does nothing. It makes nothing. In pretty much every sense, a company without people is nothing.
This means that for all the value that marketing brings to the table to get people to understand why people should buy a product or like a brand, employer branding owns the human side of the brand.
This is of note because it turns out that companies are just people.
People who work in development. People who work in sales. People who work in HR. People who work in procurement. People who work in marketing. People who work in operations. They all need to hire people, which means, they need to have a compelling message around their differentiated value that they can share to attract and hire the people who will grow that team and the company as a whole.
Pro tip: Having issues with a certain team? (*cough*marketing*cough*) Wait until they have a critical role that isn’t filling fast enough (spoiler: it is NEVER filling fast enough) and then offer to help. When they see how you work, and how what you do is different from how they work, they will start to see your value more and ask you to show up to more meetings.
But the employer brand impacts the entire company because the company’s people are the driver for every choice and decision made at the company. That new feature the press is raving about? People did that. That customer service that people are complaining about? People made the decisions as to what constitutes “good service.” That account manager who went above and beyond to save the account? That person probably worked with other people to solve the problem. The executive being sued for creating a toxic work environment? Despite all evidence, that is actually a person.
So if people are the lifeblood of a company, there is value in having everyone who works there understand the shared goals, mission, values and behaviors of the company. People aligned towards the same ideas generally have higher productivity.
Conversely, everyone knows the stories of companies that let the one over-performing jerk get away with things because they bring in so much business, but in the end that tolerated behavior poisons the well for everyone else. The one person (and the leadership who refuses to fix the problem) reshapes the culture negatively.
Alignment here creates its own value. When people have a shared understanding of the “rules” of working at the company, when they all see the same goalposts, they work better. They work with less rancor. They have less friction, and any existing friction is resolved faster and more amicably.
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Want some free employer brand consulting? Reply to this email and we’ll set up a sessions where I’ll answer any three questions you have for free. The only catch? We’ll record it and it might turn into something! Just hit reply if you’re interested.
***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***
-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]
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