23 episodes

The Brandcology podcast was created by Scott Seroka, Principal and Chief Brand Strategist of Seroka Brand Development. In my podcasts, I will provide valuable information to CEOs, business owners and entrepreneurs on how to strengthen their brands to help win new business as well as insights on how to build high-performance cultures.

Brandcology Scott Seroka

    • Business
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The Brandcology podcast was created by Scott Seroka, Principal and Chief Brand Strategist of Seroka Brand Development. In my podcasts, I will provide valuable information to CEOs, business owners and entrepreneurs on how to strengthen their brands to help win new business as well as insights on how to build high-performance cultures.

    5 Ways to Mange Culture in Times of Chaos

    5 Ways to Mange Culture in Times of Chaos

    We suffered one heck of a roundhouse kick with COVID-19. 
    Health concerns aside, business owners and employees were bracing for impact from day to day, and many times hour by hour as news developed, mandates went into place, and lockdowns took effect. 
    Even though some things seemed to have settled, many businesses still face uncertainties about the future as cases begin to rise and some states go back to imposing restrictions.   
    After speaking with several CEOs and senior executives who have led their companies not only through COVID but through other times of chaos, I’ll share five things I’ve learned from them that I think you’ll find valuable to keep everyone at your company in a healthy frame of mind.
    Communicate with people every day, even if there was nothing significant to report. Whether it was through Zoom or a simple email, they let everyone know how things were going at the company. To maintain a sense of comfort and normalcy, some shared sales updates, projections, bits of good news, and reinforced the importance of an all-hands-on-deck approach to survive. Most importantly, all said daily messages were closed on notes of optimism. Don't dwell on this crisis. After relevant facts are shared, move on to business as usual. The more a crisis is talked about, the more it preys on everyone’s mind. Busyness in times of chaos is a welcome distraction, and it serves to keep everyone focused. Also, (and this is huge) it is important to maintain a sense of humor.It's essential to be as flexible as possible with your employees. With so many schools switching to virtual learning, parents need to juggle their work responsibilities while making sure their kids are successfully adapting to a different way of learning. When a crisis like this extends into people’s personal lives, employers need to understand that something needs to give, and often it will be work-related engagement and performance. It’s also important to maintain a “business as usual” culture even though your people may be working from home. Communicate expectations, hold people accountable, don’t cancel meetings, and do the same things you’ve always done. In times of stress, people find comfort in what feels normal and familiar.One business owner stated the COVID crisis has brought him closer to his people because his way of keeping morale as healthy as possible was to have one-on-one conversations with each of his employees. He wanted to understand their worries and concerns and what he could do to help. He understood that just being a good listener was all many people wanted even though so much of what was going on was out of his control. As he said, “These conversations and moments of bonding would never have happened if we didn’t have to deal with COVID. The positive outcome of all this is that I have a better relationship with my people.”Many CEOs believe that the most effective thing they can do as a leader, whether in good times or bad, is to meet with their employees regularly. In fact, some spend upwards of 70 percent of their time doing this to build relationships and maintain a healthy culture and stay in the know of what is happening at the front lines. 
    If you typically hang out in your office, now is the time to get out of your chair to walk your floor and chat with anyone still coming in each day. Also, start to schedule phone calls and video chats with those still working from home. Ask people if there is anything you can do for them. They will appreciate these gestures more than you can imagine.
    A good friend of mine said he got a call from the owner of the company he works for and said he made it clear he’s not calling about business. He was simply calling to ask how he was doing. He said it was the nicest thing he’s ever seen the owner do.

    • 5 min
    How Manufacturers Attract and Retain Top Producers

    How Manufacturers Attract and Retain Top Producers

    When you hear manufacturers complain about how hard it is to find good people, do you share the same frustration?
    Your answer to this question will give you insight into the appeal your brand has among the “good people” (or top producers) in your industry – in other words, those employees you need to help you achieve your goals, grow your business, care about your company and win.
    When you post a job on LinkedIn, hire a recruiter, or place an ad on monster.com and receive an abundance of resumes or applications from highly qualified candidates, you should rightfully consider it to be a testimony to your brand’s good reputation and character. And nobody knows better than you that you aren’t sought after by great people because of luck.
    The brand you built is one that people believe in and want to be a part of. Your company is the place to be.
    However, if you find yourself shuffling through a very short stack of resumes or applications submitted by candidates who don’t possess the skills, strengths and experience you need to help your company be a force to reckon within your industry, your brand; your employer brand is to blame.
    Building a brand to attract the caliber of employees necessary to help you deliver on your brand’s unique claims of distinction, win new business and keep customers loyal and happy is just as important as building a brand to win new business.  
    You know that average employees produce average results, do average work and provide average customer experiences. And you know that average is the biggest barrier to excellence. 
    If you want to fill your company with top producers, you’ll need to compete for them with the same focus and vigor you have when competing for new customer relationships.
     
    It starts with your employer brand. To attract these hard-to-find top producers to your company, you must first understand what they are looking for – what they are expecting. 
    So I’ve created a list of what top producers look for in an employer, which is also available in the script of this podcast for you to download and review. 
    So here it is…
    1.    People want to work for a company with a great reputation supported by a brand and vision they understand and can believe in. In other words, shared beliefs, values and attitudes
    2.    They want to be part of something bigger than who they are and to know how their individual contributions make a positive difference in the lives of your customers. 
    3.    Opportunities for personal and professional growth.
    4.    To be paid more than an “average” salary. 
    5.    Opportunities to do what they love to do in an environment where they can learn from their mistakes
    6.    To be asked their opinion, to be heard and respected
    7.    Autonomy - to be trusted once it is earned and not to be micromanaged
    8.    Strong, consistent leadership. Crappy leaders push good people out the door.
    9.    To know what they are working for and why they are doing it
    10. A sense of purpose and pride in what they do
    11. To be challenged. Your people want to learn and to grow.
    12. To know what it means to win – not just new business and growth, but to know how winning is defined in their specific role
    13. To be recognized when a job is well done
    14. And finally, to know you care about them as people – not just hired help.
    Print this list out circle those things you currently provide. Next, distribute this list to your employees and ask them to circle those items they believe you provide to them. 
    When you get your feedback, you’ll know what to do to create the culture you need to attract the top producers in your industry. 

    • 5 min
    6 Common Roadblocks to Building a Meaningful Brand

    6 Common Roadblocks to Building a Meaningful Brand

    Often times in the manufacturing industry, companies end up “settling” for a weak brand.
    A weak brand is one that fails to adequately distinguish or differentiate itself from competing brands. 
    If you can’t explain to customers and channel partners what’s so special about your brand, there isn’t anything special about your brand. Hence, you’re losing sales opportunities. And I think you would agree that’s a problem. 
    The purpose of this blog is to be the bulldozer by getting six common roadblocks out of your way so that you have an easier time defining a brand that does distinguish and differentiate you from your competitors.
    Some of these roadblocks may surprise you.
    Let’s go through them, one by one:
    1. Confusion over what a brand is. I’ll break this down into two parts. A brand is what people think about when they hear your name or see your logo. Brand development, which is what you want to focus on, is identifying the distinctions your company owns that make a positive and noteworthy difference in the lives of your customers and channel partners. 
    2. Not knowing where to start. Begin by placing yourself in the shoes of your customers and ask yourself why specifically they should buy from you instead of your competition. This second part of the question is important because you do have competitors and you are losing business to them. You can’t improve your brand unless you ask yourself and your team this burning, painful question. 
    3. Ego. Let me tell you what I mean. Before embarking on any brand initiative, it’s crucial to gains insights into how your brand is perceived by employees, customers, and channel partners through a brand assessment. After all, you need to know where your brand stands in their hearts and minds so that you know how it could be better and stronger. 
    But, some CEOs don’t want to do an assessment because they’re afraid of what people might say about them, personally or their company. Those who have this fear claim they already know what their employees and customers think and doing any sort of assessment would be a waste of time and money. 
    4. The presence of a dysfunctional culture at the top. If you have a crappy culture of petty politics, conflicts of values, and poor leadership, what kind of culture do you think the rest of the organization has? Think of it this way – culture is defined as the social construct of an organization, and if that social construct is dysfunctional, your brand’s going to be in trouble. Typically, the only remedy is a new president or CEO who will come in and clean house. 
    5. Internal resistance. Remember the last time you pushed an idea on a group of people, and they all agreed to it with a big smile? Exactly. Part of the reason an internal culture and brand assessment is so necessary to the success of the brand is because you are inviting your employees to provide their insights, views, and opinions about the brand.   
    Even if some don’t completely agree with the brand you create, they will have appreciated the opportunity to contribute to the purpose and cause for creating a new brand. 
    6. Fear of change. The process of identifying your competitive distinctions is much easier than making the necessary internal changes to bring the new brand to life. Whether it is abandoning a part of your business, restructuring your company, re-writing your business plan, making new investments, or requiring people to change their habits and ways of thinking, large-scale change will be necessary. 
    So there you have it! If you can overcome these mindsets and challenges, you’ll be much more successful at building a brand that will help you grow your business.
     

    • 5 min
    8 Steps to Building a Stronger Brand

    8 Steps to Building a Stronger Brand

    What’s the name of your favorite hotel? 
    Okay, now let’s assume you’re booking a trip, and that hotel has no rooms available. What’s your second favorite? 
    So, now you have your “shortlist” of your preferred hotels. Now think about all the hotel brands that didn’t come to your mind. They won’t get your business, and for them, that’s a problem.
    Now suppose you need to rent a car. What’s your favorite rental car company? Let’s assume they have no cars available. What’s the name of the next company you would call?
    Again, think of all those other companies that didn’t come to mind. They won’t get your business, and for them, that’s a problem.
    You can play out these scenarios with any product or service – whether it’s a hotel, toothpaste, an attorney, or where you do your business banking. 
    In nearly every case, a very short list of brands will come to mind that you prefer over others. Conversely, you could easily think of quite a few brands you would avoid or never consider.
    My point is that the very people you want as customers also have a shortlist of companies they prefer over others when they need the products and services you offer. Are you on that list?
    The cold and brutal fact is that making a sale, winning a customer, or forming a relationship comes down to how people perceive your brand!
    I’m going to share the eight steps you can take to elevate your brand and make that shortlist so that when people do need what you sell, your brand has a better chance of being one of the first to come to mind.
    1.     Start by measuring the health of your culture through an internal culture assessment. 
    2.     Do a brand assessment among your employees, customers, and channel partners to gain insights into your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities from their perspectives. 
    3.     Start spying on your competitors.

    Here’s a tough question: If you were on the other side of your desk, would you do business with your company?
    4.     Answer this challenging question: If you were going to build a company that competes against you, how would you do it? How would it look? 
    5.     Invest heavily in your people through training. Not just technical, but training on leadership, communication, problem-solving, conflict-resolution, sales, marketing, branding, crisis communication, and any other training that better prepares them. When you do this, your company to be a force to reckon with. 
    6.     Become a visionary. Keep your fingers on the pulse on the trends in your business and industry and think in terms of your next big idea, even if you’re working on something right now that you believe will disrupt your industry or change the game. It’s a fact that you are only as good as your last idea, so think several steps ahead. 
    7.     Start courting top-tier people to be a part of your team and vision. It’s tough finding great people who will share your passion and determination to succeed. Network, have your people network, and be visible at trades shows and industry events. Focus on building awareness and build your company to be a natural habitat for top performers. 
    8.     Formalize and perfect your exit interview process. When done correctly, it is the best way to get candid feedback on the health of your culture. The healthier it is, the greater the chances of your success.
    That’s enough for now. If you do these eight things, elevating your brand into greatness is guaranteed. 
    Of course, if you’d like some help getting started, let’s talk. Building great brands is what we do!

    • 4 min
    8 Tactics For Building a High Performance Culture

    8 Tactics For Building a High Performance Culture

    A lot of companies refer to their work groups as teams. Let’s talk about that for a moment.
    Imagine you’re at the World Series, and you saw the outfielders staring at their iPhones while the opposing team was at-bat. Or, what if the quarterback of your favorite football team wandered onto the field while yawning at the beginning of a game? Or, if you’re a basketball fan, what if, during a playoff game, half the team stood around with their hands on their hips talking to each other while their other teammates were hustling on the court?
    I’m quite serious. Statistically, there is greater than a sixty percent chance you have people like this on YOUR team – coming in every day doing less than the bare minimum to get a paycheck.
    So, how about a real-life example. 
    Several years ago, in one of my roundtable groups, there was a business owner who often talked about the struggles she had with her business partner. They had opposite personalities, which should have benefitted the growth of the business, but unfortunately, it was a detriment. 
    Her partner was brilliant in terms of industry knowledge and the ability to bring in new business, but his alter ego was that of a bully for his style of leadership. Morale at her company was low and the turnover was high. 
    She had reasons to believe some of the key players and top producers would resign if things didn’t change.
    I was hired to do an internal culture assessment, and after numerous interviews with her people, her fears were confirmed. The culture was very unstable.
    When the two partners were presented with the evidence, they agreed to restructure their relationship so that she would be in charge of managing, leading, and nurturing all employees. He was going to play to his strengths in growing the business by focusing more on sales, managing vendor partners, corporate strategy, and being the visionary for the company.
    Once the employees were aware of the change, I provided a strategy and framework for building a culture of high-performance, accountability, and continuous improvement. 
    Here are the components:
    1.     Replace the dreaded annual review with ongoing face-to-face, in-person, real-time feedback. 
    2.     Keep employees in the know about what is going on at the company through newsletters, summits, an intranet, and town hall meetings. 
    3.     Invest in training. A few thousand dollars and a couple of days out of the office for sales, service, leadership, technical, industry or human resources training generates a very nice ROI. 
    4.     Invest in modern tools and systems to improve efficiency. 
    5.     Implement a culture of learning from failures.
    6.     Organize semi-annual appreciation days. The only way people can understand and respect the role of their counterparts is to spend a day in their shoes. Once every six months, production spends a day with salespeople, and salespeople spend a day in production to understand each other’s challenges and struggles. 
    7.     Clean house. Going through the office to declutter is both healthy and invigorating. 
    8.     Subscribe to a process for solving problems efficiently and effectively. One of my favorites comes from Jake Knapp, the author of “SPRINT” – a book that provides a method for solving big problems and testing new ideas in as little as five days. 
     

    • 5 min
    Avoid These Mistakes When Creating Your Tagline

    Avoid These Mistakes When Creating Your Tagline

    Some taglines are really confusing.
    I'll admit that whenever I see Addidas' tagline, Impossible is nothing, I can't figure out what that means. I also wondered what McDonald's was thinking when they promoted their new menu item with the tagline, Open your snack hole. And my favorite, most confusing tagline of all time was Blockbusters' which was, No more late fees. The start of more.
    In the manufacturing industry, there's a company that, for a brief time, used the tagline, The true leader. And, a metal fabrication shop that simply says, Customization happens here.
    This is what happens when the desire to be cute, witty, or even profound gets in the way of what a tagline is meant to do: provide a memorable and concise statement that sums up the essence of a brand. 
    If people you are targeting don't understand your tagline, or if they need to think about what in the heck it means, or if it's just meaningless, it's not doing your brand any favors. 
    Let's talk about your company. 
    If you're in the process of developing a tagline for your company, avoid the other mistake of focusing on the mechanics of your business – in other words, what your company does in terms of your business model as well as your product and service offerings. The reason is that it is probably nearly identical to what your competitors do. 
    Instead, focus on the value you bring to customers, channel partners, and other stakeholders that is better or different from what your competition brings. 
    Let's go through a few examples:
    Let's start with the AVIS rental car company. What Avis does is rent vehicles, just like Budget, Hertz, Enterprise, and many others, hoping to get your business. However, the essence of the Avis brand – the value they provide, is going above and beyond, which was intelligently communicated through their tagline, We try harder. 
    Another example is Apple. What Apple does is design and manufacture cool computers and digital devices. However, the essence of Apple's brand is challenging the status quo. They communicated in their prior tagline, Think different. The bonus to this tagline was that it was also a call to action for consumers. Brilliant.
    One of the taglines we created was for Waukesha Bearings. After a full brand analysis, we discovered that the two primary values they brought to the table were expertise in engineering and results. As these were brand attributes they could back up with evidence ─ things they can consistently deliver on ─ their tagline of Expert Engineering. Proven Results. was both natural and perfect for them. No confusion there! 
    So, back to you. What is the essence of your brand?
    If you manufacture gear drives, that's what your company does. And, so does every other company that makes gear drives. This is precisely why defining your brand and adopting a compelling tagline is so essential to the success of your company. 
    It helps customers and channel partners understand precisely why they should be doing business with you. Without a proper tagline, they will have a harder time distinguishing between your company and others, and that could cost a sale. I think you would agree that's a problem!
    This is the reason I firmly believe that decisions to buy and not buy are tied to a company's brand.
    Your value propositions should focus on those intangible traits or characteristics that you bring to the client relationship and experience, such as trade secrets, expertise, specializations, patents, accreditation's, processes, business practices, awards, and other things that would interest potential customers. 
    So now it's your turn.
    What is a short, memorable, and concise statement that sums up the essence of your brand? 

    • 4 min

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