by Melanie DePaoli

    This article was published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

You see me one time. This is someone’s license plate in the community that I am living. Since it is on a Corvette, at first I just thought it was funny. The more I saw it, the more it got me thinking—it’s true! We make decisions all the time based on this simple philosophy.

Prospective clients normally make their decision about a company with the very first person they meet or speak to and within the first minute. WOW that is a lot of pressure! It sounds like interviewing for a job . . . wait it is!

Think about when you hire a new employee. You are very selective, want the most for the best price and try to decide if you will like the person’s personality—if they will fit. Is this someone you can work with? Is this someone who your current team will work well with? Will this person be able to help us grow? Will this person be able to grow with the company? A lot of companies believe that most skills can be taught while personality cannot.

This is why it is so important to have a strong culture and to define what it is that your company stands for. By taking the time to define this, you create a work environment with standards for how decisions are made, a set of expectations for how customers will be treated and employees will interact, and you establish boundaries of what is right and wrong.

By defining your culture you also create what your internal perception and a desired external perception of your company. The internal perception is how the employees perceive each other and how they perceive the company. Do they work for a company that they cannot stand or is it a company that they feel supported by and takes care of them?

When people hear [insert your company name], what do you want them to think? What do they need to think in order for you to turn the prospect into a client? This is your external perception or your brand. Money can only buy so much; eventually true colors always reveal themselves. This being said, why risk walking a path that will end up costing you more in the end. Take the time and do it right from the start: define your culture so your culture becomes your brand and your employees and clients are saying the same message because they WANT to.

Mel DePaoli is the president and founder of Omicle located in Seattle, WA. She is also interviewing companies for her upcoming book series Brand or Culture: Which Comes First. Please visit www.omicle.com for more information about how Omicle can become your Catalyst for Discovery and www.brandorculture.com to get involved in the Brand or Culture Debate! Ms. DePaoli can be reached at mel@omicle.com.