Do you view a customer complaint as a gift from above? Or do you blame the customer? Do your sales people know what your marketing department is packaging this week?

A brand is the sum of the subconscious sensory and emotional elements that make up the total experience. It's how your staff answer the phone, talk about their job to friends and deal with complaints - as much as it is about your product or service.

To say a brand is a ‘logo’ is short-sighted and expensive.

By not clearly defining a brand personality or a relationship with all stakeholders, especially its employees, a company will have ignored the major potential of the brand.

When an entity imbues their brand values at every touch-point of the value chain, the brand will unite people in a common goal and vision. The tangible results will speak for themselves.

A survey of companies that invested in training found:

• Net sales per employee were 57% greater
• Gross profits per employee were 37% steeper*

*Source: American Society for Training and Development. 1998. "State of the Industry", as cited in Branded Customer Service, Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart.