Digital Dealer - March 2019 - 28

D E A L E R OP S & M ANAGEM ENT: L e a d e rshi p

By Dave Anderson
President,
LearnToLead

Building a
Powerful Brand
is Everyone's Job
Author Joe Calloway
described a "brand" well
in his book Never by
Chance: "A brand is defined
as a trademark or distinctive
name, reputation, or
capability that identifies and
differentiates a product or
service from the competition,
for better or for worse."
Every company has a
brand, that's not the question. The questions are:
Does your brand positively
differentiate you or render
you to commodity status;
and, does it elevate or diminish the value people see
in doing business with you?
To delve deeper, a brand
isn't primarily about your
logo, jingle, or creative
graphics; these things may

explain or reinforce your
brand, but they aren't your
brand. Nor is building a
powerful brand for your
dealership accomplished
through big ad budgets and
slick promotional campaigns. Building a powerful
brand happens when you
create a culture that supports consistently creating
'wow' customer experiences,
and by hiring and training
the right people at all levels
within your organization who
are capable of consistently
delivering said experiences.
In other words, by focusing
more on the reputation, or
capability that identifies and
differentiates you from the
competition aspect of the
brand definition mentioned

previously, than on a logo,
trademark, or distinctive
name to communicate it.
And as a leader it's your
job to make sure this gets
done daily, and that chasing
greater excellence in this
regard is a priority for every
team member.
Following are supporting
thoughts and strategies to
help refine your focus on
intentionally building and
leveraging the power of your
brand.
1.) The bottom line is
that your brand is defined
by customer experiences.
You may declare what your
brand is, but a customer
defines it based on his or
her experience with your
company or product. In

short, whatever a customer
thinks about when they
hear your dealership mentioned-and that something
will be based on either a
personal experience or one
they've heard about from
others-is your brand. You
can say what you want
about who you are, but your
customers believe what they
experience...and THAT is
your brand.
2.) In case the prior
point wasn't clear enough,
let me rephrase it slightly:
Nothing is more important
than customer experience
when it comes to brand
management. Thus, if you
want to improve the strength
of your brand, you must
elevate the quality of the
experiences you're creating
for both team members
and customers. That starts
with hiring the right people
at the outset, setting clear
expectations for the experiences you want created
(experiential standards), and
training team members to
deliver that experience while
holding them accountable
for doing so.

...FOCUSING MORE
ON THE REPUTATION,
OR CAPABILITY THAT
IDENTIFIES AND
DIFFERENTIATES
YOU FROM THE
COMPETITION."

28

MARCH 2019

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M
http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - March 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - March 2019
