Does Your Business Think Enough About Putting Its Best FaceForward?

What’s better than good company reputation? When you think of fun companies like Southwest Airlines, you think of all the images associated with it. The CEO often wears Hawaiian shirts and the office is decorated in a goofy, unique way. This is the identity that the company chooses to convey, and the image puts the company in a unique place in the eyes of the consumer. What can you do to make sure your company is always putting its best face forward? Here are three tips you can apply to your company to make sure its image is the one you want to convey.

1. Get real

Time to clean those proverbial skeletons out of your closet! Is your company offering everything it claims to offer? You have to make sure that your claims actually match up with what you actually do. You should also reassess your image in general—does it convey exactly whatyou want it to? Make sure to stay consistent with your brand identity throughout everything you do. From the charities you choose to sponsor to the logos on your free swag you give out at events, it all has to remind people of your company.

2. Hire carefully

As a part of any project risk management assessment, you have to make sure that the people doing the project are up to par with everything your company stands for and would like to stand for. Your employees are all representations of what the company is and what it can do for your customers. Sales people are especially important—they’re the face of the company and are often the only human interaction the customers will have with your customer. In the same way that it’s easier to relate to someone when you know the person’s experience, it’s easier to relate to a company with friendly sales, relaxedsales people.

3. Be unique!

You have to stand out in the crowd! Make sure that your brand is in a different place in the consumers mind. It really can’t just blend in with the other competitors or else you haven’t done your job. Not everyone can be like Apple—instant brand recognition and trust. You have to get up to that level through hard work and differentiation. No one out there is like Apple and they’ve really created a monopoly of their services. Only and iPhone is a legitimate alternative for an iPhone. The smartphone market and the iPhone markets are different because iPhone fill a societal need as well as a physical need for a cellphone. iPhones can offer status as well as utility. How can you make your product unique in the same way that Apple branded objects are unique? Try to analyze your competitors and offer something that they don’t offer. Make sure that it is still staying true to your company, and you should be well on your way to putting your best foot forward!