Sustaining Your Brand in the Economic Downturn

ABF Conference on Managing Corporate Branding & Image In An Economic Downturn
October 2009

• How do you ensure that your brand delivers maximum value for your consumers
• What are the tips to adapt your brand strategy to fit in with shrinking and tighter budgets
• How to tighten your budgets without compromising your brand value and deliver the message
• Case studies

Download here:
http://www.slideshare.net/kennyong/sustaining-your-brand-in-the-economic-downturn/download

Sustaining Your Brand in the Economic Downturn

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Internal Branding To Strengthen Talent Retention Strategies - new presentation download

Hi.



I have just uploaded a new presentation for anyone who wants to download:



Where: Under the "My Presentation Downloads" section on the right

Event: ABF Recruitment and Retention Conference

Title: Internal Branding To Strengthen Talent Retention Strategies

File: Powerpoint, PPT

Summary:

• Signal to the staff the chance of career development in yourorganisation


• Secondment - Increasingly being recognised as valuable for development.


• Providing increase in flexibility of working patterns whichwill be increasingly important in the future.


• Understand secondmentwell to develop your organisation’s skills base and avoid the possiblepitfalls.


• Internal branding and employee engagement - Learn the building and maintaining of successful internal brand.


• Discover how this willpositively affect your position as an employer, staff retention rates and customer service
  

Enjoy :)



-TURD-

Hi.

I have just uploaded a new presentation for anyone who wants to download:
Where: Under the "My Presentation Downloads" section on the right

Event: UiTM Masters in Accounting Special Lecture
Title: Employees and Fraud Risks

File: Powerpoint, PPT
How: Download and save unto your hard disk.

Enjoy :)


-TURD-

12 Ways to Retain ‘Swing’ Talents in Your Organization

In my previous article, I wrote about ‘Customer Loyalty and Retention’ and brought to our attention a group of Customer’s known as the ‘Swing’ group. These are customers who stick around your business only because you happen to be the best alternative at the moment until they find a better alternative. This makes this group if customers valuable yet un-retainable in the long run.

Here, I would like to bring forward also the concept of ‘Swing’ Talents. To begin, there are two groups of Talent who are staying with you now: Loyal and Swing.

Loyal are those Talented employees who stick around your company either due to the job, the boss or the company’s mission/business/image. The moment any of these three does not seem right, they will start leaving.

On the other hand, Swing Employees who are Loyal to you because you happen to be the “Best alternative at the current moment until I find another alternative” situation. In other words, these are key talents who are ready to leave any moment no matter what you do to enrich their jobs or to give them a good boss. You are simply not their permanent choice.

Why then do they stay? Swing Talents are ‘loyal’ because:
1. Individual Relationships with people in the company
2. Convenience (at that point in time)
3. Contractually tied-up
4. Exciting Direct Incentives
5. No better alternatives in the market yet
6. Subordinates whom they love and love them back
7. No known alternatives in the market yet
8. CV friendly

OK then. What can we do? Well, other than pray and hope, I can only think of 12 ways:
1. Over Promote
2. Loans
3. Spot Bonuses
4. Block recruiters
5. The Spouse (and their Children, if possible)
6. Toys (e.g. iPODs, MACs, MP3s, 22” LCD Screens etc.)
7. Glorified Titles
8. Forced Ambassador
9. “Position” the competition
10. Sell the Dream
11. Give them a Best Friend
12. Appoint them as Internal Trainers

In other words, try to do some of these 12 things and hope for the best. At least you can say you have tried.

-TURD-

Customer Loyalty and Retention

What is a loyal customer? To start off, ‘Loyalty’ is misleading…
• Heavy Consumption ≠ Loyalty
• A person who buys frequently from you may not be loyal.
• Loyalty ≠ Heavy Consumption
• A person who is loyal to your brand, may not buy frequently or in big quantities

Just a thought… are we in business for loyalty or for consumption?
Actually = BOTH are important and must be in balance. But today’s topic is on one side of the Equation (Loyalty) and we must be mindful of that.

OK…for today’s session, there are two definitions and therefore two types of Loyal Customers whom we have to treat differently:
Experience
Swing

What’s the difference?
‘Experience’ loyalty means that a customer is loyal to you because their Expectations are satisfied with their Expectations. What are their expectations?

1. Customer Intimacy - "Exactly what I need", Customized products, Personalized communications, "They're very responsive", Preferential service and flexibility, Recommends what I need, "I'm very loyal to them", Helps us to be a success
2. Product Leadership - "They are the most innovative", "Constantly renewing and creative", "Always on the leading edge"
3. Operational Excellence - "A great deal!", Excellent/attractive price, Minimal acquisition cost and hassle, Lowest overall cost of ownership, "A no-hassles firm", Convenience and speed, Reliable product and service

Those customers who fall under the Experience category are what we will call true LOYAL customers. They will most likely stay with in the long run as long as their expectations are continually matched by their experience with you.

‘Swing’ Loyalty means that a customer is so called ‘loyal’ to you because you happen to be the “Best alternative at the current moment until I find another alternative” situation. Swing Customers are ‘loyal’ because:
• Specific individual Relationships
• Convenience (at that point in time)
• Tied-up
• Product Uniqueness
• Promotions
• No better alternative
• No known alternative
• Psychologically lazy

As a summary – Retention strategies for these two groups would have to be different. So, our job is to find out who we are targeting, and tailor the proper retention strategies for them.

By the way, this whole lesson goes the same for Employee Loyalty and its related retention strategies.


What will you do next?

-TURD-