Making Your Business Shine from the Inside Out

Employees are a big part of the appearance of a company. Everyone knows how important first impressions are and how difficult it is to reverse a negative first impression.  If you stop and think about it, it doesn’t take long at all to realize that the first employee a customer has contact with will set the tone of your business, and potentially sales. How are your employees representing your company?

Sometimes small businesses that pay at or near minimum wage feel that they should be lenient with how their employees look and dress for work.  However, this should not be a reason to let employees appear sloppy and grungy.  And it definitely shouldn’t be an excuse to allow employees to have poor attitudes and customer relationship skills.  Companies, even small businesses (maybe ESPECIALLY small businesses) need to take internal marketing very seriously.  Here are a few recommendations to assure that your staff makes your company shine from the beginning.

• Be straight forward with expectations from the very beginning.  During the interview process, proper attire and attitude should be addressed with potential employees.  It’s obvious that if an applicant shows up in inappropriate attire with below-standard hygiene, there is a reason for concern.  If you realize that they are unwilling to meet your standards, then don’t hire them.
• Mandate expectations in written format that employees must sign-off during the hiring process.  This way there are no surprises.  And, if and when an employee needs to be reprimanded, they don’t have an excuse.
• Offer training on a regular basis.  Even if it’s a reminder in a paycheck stuffer or during regularly scheduled staff meetings, cover the expectations and the importance of meeting those expectations several times during the year. 
• Coach problem employees.  Some employees may need individual attention.  Gentle coaching will go a long way.  You can also consider pairing employees up and using a mentoring approach. One think to keep in mind with this is that coaching/mentoring should be done in private.  Never do this in front of other employees as it can be very embarrassing.
• Explain the benefits for the company and the employee.  Employees need to know why it is so important.  Share with them how they represent the company in both positive and negative ways, and how this will affect sales and customer relations.  But share with them how it will benefit them personally as well.
• If worse comes to worse, let them go. Unfortunately, there are some employees that never seem to get it, or they fight authority.  These are the employees you need to let go, or you run the risk or hurting the image of your company.  This in turn will be detrimental to those employees who do make your company shine.

 I’m sure every business owner and manager has run across this situation at some point in their career.  I would love to hear how you handled this problem. What internal marketing strategies do you do to help your employees meet this challenge?