The Power of Congruence

I recently had the opportunity to give a presentation to a group of business owners on “Simple, Effective (though not always easy) Guidelines for Building and Running Your Business Successfully” (an embarrassingly long title). This high-level overview of key concepts ranged from strategy and marketing to operations, technology and finance.
One of the points I made was the importance of having an established, positive brand image – and the power and value of ‘congruence’ of that brand image in all aspects of your business. I use the word congruence because I like it – and because I could not find it on any list of “annoying business buzz-words or phrases.”
What congruence really comes down to is:

– Integrity
– Consistency
– Walking the Talk
Customers and employees respond very positively to well-run organizations that are congruent. These businesses build loyalty and strong referral bases that result in more revenue and profitability (and often a better night’s sleep for the owner…).
Here is what it looks like when there is a lack of congruence:

• Selling one thing and then delivering another – as perceived by your customer (i.e. hearing…” But so-and-so said it would work this way…”
• Providing great customer service over the phone then taking weeks to deliver
• Having a meticulously designed web site but poorly formatted communications, such as confusing proposals
• Having a great personal and professional presence but an amateurishly designed web site
• Giving your prospects the impression that you value them and then not returning phone calls or emails in a timely manner

Such incongruence causes confusion and frustration with customers and employees and potential referral sources. The impact can be felt through stunted revenue growth, higher costs, unhappy customers and poor employee morale.
The smaller your business, the easier it is to establish and maintain congruence. There is no excuse for an individual practitioner to have an incongruent brand image.
As your business grows it obviously becomes more challenging. Regardless of size, however, it takes forethought and planning followed by effective implementation and management to establish and maintain congruence in your brand image. Think of it as an investment in expanded potential – revenue, profit and business valuation.
When was the last time you really took a close look at:

• How you and your employees are seen (i.e. in person) and heard (i.e. on the phone) by others inside and outside of your organization?
• The consistency of the “message” others get from all sources – web, referral sources, employees, customers and vendors?
• The presentation of your marketing materials, web site, documents, proposals, invoices and emails?
• Whether or not your internal systems and processes support congruence of your brand image throughout your organization?

If you are not looking at this – and acting on what you see – regularly, then you should make the time to do so. If you don’t, you are likely to experience unnecessary stress, leave money on the table and you will be heading for bigger problems down the road.
By the way, I am happy to say that my presentation was very well received. In fact, the greatest compliment came from one business owner who told me that “…Your presentation was so very consistent with who you are – you were the same ‘Fred’ in front of the group that you are one-on-one.”