Training Brand Ambassadors

This month, we’ve been talking about Brand Ambassadors (read past posts “Ambassador of the Brand” and last week’s “Building Better Brand Ambassadors“). While last week we talked about empowering your team to think of themselves as Brand Ambassadors, you’re probably still wondering how to train them. Training takes some planning and then consistent education.

Start with what your brand means – what sets your brand apart, what is your brand vision, and what is your brand personality. If you can’t answer some of these questions, that’s probably why there is a disconnect between management and workers. These need to be established, written down and shared.

Once you define your brand, its time to share the message. Have a company-wide meeting or a series of team meetings to share the brand definition and what it means to be a part of your company. Review the importance of their support in the long-term success of the company. Empower them letting them know that their actions give either a positive or negative impact on your customers and prospects. (A mantra we have at the zoo where I volunteer is: you are either training or untraining an animal with every interaction with an animal. If you do something sloppy when no one is looking, the animals learns this as correct.)

After the company is knighted with their new responsibilities as brand ambassadors, you need to continue to educate, remind, and encourage them. Also, you need to add your brand values, vision, and other aspects to your company manual for all new hires to see. Even better, have HR review what is expected of all potential employees (and subs). If they’re not on board from the beginning, it will never happen and you probably won’t want that person working for you anyway because they will never have brand buy in.

Does your company currently do a brand ambassador training? What are some things that you do to initiate and/or continue that training?