This episode is a kind of natural second chapter to last week’s Employer Brand In The Time of COVID. In that episode, we talked about how you need to start thinking about how to manage your brand when physical proximity can’t be an assumption.
In this episode, we go beyond that. Not to what happens beyond the crisis, but how do you think beyond the standard limitations of how we see employer branding as a function, as a player within the business. If you think your employer brand is just there to attract talent, that’s all it can do. But if you see it as a great deal more, your impact can go far beyond recruiting.
Show notes:
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AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT (from otter.ai)
Anybody else stir crazy. I mean, like, on a scale of one to 10 or you sit in like a seven or eight kind of wondering, what do I do next? How do I do this? How do I manage I’m sick of my house. I’m sick of the people in my house. I’m sick of not having anybody in my house except me. Whatever that phrase, whatever that situation context might be. You getting a little stir crazy yet? I know I’m starting to feel bad. I’m usually not inclined to stir craziness. I’m usually pretty good. Being in a rut. I’m usually pretty good and kind of not going anywhere. I’m usually not a guy who goes Ooh, I can’t wait to travel. I try Because it’s probably good for me and sometimes for work and sometimes it’s what the family wants to do, but I’m not like Oh, I can’t wait to see them all the different things. I’m very happy being a homebody but yeah, I’m a little stir crazy. Which is why I’m really I’m really super pumped and pleased to see lots of different people take this opportunity to really reach out and say look, I don’t have a community more and frankly, one of the not great parts about working from home is that it’s very hard to tell when you stopped working and are starting to be not home part because you are literally sleeping in your office every night. You know, yeah, turn on Netflix or Hulu or Disney or whatever you’re doing. But your brain is staring at your laptop and that you know your work brain never seems to kind of slow down but I am like I said, I am thrilled to see people kind of say look, I’m feeling stir crazy to you’re feeling stir crazy. Let’s just connect this is for the next four and more likely eight weeks. That’s where my money is right now. We’re This is our new Normal, this is how we’re going to be. And so I think we should all be taking this time to kind of reach out to people and engage with people and connect with people.
Because this is the Etch A Sketch moment of our professional lives this is you pick it up, you pull it over your head upside down, you shake it, and you go here new clean piece of paper, because all the rules really are being rewritten as we speak. My feeling is that half the businesses in America for my money will be wondering very, very specifically, why do I pay rent, when I could have all my people be remote? When can I say, when does it make sense to make this a full time thing? When does it make sense to be this to be the normal that I’ll just send you a computer and occasionally you have to take it to a local IT support person to fix it occasionally, if that’s the thing, but really, we all live like this now that you should assume a home office that you should assume or carve out a part of part of your dining room to be your office and that’s really kind of how it is and we’re gonna have to rewrite the rules around what it looks like to say okay, we work from home and to avoid that craziness to say, Okay, at this time I stopped looking at Slack, I stopped looking at teams, I stopped looking at my email, I’m going to draw some very clear delineations having to communicate that to your boss and your co workers to say, look, I live with a child or I have the situation and I’m going to be flexible. But that doesn’t mean I’m gone, it means I’m really all about working from making stuff up here, six to 10, from noon, three, and then from seven to 10, or whatever, however you want to divvy that day up, because you have time. You want to spend time with your child or you have things to do or there’s whatever it is, the new normal is real. And we are all and I can’t stress that enough because I did that whole thing with Oh, where my vocal tone, you know, I did all sorts of different weird vocal things.
We’re all learning what the rules should be. Right? Which is a great opportunity because it means we get to rewrite the rules. All the things that we wanted to do, this is our chance to take advantage. This is our chance to say you know i’ve i’ve always wanted to work from home. I’ve always wanted To work from earlier, I always want to be one of the people who can just pick up and go and go from house to house or location, location and be one of those digital nomads that, you know, I’ve heard so much about, just go ahead and say, yeah, I’m gonna go to Taiwan. Yeah, I’m gonna go to, you know, pick a place that’s not having real problems right now. Wherever it is, just say, I’ve decided I can do this job, I can do it from anywhere, I can do it from the back of the van, I could do it from the desert, I can do it from the cities, I can do it from whatever, I can do it anywhere. So I’m going to and that means rewriting the rules. So if we’re rewriting the rules, and we take into account that the world has changed, by the way, absolutely has. This isn’t a hold your breath and all be better soon kind of moment. This is a Oh, we’re changing. Now we’re in Usually, this is the sort of change that happens slowly over time that it’s very hard to perceive that you have to read very long winded articles with lots of graphs and charts dating back 10 and 20 years to show that the change has happened, but nope. change happened. Boom, just land on your lap.
Congratulations. I hope you’re enjoying it. If you’re not, you’re gonna have to find a way to make yourself enjoy it or have to find a way to make it work for you. So when your brains working on those new normals when you’re working on those new rules, while you’re doing that, I think you should take the time to think a little bigger. Right?
Your situation, I’m talking to clients talking to prospects, talking to people talking to friends, we’re having this moment where we realize, what do we really want to do here? What are we really achieving here? We’re all having a little bit of a mortality fear, right? We’re all a little nervous that you know, what are we spending all this time at work for? What’s it all mean? What’s it all matter? What does it matter for?
You know, we’re all worried about the people we love and care about. We’re all worried about anybody’s health. We’re already worried about leadership and who’s in charge and who’s saying what and how we’re going to fix this thing and all that stuff. It’s, it’s a little fear based, right? It’s a little there’s a lot of fear in everybody’s mind. Everybody’s antsy. Everybody’s nervous or anxious. And, yeah, yeah. But and whatever you want to call it. There’s an opportunity there for you to say, what do I want to do here? What am I trying to do? And one of the things I’ve been thinking about, in fact, I’ve actually been talking to a couple of people about it just kind of kind of shaping it in my head. Right? You know how I do it? is this idea that what we think of as how you do employer branding is actually incredibly limited.
We are looking at, it’s as if we’ve been, we’re the we’re the Wright brothers in on a beach in North Carolina. We said, Ah, we’ve invented an amazing new way for people to travel heights of up to seven feet. This is amazing. This is what we will do. It’s like they’ve invented this thing. And they found this thing is it Ah, this is great. Now we will be able to travel above people’s heads by about a foot. No, no. This is the beginning of more. To me employer branding, seeing it as a function of attraction. Seeing it as a function of pipelining is the most limited way to look at this thing. And the more I talk about the more I think about it, the more I realized, I think I believe this I believe this thing to be true. And that’s what We’re going to talk about because as we enter the new normal, we have to think, how do we get beyond the new normal? How do we take up the opportunity to take advantage of all this new change so that we can really make the impact that we as employer branders see in the world. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today, when we get right back.
Audio Intro
Hey, everybody, James Ellis recording live from Chicago. And as per usual, standard, whatever, I’m not even going to housekeeping notes. You know what the deal is, but I will say, the office hours have been great. If you listen, this podcast and you’ve ever wanted to ask me a question. For the love of all that is virtual these days, do it. Blink, set up 15 minutes and ask me your question. I’ve had amazing conversations with multiple banks, multiple countries, multiple startups, some very big companies. I won’t say who because that’s rude.
Because it’s not a I’m not a doctor and this is private, but hey, they didn’t say I could talk about it. But a lot of different people. It’s been a lot of fun. So if you have a question, I absolutely want to talk to you, especially as I talk about this what I’m about to talk about, and that is there is more. Right I wrote a little thing kind of sketch. out some of the ideas and the gist of it was, if you think what, you know, what is the purpose of employer brand? What is the value of employer brand? And I have all sorts of pat answers on how you talk about the value of employer brand. I also have a pat answer on why talking about the value of employer brand is dumb. And that answer is very simple. What is the value?
What is the ROI if you having an ROI conversation around a parent’s love or a teacher who supported you and encouraged you when you were, you know, a preteen or a teenager and you’re really feeling insecure about life, having someone in your corner rooting for you and believing in you and giving you that faith that perhaps, yes, this is complicated and messy and bad, and I don’t like it. I don’t feel good. But there’s something beyond that and I can get to it that that thing. What’s that worth to you? No, no put $1 figure on that thing, which is functionally what they say about we’ll put $1 figure an ROI on employer brand. Because without employer brand, you’re transactional. You’re a cog manufacturer. Everybody who invest in employer brand is about to eat your lunch. Simple as that. Simple as that.
You can frame it in a phrase in a way that’s not quite so snarky. I mean, if you want I mean, you can be totally snarky i can i can dial a snark up and nothing that will 11 is bad news. But that’s the thing you know, we refocused on these Pat answers to answer these questions of what’s the ROI? Or what’s the value of employer brand? It’s we find these answers that are small enough for people who don’t love employer brand to kind of go, Oh, I get it cool. We say things like it’s all about attraction. It’s all about the why it’s the Northstar for the company. We have all sorts of fun little metaphors that we play around with and I’m guilty as charged myself. I am certainly guilty of doing that. But we all have them.
And in a lot of ways that concept of employer brand is a bit of a Rorschach test. It is how you see employer brand and see how you describe employer brand says as much about you as it does about employer brand. You might say it is all about pipeline building. It might It’s all about increasing the quality of the candidate. Now those things are absolutely true. But limited.
It’s like saying a plane. You know, the Wright brothers plane is an amazing achievement of wood. Yeah. It’s a lot more than that. It’s a lot lot more than that. Not just because there’s canvas involved. But it wasn’t the craftsmanship of the woodworking that made the plane fly. It was a concept that blew people’s minds that everybody said that is not possible. And frankly, there are plenty of people who tested it to show that it wasn’t possible because they were doing it wrong because they didn’t understand how to make the wing curve to truly enhance or to take advantage of the Bernoulli principle where the curve of the wing on top changes the pressure and allows creates lift, right all that stuff that you try not to remember from your high school and college physics classes. Even and let’s be fair, I took your physics for poets of Texas. So that’s literally all the physics I know. You’re welcome. Because that’s what this podcast or didn’t do.
You’re limited if you if you look at the Wright brothers playing, you say that’s an amazing achievement in woodworking, that’s an amazing achievement in bicycle technology, it’s an amazing way to, to create lift up to seven feet in the air. Yes, those things are true. But you’re looking at it through such a straw, you’re not seeing the potential of these things. If you say your employer brand is the North Star around which all your communications kind of critics, it’s true, it’s absolutely true. It’s a kind of structure to make sure that your marketing and your comms and your leadership and your recruiters and your recruiting and your talent acquisition people in all the various voices in the audience are all kind of saying something that’s connected and aligned. Those things are true and employer brand does create that alignment.
But that’s not all it does a lot more. And this thing that I am wrestling with that I’m bringing to you that perhaps on some level, I want you to say you’re full of it, buddy, or we’ll have you added this to it. I mean, I have this concept, right and i think need your help to kind of make it real? And the concept is this, we have only tapped a metaphorical 10 or 20% of what employer branding can do, for the most part.
Now, there are a couple companies who I will not name because I just won’t because there’s no because there are there are people who really truly understand how to make the employer brand, so transparent, so integrated that it is truly beyond talent acquisition, it is truly beyond pipeline development is truly beyond communication, architecture and structure that it is truly part of the DNA of the company. And there are a handful of companies I could name that are really good at doing that. I think those are the people who not only are they on the cutting edge of what employer branding is. They are probably and I wish I had more insight into this. But you’re probably seeing kind of like what Magellan saw right starting to see new lands starting to see new territory that no one saw what Pizarro what Cortez What? Christopher Columbus in whatever capacity struggling in the Christian poem, this is a bad one, because he showed up actually most of them are bad ones, because they all showed up where people already were. But yeah, you break in my metaphor, I’m breaking my metaphor.
But this idea that they’re blazing a new trail, not to say good, more of the same, there’s plenty of it. But to say there’s new stuff beyond this idea of just deep integration, that the concept of a subtle employer brand which by the way, I wholeheartedly believe in, I’ve said to many people, if you can, if I can point to your employer brand and say, okay, based on that commercial and based on that atomizer that your employer brand is x, and you go yes, I said then you’re doing it wrong. If it’s too clear to, to to kind of discern, it’s too obvious. It’s too Hey, look at me, it’s too Hey, crystal clear. And you’re not you’re painting it on the wall you’re not in you’re not living the brand as it were.
So I think those brands, those companies are finding ways to say now that they’ve integrated what’s beyond this? How does employ your brand does, and I think there might be an opportunity for to say that maybe employer brand even just kind of dissipates because it’s moved the company from point A to point Q. And thus it is done job and employer brand is kind of an on ramp to higher level thinking to changing not just your recruiting, but how you’re perceived what a company or a brand is. To me, I think that’s really what the purpose whether it’s an onboarding ramp, whether it’s a limited with just to get you from point A to point Q, I don’t know.
But I think the purpose of employer brand is so much more than pipeline development, it is there to help you think about how people engage and interact and understand and feel about your brand about your company. And here, we are kind of twiddling our fingers worrying about Glassdoor results, worrying about job posting descriptions worrying about, you know, these tiny little microtransactions these tactical sexy tools that we like, oh, cool, cool, cool, plug it in, do it. And that’s we’re focused on and missing the bigger picture. You know, it’s this idea that Shakespeare had exactly the same words to use that you and I do. And yet somehow they’re he Shakespeare and you’re you. And I mean, it’s a very big line between you and I.
And it’s clear, you know that, that Van Gogh had the exact same sets of colors that everybody else did. But Van Gogh took those colors and did that right, you know, Starry Night. My personal favorite crows in the cornfield is last one. And if you ever get a chance to see it, this is a complete aside, just because I absolutely adore this painting. You ever get the chance to see it live in person, I was blown away by how much Canvas is still visible, he literally with starting to get less and putting less and less paint on the canvas to make the feeling happen, right, the purpose of art is to create a feeling in that level. He was making the feeling happen in less than less action and less and less paint to me, watching him move through that process of a very complicated painting and all this paint all these layers, all these things, all these details to get to the point where it just feels like on a certain level, it’s almost pixel It’s almost pointillism, but then you go, oh my god, it’s amazing crows in the cornfield makes me feel something, right. Anyway, total diversion, total aggression. You’re welcome. Not an apology. You’re welcome. You move on, you start to grow, you start to say, this is what this brand really is. And as your brand gets better and deeper integrated, you’re using list paint on the canvas, you’re using less action, you’re you’re taking fewer steps, you’re doing less stuff, but creating more impact. And it’s not just from an optimization level.
That’s not from a Tim Ferriss four hour workweek kind of thinking thing. It’s more about, look, the company is a massive, massive entity, whether you have 20 people or 20,000 people, those people those, those bodies are quantum levels more than just you, right? I mean, that’s just math, right? If you have 1000 people or 10,000 people or 100,000 people, whoever maybe will work for you. That’s all well More than just you. So if you can get them to get what you’re doing and to communicate the message and live the brand and push it forward, so it’s less about the ad. And it’s less about the talking points and the vernacular you build and the the tag lines and the pillars and the talk or whatever, where it’s less about the structure and stuff of the employer brand and become something that lives and breathes that you simply occasionally nudge, occasionally. Encourage, occasionally limit occasionally say, well, that’s a bad idea. I see how we’re moving in this other direction. Let’s kind of nudge it back in the frame, where it’s supposed to go, that you’re corralling the cats, but that’s not a pejorative, that’s actually the job.
Because the cats are everybody who has any kind of sense of ownership of the brand. I think that’s possible. And I talked about in webinars and I’m happy to talk. You know, at some point down the road, I think there’s an E book coming with it is this idea that your employer brand In matures your function of how you see and perceive employer brand matures over time, right? At some point, it’s just about how do I stop being 100% transactional, and just get leadership on some level to go, oh, there’s a strategy behind this, that we should start to adopt and test the waters and make sure it’s valid for us. And then you move on to the space where he’s you, you formalize that structure and formalize that strategy and start to weave it into other elements.
And then there’s the element where you say, okay, the strategy makes more sense. And we’ve got some data to back it up. And we’ve proven it, we’ve connected it and localize it to a lot of different spots, and we’ve got lots of budget to play with, and we get to fun stuff to do. Maybe there’s a team and then there’s that space, where then the rarefied air of okay. We are truly integrating it with marketing and comms and all the other pieces and we can take it in an amazing new direction. We are the trailblazers, we are the the We Are The pazar, cortezes and bizarros. Which again, bad metaphor, because in case you met, not the intent here employer brand, I think, nope, no, pretty sure pretty sure I’m not encouraging you Take your brand and butcher the brands in front of you. Right? Simple as that.
So I pause for a minute, I just want to make sure I’m on task here. Because I do think that how do I say this nicely, because I’m a big fan of all of you. And I appreciate you encouraging me and working with me and listening to me and all that stuff, and talking to me and listen to my stuff and reading my stuff and all that good stuff. This is an interaction, as much as this is a one way communication via the podcast, the ecosystem, the forums, the groups, the interactions with other people, this is an ecosystem, right? And I definitely noticed there has been at least a three fold increase in the last two years of people who had the word employer brand, their titles. I don’t think it’s that I was blind to them. I think they just started to appear. I don’t know a lot of levels he says deeply cynically, that’s because people started to realize recruiting in a lot of companies is kind of there’s a there’s a ceiling to it that there’s there’s a cap to how much you can grow within the recruiter.
In space, it’s about, okay, you’re a senior recruiter, that means you can solve slightly bigger, more complicated recruiting challenges, you now are in charge of hiring the next vice president of whatever you’re now in charge of bigger projects, but it’s still the same thing. You’re not doing anything different. You’re just, you’ve got more experience and you know how to kind of tweak the things and build relationships with people. So you’ve kind of just do it bigger. Employer brand is the lever that changes everything we know about talent acquisition. I’m going to say that again, because I don’t think I’ve said it in passing and I don’t I believe it I really do honestly believe that this is true. Employer brand is the lever that changes the world least the professional world talent acquisition to be certain marketing to some extent, I think I’ve seen it pieces comms, yes, absolutely. Business Leadership. I think we still have some inroads to make all of us but it is how we change.
And we go and I go back to this idea that if we’re in this concept of new normal, where everything is being shaken up, that there is chaos, but opportunity and I won’t get into the aphorism which is deeply wrong about Chinese characters and how they’re integrated or whatever, you know, the chaos and opportunity are the same whatever. However they phrase it because it’s powerful, anyway. But there is opportunity in changing chaos as things shift as people start to get their feet under them. It is the employer brander, who can see bigger and execute better and integrate more deeply. That changes the picture overall. And so here you are at home by I’m presuming I would love to hear the employer brander, who is listed as essential personnel and has asked to come into the office every single day. I don’t know who that is.
I don’t think they exist. But if you do, I’d love to hear that story. Maybe that’s not about the company or maybe that’s not about you. Maybe it’s about your boss, whatever, get a whole separate ballgame. You’re at home. And maybe you’re trapped with your family. Maybe you’re blessed to be connected to your family. Maybe you’re not feeling a stir crazy. I bet you are a little bit whether you’re alone or you’re connected to other people or living with other people. You’ve got a chance to think the bigger thoughts. Some Katrina Kevin joked that at the end of all this, we’ll all either be alcoholics or great chefs to which I have replied Of course, why choose just do both. But there’s so many more options here. You know, I think everybody should pick a hobby and learn a hobby now that they’ve got some time on their hands all those commuting hours gone. You know, the everybody’s expectations shifting because everybody realizes how insane this world has become. And now we’re getting even more insane in a different way.
Take the time to think bigger thoughts take the time to not focus on how do I squeeze another point, you know, a decimal point out of my ratings review site and more about how do I build great relationships with marketing so that we can work as a team to solve both of our problems? How do I conceive of a world or a situation in which marketing needs employer branding, and I’m there to help I’m not feeling like I’m banging on the glass on the outside begging to be let in because let’s be fair in crisis marketing and crisis PR, going to the the the people who do the work is the who has the go to move. Right? You know, you’ve seen it over and over and over again, it’s not the CEO per se, who’s driving the change of the company making people feel better about the company. It’s all the individual faces saying, Yeah, this is how our, we’re managing this change. This is what we’re doing. This is how we’re doing. Yes, the CEO has to be a part of it. But they’re tapping that employer brand stuff. And if they do it without you, well, one, you’ve just proven how unnecessary you are in that organization, which is unfortunate, and I don’t want that to happen to you, but to they’re going to do it wrong.
Or they’re going to do it in a way that solely suits that maybe wrong is the wrong word. Maybe it will focus on a limited outcome, that it’s all about. Does it My corporate consumer marketing problem without questioning whether it potentially could solve my employer talent brand problem. And that’s why you need to be there. So think about is there an argument you could make? Is there a deck you could write is there is an article you could post? Is there a conversation you could start? That starts to seed an idea in which you are a partner to those teams to comms and marketing and any business to say, this is how I’m going to help you get through this. The new normal is here, but it’s not really settled yet. Right? We haven’t really said, Oh, this is the normal do it this way? No, there’s more transition to be had as we, you know, at some point, you know, I think somewhere in week three, we’ll all kind of go.
All right, this is kind of be we’re okay, we’re not in panic mode anymore. It just kind of isn’t optimal to the way we’ve been used to doing things. But we’re starting to build systems and processes that make this Okay. And then there’s the part that happens when they finally kind of open up the floodgates Bit and turn off the lockdown and the quarantine and we all get to go outside and, and hug people and shake hands maybe on some level. Obviously, I think that’s going to change a bit. I think there’s gonna be a lot less physical contact for the next couple years. Frankly, that’s my theory that it’s a free podcast, you’re allowed to ignore that. I get to say, here’s my here’s my crackpot theory, enjoy. As if that’s not the potential title for this whole thing. James, welcome to James Ellis. Here’s my crackpot theory enjoy podcast. Oh God, I need because you have that domain names available. I’m gonna pretend I’m typing. I’m a little stir crazy. And I’m so glad you’re here with me.
Anyway. This is your chance. This is your chance to think big thoughts weird. And don’t think of it. How do you leapfrog four steps? How do you leapfrog all the way to the end zone because you can’t. It’s about how do you further how the company sees employer branding as a concept more than a normal are more than a pipeline or a attraction process is something deeper and bigger. And how do you build those relationships so that people who do quote unquote, own those pieces, see you as a partner see you as a valuable resource. Someone they can partner with someone they can share and open up to and, and not feel like you have to be the junior partner who sits still, you know, stays quiet in the corner until they need you. This is the time to start thinking about how do you see and convince your particular organization then employer branding is more.
And on some level, this is the exact right time to do that. Why? Because it’s chaos, because every one of your leaders is twice as panicked as you are, is anxious as you might be leadership is doubly so because they know the fate of the company rests on their decisions. And so this is a chance for you to say look as we get into this crisis as we move through This crisis, how we manage the crisis will become our brand. Dustin Carper, friend of mine, Chicago, he doesn’t you know, listen, this podcast to him commented on something I wrote to say, in a lot of levels, employer rant is irrelevant because it’s the corporate brand that matters now because if the company doesn’t do right by its people, then everything kind of is shot, right? It kind of undercuts everything and I think he’s true in spirit I would have said that’s why employer brand is so important. I see employer brand bigger than he does.
Apparently, that’s okay. You know, we’re all slicing and dicing this however we want to. But this but he’s 100% true. On a lot of level this crisis proves or disproves everything you’ve been talking about is as your employer brand for however long you’ve been doing this? Six weeks, six months, six years. I don’t care. This is when you decide, can you really do it? It’s as if you’ve been telling the world Yes, I can dunk a basketball. And you’ve been doing it for years. And suddenly there you are, circumstances have just perfectly aligned that there you are in front of a regulation basketball hoop with a basketball in your hand with sneakers on your feet, and you have no more excuses. So can you or can’t you? That’s what this is. It’s a proving ground. It’s an opportunity to say, look, this is how we got through it.
It’s way to say, you know what, maybe the stuff we’ve been talking about in our ebp employer brand is kind of unnecessary. We’ve been talking about stuff that’s ephemeral and soft and safe, because we didn’t think leadership would buy a big, painful, rough, serious, authentic, audacious concept. They didn’t think that’s what the company was because, hey, back when the waters you in the rooms are when the tides are rising, all boats get floated, right? Everybody moves up, everything’s stable, everything’s fine. Well, in this crisis, it says, which boats are seaworthy, and which ones are going down to the bottom the ocean. Right. So this is your chance to say Oh, All the stuff we’ve been talking about is now falling you know sinking in the bottom the ocean. So what are we going to talk about? How are we handling this because that is how we own our brand. That is how we prove our brand it does not when things are nice that we say our brand is something we could say it, but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not till times are tough that we prove what our brand is.
This is your opportunity to do something, for lack of a better word, more bigger, real, honest, deep, meaningful, whatever, attack it however you want to attack it however you want to see it, but this is that chance. And honestly, I don’t know that we are going to get a better chance than this. And frankly, I don’t know that we could handle a budget. This is nuts. This is getting crazy. And you know, I hope it’s almost done. I hope the craziness we’ve all been managing through for a while now. However you want to make sure that is almost over even though I know for a fact that we still have a bit longer to go, I hope it doesn’t get worse. So if this is this office is going to get Fingers crossed, fingers crossed, fingers crossed, this is your chance to prove the brand.
This is your chance to find the stories that prove the brand. This is this is when you’ve, you’ve all got that story that proves who you are. Right? If you think you’re funny, you’ve got that story you made a roomful of people crack up. If you think you’re smart, you’re that you have a story in which you said I’m the only one with the answer. And you were right. If you have a story, you tell yourself about yourself. And you tell that story over and over again and a lot of ways you tell that story to yourself over and over again in your head to prove that you are that thing to prove that you are attracted to truth, prove that you are nice, prove that you are strong and prove that you are charismatic to prove that you are ruthless.
Whatever that thing you tell yourself about is you have that story. It’s the belief point. It’s the proof point, right? That’s where marketers have to use the word proof points. Well, here’s where the story is about to happen. So if you’re not looking for and seeing and collecting those Stories now, two years from now, a year from now, when this is all a vague but unpleasant memory, what stories are you going to tell that proves you are who that you are, that your brand is what your you say your brand is? This is when it happens and you can’t just hope it just pops into your lap. You got to go prep for it, you got to get ready for it. You got to go listen for it. You’ve got to go plant seeds that hey, if our brand is x and y and z, has anyone heard a story lately that expresses that that should be part of every conversation you have you should be listening and asking for and collecting all of those proof points today that you can use for the next 2345 years. They’re happening today.
It’s Monday probably when you’re listening this I mean literally today. Also tomorrow, and probably a couple more tomorrow’s but it’s not an unlimited number. Tomorrow’s at some point. We kind of settled down a little bit Humans are really good at normalizing. Right? We just get good at it. We just we, you know, we can get used to almost anything. We can farm in the desert we can, you know, get used. I mean, my parent companies in Sweden they know from cold and you know if you would no one says you know what the perfect place to live is up in the north of Sweden that’s a perfect place to be. But people do and they have their reasons and they make it okay.
All of sphere they might have the pain of freezing to death or feeling cold all the time. They mitigate against they figure it out. So we’re good at figuring out stuff wherever you go, no matter how hot or cold it is, no matter how scary it is. For people who raise families in war zones for goodness sake. No one says that’s a good idea. But if you got a family What choice do you have get out or stay if you can’t get out? Well, I guess you better hunker down and figure out how to do it. We’re good at normalizing. We’re good at getting used to it. We’re good at figuring out how to survive stuff. So this is going to get figured out out on some level. So what are you going to get out of this? How are you as an employer brand professional practitioner going to take advantage of the chaos to move the thought and conversation forward? Because that’s where your head should be right now. Alright, that’s all I had to say for today, I guess. Thanks so much for listening. As always, feel free to share. Feel free to comment, feel free to rate tell your friends tell your co workers tell, you know, people and why me who you who gonna tell you’re not people on the street, that’s for sure.
Yes, come talk to me, come find me. I got office hours, I’m on Twitter, I’m on LinkedIn. I do all this stuff. I’m on the digital beat beat boot. Whoops. That was unfortunate that I think I just said and for those of you still listening, this is where the good stuff is. I’m a little punchy. Thanks so much for listening. I’ll see you all next week. Bye. Bye.
