Creating a brand in a cedar supply company, or any company is one of the most important things when it comes to running a successful organization. How do your coworkers, customers, suppliers and even competitors view you? How does someone magically implement a brand, or where does it start?
Our Top Tips for Creating a Brand
It Starts at the Top
Culture always starts at the top. Same way that it works with kids- if children see their parents modeling a certain behavior, it will eventually trickle down to them. If negativity, gossip and undesirable behavior are present at the top, then it’s just a matter of time until you see the results with your employees. So what makes for a good company culture and brand?
Start with a brand pyramid
Even though it was originally designed to be used for creating a marketing strategy, using a brand pyramid to clearly identify your values and goals is an excellent place to start.
What is your vision?
A vision is more than a mission statement. It’s bigger than that. It’s who you are at your core, why you do what you do. For RMFP, our vision is: Building Relationships. Even though it’s a pun and play-on-words, we take this vision very seriously. It means that we build relationships within our industry with everything we do. Our relationships with the mills, our suppliers, our contractors, homeowners and our inter-company relationships matter. Without them, we are not on track for our vision. This is the impact that our brand has on our culture.
What is your mission statement?
Our mission statement is what we will do, given who we are in our DNA (Building Relationships). For RMFP, our mission statement is to become the best building materials supplier possible, by doing the right thing. We can always come back to this to make sure we are going in the right direction. When frustrations comes up or crossroads require us to make hard decisions, we can always come back to our mission statement to make sure our decisions align with our mission as a cedar supply company.
What values will help you fulfill your mission statement?
Values are a tangible way to ensure that you are charting towards your mission. For us, these 5 values inform everything we do.
Integrity
When creating a brand, integrity is integral. Integrity means doing the right thing when no one is looking. It means not cutting corners, and always doing the right thing even if it won’t immediately benefit you. Being full of integrity in a cedar supply company, means not selling a certain grade of pickets at a higher level, when you know they are a lower grade. It also means doing what you say you will do, even if it’s inconvenient. Integrity matters.
Transparency
Transparency within a cedar supply company means that we are an open book. We clearly provide our prices and give information to our customers so they can make an informed decision about their building materials purchase. We don’t play games, what you see is what you get. We are also honest about any roadblocks along the journey. If we know that the turn time on a specific type of decking is at least a month out because of production delays, we will tell you that up front so you can make your decisions accordingly. We know that your project has implications that go further out than us and we want to be a good partner in the journey.
Be Human
To us, being human means being someone that you want to have in the room. This means that we speak to each other respectfully and realize that we are all working together as a team. Nobody wants to feel uncomfortable around anyone, so we hold ourselves to a high standard of respect and accountability that creates a harmonious environment. This also means that our actions have consequences. If we try to cut corners within an established company procedure, it has implications that spread wider than just ourselves. We respect all of the departments within our cedar supply company, knowing that we are all working together towards a common goal.
Knowledgeable
In order to become the best building materials supplier, we have to be knowledgeable. This means we are constantly learning. The more we know, the more we can help our customers make an informed choice about their cedar supply materials. If we have a customer come to us wanting to know the best material to use for fencing in Colorado, we are knowledgeable enough to warn about the dangers of using treated fencing in Colorado and point them in the right direction of cedar materials.
Products
We achieve our mission of becoming the best building materials supplier by purchasing the best products. We only supply products that we stand behind. We do our research and know the pros and cons of all of the products that we bring in. If we consistently see a problem with one of the products that we carry, we consider making a change to protect our customers from a bad buying decision.
Hopefully this has been an informative journey through our personal vision, mission statement and values as a cedar supply company. Stay tuned for Part Two, as we discuss practical ways we showcase these values publicly, in the area of marketing.
For more information, and if you would like to learn more about how we here at RMFP created and handle our brand, check out our videos here:
