This week the Passle team were at the London Law Expo 2019. We heard from Zelinda Bennett (Marketing and Client Development Director at DWF) on The Changing Face of the Law Firm Brand and the Impact of Business Development.

One key theme of Zelinda's talk was that the values and behaviours of an organisation are the key components in creating a brand and that cultural alignment is very important both internally and externally. 

1. Internally -  Employee's seek alignment. People are becoming more value-driven in their approach to finding a place to work, and they want to work for an organisation that shares their values.  

Zelinda say's "The best advocates of your brand are your people" and that "within an organisation, people are the largest brand asset - they are far-reaching and central to brand stories". This point really resonates with us at Passle as we work with organisations to do this - enabling individuals to build their and their company's brand. 

2. Externally - Client/Consumers seek allignment. Cultural alignment is key to winning new business. Clients care about the values of their professional service provider - if your company values do not align they will go elsewhere. And there is no short cut to this, you have to walk the walk. A good example Zelinda gave to highlight this was, If your organisation is claiming to be a leader in Diversity and Inclusion, are the teams you send out to clients Diverse and Inclusive?

Zelinda summed it up nicely -  Values and behaviours underpin who we are and therefore define our brand. And internal branding is just as important as external branding.