When you (a small business owner) is not around to be the ultimate brand ambassador, your employees are the next best thing. This concept has not been universally accepted because I keep finding employees of small businesses who are poor representations of the brand.

I suppose the first step is for small business owners to accept that their business has a brand. Whether you are a mom and pop shop or run a successful franchise, you have some sort of brand. Your brand is what your business stands for as well as its look and feel. For instance, if you own a small grocery store that receives freshly caught fish daily – that is part of your brand –“We provide the freshest fish.” If you have employees who fail to mention to your customers that your fish is caught daily – they are not your brand ambassadors. If they are not trained as to when the fish was delivered or where it comes from than they are not representing and supporting your brand.

If you run a restaurant, your wait staff should not only know the ins and outs of your menu, they should also know the ins and outs of your kitchen, including the types of ingredients and condiments available. For example, I recently atle at a small local restaurant franchise called “Tiffany’s Restaurant”.It is a chained co-owned by former NFL player and now NFL commentator, Tony Siragusa. They happen to offer baked sweet potatoes as a side. I only like to eat baked sweet potatoes with brown sugar and butter.

So when I placed my order I asked “Does the sweet potato come with brown sugar and butter?” The waitress responded “Yes, on the side.” Unfortunately when the food came, my sweet potato came with a ball of butter VERY LIGHTLY DUSTED with cinnamon and white sugar. That was not what I asked for. When the waitress came back to my table, I inquired about the brown sugar that I originally asked for. Her response? “Oh we don’t have brown sugar we have cinnamon.” I said “Well when I asked you if the potato came with brown sugar – you said ‘on the side’.” She responded back” Oh well when people ask for brown sugar they usually mean cinnamon.”

This waitress’ first mistake was treating me like other people who clearly cannot distinguish between a spice like cinnamon and brown sugar. When I ask for something – I am not thinking of something else – I am actually looking for the specific item. Her second mistake was FAILING to answer my first question by saying “Sorry we do not have brown sugar. Is cinnamon and butter okay?” Had she said that to me, I would have promptly said NO – please give me a regular baked potato instead. I ended up taking the sweet potato home uneaten, where I proceeded to add my own brown sugar.

I believe this waitress was not properly trained to represent Tiffany’s brand. If they only serve food a certain way, they should be trained to tell customers, this is how we serve our product. Instead, the waitress made assumptions which led to her receiving a reduced tip. She basically lied to me.

I urge all small business owners to train employees regularly to make sure that they represent what your business stands for. Train them to provide accurate answers to customer questions. Make sure they distinguish between what they ask for versus what you actually offer. If you do this, your employees will truly be brand ambassadors

About the Author: Shakira Brown is an award-winning public relations and marketing professional with nearly 15 years of experience in radio, print, and television journalism and corporate communications. She has worked with high profile news broadcasters, entertainers, moguls, financial experts, small business owners and c-suite level executives in various industries. Learn more about Shakira by visiting www.pradviser.net .

Filed under: Ranting on Message