Business Clients’ FAQs

Your Brand Culture program is designed from an exploration of your organisation’s specific needs, so costs and timeframe vary. Typically, clients choose from several options prepared in the proposal, and often work with us for a 3-12 month period addressing various goals and steps, with overall program fees normally in the range of AUD$4000-$30,000 + GST. This can be more or less depending on what is included in your program.

To help you plan, our proposals of work are arranged according to discussed priorities and provide both individual items and a choice of packages reflecting further value. NWC’s programs may combine analysis and strategy consulting, learning and development workshops, assessment processes, coaching/mentoring in small teams or with individuals, and other training and check-in/accountability sessions. All programs include an element of planning, staff awareness and assessment of needs, as well as incidental support via phone/email throughout the duration of the project. Our clients know there are no hidden costs and that they can reach out to us for help at any time.

Your program is flexible and can be organised as a project spanning several months OR it can evolve piece-by-piece over time. The benefit of committing to a longer timeframe includes the ability to be strategic in planning the journey you want your team to take and the outcomes you want to achieve. Whether or not you choose a longer program, you pay as you go and you can cancel at any time. Fees, terms and payment schedule are clearly indicated and discussed with you at the time of working through your proposal.

We aim to create a program that is most effective for your team, your goals and your budget – so we welcome a conversation about the parameters you need to work within.

Because we intend to make a difference to every client we work with, if you choose to work with us, please be prepared to share your goals and observations of where you are at versus where you want to go. This includes business growth and revenue goals that are relevant to our work together. If we don’t measure it, we can’t see how effective our strategies are, so this is important to our process in delivering your program. We will also expect a shared responsibility in achieving outcomes, so your open communication, responsiveness and willingness to implement recommendations are crucial. In return, we are committed to being a trusted partner and guide helping you succeed in making positive changes.

ROI on NWC’s Brand Culture programs and related strategy or development workshops typically has to do with business growth (sales/client acquisition); improved strategy, processes and results in brand development, networking, relationship development, sales and marketing; staff development in professional confidence and skills; and culture change in terms of staff commitment to representing themselves and the company brand with professionalism and impact. These outcomes can be measured in numbers and in anecdotal feedback/observation.

Your ROI will depend on the intended outcomes and design of your particular workshop or program, and we are committed to helping you measure your ROI through a specific approach to assessment and feedback collection. This process will set you up for the greatest chance of success, since it sets a precedent of involvement and accountability from participants – not just in participating in sessions but in completing workshop ‘homework’, creating personal and team action plans/KPIs and reporting on these regularly. This process is adaptable to suit your culture and we often work in collaboration with leadership, team managers and HR teams to set this up.

As with any work requiring your commitment and action, ROI is a shared responsibility, and setting you up for success means a lot to us because it helps both the client’s business and our own!

The urgency, of course, depends on your current challenges and objectives. For example, in 2020 most businesses were in crisis response mode, so working on staff personal brands and how they shape the company brand was purely about focusing on practical tools that quickly help build trust, visibility and sales. When businesses are in strategy mode rather than immediate crisis response, less urgent but very important goals focus on inspiring staff to lead, facilitating culture change and working towards long-term visions and objectives around brand clarity and impact, relationship-building, staff commitment and business growth. In either case, we care about delivering practical sessions that give you clear steps and actions to implement, to start seeing change as quickly as possible.

Another area that some clients see as ‘urgent’ is in empowering their staff to represent themselves and the company well on social media and in networking. Your staff are out there talking about the business, one way or another – so it pays to arm them with awareness of how their language and behaviour affects brand perception every day. We can help with a short and sharp awareness session or more in-depth assessment and development programs in this space.

It is worth noting that if you have an urgent PR crisis, we are not best placed to help you (you will need a PR agency). Our work takes a longer-term view of building brand clarity and trust through your people and through great messaging over time.

Your priorities will naturally depend on your team’s specific needs and your overarching objectives/program. Our trainings inspire staff to think and act differently in terms of how they see themselves as professionals and how they communicate that. The experiences help staff engage with, clarify and express the company brand with more impact and commitment. And they provide practical, personalised plans and tools to help teams work towards objectives such as brand visibility, business growth, developing client relationships and networks, and personal professional confidence and communication.

By-products of our workshops that clients have reported include increased team cohesion and motivation to work towards goals, interest in improving their social media awareness and using LinkedIn pro-actively to achieve goals at work, more enjoyment and confidence in networking and having conversations with clients and prospects, and increased personal confidence, leadership and satisfaction at work.

NWC’s Brand Culture Framework offers a new way of connecting the intersections of company brand and individual personal brands: it deals with how people express the company brand and how you can create a culture of confident personal brands that builds trust with stakeholders. We do this through structured assessment, strategy planning and development processes.

Having said that, individual elements of company or personal brand communication that we teach are not new; nor are they rocket science, as they say! There are definitely aspects you can work on in-house and there are many ways you can harness internal expertise or run with ideas after an initial workshop. However – what we hear after every single workshop we deliver is that leadership and wider team members alike find the frameworks, tools and personalised, practical advice to be thorough and extremely helpful.

Another comment we frequently hear is the need to have an ‘outside’ perspective or voice to challenge staff on their thinking. Sometimes hearing it from the topic expert, or hearing it in a new way, can be the catalyst for behaviour change. Our introductory sessions are designed to get all staff thinking about their business and personal brand representation and we purposefully address the question in their minds: ‘What’s in it for me?’.

When it comes to personal branding, most companies we’ve observed addressing this topic have a very narrow idea of how to implement this themselves – because although it’s related to HR, marketing, communications and branding, it is a complex combination of these. If you are simply looking at basic communication skills, how to dress with style, or doing a personal values exercise, you are not really developing your staff’s personal brands. It’s also ineffective to say, ‘You need to develop your personal brand’… how do we do this in meaningful ways that produce a lasting impact both for the individual and the organisation?

Working with us means you have expert guidance through a process that develops strategy and outcomes in areas that are often intangible and unclear to leaders. It will help you to get it done thoroughly and efficiently, and it will certainly pinpoint and support areas where your staff lack skills and confidence because they aren’t often specifically taught things like ‘how to talk about the value of my work’, ‘how to represent the brand’, ‘how to do networking so it’s not a waste of time’, ‘how to have purposeful conversations’ and ‘how to meet influential people and develop great relationships’.

We focus on clients’ business growth goals from the perspective that all client acquisition and retention, all referrals and all sales result from a feeling of trust. We help you build that trust through harnessing the power of your people to achieve brand differentiation, visibility, connection and consistency.

In addition, business growth is directly influenced by the specific strategies, tools and skills we teach in developing confident, professional personal brands and planning your conversations, your online content and your networking with specific targets and results in mind.

Some companies initially have us in to run a general presentation on personal branding, to create awareness and provide a few tips to all staff, from executive directors through to new grads. In these sessions, our experience is that there is at least one significant take-away for everyone! When we do our ‘Do you know your personal brand?’ quiz, we never see a perfect score, even at leadership level. There is always something to work on, something to update, or something that hasn’t been considered before.

Apart from a general awareness session, we recommend workshops are tailored for particular groups within your organisation, such as partners, a particular advisory team, new-to-management or junior staff, because then the experiences and outcomes will be much more relevant and enjoyable for them. If you’re doing a program, we will create experiences for different groups and different needs, and sometimes these are as specific as working with an individual on a particular challenge. Ideally, your program will involve at least some strategic planning work at leadership or even board level, to really drive change.

While we see some of the same issues again and again, people are individuals and from time to time a roadblock or challenge will come up that is specific to one person in the team. For example, a team member may be particularly introverted or lacking confidence, to a point where it is hindering the professional growth they desire. In other cases, a person’s extraverted behaviour can be seen as extreme, while they may not even notice it’s stopping them achieving their objectives in conversations with stakeholders. 

While we are not psychologists, our strong background as educators in a wide variety of contexts to people of different ages, backgrounds and points of view, and our experience working with large groups right through to one-to-one, give us a solid understanding of how to listen to and connect with people, and to cater our teaching and strategies to different needs. We ask a lot of questions to get to know your people, in order to best serve them.

Moreover, we work from a belief that everyone can afford to hold themselves in genuine high esteem to a greater degree. This is not about over-confidence or ego; it’s about recognising your strengths and the value that you bring or could bring through your work, and learning how to own that. We find that ‘holding a mirror’ up to people’s contribution and potential intrinsically motivates them to move beyond hurdles and become a better version of themselves at work.

Change is challenging for people for a number of reasons, and fundamentally we all have some fear around change. It’s important to be mindful of this when introducing something new that requires people to do something differently or something more.

A common concern we hear is that staff members are not motivated or confident enough to step up in their roles: to role-model professionalism in their daily interactions with each other, to lead a project or team with energy and intention, to initiate conversations with connections, to go out and network, to move clients to the next step. Another common issue is getting staff to do the extra work of learning and implementing new strategies, such as building thought leadership through LinkedIn content and public speaking.

Another form of challenge is around team dynamics and culture. If there are some strong influencers on the team who are setting a less-than-desirable tone, or if the general feel is one of maintaining the status quo, change that requires team members to step up can be hard. Sometimes it will be important to work with the influencers in order to lead others in a new direction, or to gain a critical majority of support for a change. In all cases, strong leadership and two-way communication are essential, and this is what we aim to partner with you on. Tips on how boards can lead culture and the challenges of the online space.

No matter what the challenge, our approach is always to start with the question most likely to be in your staff members’ minds: WIIFM – or – ‘What’s In It For Me?’ See below, ‘How do we get buy-in from staff?’ for our specific method of engaging staff to kick-off change. Throughout our work with your team, the priority is to engage – to keep listening to staff and what they need in order to make the changes and education count.

Many of the aspects of staff engagement we have mentioned above, such as understanding fears and roadblocks, starting from the ‘What’s in it for me?’ question, and a focus on actively building confidence, mean buy-in from staff can be achieved relatively quickly. Keeping their commitment requires a partnership between us and your leadership team to carry the message forward about what we’re prioritising, and to support staff throughout the process.

Read on for our strategies to inform, inspire and engage staff in order to get buy-in for development and change.