Compliance Branding

For a lot of companies who ship cross-border, handle dangerous commodities, or have a manufacturing facility to name a few must adhere to certain compliance regulations. These compliance issues assures your customer that they are not exposed when they do business with you. As we all know, your brand is essentially your reputation, a considerable amount of damage can be incurred if your company is found to be deficient in any circumstances that require compliance to proceed.

In discussions with Peter Berry, a Risk Mangement Expert, Peter tells me that you'd be surprized how many companies flirt with compliance. Many would simply like to wish it away. It takes a great deal of due-diligence to be sure that your company is compliant. A great benefit of compliance, is the brand story. As much as it takes a concerted effort and financial commitment to be certified compliant, you can use this good business practice to your benefit.

Orchestrate some decisive public relations and inform your customers and trade media of your company's pro-active approach to doing business. One company with whom I have been assisting with brand issues for a number of years - Joycor, actually went one step further and anticipated a future compliance issue and became the first in their industry to become C-TPAT certified. This has to do with exporting to the U.S.A. - making sure that the plant of origin is secure from manufacture to the loading of the truck. Joycor took this message public and secured some media attention for their efforts. This , as you can imagine boosted their brand even further as a leader not a follower.

If you are not used to bragging about your company and how it cares about how it does business, (even if it must through regulation), there is something to be said about how effective it can be to increasing business for you. A footnote on Joycor, was because of C-TPAT they secured new business, solely on the fact that they were compliant with this up and coming regulation and a few companies liked the fact they they too could now brag that they were security minded in "everything" that they do. Everybody's brand image takes a boost due to your efforts.

Every where that there is positive stories there are brand boosting opportunities. Find them and exploit them to your benefit.