In the previous issue, we learnt to position our workplace in the manner of how we want it to be perceived. It is however not enough for the board of directors and management alone to make a positioning statement and use it sparingly in yearbooks. It needs to literally be the writing on the wall.

If you are a part of the management of an institute, you must first take the staff into confidence. You have to work with trickle-down effect. Training your staff on the positioning is as challenging as convincing the students. Now let us take it step by step.

Your staff and co-workers need to believe in the positioning as much as you do for it to work. Here are a few steps to ensure full involvement of all the staff members.

• Since the statement is something that you have come up with after so much thought and deliberation, it may seem simple to you. But to someone who has no take on it, it may not be the easiest thing to remember. The positioning statement should be easy to spot so that it gets ingrained into the minds of the staff members. Ideally, the entrance lobby, the lifts and staff rooms are good targets that can get you started.

• Do not launch into a sermon about the statement. Let the signs speak for themselves for two weeks. Add pictures, cartoons, photographs that are meaningful to your statement. For instance: Your positioning may show you as a social Samaritan. Make sure you put a picture taken last summer at the orphanage with your teachers in full view. Rotate the pictures every week. Change the pictures at each level. This will generate a buzz.

• After two weeks, call in your staff and co-workers. If you are not in an authoritative position to call a meeting, request for a group huddle in your staff room itself. Ask them if they have seen any new communications recently and what did they think of it.

• Now test how many of them understand the message in the same sense as it is meant to be. If there is a big deviation from your intended message, you need to reevaluate it. Do it with their help this time.

• Once the message is clear, make it loud J Chant it around 4-5 times before breaking the meeting. This will keep the energy levels high.

Now let us take a look at students and how they can be influenced. Students unlike staff members have different loyalties for a college. At the outset, they may appear as to have no attachment to your workplace and you may be tempted to treat them as walk-in everyday customers. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Staff members are loyal to the workplace as long as they work there. Students form their identities based on their institute. It may be surprising how your “customers” can be more brand loyal than your “employees” in this case.

Since meetings and seminars will not help you impress the positioning into the student’ mind, you need to be more creative. The students at the end of the two weeks would have noticed the posters. Take a dip stick survey and see how deep the understanding goes. For students, the understanding is more essential than the verbatim. They are your biggest brand ambassadors. Thus, if someone says to them, “I am looking for a college that will get me placed into the top four companies”, the student should be able to say, “That’s my college you are looking for.” There are many ways to drive the message in. Surprisingly, your role is limited in this.

• Hand-pick talented students from every class. They could be good at drawing, performing arts or writing. Start with a song in your regional language or English that encapsulates the finer aspects of the positioning. For instance: If your positioning is: We are a college that takes deserving students who are all-rounders and gives them the best learning experience; the song could talk about the care given by the college, making the students better human beings, the brilliant students and the brilliant teachers, etc. You will be amazed at how creative they can get
• Make a skit show about how the institute started, how it grew over the years and where it stands today and end it with the song. Make CDs of the skit and distribute it amongst the students and outside the campus. Upload the skit and the song on the website. Provide a link to download it as a ring tone or caller tune.
• Have thematic drawings in each of the class-rooms with one of the core points of your positioning. Have these installed as a desktop on all your college computers. These should also appear in folders and cards given out at events.
• Arrange for a walk-through for all prospective students on a week-end so they can also see how the promises are written out in bold

Over time, the students will internalize these messages and you will realise how with the minimal overheads a mega-branding exercise has taken place. So until next time,