Team Building efforts sometimes lack the sustenance needed to get the team to a winning table. But you don’t have to carry the losing flag if you understand how your team’s brand identifies and assumes the winning position.
Several years ago, I decided to sponsor a local minor league baseball team as part of our local promotions. The process cost $150 and 20 small size shirts with my logo printed on the front of the shirt – on the back, the last name of each team member.
All the traditional team colors were taken, but I found a selection of bright orange jerseys that weren’t taken and our logo looked great on the front of the jersey. The blue and white logo emblazoned across the front actually stood out well against the orange jerseys. Orange was a local high school color and I was proud to wear it, even though it wasn’t my personal best color. I just put it over a black turtleneck and wore it anyway. Nowhere in my personal history had I entertained the idea that orange was a BAD color. Mind you, we were in COLORADO and the Broncos are popular here.
A little girl with big blue eyes came up to the table while handing out orange T-shirts and said, “I can’t wear orange.”
I replied, “Sure you can, honey. It will look beautiful on you.”
She said (much louder), “I have red hair and my dad is a Green Bay Packers fan. I can’t wear orange.”
That girl no longer played on my team. No matter what he said to her from then on, nothing he said would make her change her mind and she would make her play for the orange team. She had to find a different place to play, where they offered GREEN shirts. Right across from my table was the table of the local mortician and I noticed that her shirts were green. I took her hand and walked across the hall to her table. We shuffled through the roster and she had a new redhead in a green jersey on her team. I brought a little Bronco Fan to wear my orange JV Enterprizes shirt with the blue and white logo on the front.
That little story taught me a lesson. A couple of them actually, but one important lesson keeps coming back to me over and over again.
Redheaded girls don’t wear orange.
Is this a branding technique? Yes. Is this a branding technique that we can use with our online businesses? Yes. Is this a branding technique that we can implement? Yes.
There are important concepts that just can’t bear to change as we dial in our small business team-building efforts. These are important concepts that we need to accept and acknowledge, allowing the concepts that DO work to be put to better use.
1 – Make sure your team members are playing on YOUR team.
Loyalty cannot be forced. That redheaded girl would NEVER have been on the orange team. Her heart was not in it. When you build your team, she lets any red-headed girls who don’t want to play move to a different team. Loyalty comes willingly, not by force.
2 – Select a TRUE brand that suits all team members.
It’s not about changing brands. The most obvious brand will be the one you best represent. If you’re working in a city business and everyone on the team has to wear a cowboy hat and spurs, your uniform will not only be unsettling, it’s a hit-and-run. Select your REAL brand.
3 – Use the Goose Leader Principle with your team.
When geese fly south, they form a big V to break the wind. As the leader tires, the next goose slides into the point formation, and then the next. Use the same principle with your team and encourage all participants to lead in their area of expertise. Your team will be stronger with better leadership.
4 – Know the fate of your team and have a plan.
Going back to the geese, they know where they are going and they know how to get there. They follow the leading goose. The young geese follow the old geese, the old geese know the way and when they head south for the winter they point their V to the south.
5 – Stay motivated as you move forward with the team effort.
When everyone is on board, wearing the same jersey, following the same path, and dedicated to the team’s purpose, motivation becomes a unified effort. The redheaded girl would have thrown a monkey wrench into the show… Without her, the team can be positive, uplifting and motivated to win because everyone is supporting the same goal.
NOTE: I have nothing against redheaded girls. I LOVE that redheaded girl. She is now a beautiful teenager and I adore her. Last I heard, she hasn’t worn orange yet.
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