There has been some chatter in the office recently with talks of the film ‘The Founder’. The film is based on the McDonald’s brothers whose fast-food system impressed milkshake salesman Kroc, who persuades the brothers to franchise their operation. As Kroc quickly expands the chain of restaurants, clashes arise over values and control. Eventually, Kroc outmanoeuvres the McDonald’s brothers, taking full ownership and rebrands himself as the founder of McDonald’s. This brought up a lot of discussion around processes and keeping your special business recipe a secret.
As a business owner, naturally you want to tell everyone about your business through online and offline communications, but often there might be some conflicted ideas around what to put out into the world. Once your communications do go out there’s no turning back and we understand that can be very daunting.
Why should you share what you do?
In highly competitive and/or niche markets, you might be reluctant to tell the world what you do. Whether it is communicating on social media, to the press or even in blog form on your website, saying nothing isn’t always better than saying something. For instance, if you’re not updating your website with fresh blog content, you’re not helping your SEO rankings and making more challenging for Google to optimise your position. If there are topical conversations happening in your industry, it’s a good idea to get involved. Positioning your brand as a thought leader in your industry will strengthen your brand's credibility and acts as an awareness piece simultaneously.
When it comes to social media, often you can repurpose content that is already on your website. For example, if you have an ‘our story’ page, why not rehash this and create a social media post for LinkedIn. If content is readily available on your website, nine times out of ten your customers or competitors have already seen it. They know who you are and what you do just by looking at your website. Using this information in conjunction with social media will allow you to reach new audiences, especially on LinkedIn.
Communication when it comes to your team
For any small business, telling the world about your talented team might seem risky. You might be worried about looking like a small fish in a big pond or have a fear around others poaching your most talented team members. However, posting about your team is not only great content but it also puts faces to your brand which may have been faceless for some time. A good tip to balance your team posts is through the language you use. For example, if you have an employed team of 4 people these employees can be referred to as your ‘core’ team. If you have wider network of 10 professionals you choose to help you per project, these people can be labelled ‘partners’ or ‘industry peers’.
If poaching is a concern of yours, there are measures you can take to keep your staff hidden such as not including your team on the website and avoiding tagging them in LinkedIn posts. Ultimately, if your employees are happy, paid in line with the industry average and their professional development is stimulated, they are highly likely to stay working for you. It’s important to remember that every professional will naturally leave a job to further their career path.
Implementing processes to protect what you do
If your business model is unique and is sought after, you know you have something special. It’s important that you take all the correct precautions to protect yourself and your business. By safeguarding your USP and your competitive advantage, a multitude of doors can open for you; from attracting investment to preventing imitation.
As a business owner, you might have done the basics with intellectual property protection and consulting legal professionals. So how do you protect your business in your day-to-day?
1. Non-disclosure agreements (NDA)
A non-disclosure agreement is a legally binding contract that restricts the disclosure of confidential information. They are used to protect business secrets, sensitive information and intellectual property. When you’re working with people outside of your organisation, they might have eyes or access to information that is crucial to your business or even access to understand your trade secret. If you feel comfortable, you could ask partners to sign an NDA to protect confidential information.
2. Insurance policies
Ensuring that you’ve got a full cover insurance policy will protect your business against accidents, lawsuits and disaster with appropriate insurance policy. Insurance offerings will depend on your industry, but the most common policies usually taken out to protect businesses are Professional Indemnity and Public Liability Insurance. With the correct insurance policy in place the business that you worked so hard to create is protected. By mitigating risks your business can secure a future with enjoyed growth.
3. Limit access to important documents
All employers like to think they can trust their staff - after all, you hired them. However, judgement can sometimes be clouded, and not all employees are as trustworthy as they might seem. If all employees had access to finance or HR folders, this poses a risk to other employees as well as your business. Depending on what your USP is, limiting access to which files all employees can view could be critical to protecting your business.
We can all learn a lot from the McDonald’s brothers. The brothers are so passionate and willing to share everything. Unfortunately, much to their detriment, they proceeded without caution. Inviting someone who seemed genuinely interested and friendly into the inner workings of their business wasn’t the best idea, and we can learn that intentions aren’t always filled with kindness.
To protect your business, you need to strike a balance between being aware of the potential risks that might arise whilst having courage to speak out about your business through both offline and online communications.
If you would like help with your marketing communications strategy, please get in touch to speak to a member of our team. We would love to help.