Living Brand Ambassadorship is 24/7

    

Nobody really likes a 6:55 am flight that boards at 6:25 am.  Especially on a hot, muggy, Wednesday inbrand-ambassador the middle of the summer.  Certainly not the gentleman who was anxiously looking at his boarding pass and fidgeting with his phone while pacing around the boarding area.  As a seasoned 150,000-mile-a-year-traveler, I knew the look and the body language; he wanted to be the first one on board and it didn’t matter who stood in his way.

In a day and age of poor public behavior and a lack of civility, it’s pointless as an individual to get in the way of that behavior as nothing good is going to happen.

Sure enough, as soon as the gate agent made the announcement to start the boarding process, the man with the fidgety boarding pass cleverly positioned himself past me and a couple of other people so he could be the first one to get on board.

And sure enough, as luck would have it, he was going to be my seatmate for the next two hours.  I noticed he was a little aggressive when stuffing his bag into the overhead and then slamming the door down to make sure his carry-on luggage would fit.  Again, I knew from the pattern of behavior that he was going to either be “Mr. Surly” the entire flight, or he was going to fall right asleep not to be heard from again until wheels down.

I sat down next to him, said good morning, had a brief chat about how early it was, the flight attendant took his jacket, and before the plane was completely boarded, he was sound asleep.

About 20 minutes before landing the flight attendant gave him a gentle nudge so he could put is seat up and his tray table away and to hand him his jacket.  While he wasn’t exactly the happiest person in the world to be awaken from his nap, I wouldn’t call him the grumpiest either; he was definitely in between, but somebody you just didn’t want to “engage” with.  As we deplaned, I smiled, wished him a good day, and was on my way to meet my Uber and then off to my meeting 40 minutes away from the airport.

But of course, the story doesn’t end there.

My meeting at the client was to review our new business simulation that we’ve been developing for a high potential leader program.  We’ve been working for months on the simulation and have been customizing it to the client’s business strategy and key financial metrics.

About an hour into our meeting, our direct client asked if it would be ok with me to share our progress with his boss’ boss, the President of the business units.  Our client was getting a little nervous about making sure the business simulation was relevant to the key drivers of the business and thought it might be a great idea to get one of the senior leader’s perspectives.

We took a coffee break and waited for the senior leader.

To my total shock, into the room walked the man who I sat next to on the flight that morning!

We looked at each other for a moment because we knew each other from someplace and in a couple of seconds both remembered where.

Long story short, he was as nice as could be and was extremely supportive of the work we are doing. We exchanged cards and soon after I noticed that he had looked me up on LinkedIn.

I will admit that there would have been a time where I may not have been so nice to a potential jerk and would have said something about him butting in line or his brusque attitude toward others during the boarding process.  But obviously I am sure glad I didn’t, or the day and the project could have ended in a total disaster.

The lesson here is that we are all brand ambassadors for our companies 24/7.  Even when we are surrounded by potential jerks. Whether on a plane, in a restaurant, at a sporting event, or online, you never know who you are going to interact with and how that could impact your business.  Because of this realization, I’m personally going to think and plan much better about all social interactions and situations as you literally never know who you are going to sit next to.

A few quick take-away thoughts and actionable actions:

  1. Make sure when I am in a public place that I am always thinking about building my company’s brand in the most positive way possible
  2. Avoid becoming involved in uncontrollable negative situations (unless of course it’s something very serious and outside of this social business etiquette discourse)
  3. Continue to audit all my social media and think about how anything I do or says impacts our brand
  4. Proactively plan and practice methods and best practice behaviors that I can use if these types of situations arise
  5. Make sure that everyone in my company reads this blog and follows #1 through #4

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Robert Brodo

About The Author

Robert Brodo is co-founder of Advantexe. He has more than 20 years of training and business simulation experience.