You can think of the processes your business runs as a kind of map, guiding your clients and the people who serve them along established routes through your business. There may be quite a bit of variation allowed for in those routes, little diversions and digressions that make each person’s journey more personal and more memorable.

These only work because everyone serving customers also carries a compass. That compass points always to the business’s ‘north’ – it’s Promise of Value, the ‘what you do for the people you serve’.

So that if they ever find themselves lost and in the dark, your people can get themselves back on track, or if necessary carve out a new route to the same destination.

Usually that ‘compass’ is built over several workshops, involving everyone in the business. It consists of a rich, deep, comprehensive definition of how the business behaves, the relationships it builds with the people it serves, and the things it does to achieve that.

But what if you don’t have time to do all that before you have to leave your people to themselves?

Is there a shortcut you could take? That would be good enough to tide you over?

Yes.

Create a one-sentence slogan that sums up your Promise as well as this one did for FedEx:

“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”

Famously, a FedEx employee chartered a helicopter in a blizzard to deliver on this promise.

And was applauded for it.

Because a slogan like this doesn’t just tell the client what they can expect, it gives your team the license to do ‘whatever it takes’ to deliver.

That means it has to be concrete, it has to be within your control to deliver, and of course, you have to mean it.

This is harder than it looks. Do an internet search on advertising slogans and you’ll find loads. Most are vague, subjective and frankly, a bit ‘meh’, which is maybe why companies change them so often.

The good news is that your temporary slogan can be as clunky as you like. Because you’re not using it to communicate to prospects or customers.

At this stage all you’re trying to do with it is give your team – not a compass exactly, but at least a magnetic needle that tells them roughly where north is – so they’ll be able to confidently do the right thing by clients while you’re not there.

Have a go.

What can you come up with?

Discipline makes Daring possible.