If Your Team Can’t Explain the Brand, Your Customers Never Will

Your brand is only as strong as the people behind it.
Training equips employees with the language, mindset, and tools to live the brand in their day-to-day roles. It aligns teams across departments and builds a foundation of shared purpose and customer focus.

Why it's Important

Ensures every employee understands what the brand stands for
Reduces inconsistent communication and mixed messages
Helps new hires connect to the mission and tone from day one
Empowers non-marketing teams to represent the brand effectively
Strengthens culture and company-wide sense of ownership

How to Implement

Start with the essentials: mission, values, personality, positioning, and visual identity
Create a simple, engaging brand training deck or video
Include real examples of brand in action: product copy, pitch decks, customer stories
Offer department-specific training for teams like Sales, Product, and Support
Introduce the training during onboarding and reinforce it quarterly or at key milestones
Make the content available in an always-on resource hub (Notion, LMS, etc.)
Use interactive elements—quizzes, scenarios, feedback loops—to drive retention
Encourage managers and team leads to reinforce brand principles in meetings and work reviews

How You Know You Got It Right

Employees across departments use shared language and tone
New hires feel confident representing the company externally
Brand principles show up in product, marketing, and culture initiatives
Fewer brand errors or inconsistencies appear in internal and external work
Cross-functional teams collaborate more effectively around customer needs
Your mission and values feel present—not just printed on a wall
People say “this sounds like us” without being told what to write

Real-World Examples

Zendesk

Offers brand and tone training to all customer-facing teams to ensure global consistency

Mailchimp

Conducted in-person and video-based tone-of-voice workshops across departments

Duolingo

Created cross-functional brand guides with personality examples for everyone from engineers to community managers

Make It Better

Keep it short, visual, and tied to real work scenarios
Add personality—training should reflect your brand, not just talk about it
Let employees contribute examples of “great on-brand work”
Make it interactive so people apply, not just watch
Reinforce with regular refreshers, not one-and-done sessions

Don't Make These Mistakes

Making it too long, theoretical, or overly abstract
Only offering it to marketing or new hires
Skipping team-specific examples or scenarios
Treating it as optional instead of foundational
Failing to keep it updated as the brand evolves