Compliance is defined as “the act of complying to another one’s wishes; acquiescense.” In the case of businesses it is the government or a professional organization’s wishes that are being adhered to. In most cases it is quite an expensive exercise, that is punctuated with regular audits and scrutiny. Processes are typically put into place that validates criteria and assures the complier that all is well with the company.

But is it really? 

Many companies reluctantly conform to compliance issues. It is this reluctance that results in a lazy brand. By obtaining the bare minimum standards to obtain the desired  compliance document,  the company could be leaving their brands exposed and susceptible to off-brand activity. Taking compliances and viewing them as a positive brand story rather than a required expenditure will put you on the road to a differentiator that your competition will find difficult to match. Taking your compliances to a higher level and bettering the compliance goals helps to position them as “standards of excellence” instead of “mandatory standards” One positions the compliance as a positive and the other a negative. Making your target audience aware of your”standards of excellence” instills a confidence in your company. 

When a company fails to comply to mandatory standards or compliances, the news thats reported does great damage to your brand. A security breach, an industrial accident, identity theft, are but a few “off-brand” results of compliance breaches. naturally accidents happen, but by paying extra attention and bettering compliances go much further in assuring your stake holders that their well being is paramount to the company. Brag about it in your promotional materials to make customers aware of why your company excels by taking a leadership role.

That leadership role also takes into account self-administered compliances. These are compliances that are put into place by company management to standardize best practices within the company. These activities could be to adaquitly train the staff, secure brand image standards, adopt a greener internal culture and environment to name a few. These compliances are in many ways more directly appreciated by the employee base because they affect the day to day operation of your company. You, as the leader determines the criteria and the method of audit to assure compliance. Any deficiencies are addressed with your direct input. Self-administered compliances can be defined as unique branded products of the company. 

Taking your strategy from one of “resignation to comply” to “comply to profit”, compliance becomes the basis for expanding the relationship with your customer. This expansion is exactly what your sales staff need to shout out your good news story. Having the strongest compliance strategy you can administer, secures your brand resulting in a benefit to your pocket book.