Inbound Organization

Chapter 6Building a Culture That Reflects Inbound Values

Corporate culture refers to an evolving set of values, attitudes, ethics, and beliefs that characterize members of an organization and define its nature. Culture influences all business functions from the first touch, through customer acquisition to customer service, and impacts buyers' expectations and goals. As the connected world evolves, culture has taken on a more important role because a quality culture creates employee loyalty and loyal employees generate more value for customers.

Inbound organizations have learned that spending time, effort, and money to create a remarkable culture makes a huge impact. A healthy company culture makes the company a fun place to work, reduces employee turnover, improves recruiting success, and increases employee productivity. Culture keeps everyone aligned more than rules and procedures. A negative company culture can be expensive, inefficient, and hard to mask from the outside world. To practice inbound with your clients, you need to build an inbound culture. An inbound culture creates an extraordinary employee experience.

Culture stems from the way leaders act, not what they say. A powerful way to let employees know the company culture and values is to practice them on a daily basis. People learn the culture from each other: they react to the reward system that they see; observe other employees getting awards, accolades, promotions, and discipline; and adjust their behavior.