Not Engaging Employees

From the top-level leadership, down to the lowest level of employee, Mayer said that each and every employee needs to be fully engaged and knowledgeable about the brand. One way to do that, he said, is to involve more employees in the creation of the strategy. A second way, he said, is to build participation programs that allow employees to take part in building the brand instead of just broadcasting its message. For example, Mayer said IBM encourages all of its employees to blog.

"If an employee isn’t feeling it, they're going to ask why should they personally invest," Mayer said.