My recent flight home on Continental was great, like it always is... Continental consistently delivers a good experience. This got me thinking about the importance of consistency and specifically about a time when my colleague, Patrick, and I were meeting with a prospective client.

During this meeting, we asked a lot of questions about the prospect's business, the current challenges he was facing, and the solutions he was considering. He asked us a lot of questions about our company, Brand Integrity, and organizational branding. After about an hour of this back and forth, he asked "If there is one thing that I need to take away from this meeting about brand-building, what would it be?"

Patrick and I looked at him a bit perplexed. His question seemed so simple to us. We were both shocked that we had not been asked it before. He pressed on, "What is the one thing that matters most to ensure a company can build its brand to drive profits? Is there one thing?"

Patrick and I looked at each other and back at the prospect. Then we each got a piece of paper and wrote that one thing down. Both of us passed our papers to the prospect and, sure enough, we had written not only the same idea, but the exact same word: consistency.

Consistency is so important to a strong, sustainable brand that I always tell clients and leaders "consistency is king." Consistency is so important, I had it personified with an image in my book. The king is a reminder that if you want to develop a strong brand for your company, then employees must be in a position to consistently deliver results for customers. Without consistency, your company won't be able to drive the experiences employees and customers want and will end up being another one of the masses rather than a "king" ahead of all the rest.