If there’s one thing I learned this year, it’s that business, brands, companies, even leaders, have to hit reset every year.

As we look to the new year ahead, there’s no better time than now for company leaders to take a long look at their company values and ensure that they represent their vision and mission for the year ahead. And once those important touch stones are set, they need to be shared throughout the enterprise. To employees, to customers and beyond.

As we managed our own company rebrand this year, we saw a growing need from our clients to help define and express their brand culture – what we define as that circuit of authenticity that comes when brand values are shared between a company, its employees and its customers.

We have seen first hand this year, perhaps more so than ever before, what happens when a company or brand does not pay attention to its brand culture. Consider the serious marketplace challenges impacting Papa John’s, Under Armor, Uber and most recently Facebook, among others. All of these company’s have put out contradicting messages about what they believe in and what they stand for – to their employees, their customers, and the public. The results are loss of trust, stock market hits and brands that have lost value.

One of the other things we’ve learned this year is that Company’s that invest in their employees – and by extension, their brand culture – are four times more profitable than those that don’t. *

As brand culture makers, Liquid’s primary focus is to help our clients solve their most important business challenges by creating brands people believe in. We do this through an interconnected offering that incorporates brand strategy and design, employee experience and customer experience. This enables us to help our clients build strategies to move their brands forward, to prepare their workforce to be brand ambassadors, and to ensure that how a brand is experienced by its customers enforces its values.

Market forces are pushing companies to constantly refresh their business models. To seek out and attract change making talent. The continuing urgency to keep pace with unprecedented changes happening at the intersection of technology, business and society at large will only accelerate in the years to come.

We learned this year that taking the time to re-examine what your company stands for and to make sure all your audiences understand and buy into that vision, truly drives outsized profit.