You’ve heard disengaged employees can cost your company a significant amount—much more than most companies want to think about paying. But what do you stand to gain when you put in the time and effort to truly engage your employees and establish a positive culture throughout your business?

The connection your engaged employees have with your customers is your most valuable tool for growing your brand. The more an employee feels a part of your mission, the easier it is for him or her to connect with your customers on an emotional level, and this partnership with your business is critical to success in today’s marketplace.

If you’re not convinced yet, here are a few statistics on engaged employees and social selling statistics that will clear things up for you:

• On average, your employees have 10x more online social connections than your dealership’s brand alone.
• Companies with socially engaged employees are 58% more likely to attract top talent and 20% more likely to retain them.
• Employee engagement = success! Companies that work to ensure their employees are engaged outperform their counterparts by 202%.
• 72.6% of salespeople using social selling as part of their sales process outperformed their peers and exceeded quota 23% more often.
• Salespeople who don’t use social media miss their quotas an average of 15% more often than their peers who use social selling.
• 63.4% of companies using social selling report an increase in revenue.

That is the power of one. Every single employee has the power to help you build your brand. And when you take the time and effort to create engaged employee advocates who are excited to share your brand with their online social networks, you will be increasing your visibility tenfold.

Most businesses love the idea of being able to provide better service, productivity, and higher customer satisfaction. And on one is averse to the idea of increased sales and more profit. These are just a few of the things your business will enjoy when you start to leverage the power that comes with having engaged and happy employees.

According to TalentCulture, highly engaged employees are 38% more likely to have above average productivity. Your dealership has nothing to lose by making an investment in cultivating a social culture and engaging employees.

Employees of social engaged companies are: [Source: Altimeter & LinkedIn Relationship Economics 2014]

• 57% more likely to align their social media engagement to generate sales leads.
• 20% more likely to stay at their companies.
• 27% more likely to feel optimistic about their companies’ futures.
• 40% more likely to believe their companies are more competitive.

Re-engaging employees makes sense from a financial perspective when you consider the cost. According to Gallup, disengaged employees cost the US anywhere between $450-550 billion in lost productivity per year, really dragging down the bottom line of the companies where these people re employed.

Additionally, a Harvard Business Review Study reveals low-level engagement within companies results in a 33% decrease in operating income and an 11% decrease in earnings growth, whereas companies with high-level engagement have a 19% increase in operating income and a 28% increase in earnings growth.

The Investment

The reality is your employees are already on social media. Why not invest in tools and training to leverage that reach? The numbers speak for themselves. And it doesn’t take a large investment of either time or money to begin to re-engage. It starts from the top down with a decision to engage and invest in employees. There are plenty of companies—like Southwest Airlines, Dell Computers, Zappos, Inc., Adobe, Sony, Amazon, and many more—with successful employee engagement strategies to follow.

Be creative in the ways you choose to engage your employees. Remember, you are leveraging a powerful resource by increasing engagement to build your brand. There are several ways you can get started, but if you need some ideas, check out the list below:

• Involve your employees in defining the story and mission of your dealership.
• Take time to ask questions and discover the unspoken internal values of your organization.
• Encourage your employees to dream, to present their ideas for innovation, and even allow them to work on personal projects for short periods of time.
• Encourage charity and volunteer projects and do them as a team.
• Find ways to celebrate your people and their achievements.
• Become storytellers.
• Encourage employees to support one another: succeed or fail as a team.

The Return on Your Investment

What you will get in return is priceless. Not only will your employees thrive in an engaged workplace, they will begin to show a higher level of productivity and customer service, ending in positive business results for you. The positive culture you are helping to create will inspire brand activism on the part of your employees. They will be proud of where they work and what they do—and they will want to share that with those who are important to them.

Let the power of one work for you. Just one engaged employee is more powerful than all the paid advertising you can afford. One employee who is fully invested in the story of your brand is enough to change everything.