Entrepreneur and CultureIQ are searching for the top high-performing cultures to be featured on our annual list. Think your company has what it takes? Click here to get started[1]. In the digital economy, the task of building a company’s brand is more complicated than ever. Unlike the 20th century, where advertising and marketing events defined and differentiated brands in the consumer minds, 21st century companies must compete in real-time among a sea of voices constantly fighting for attention from their audience.Related: What Does It Mean to Be a Good Brand Ambassador?[2]When that audience is constantly bombarded with messages from other marketers, it is easy for one company’s message to get lost in the mix or to be ignored entirely. Buying engagement is not the answer. While purchasing promoted ads on social properties may yield some impact, the process can become expensive, and the relationships ads generate are comparable to nothing more than a “warm call,” if not a cold call, among online shoppers and social networkers.Research shows that people are more likely to engage with a brand that's been recommended by someone in their networks. A study by the Ciceron brand advocacy firm found that 77 percent of consumers surveyed said they were more likely to buy a product when they heard about it from someone they trusted.The study also found that the "share rate" of content among those surveyed was eight times greater when that content was posted by employees than when it was posted by a company’s brand page. That makes sense: Content from personal connections is vetted by those with whom the consumer already shares a common interest, history, geography, occupation or other factor, making it more likely that the consumer will read information that is interesting or relevant to him or her. So, how can a…

Dawn Sole was hunting through her purse in a grocery store parking lot one day in August 2010 when she came up with the idea for the Pluck N’ File. She had chipped a nail while carrying too many groceries and needed to smooth out the jagged edge. First, she had to hunt around her purse for her nail file. Then, she dug around for her nail buffer. Finally, taking advantage of good lighting, she decided to clean up her eyebrows and went back into her purse for the third time looking for tweezers. It was then that she thought, why couldn’t these grooming tools be rolled into one, female Swiss Army knife style? She drove directly to CVS, bought a bunch of parts, and set out to invent what she had just dreamed up.After months of tinkering and countless manufacturing beta tests with companies based in China, Sole, who lives in Miami Beach, Fla., came up with a prototype she was pleased with. She decided to raise money via crowdfunding for her first real production run, turning to the most popular brand-name platform, Kickstarter.That was in September of 2013 and at that point, “personal care products,” including the Pluck N’ File, were not allowed to be featured on the crowdfunding platform. Since then, Kickstarter has loosened its rules[1], expanding its range of campaign categories. Image credit: Dawn SoleRelated: Food-Tech Startup Dinner Lab Is Crowdfunding a Cool $2 Million -- From Its Customers[2]Having been rebuffed by Kickstarter, Sole launched her campaign on rival crowdfunding platform Indiegogo[3] in November 2014, setting a goal of $25,000. She poured everything into the campaign, having left her six-figure corporate job in October 2012 to focus full time on Pluck N’ File.“I took literally every penny that I had from my 401(k). I have been…