The following material comes from the forthcoming eBook, Marketing Essentials for Growing Businesses. To get this eBook for free when it comes out, register by clicking here.
Once you’ve gotten your feet wet in marketing by deciding on your product, it’s time to establish your foundation as a company. Establishing your foundation in a thoughtful way will make your more public-facing slogan, brand, and logo clearer and more consistent.
Values surface no matter what kind of business or organization you run. Whether you’re a nonprofit or a for profit business, you are (at the end of the day) your interactions with people. These interactions reveal your values. Your values determine how you interact with people. Whether the personal interactions come when someone calls the customer service line, when someone places an order, or you’re in meetings—whatever the situation, all in the organization are going to have personal interactions with customers and potential customers.
For this reason, your company values need to be out there on the wall for all to see. These values need to be clear and concise. That way, you and your customers will have accurate expectations for what to expect from your organization.
How to create your company’s values
I recommend coming up with a list of 3-7 values for your organization. These values could come straight from the owner or CEO—or all the company employees could brainstorm together! The important factor here is that these values need to be determined before they’re deciphered.
What I mean is that once you’ve decided your values, you need to unpack what these values mean in real situations. This is very important because values can be translated differently from person to person. For example, customer service doesn’t look the same to everyone. Customer service to us at Palladium Signs is going to look different than to those at Google, for example. Google’s customer service ethos will be different from yours, too.
Creating your values
Writing your values is a microcosm of branding in general. For each value you will need to determine the following.
- What the value is (product)
- What the value’s purpose is (mission)
- What the value looks like (vision)
Having determined your values before you make other major decisions helps you make those decisions more smoothly. For example, our values at Palladium help us make hiring decisions.
Hire based on values
Hiring based on values is a major way to ensure that your company (or organizational) values make it into your company culture. When you’re hiring, follow this process to hire based on values:
- When you’re interviewing someone, literally show them your values.
- Then, ask the interviewee if they live by those values, as well. (No one will say they don’t have the obvious ones, but the point is that it’s something you can hold them accountable to as you move forward.)
- Then, after you talk about values, interview based on the interviewee’s qualifications.
Following this process and hiring based on values is vital for brand-maintenance.
Market your values to your staff
Let’s say you’ve already hired your core staff. Then what? In addition to hiring based on values, you can market your values to your own staff. This means talking about your values on a daily basis. At Palladium, we have weekly team meetings where my staff can physically see our team values posted on the wall. That’s why I suggest that you do the same! Put your values on the wall or find the equivalent for your team.
Regardless of how you “market” your values to your team, make sure everyone on your team knows them. Then, make sure to put those values in your about section on your website. That way you can build trust with all, because trust is foundation of all healthy businesses.
What are the Palladium values?
To give you an example of company values, here are our values at Palladium: integrity, customer service, innovation, and quality.
Integrity: We do the right thing every time
We conduct ourselves in accordance with the highest standards of professional behavior and ethics. We are transparent, honest, and ethical in all our interactions with customers, clients, and ourselves.
Customer Service: We create an experience our customers enjoy
We live by and for our customers’ success. We want to be there top-of-mind and top-of-heart choice. We build lasting relationships with our customers and grow with their success.
Innovation: We anticipate change and shape it to fit our purpose
We identify, develop, and deploy leading edge technology, ideas, and training to bring one of a kind products to our customers. We are always looking for ways to improve our products and our selves.
Quality: We strive to make every customer a raving fan.
We will deliver excellent work from beginning to end. We will always produce every product using top quality materials, tools, and skills. Quality begins with our uniquely trained staff and isn’t a success until every customer’s expectations are exceeded.
So find your top 3-7 values, and post them on the wall of your office. Remember that deciding what your values are not is as important as deciding what your values are.
