How to use values to build a better business

This topic, on the surface, seems a little bit, “well, so what?” but it really is truly the heart of what makes a business thrive and a business that’s sustainable as well, which is obviously super important.

And that is values.

Now, if you’re like most people, you might think maybe values is something that’s nice to put on a website, maybe in the about section, but values really go deeper than that.

And so in this episode, I really want to explore what values are, why they’re important to your business, maybe some common misconceptions, and maybe also how you can identify your own values. I also hope to show you how tying your values into every aspect of your business is something that you should be doing.

Really, values aren’t just words on a page.

You might’ve heard the term like a values-aligned business thrown out a little bit, which sounds like a gobbledygook term.

But what exactly are values? 

I’m going to sound like a little bit of a psychologist here, which, sorry about that, but values are really like the principles that guide how you want to act in both your business, but also in your life.

They’re basically what you care most deeply about and really what you want to stand for. They’re a little bit like a compass that directs your decisions, actions, and the overall direction of your business. So yeah, for the therapists that are nodding along as I speak, yes, this concept is tied to ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

But a really important distinction to note is that values aren’t just goals, right? 

So a goal is something you can achieve, like hitting a sales target or expanding your clients. But values, on the other hand, are a little bit more like a North Star, so something you constantly strive towards, but you can never fully “achieve.”

For example, if one of your values is kindness, it’s not something you kind of tick off the list. You’re like, right, I’ve done doing kindness. I want to move on to something else. It’s like a continual practice and a continual action or way of being.

Let’s talk about why they’re important, especially in small businesses run by health professionals like you. Values are the foundational trust between you and your clients. And so when you consistently live by your values, that shows in your marketing.

So you create that strong brand that feels trustworthy and really authentic, and clients can tell if you just written something that you think sounds good, as opposed to something that you truly live and truly read. 

And I say this all the time with copywriting clients that I work with when they give me, you know, market research or I interview their clients or something like that, and people will consistently say, Oh my gosh, this person really breathes X, Y, or Z they really breathe what they say, and that’s a beautiful thing to have.

Another thing that values help is they really help navigate through tough decisions in your business. So a lot of the time in business, you’re faced with, making those hard decisions, or you might be put in places that test your ethics or test who you are. Maybe that’s like whether to take on a particular client or how to handle a tricky situation, your values really provide that clear goal or guide.

When you are stuck, you can kind of come back to your values and go, well, is this a decision aligned with who I want to be, not just as a person, but as a business.

Let’s clear up a few, misconceptions or, little roadblocks when it comes to values. And one of those is maybe that you should choose your values based on what you think sounds good, or maybe what you think will get you clients or something like that, or maybe industry trends. 

But the thing is our values are deeply personal.

And they should reflect what you genuinely believe, not what you think will make you, marketable or memorable or that kind of thing.

Another misconception is that once you’re done identifying your values, then that’s done. But really when you identify the values in terms of listing out what they are. 

So if it’s like authenticity or like trustworthiness or honesty or that kind of thing, that’s not the end of it. That’s really just the beginning because we really want to integrate those values into every aspect of your business, like your marketing, your client interactions, how you handle challenges as well.

And so that’s why, it’s really important to what we call in psychology, operationalise your values.

So how can you identify your values? It really starts with a little bit of introspection, one of my favourite things. 

So you can ask yourself questions, just like maybe 

• What irritates you about the industry you work in?
• What’s an important, personal belief that shapes how you act or show up in your business?
• What kind of impact do you want to have on your clients?

Reflect on questions like that. I also have a little freebie that has these questions and a bunch of other ones in it as well.

But it can also be really helpful to look at your past experiences or moments like where you’ve maybe felt really proud at work or times where you’ve faced a moral dilemma. Like what was it that helped you get through? Or how did you make that decision?

And it’s those instances that really reveal the values of the things that matter most to you. And although I don’t love to focus on the negative or things like that, actually start, if you’re really struggling with identifying your values, I touched on this question before, but really identifying what really, really deeply irritates you about your industry. What could you like bitch about your best friend for hours about how you can’t stand something in your industry?

So for me in like copywriting and marketing, I really don’t like that bro marketing hustle hustle, like go going for the money kind of culture. I think it saps all the joy and the fun out of everything. And that I really think that your business should be fun and light and delightful and it should really add to your life. That informs the way that I run my business as well.

So once you’ve journaled and maybe read out what you’ve got and see if you can maybe identify any values in terms of one words that really sum up what you’re trying to say. 

And you can also get, ask ChatGPT to help you with this. So you could write out a bunch of just like, whatever it has, it can be a stream of consciousness. It doesn’t need to be articulate or anything like that. And you can put it into ChatGPT and ask, I’m trying to work on my values. Can you please analyze what I’ve written here and give me four to five values that you think define what my business is about? And it will come up with a few values and you can see if they fit as well.

Now that you’ve maybe hopefully have a few values in mind or at least have a rough idea about what your key values are, try and think about how you can tie those values to how you run your business. 

This is where we go that little bit deeper in identifying values. So think about how you can demonstrate them in your day-to-day business.

So for example, if one of your values is integrity, you might think about, well, what does that mean that I act with integrity and you know, we’ll probably come up with doing what you say you’ll do. 

So what does that mean? Maybe like on a client level, does that mean that I have really clear contracts? Does that mean that I have processes that I tick off to make sure that I do what I say I’m going to do? Maybe on a personal level, does that mean I actually am accountable to my boundaries. I said that I’m going to get up and go to the gym or something like that so I’m fresh for the day. I said, I’m going to do that so I’m going to follow through and make sure that I do follow through because that’s in line with my values.

And what does that mean for the community? It might be that I make sure that my marketing is ethical or something like that. Or I don’t know, ethical sounds very boring, doesn’t it? But it might be that I act in a certain way that makes me feel proud.

And just remember when you do define what your values actually mean and give examples of what that would be on say, like a personal level, a client level, and maybe even a community level, they don’t have to be big, wild, grand gestures. It doesn’t have to, don’t have to do an Oprah and everyone gets a car. 

It can be really small, consistent behaviours that really do align with the business that you want to build over time.

Just remember when you do define what your values actually mean and give examples of what that would be on say, a personal level, a client level, and maybe even a community level. 

They don’t have to be big, wild, grand gestures. You don’t have to do an Oprah and everyone gets a car. It can be really small, consistent behaviours that really do align with the business that you want to build over time.

I hope this has given you a bit of a taster on identifying values. If you really want something that’s more clear, concise and actionable, I really recommend my freebie.