Creating and conveying your business' values

When you first decide that you are going to launch your own business, you go through a variety of stages and make various decisions. You are likely to have an idea, you might think about location and logistics, one of your earliest processes might be agreeing funding, or perhaps you have a very clear vision of how you want your logo to look.

Everyone works through these stages in different orders, depending on the interests and priorities. At some point, though, it is worth thinking carefully about creating your business’ values and how you will then convey those values to your customers. 

Drawing up your business’ values

The very first step will be in drawing up a list of the values that are going to be central to your business. To do this, you need to first ask yourself what is important to you as a business person? Do you want your customers to feel a certain way when they interact with you? Is your carbon footprint critical to you? Is it important that your product meets certain criteria?

As you ask yourself questions, start jotting down all initial thoughts and ideas. Everything that means something to you should be noted down. Think about other companies that you respect, what might be important to them that you wish to include? Think about others in your industry that you are looking to compete with, what could your company values be that might set you apart from them?  

Once you have pages full of ideas, you can start to pull out those things that resonate with you. These will then form the core of your business’ values. 

Your branding

Your branding will be absolutely key in carrying and conveying these messages to your customer base. They should run through all that you do, and you will find that you can build elements of your business around them. 

If it is important to your business to spread the word that there is such a thing as truly sustainable wood then ensure that that message runs through your branding and values. If it is important to your business that you use only cruelty free products then do so and then convey that to your customers. These messages act as a reassurance to others who hold similar values, and they help to raise awareness of the importance of them to those who might not be aware of the issues. 

Your website

Your website is often the frontage of your business and is where many people will find you. This is their chance to find out more about what you can offer and what you are all about, so ensure that you utilise your website to share more about your business’ values.

Along with running your message through sections about your business, it can be worth adding a tab solely for sharing your business’ values. This will raise the importance of them and demonstrate to your customers how relevant they are to you. It will also mean that they are easy to find for those wanting to understand your business better. 

By creating a section dedicated to them on your website, it also means that you have to be able to clearly, concisely and articulately summaries them, which is a useful exercise in itself. 

Your communications 

Your values should run through all of your communications. 

If you are sharing and interacting on social media, ensure that you or your social media assistant are remaining true to the values that you hold as important. 

Whenever you create content for your website, email marketing and print marketing ensure that they are consistent with your vision and values. 

Of course the most important area here is yourself. You need to live and breathe those values and be passionate about them. When you are chatting to clients and suppliers, you need to ensure that you are staying true to your business values. This is why it is so important that you truly buy into them as this will be very easy to do then, you really won’t have to think hard about them.

Your packaging

Packaging itself can often feature in business’ values. This is because sustainability and being eco-friendly is often a central theme, which of course affects packaging choices. 

Think carefully about your packaging designs and materials and work out what it absolutely necessary and what is waste. 

If you are not creating a product that requires this, you might still be selling products that might require posting or bags, or perhaps you regularly mail out to customers. 

Look at ways to ensure your packaging adheres to your values.