Having Honest Feedback Helps Define Your Values

Guest Contributor: Anne-Marie-Faiola
Anne-Marie's Posts - Anne-Marie's Blog


While business is, of course, about money, it's about other things too. Business is also about your values and the vision you create for your company, both now, and in the future. And defining these values and vision, or what your company stands for, is where a lot of the fun comes in! This is also where a Mastermind Group can help you reach your Values in a realistic and supportive manner.

For the first ten years at Bramble Berry, our mission was to be the best at customer service in our industry. In everything we did, this is what we were striving for. Now, we're updating that a bit as we continue to grow. We want our new vision to move towards the idea of providing opportunities to change lives. Initially, it took us nearly three years to decide which values we wanted for Bramble Berry. And going through this was not always an easy process. At one point, we had pages and pages of potential value statements. We even once had a value that said 'profitability will never be our ultimate goal.' But it turned out, that a value statement like that, just wasn't very practical. Having a Mastermind Group to go back to, month after month, with my potential Values Statements was invaluable. They could and did mirror back to me my own words, "Well, you actually said three months ago that you were running out of capital. Maybe having a value around profitability not being important doesn't work for you?"

Today, Bramble Berry's core values are as follows:

(1.) To be an industry leader

(2.) To stand behind our quality products

(3.) To show L.O.V.E. to our customers and employees (L.O.V.E. stands for: changing Lives (the L), creating Opportunities (the O), delivering high Value (the V), and encouraging creative Expression through the five senses (the E).

(4.) To be socially responsible

(5.) To recognize that profitability equals opportunity

These values are important because they stand as the benchmark against which we measure our actions. Every decision we make goes through these filters.

For example, when we're thinking about whether or not to bring on a new line, we have to ask ourselves, "Does this line meet the standards outlined in our values?" If the line is a sub-par product, then our answer has to be "no". Another good example can be found with some of the really cool stuff now coming out of China. While there are some really fabulous, and readily usable products being offered from Chinese manufacturers, we have decided not to use many of them because the waste that these manufactures produce goes against our core values. We have also decided not to carry Sandalwood essential oils, despite their popularity, because when looking at Sandalwood's endangered species status, and comparing it with our values, we have found that carrying it just doesn't match up with how we've stated that we want to run the business.

Developing core values in a vacuum is difficult at best. Utilize the resources you've built around you, your team of advisors in your Mastermind Group, to ensure that your values match the things that you've been talking about, saying and doing in your meetings. Developing core values can help guide you through the many business decisions that will come your way, and they will certainly help to ensure that you're building a company you can be proud of.