How To Run A Brand Values Workshop. Plus, A Free Worksheet!

As your business grows and evolves, how do you make sure you don’t lose what made you special in the first place?
How do you make sure you hire the right people who will strengthen your company culture, not weaken it?
How do you stay moving in the right direction, developing the right products and developing relationships with the right kind of customers?
God knows it’s not easy….
But it’s something I believe every company should do review regularly, especially if you’re fast growing.
But even if you’re running a micro-business, there is a simple exercise and workshop you could do right now that would start you on the track of uncovering what matters to you and what makes your business unique: uncovering your core values.
Your core values act as a touchstone and lens for every decision. Which employees are a good fit. Which projects are a good fit. And which would be a terrible mistake.
Understanding what you value gives you a framework for how you, and everyone who works for you, behaves.
A SIMPLE VALUES WORKSHOP EXERCISE
Head over here to grab the values worksheet.
There you’ll find a list of values that you can print and cut out into cards. You can also just print the worksheet and organise the values into order of importance with colours or number ratings.
STEP ONE
Cut out the cards and put them into three piles – NOT IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT and VERY IMPORTANT.
OR
Number them 1-3 with a pen (1 being not important, 2 being important and 3 being very important).
STEP TWO
Now take another look; which values jump out at you as the things you would never compromise on?
STEP THREE
Why not add a few of your own values? Is there anything that hasn’t been captured already? Add any other values to the relevant columns.
STEP FOUR
Discard the first two categories and focus on the VERY IMPORTANT pile. You want to drill down to 3-5 core values.
STEP FIVE
Test the final values - how are you expressing these values right now? Are they coming through on your website or in social media? Through your customer experience, the way you treat staff and the way in which you operate?
How can you express them more clearly so that you attract like-minded customers and employees that share the way you look at the world?
About the Author: Anna McLoughlin

Anna is Director of Inkspiller. An incurably curious writer and brand strategist, she has made it her life's mission to truly see others, then reflect their brilliance back out to the world.
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Categories: Brand positioning Brand Strategy