At our small, rapidly growing digital marketing agency we have 5 pillars that everyone lives by - my favorite, radical candor. Radical candor is the idea that you should share opinions directly and openly with your team. With smaller, growing businesses there is not a lot of room to hide your thoughts or feelings, both in the sense of physical space but also in the sense of being able to scale and build effectively. Radical candor forces us to lay all of our cards on the table - even if it may be uncomfortable. It allows us to uncover things that need to improve, small issues that if left untreated will become larger problems at scale. By having your entire team practice radical candor you work together to build a better business and are constructively forced into looking at things from multiple perspectives and be more successful because of it.
In a primarily female industry, sisterhood is a company value that keeps our culture supportive and empowering. This value helps share our passions and connects us within the company and to our clients. These deep connections are powerful in maintaining a positive employee experience and an exceptional customer experience.
At Resolute Technology Solutions, our core values are: - Do the Right Thing - Go the Extra Mile - Be Client-Focused To highlight when a team member Goes the Extra Mile for a client or another team member, we share kudos message in our monthly internal eNewsletter that goes out to our team across Canada and at our virtual quarterly meetings. Often in the form of the verbatim praise from the client or a direct quote from a colleague. Since we are mostly remote, its important to communicate those successes to the whole team and ensure people know their work is valued. We want to recognize when someone goes out of their way to solve a problem, put in extra effort, and see an initiative through beyond the typical amount of work required.
I run a digital online company, using a team of virtual assistants. Keeping employees happy across multiple geographies can always be a challenge. But one core value I use is a quote from Richard Branson which goes - "Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” This helps keep employees motivated, improves retention and overall productivity - thus improving the business's sales and revenue.
In this remote work environment it can be easy to hide mistakes or feel the need to cover up why you weren\'t at your computer. Fostering transparency as a core value ensures no one tries to cover up their mistakes or feels the need to fib. Being a 100% remote organization, this is something we make sure our team feels confident in from day 1.
Being an entrepreneur takes grit. Grit is powered by love. You must love what you are doing or you’ll never ever have the strength to get through the challenges. This is our core value that drives everything we do. We work hard to develop recipes, engage with readers and maintain brand awareness, but it would be impossible without genuine love for cooking, interacting online and having a vision for our brand. It is a grind, but because we love what we do and love our readers, it makes it so much easier to tackle inevitable challenges.
I work at an IT solutions company called Electric, and although that product might not sound "fun", working here certainly is. One of our core values is to "enjoy the ride" and I think the company does a great job of promoting it. We\'ve done Drag Queen Bingo over Zoom, taken happy hour boat cruises on the Hudson and members of our team even met Dan Levy when he was a keynote speaker at our big annual event. There\'s a culture of fun and excitement here and I think it energizes us to perform better and make work more enjoyable.
When talking to clients about their finances, they want to ensure that they are in a safe space where I will not share their personal information with others. At the onset of the coaching relationship, I guarantee that clients know that their conversations with me are treated confidentially. This lets them know that they can speak freely without holding back on their struggles with their finances or their relationships. Ultimately, clients can talk comfortably and start making strides in accomplishing their future goals.
At Mashman Ventures, one of our core values is to "Always chase after your vision." Everyone on the team is constantly encouraged to chase after their own goals in business and in life. When the team meets, we ask each other about recent wins at work and beyond to celebrate them. We ask each other if there's anything we can do to help, offering our expertise to each other. We also emphasize personal growth for everyone on the team. Our founder, Isaac Mashman, likes to say that "At the center of all achievement is personal growth." When everyone on the team is eating well, the company must be doing well. In creating this culture, all of us on the team grow professionally and personally, have a great support system, and the company benefits as a result.
Our most important core value is to always embrace change. If the last decade has shown us anything, it’s that change is occurring faster than ever. Whether you’re talking about politics, Covid, technology, or societal issues, times are changing, and rapidly. Thus, to sustain your small business in the long run, it's crucial that you embrace this change and learn to adapt to it. While many small companies hate change and want “business as usual,” avoiding updates to their processes at every turn or having to pivot, our company embraces it. By learning to love change and embrace it, it makes us more nimble and flexible. This allows us to more quickly adapt to changing customer preferences and modes of doing business. To me, this core value has been especially pertinent (and important) during the last two years of the pandemic.
In my business, we have a number of core values that range from "business should be fun" to "business building should be accessible to all." My favorite, by far, is "be a radical giver." On January 1, 2018, I made "giving" my word of the year for 2018, and that decision has had ramifications in my business and ripple effects across the people I serve. Since that moment, I've given away tens of thousands of legal templates to online business owners (templates that amount to over $10 million in value at my competitors' pricing). And in December 2020, my team and I launched a free marketing university for online business owners. My entire team approaches business from the perspective of serving more and giving more value to everyone in our audience. Although it's not the reason we give... we've found that the more we give, the more we get. Giving is no longer my word of the year; it is the essence of my business.
We always act in the best interest of the client. We are a customer-centric company and we go above and beyond to make sure that our client strategies and recommendations provide the most value based on their needs. Some companies focus more on sales numbers, but our dedication to our clients has been the hallmark of our success. We take the time necessary to build a rapport and understand our clients' needs.
My favorite core value is our sense of adventure. It's what we built our company on, and we still live by it. Successful entrepreneurs don't wake up one morning and decide to become one. They've always had an entrepreneurial mindset. Don't be shy if you have a business idea or project; try it. "You'll always miss the shots you didn't take." I had a great idea, and my sense of adventure told me to give it a shot. While driving in New York City, it seemed almost impossible to avoid traffic tickets. I realized that over sixty million traffic tickets are issued in the US each, and there was no easy way for drivers to deal with them. I created a product that would address a significant pain point for everyday drivers and help them save money. Since our launch in 2015, our app has been downloaded more than one million times, and we process parking and traffic violations in several states. Without my sense of adventure, I would not be where I am today.
It's so hard to choose one core value above the rest, however, our core value of balance is integral to the framework, functioning, and philosophy of Miss Details. It permeates every aspect of the work we do, from balancing data and design to create effective sensory branding, to mapping out a marketing strategy fueled by both logic and emotion. Personally and professionally my goal is to have and promote a healthy work–life balance for my team. (which is a little more difficult as an entrepreneur)
Since 1977, our business has been owned and operated by commercial finance brokers, who also happen to be family. While there are many challenges to having a family business, there are also many benefits. As a family of commercial finance brokers, we are real people providing real solutions for our customers for generations to come. Family-owned businesses have always been the backbone of our economy, and we are proud to be a part of that.
My favorite core value at my company is autonomy. We give team members lots of space and flexibility to develop ideas and content. Having a culture of autonomy means everyone takes individual responsibility, which has led to greater proactivity and ownership of our work.
Environmental sustainability entails minimizing our impact on the environment to the advantage of a more stable future for generations to come and demonstrates respect for our world. Upholding sustainability standards as a company results in sales and marketing-related benefits, adding brand value and meeting consumer demands. This past year I am proud to say at Freedom Mobiles we have added corporate recycling to our comparison site, this is helping educational institutions and small and large-sized businesses make the most of their outdated tech. This is our greatest achievement in helping to save our planet.
At my company, we value integrity and accountability above all else. This core value has a significant impact on our small business because it helps us to make decisions that are in the best interests of our customers and employees. For example, we always strive to be honest with our clients, even if it means admitting that we don't have the answer to a question. We also hold ourselves accountable to our commitments, which helps us to maintain a high level of quality and service. In addition to integrity and accountability, we also value creativity, collaboration, and customer service. These core values help us to create a positive work environment and deliver exceptional service to our clients. Each of these values is important in its own way, but they all work together to help us achieve our ultimate goal of becoming the best small business possible.
Trust is my personal favorite core value at our company because I believe that trust is a key component of success. We are a small team, so if there’s a breakdown in trust it impacts everyone. When everyone on a team trusts each other, business moves more swiftly and problems are resolved in a more reasonable amount of time. It also makes for a more positive atmosphere in the workplace, because there’s less hostility in a workplace where everyone trusts each other.
At Mobitrix, we constantly create new ideas for our products and processes with a bias towards action. We also change our existing operations to make them more efficient and improve customer experience. Innovation as a core value allows us to keep challenging ourselves to create new solutions and keep evolving. This change is a calculated risk that often lets us stay ahead of our competitors through consistent improvement. Change is also essential in ensuring we stay ahead of current market trends. Innovation is my favorite company core value since it drives us to adapt and create improvement.