These days, we’re surrounded by fantastic but sometimes confusing business advice – learn how to say no to things, identify your target market clearly, do this, do that.

Luckily, there is one thing you can do that can help drive all your business decisions and enable you to tell your story better – discover what your values are.

What are values?

If your vision is the “why” you do something and your mission is the “what” you do, then your values are the “how”.

They’ll usually take the form of a set of short statements that sum up the way you, as a team and as individuals, interact with customers and do work, as well as giving some pretty great insights into your culture.

Why are they so important?

Values are awesome because they help you make decisions that will be good for your business. Think of it this way – instead of just having to make decisions based on gut instincts, values give you a framework for grilling down to the perfect choice.

Hiring a new person? Think about whether they will live and breathe your values. If not, then it doesn’t matter how great their experience is – they won’t contribute to and improve your culture. Trying to decide whether or not to take on a project? If you’re not able to live your values while doing it, then it’s probably not right for you.

How to create great values

We’ve all seen them – values stuck on the wall of an office saying “Honesty.” “Integrity.” “Trust.” Do these really get anyone excited? And furthermore, does anyone else think that if you’re not being honest and trustworthy in general, then you’re not going to last long in business?

Values should be about the things that you do or the ways that you do things that make you uniquely you – they tell your story, in other words. Have a think about what you do that makes you different from other people. For example, one of our values is that we’re friends with our clients – we love getting to know our clients on a personal basis, so we can hang out with them events, invite them over for drinks, send them a card or pressie on their birthday, or occasionally make inappropriate jokes around them. That’s what helps us build strong relationships!

To think about what your values are, get your team together and ask them a few questions, such as:

• What do you like about working here?
• What do we do differently to the other places you’ve worked?
• How do we want people to feel about us when they leave a meeting with us?
• If people could remember something about us, what would it be?
• What do we think are our non-negotiables when we’re working with clients?

Letting your values drive your story-telling

Once you’ve figured out what your values are, let those influence how you tell your story. If your values influence how you work, they should equally influence how you communicate with people, as this will give prospective customers and your existing clients the best idea of who you are as a company.

For example, the reason that one of our values is that we’re friends with our clients is because people like to do business with people they like – so our communications aren’t dry, research heavy pieces. Instead, they’re (hopefully) interesting stories that sound like one of us could be telling it to you in person.

Because we’re perfectionists (another of our values), we also get a second Inker to check absolutely everything before it leaves our office. That means that everything we put forward is accurate and error free – at least we hope… we’re all human after all!

Likewise, our value of always meeting deadlines means I’m writing well after 5pm to get it done on time – not one of our Inkers is prepared to miss a deadline, even one imposed by another Inker!

Here at Intelligent Ink, we think our culture is one of our biggest strengths, and is what enables us to find great people, work with awesome clients, and tell fantastic stories. And that all stems from living and breathing our values. So if you haven’t got values that speak to you and get you excited, what are you waiting for?