Brand values - what they are, why they’re important and how you can identify yours

“If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” - Howard Schultz

Behind the scenes I’m currently working on my own rebrand. Trying to balance working ON my business as well as IN my business is an ongoing process but I’m excited to be diving deep within my heart of hearts and thinking through where I’m going next and what that looks like for me and my business.

It can be a pretty daunting prospect but I’ve chosen to start with establishing values. If you’re clear on your values, that’s a great basis for working out what your product or service might look like, who you can best serve, what you want your brand to look and feel like, how you want to come across, your voice and how you interact, the themes you’ll intertwine in your website copy and weave into your social media posts, your customer journey and ultimately what you deliver. It all starts with values.

So what is it you value? Adventure, authenticity, beauty, challenge, courage, creativity, curiosity, encouragement, equality, flexibility, freedom, friendliness, fun, generosity, connection, independence, intimacy, justice, excitement, fairness, fitness, patience, power, honesty, humour, self-care, self-development, kindness, order, trust, respect, safety, spirituality, supportiveness, love?

So how can you identify your brand values? Well, my challenge to you is this:

• List the values I mentioned above, and mark them as being either very important to you, quite important to you or not at all important to you. (Remember, knowing what you don’t value is just as important as knowing what you do!).
  
• Choose 6 of the very important values to focus on (the likelihood is you’ll have lots of ‘very important’ values and it doesn’t mean you can’t bring more of those values into your business in the future, but let’s not try and Quickstep before we can even clap in time!).
  
• Ask yourself if these 6 values you’ve identified are in alignment with your brand and business? And if not, how can you build on them? Maybe it’s about adjusting your website copy, or having new photos taken, or perhaps changing some of the themes you talk about on social media.
  

With your values established, you can focus on living out these values and serving your clients in a way that feels authentic and in alignment with who you are and what’s really important to you. Like attracts like - the clearer you are on your values, the clearer your ideal clients will be on your values, and the chances are, if they truly are an IDEAL client, they’ll share the same values as you - these are the people you can best serve, these are YOUR PEOPLE.

With clarity comes confidence. Friends, you’re building your brand.

Hope that’s helpful for you. I’d love to know what values from the list above jump out at you! Let me know by dropping me a cheeky email or by joining in the conversation on social media, I’d love to hear from you.