Core Values to Grow Your Business
Katie Hornor?
Business Strategist helping entrepreneurs create a business that is in service of your unique life | Inspired by Flamingos | TEDx Speaker | Keynote Speaker | Award-winning Author: The Flamingo Advantage?
So, I want to talk today about core values. This may be something that you have heard of before and thought it was just a big corporate thing. It may be something that you've never heard of before. But regardless of what you know about it, I want to explain first of all, what a core value is, and then how it helps us run our business.
What are Core Values?
So we think about core values you think about the things that you hold near and dear to your heart, seeing and these are things like virtues. They are things like, standard, so I'm going to give some examples of that. So this may be things like:
How Can You Find Them
These would be core values and these would be things that are they are intrinsic to you. There are things that you operate around whether consciously or subconsciously, they are a part of you.
As business owners, they therefore overflow and become a part of your business. Whether it's just you and your blog, or whether it's you and your team, or whether it's you and an entire corporate office, these core values are things that become a part of the culture. When we try to operate outside of the consciousness of these core values, we tend to go off track.
How to Gain Focus
Core values can help you stay in alignment with your vision, they can help you stay focused on that long-term goal. They can help you make day-to-day decisions when you're aware of them and acting upon them. So, you can stay in alignment with what you're called to do and where you want to go in your business.
What's important to you in life and in business? Is it loyalty? Do you focus on people first? Is it serving others or is it knowledge? Is it always learning? Could it be making mistakes so you know enough to try again? Is it always try again? Things that are important to you in your business? Make a list of those and just brainstorm.
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List of Core Values
So now you've got your list of things that are important to you. Then you want to go back and star your top three. What are the top three things that are the most important to you? When I was making this list, the three that came up for me are truth, legacy, not a big surprise, and community.
I believe that everything in my life and business has to be founded on truth, God's truth, the eternal truth. I have to take God into account in my business in order to run it His way.
So in everything that I do in my life and in business, I need to share what I know to be true about God. What do I know to be true about me? What do I know to be true about the situation? What's my next step? That's something that I teach to our ladies in the Queens Mastermind, in our masterclasses, and VIP days.
Business Growth Strategies
Stop and ask yourself what is the true thing. Not how you're feeling, not the way things work. But what is the truth? Then based on the truth, make a decision. So the truth is a big one for me. The second one is legacy. Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why does it matter? Why will it matter in the future?
I'm not just building for building's sake. I'm not just working for working's sake or making money for here and now. I am working towards something that I see is going to be bigger than me.
I want that vision that says "this is the legacy." That's what handprint legacy is all about. How can I make something in the world that's going to outlast me and really make a difference in other people's lives?
Business Motivation
Then there's community. Being in Mexico and being isolated from a community for so long, especially as we started our business, it really became a part of me to want community. I desire it for myself but also desire to give it. I personally get the most energized when I'm teaching, working with coaching clients in a group or one-on-one, or when I'm on stage.
That's what energizes me that's where I am able to give of what I know and help other people. Watching them put things into place that will better their lives, their businesses and their community is huge to me. So, when I did this exercise, those are the three that stood out for me.
For me, it's truth and legacy, and community. Now for other people, it may be service, ingenuity, and creativity. There's no right or wrong. You know, intrinsically, what your values are. That's something that once you recognize what those are, then you're able to use them as a guiding light to help you stay on the path.
Importance of Core Values
You can ask yourself questions then about a new product, a new decision, or a new hire. Hey, does this align with truth, with legacy, and with community? If it doesn't, then I got to think long and hard about what effect has on my business. So this was huge and helped me just even in the last couple of weeks to go through the things that we're doing in our business and evaluate what we're doing and why it doesn't align.
But I wouldn't have recognized that unless I had gone through this exercise of the core values. And so in the core values now you know what things are most important to you. You also need to know what your biggest dangers are the biggest danger spots. And so when you're thinking about that, you're thinking about what are the things that sabotage you what are the evils and what are the abilities in your life.
Business Risks and Solutions
A lot of times if we're not careful, those bad guys can slip in and start feeding us things that can sabotage what we're doing. So the next step in the core values process is to take a few minutes and write down what are some of those things. This could be thinking in your own mind. It could be people, it could be pressures, or could be thoughts like I can't do that or I'll never be good enough. That impostor syndrome.
None of us know what we're doing until we practice it long enough. So you need to pretend to be what you're not in a way because that's how we learn. Toddlers pretend to bake food, to cook, and pretend to play doctor because they're preparing for what they're going to be when they grow up.
领英推荐
So it's not necessarily a bad thing, to pretend in a way that teaches you how to do this thing. Anyway, take some time to write down what are those things that sabotage you. They may be internal and maybe external. What are those things that can totally get you off track, derail you, and make you stop and question everything that you're doing? What kicks your confidence to the ground and really sabotage you? Make a list.
What are 3 of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make?
Then you want to come back to look at the list and you want to find the top three. What are the top three biggest things that trip you up? For me, the biggest things that trip me up are self-doubt, the criticisms of others, and the fear of failure.
What I realized when I looked at that list was I had three of them written out just like that:
What I realized was that all of these happen when I have my eyes on me or on what other people are saying about me. I'm not looking at God, and I'm not looking at this calling on my life. I'm not looking at the people I'm serving. So when I allow sabotage to happen, it's because I am inwardly focused. I'm not outwardly focused.
Why do entrepreneurs self-sabotage?
When I'm outwardly focused. I'm thinking about how I can serve you and how I get to do what God's called me to do. I don't doubt myself at this moment and I don't let the criticisms rob me in that moment. I don't fear failure.
But when I started looking inward, and I started listening to what other people are saying, or I started imagining that others were criticizing me in a certain way. We think they're saying something, but they're not really saying it. It's not a truth. It's not a trick to develop.
I've got to keep focused on things that I know are true, not on things I think they may be thinking or I think they may be saying. So when I'm looking at self-doubt or criticism or fear of failure, why am I hearing failure because of what others will say? So there again inward focus is all about me. But business and life are not about you.
Examples of Core Values in the Workplace
If you haven't figured that out yet, then please let me be the first to tell you. Life is not about you. We're not put here for ourselves. You were put here to glorify the Father. You were put here to praise your creator, you are here to fulfill the purpose that he put in your heart from the moment you were born. That is not about you.
It's not to make a certain amount of money or to achieve certain things. It is to do what he called you to do in a way that will serve others and bring Him glory. So the sooner we can get our eyes off ourselves, stop worrying about ourselves, and sabotaging things, the better. Then we can start doing what He created us to do.
What are Entrepreneurial Values and Attitudes?
So you have your three core values. You have your three sabotages. The next thing you need to do is to break them down and put them somewhere where you can see them every single day.
When you think about a corporation that has core values you ask any of their employees and the majority of the time nobody knows what they are. They've gotta go dig them out of a file cabinet or somewhere and say, oh, yeah, I think we've done that. Watch, let me go find it.
Core values are not something you write down, stick in a file and forget about. Your core values are things that drive you every single day in your business, and in your decisions.?So it needs to be front and center until you've got it memorized.
What are the Three Most Important Characteristics or Attitudes of an Entrepreneur?
I printed mine out and taped it to the front of my computer. Every day, I'm looking at it: truth, legacy, community. I had some secondary things that are also important to me, but they didn't make the top three. Those are celebration, respect, loyalty, and collaboration.
So, I have those printed out and they're listed right there so that I can be conscious of the fact that these things light me up. Everything that I do, I can say has to align with these.
So that's how the core values help you. If these are not in this advertising campaign, I don't need to be running it.?If this is not something that's going to help us leave a bigger legacy then I don't need to be doing it. Likewise, if this is not something that's going to grow my community or nurture my community, I don't need to be doing it.
What is a Good Business Decision?
That was when I realized that some of the DIY courses that I was offering don't fit the community piece for me. That's why I wasn't getting lit up about it. I wasn't getting excited about it because there was no interaction. Yeah, you can make money from DIY but it's not where I want to put the majority of my focus because it's not community-based. It's not relationship based.
I want to have a relationship-based business. I want to create a community among students and have a community with my students. So, promoting that DIY course is not what I need to be spending the majority of my time on right now. There may be a time in the future will we but not right now.
Business Decision-Making Process based upon Core Values
I hope that you will take some time this week, before you forget about all this, today even, and just take some quiet time to go sit down. Go sit down and think about what are my core values.
What are the three things that sabotage me? How can I be present to both of those so that I can make my decisions consciously according to those core values? So that my decisions and the way I run my business can always be something that I can get excited about and get behind. That's how we get stuff done.
Keep the dangers in mind as well, so that they don't sneak up on you and sabotage you from behind when you're least expecting.
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