Who Else Cares About Your Values?

A great team will definitely care about the core values we exemplify as we build the foundation for our organization, but that’s not where the importance of those values stops. How leaders, as well as each team member in an organization, live out those values will impact business relationships with individual clients and the communities that business operates in. And when it comes to what clients and the surrounding community sees, the owners and executives won’t be the only ones providing the example. Realistically, every member of our team is part of our marketing department when it comes to displaying our core values.

In sharing how we can rally our team around a strong set of values, I mentioned a friend in public safety who typically has a list of candidates asking to join his team each time he posts an open position. Since he’s in law enforcement, let’s consider how much negative publicity that entire community receives when any police officer - anywhere in the country - is so much as portrayed as having used poor judgement, let alone actually breaking one of the laws they’ve sworn to uphold. Each time this happens, it casts a shadow on everyone wearing a uniform - regardless of where it occurs or the facts behind the headline.

Whether we like it or not, the same thing holds true with how each member of our organizations represents our brand. While price is certainly a factor, and one that’s made plenty of headlines with the crazy inflation we’ve all dealt with over the last few years, it’s not always the factor in winning and keeping business. The organizational values we live by, and how each of our team members display those values in and out of work, play a critical role in earning and maintaining trust from our clients and the communities we’re a part of - even when we’re not attempting to compete on price alone!

I frequently make this case with the companies we support that have technicians servicing clients’ equipment. Many of those clients rarely, if ever, interact with the organization's executive team. Sometimes, they have occasional conversations with the person responsible for sales or business development. However, the majority of the clients’ opinion of these companies is formed through what they see and hear from the individual performing the work at their location. Those technicians generally have excellent technical skills but how they display their core values (through their speech and behavior) provides the client all they often need to form an opinion.

Another way our company values show through to our clients and community lies in who and what we support. Not so long ago, a friend who manages a great local company shared a social media post about who sponsors little league teams; we don’t see Amazon or Walmart on those jerseys but we do see the names of local businesses where we know people personally. That same friend has been very intentional in how his company contributes to community initiatives, especially the ones closely aligned with their business model. While they do indeed provide products and services that are priced very competitively with their competition, the organization has developed an extremely loyal client base by backing their values with action. The leadership team and each public facing team member routinely provides reasons for the folks they serve to like them and to trust them. And when all things are equal, we’d all prefer to do business with someone we know, like, and trust - so we’ll pick up there next time.