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Build Your Business on a Solid Foundation

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Your Core Values are the Building Blocks

Over the past several weeks we’ve discussed the importance of a solid foundation for building a successful business. We talked about the ground the foundation is set on is who you are and how you can know your why.

This week we’re going to go back to the foundation. We’re going to take a more detailed look at core values and how they work as the building blocks of your business’s foundation. 

Core values are your fundamental beliefs. They are your guiding principles.

It’s like your business conscience. It is who you are.

The definition of CORE is – the central or most important part of something. This is the most inner part of who you are. This is like your conscience. The deep down, on the inside, who God made you to be.

VALUES are – the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something; a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life. This is the part that you choose. How you want to be, how you will treat others, etc.

This doesn’t mean they are good. Some people’s values may be selfish or greedy, but regardless, we choose what values we will live by.

These are the non-negotiables. The things that, when faced with decisions, will help your business withstand earthquakes.

How to identify your business’s core values:

  1. Look at a list of values. Find a good, extensive and thorough list of values (like the one below) and start digging through it.
  2. Identify the ones that resonate. From the list, identify the ones that feel most important and mark it with a 1 for most important, 2 for somewhat important, and 3 for least important. Narrow down your number 1’s to six to eight values that feel like an absolute priority. To help you figure it out, ask yourself who a few people are that model what you inspire you, and look at your number 1’s to see what matches. 
  3. Know your heroes. You can also find your core values by thinking about your “heroes,” reflecting on what they embody, what they stand for, and how they embrace it.
  4. Notice your patterns. Being aware of your patterns that are healthy versus unhealthy can guide you in identifying your core values. You can learn about what you want and what doesn’t feel right to you in this process,
  5. Assess whether you’re happy. Ask yourself whether your experiences or choices are making you happy. If not, there are likely core values that aren’t being met in those decisions and situations.

Here is an abbreviated list of personal core values –

  1. Integrity
  2. Freedom
  3. Autonomy
  4. Justice
  5. Faith
  6. Success
  7. Wealth
  8. Grace
  9. Play
  10. Joy
  11. Balance
  12. Peace

Here is an abbreviated list of work core values –

  1. Clear direction
  2. Efficiency
  3. Dedication
  4. Growth
  5. Collaboration
  6. Creativity
  7. Research
  8. Professionalism
  9. Timeliness
  10. Quality
  11. Problem-solving
  12. Discipline

You can see the complete lists here.

My personal and business core values are the same. They are a collection of things that I’m naturally good at and some things…not so much. Things that I’m constantly working to get better at.

My core values are things that are in alignment with what I believe God wants from me and for me.

It’s hard to define your business’s core values if your business is more than just you. We are all individuals and recognizing this will make the process easier.

My Core Values—other than the first one—are in no specific order. Some you may recognize as quotes or common sayings. Others are things that I have modified in some way that are meaningful to me. And some I conceived on my own. All of them are values I hold high and strive to live out daily.

Here they are:

  1. Honor God in all that I do
  2. Make all I can, Save all I can, Give all I can
  3. Spend time wisely, there is a limited amount
  4. Pay attention to detail
  5. Never be satisfied with mediocrity
  6. Find and maintain the balance in everything
  7. Build the wall one brick at a time
  8. Remember that I have two ears and one mouth
  9. Avoid drama
  10. Be accountable
  11. Take off the blinders, be more observant
  12. Intentional action

Over the next couple of weeks, I will break down these core values and give you more insight into what they mean to me and how I try to live them daily.

How Can I Help People Understand What I’m Saying?

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It’s Hard to Get Others to See Things from My Perspective

This sounds a little self-centered, like my perspective is more important than everyone else’s.

That’s not what I mean by “getting others to see things from my perspective”.

I’ve been hearing from marketing people for a long time about the difficulty of getting people to understand what we’re saying. This is often referred to as the “curse of knowledge”, which is when we’re sharing a message with the assumption those who are hearing it have as much knowledge and familiarity with a given topic as we do.

The fact that I’ve been hearing this for a while and am still trying to figure out how to implement it, is exactly what I’m talking about.

This issue resurfaced in a few different places over the past couple of weeks.

First and closet to home is my struggle with getting construction companies to see the value of my Blueprint for Building a Better Proposal system.

The value of this proposal system makes perfect sense to me, but then I developed it more than thirty years ago and have been using it almost daily since then. My “curse of knowledge”.

I’ve shared this proposal system idea with construction companies without much success. It’s frustrating, having been where they are and knowing that it would likely help them.

Why wouldn’t they want to start using it immediately?

The second place that this issue came up was in a discussion with my friend Shep Jordan. He’s in the process of writing a memoir of his experiences with six role models when he was growing up. He hopes to help others see the negative impacts resulting from a lack of good role models in today’s world and the need to do something about it.

It’s critically important for boys to have good role models and for men to be good role models!

The problem is…how to get others to hear what he’s saying? They may hear him and agree, but how does he get them to embrace and implement the ideas that are in his book?

The third place this got discussed was in our mastermind. One of the members is working on a new program and was asking about pricing. As we discussed it, I asked for clarification. With further discussion I realized that this is that same common problem. He was crystal clear about what he was saying…the rest of us not as much.

How can we help people understand what we’re saying?

The other thing we need to realize is that it’s going to take some time to get other people to understand what we’re trying to say.

There’s so much going on in our own minds and the world around us, that it takes a long time and a lot of repetition to break through the noise. It may take years and repeating the message hundreds of times before they even know that we’re saying anything.

Add to that the importance of aligning your message with their need and you have a big hill to climb. The thing to remember is that the hill can be climbed.

As noisy as things are right now it’s amazing that we can get anyone at all to listen to what we have to say.

The thing to remember is…if what we have to share is in alignment with God’s plan then our part is to keep on sharing it over and over knowing that if even one person is helped it was worth the effort.

Putting ourselves back in the position of our target audience and repetition is the way to get them to hear and understand what we’re saying.

And most importantly…don’t give up, keep on sharing.