Create your Small Business Core Values with these 4 simple steps
Read Time: 9 Minutes
Introduction
- Does your business feel disconnected?
- Does your business feel like a different company day to day?
- Do you even know what your brand stands for?
Does this sound like your business? In that case, your business appears amid an identity crisis, similar to what some teenagers experience when entering high school. They often feel disconnected and lost, leaving them anxious and unsteady as they move forward.
Don’t fret! The answer to your troubles is simple to fix. Create Core Values for your business. They are a collection of adjectives or nouns that serves as a foundation for your business’s values. These words give your team the skills to tackle fresh issues and make sensible choices that steer your business in the right direction. You’ll be all set up for success!
This blog will help you create core values for your small business
Core values are essential pillars of your business, helping define your business identity and ensuring that employees stay on track to attain your business’s vision. This blog will help you create your Small Business Core Values.
What are Core Values?
An organization’s core values are pillars of its business. They indicate how the company should work and conduct itself- Through a selection of words, they outline the brand’s parameters of how it should act if it were a person. They are the guidelines you use (or should be using) daily in everything you do on behalf of the company.
In essence, your company values are the beliefs, philosophies, and principles that drive your business. They are your company’s DNA and its being, and they help you differentiate your business from the competition by its actions. That’s why you can only make critical business decisions with core values in mind.
Core Values Are;
- Govern personal relationships
- Guide business processes
- Clarify who we are
- Articulate what we stand for
- Help explain why we do business the way we do
- Guide us on how to teach
- Inform us on how to reward
- Guide us in making decisions
- Underpin the whole organization
- Require no external justification
Core Values Are Not;
- Operating practices
- Business strategies
- Cultural norms
- Competencies
- Changed in response to market/ administration changes
- Used individually
Why should you care about having Core Values?
Having clear company values helps ensure that all your employees stay on track to attain your business goals; pursuit of your vision. Your core values guide what you should and shouldn’t be doing. It does this by shaping your business culture and empowering everyone to act in accordance with the business’s beliefs.
Without core values, a business isn’t built to last; it’s like a train with no train track. Destined to derail.
Creating your corporate values early in your brand’s infancy can have a practical and positive effect on your organization and its culture. It’s easier to develop core values when your team is still small. After all, it’s much easier to steer a four-person speedboat than a 2,000-person cruise ship. Therefore once your team grows, reaching a consensus around your values may be challenging.
4 Tips on Creating Your Core Values

#1 Wordsmithing

#2 Refine your selection

#3 Make Meaning

#4 It’s Not About You
4 Simple Steps in Creating Your Core Values
To craft fundamental principles for your small enterprise, follow these four crucial steps: Fine-tune your language, polish your picks, instill significance, and remember that it’s not solely about you.
Step 1: WordSmithing
Grab a dictionary(Or use Google), your thesaurus, and be prepared to look for Synonyms.
- Write down as many core value words.
- Don’t hold back, the aim is to brain-dump as many words as possible.
Note: Values are often expressed as single nouns or adjectives, such as ‘innovative’, ‘reliable’, ‘fun’, ‘humility’, ‘profitability’, or ‘customer focused’.


Step 2: Refine your Selection
Let’s talk about how to choose the perfect words for your brand. This part might be a bit challenging as you’ll need to narrow down your word choices to just three core values. But don’t worry, we’ll guide you through it!
- Pick the right words (Slim it down to 3 or 5 words)
- Then REVIEW
- With the 3 words, review their meanings.
- It might sound a bit funny, but we all have our own ways of understanding and using words. To make sure you’re using the right ones, why not check your trusty dictionary? Take a look and see if they’re the right fit for your business!
- If they don’t feel right, try another three until you find your three.
- With the 3 words, review their meanings.
Step 3: Make Meaning
Now you have the dictionary meaning of your words, it’s time to create your business definition of these words.
- What does that word mean to your business?
- If you can rewrite the meaning with your business in mind, what would the definition be?
Let’s have some fun! Start by writing down your initial reaction to what the word could mean for your business. Don’t overthink it, just let your instincts guide you. Trust yourself and enjoy the process!

Step 4: It’s Not About You
This can be the most challenging part of your core values.
Your brand is starting to shape its own humanized persona, and to do this, it needs its own values. This helps with separating yourself from your business, so ensure that the words you select are right for your brand.
- Write each core value on a sheet/slip of paper.
- Write down the dictionary and your brand definition of the words below them.
- Place these in a room that you visit often.
- I recommend the bathroom
- It’s here where you shut off but is still active enough to have a clear head.
- I recommend the bathroom
Give it a week or two, share it with friends, and see if these connect with what you want from your business.
NOTE: BE MINDFUL
Don’t fall into the trap of selecting numerous words for your core values. It’s paramount that you stick to only 3-5 words. Why? Because being selective is crucial in communicating a precise and comprehensive picture of your identity and values. If you exceed 5 words, your brand transforms into a symbol of everything and therefore loses its true significance – and that means you stand for nothing. So, choose wisely!
Example: Creating My Core Values
Step 1: WordSmithing
- Sustainability
- Innovation
- Excellence
- Reliability
- Passionate
- Respectful
- Honesty
- Consistent
- Humorous
- Nurturing
- Open-minded
- Adventurous
- Customer Service
- Awareness
- Integrity
- Collaboration
- Curiosity
————–
Step 2: Refine your Selection
- Awareness
- Integrity
- Collaboration
- Curiosity
Then REVIEW
-
- Awareness
- knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.
- Integrity
- The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; is moral uprightness.
- Collaboration
- The action of working with someone to produce or create something.
- Curiosity
- A strong desire to know or learn something.
- Awareness
————–
Step 3: Make Meaning
- Awareness
-
To be aware of my surroundings and inner self.
-
To acknowledge my past, future and present self and how I shape and interact with world and people
-
-
- Integrity
- To be true to who I am as a person.
- To stand tall in the face of adversity and ensure I talk with candor.
- To be true to who I am as a person.
- Collaboration
- Whether within my tribe/community or my career, collaboration is about listening and evolving together, helping and supporting each other for the sake of a collective goal; reciprocity.
- Curiosity
- To lean into my uncomfortableness to be better than I can be. Accept that I will fail, but through my failures, I will succeed.
Using my Core Values
- Awareness
- Integrity
- Collaboration
- Curiosity
Key Takeaways
- Core Values are a set of words that act as a guideline that empowers the individuals who make up the company to act on the company’s behalf through digital and traditional marketing channels.
- Core Values are often expressed as single nouns or adjectives
- Core values can have a practical and positive effect on your organization and its culture because it gives a clear idea of how everyone should work cohesively.
Summary
Basically, the values that your small business adheres to are crucial in defining its identity. They provide you and your team with a sense of direction and help you decide what actions your company should take. Without a clear identity, your business might feel aimless and unsure of its purpose. To prevent this, it’s important to establish a set of values that everyone can follow and stay true to. This way, you can avoid feeling like your business is a completely different entity every day.
As stated by David DeWolf; Mission is the building block, and vision is the fuel that drives you forward. Your core values are what keep you on track. Without adhering to a set of values, an organization runs the risk of falling apart. Ensure your business is built to last and stay on track by creating your business guiding pillars; core values.
Works Cited/ Resources
- Amelia Friedman (2018).How to Establish Values on a Small Team. https://hbr.org/
- Aaron McClung (/).5 Reasons Your Core Values Are Important. www.ovrflo65.com
- Bailey Reiners (2023). 56 Core Values Examples to Guide Your Organization. www.builtin.com
- Bright HR(/). What is the value of core company values? www.brighthr.com
- Brent Gleeson (2021).Why Core Values Matter (And How To Get Your Team Excited About Them). www.forbes.com
- Content Sparks (/). How to Identify Core Values for Your Business. www.contentsparks.com
- David DeWolf (2014). Which Is Most Important to Your Organization: Mission, Core Values, or Vision? daviddewolf.com
- Dr Sheri Jacobson. (2021). Help! Who Am I? 7 Signs That You Suffer From an Identity Crisis. ww.harleytherapy.co.uk
- Laura Montini (2014).Las Vegas Downtown Project Loses Tony Hsieh as Its Leader. https://www.inc.com/
- Management Center (2021). 5 Guiding Principles for Core Values. www.managementcenter.org/
- Melissa Perry (2022) Why core values are important. www.cooleaf.com
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter (2010). Ten Essentials for Getting Value from Values. www.hbr.org
- Roope Heinilä (2023). Company Values: Definition, Importance, and Examples.www.haiilo.com
- Sharan Sheldon (/). Free Download: Big List of Core/ Value Words. www.contentsparks.com
- Sara Sutler-Cohen, (2019).Core Values: What they are, why they matter, and how to define yours. https://medium.com/