How to Define Your Core Values and Why Your Business Needs Them
--
One critical part every entrepreneur should have in their business is a list of core values. Core values can be used as a blueprint when making important business decisions, and can also help you run your business with a clearer path toward growth and success.
As an entrepreneur or a small business owner, you have a vision of your business and how you want your life to be. Your business is your calling — and even as it may be the most difficult thing you’ve ever done in your life, you have your ‘WHY’ that drives you to do business.
My ‘WHY’ For My First and Current Businesses
Watching the sunset from a patio in Redondo Beach, California one Sunday evening when I was in my 20s, my (then) husband and I were talking to our neighbors across the courtyard. We were barbecuing and wishing that the weekend wasn’t coming to an end.
That’s when the daydreaming began — thinking about what if we start our own business, work together and support ourselves by being our own boss. The more we thought about it, the more we got hopeful that one day we’d live in a world where we didn’t dread Mondays. We started talking endlessly about the idea of quitting our jobs and becoming entrepreneurs.
As the days went on, the conversations went deeper as our research began. Then we started wondering what it would take to build a business that we could sell for millions of dollars and then retire?
Being my own boss and having more freedom when it comes to time were what started my entrepreneurial journey. That was my ‘WHY’ then.
My WHY for my current business is different — it feels good to share the knowledge I’ve learned over the last 20+ years of being an entrepreneur, and I like to help other people with their own businesses and entrepreneurial journey. It’s exciting for me to watch entrepreneurs go from where they are when we start together to the next steps of their businesses. It makes me feel good to help tease out answers that founders need for issues that they have in their businesses.
