Most businesses do not have a values problem. They have a decision problem.
Their website says “quality,” “integrity,” and “community.” Then they discount at the first objection, hire people who undermine the customer experience, and approve marketing that could belong to any competitor. Those are not values. They are decorations.
A brand values exercise for business should make it harder to make the wrong call. Done properly, it gives founders a practical standard for what the business will protect, how it will behave, and what it will refuse to do – even when a shortcut looks profitable.
That matters because if your brand cannot explain why it charges more, behaves differently, or deserves to be chosen, it will be compared on price. If you do not have a brand, you have a commodity.
Brand values are operating principles with commercial consequences. They shape who you hire, which partnerships you accept, how customer issues are handled, what your product range includes, and what your creative work should feel like.
They are not a list of admirable nouns. “Innovation” means little unless your team can explain what it requires in practice. Does it mean releasing imperfect ideas early? Investing in product development rather than copying category leaders? Refusing to use familiar marketing language? Each interpretation creates different behavior.
This is why a values exercise cannot begin with a blank page and a request for inspiring words. That approach produces a polished list that no one remembers. Start with evidence instead: the choices that made your business worth building, the customer expectations you are willing to meet, and the trade-offs you are prepared to make.
Set aside 90 minutes with the founder or leadership team. Bring examples, not opinions: customer reviews, sales calls, difficult decisions, team feedback, competitor claims, and examples of work you are proud of. The aim is not unanimous agreement on pretty language. The aim is clear standards.
Ask: when have we been at our best? Identify three to five specific moments. Perhaps you replaced an order without arguing over technicalities. Perhaps you advised a customer not to buy the more expensive option. Perhaps you delayed a launch because the product did not meet your standard.
Write down what happened, who made the call, and what it cost. Cost matters. A value is only credible when it asks something of you – time, margin, convenience, or ego.
Then look for the principle underneath the action. “We made it right without being forced to” may point to accountability. “We told the customer the expensive option was unnecessary” may point to honest guidance. Keep the original story beside the label. Stories prevent values from becoming vague.
Values become useful at the boundary. Ask what your business will not do, even if it could generate short-term revenue.
A food brand may refuse misleading health claims. A service company may refuse to promise unrealistic turnaround times to win a pitch. A retailer may decide it will not run permanent fake-discount promotions that train customers to wait for a sale.
This question exposes the tension between ambition and discipline. A young business may need flexibility, so its boundaries should be real without becoming theatrical. You do not need to claim you will never compromise. You need to know which compromises damage the trust and distinction you are trying to build.
This is where many exercises fail. Honest, customer-focused, high-quality, and collaborative are usually table stakes. Customers expect them. Employees expect them. Listing them does not explain why someone should choose you.
That does not mean they are unimportant. It means they are too broad to carry strategic weight on their own. Push further. What does your version of quality prioritize: durability, restraint, craft, speed, consistency, or obsessive detail? What does your version of customer focus look like when customers disagree with one another?
A useful test is this: could every credible competitor claim this value without changing its behavior? If yes, it is probably generic. Rewrite it until it demands a distinctive choice.
For example, “we value quality” could become “we remove anything that does not earn its place.” The first is a claim. The second can guide product development, editing, merchandising, and design.
Choose three to five values. More than five is usually a sign that the team has not prioritized. Each one should be written as a short principle, followed by proof, behavior, and a consequence.
Use this structure:
Value: What we stand for.
In practice: What customers and colleagues should see us do.
Not this: The behavior that violates the value.
Decision test: The question we ask when the answer is unclear.
For instance, a founder-led home goods brand might define a value as: Useful beauty. In practice, every visual choice must make the product easier to understand, use, or want to live with. Not this: decoration that hides function or adds cost without improving the experience. Decision test: does this make the customer’s life better, or merely make us look more designed?
Now the value can brief a photographer, guide a packaging decision, and challenge a product feature. It has become operational.
Take the values through four situations: a pricing decision, a hiring decision, a customer complaint, and a creative brief. If they do not produce a clear response in each case, they are not finished.
Imagine a major retailer asks for a lower wholesale price that would force cheaper materials. Does your value system tell you what to protect? Imagine a high-performing candidate is dismissive of junior staff. Does it tell you whether they belong? Imagine a designer presents something fashionable but off-brand. Can you explain the problem without saying, “I just do not like it”?
This is the commercial point of brand values. They reduce subjective debate. They give the business a consistent basis for decisions when time is short and opinions are loud.
Do not hide the values in a culture deck or post them on a wall and hope they travel. Put them in the documents people actually use.
Add the decision tests to your onboarding materials. Include the behavioral definitions in job descriptions and performance conversations. Use them in supplier and partnership conversations. Put the relevant values into creative briefs so designers and writers understand the standard before they begin exploring colors, logos, headlines, or campaign ideas.
Your one-page brand strategy should connect values to your positioning, personality, audience, and promise. Values explain how you behave while delivering the promise. They do not replace a clear position in the market. A business can be principled and still be indistinguishable.
This is also where a structured tool such as Beyond the Logo earns its place: it keeps values connected to the other brand decisions they must support, rather than treating them as a standalone workshop outcome.
The fastest route to weak values is copying the language of admired brands. The second-fastest is choosing words because no one can object to them. Agreement is not the goal. Useful distinction is.
Be especially careful with aspirational values. There is nothing wrong with naming the business you are becoming, but label the gap honestly. If “generosity” is a future ambition, do not present it as established culture while your policies reward the opposite. Customers and employees notice the distance quickly.
Review your values when the business changes materially: new ownership, a different customer segment, a move upmarket, rapid hiring, or a category expansion. But do not revise them every time a campaign changes. Values should have enough stability to build trust.
The final test is simple. Put a difficult decision on the table this week and use your values to make the call. If they change nothing, rewrite them. If they help you protect what makes the business worth choosing, keep them close.
