This month we have a guest blog from Virtual PA Laura Dodsworth of Pink Spaghetti PA Services.  Laura’s expertise lies in marketing, specifically digital marketing, and she’s been working alongside Essential Vitality for some time now.

Brand Values

You’ll have noticed the Essential Vitality theme for this month’s social media posts has focused on their core brand values.  While this information is available on the Essential Vitality website, Paola and I agreed it was important to highlight that the business has these values in place.

Unique Approach

I particularly liked Paola’s approach to deciding on her brand values.  Having set up Essential Vitality and finding herself with a successful business that was growing steadily, she decided to turn to her clients to ask their help with defining Essential Vitality’s values.  This approach is unique for two reasons – the first being that Paola decided to create them after launching, while many feel they ought to have them defined before launching.

The second reason is that she involved her clients in the decision making process which was a really smart move on her part: anyone looking to use or work with Essential Vitality can see exactly what the business is about, not just according to Paola, but what her existing clients believed to be so.  As we all know, a recommendation from an existing client is so incredibly powerful.

Defining Core Values

Paola gave her clients a list of words she believed summed up the business, and asked them to add their own if they wanted to, and from there six of the most popular were used to define the business: Professional; Impactful; Positive; Approachable; Caring; Dependable

A Reflection of Your Business

While it’s true to say that some businesses just choose the words they know their customers and employees will want to hear as their brand values, it’s the businesses that really give these values more thought, that are the winners. This interesting article from Element Three, explains the impact of well thought-out core values on the business, and how this ensures employees know what’s expected of them.

Good, solid, well thought-out core values make sure that everyone is working cohesively.  If you want staff to treat clients with respect, then respect should be a core value that sings throughout your company.  If you want clients to feel well looked after and nurtured, then make those your core values and in turn look after staff and nurture them, so they understand it is a core value at the heart of the business.

Greater Impact

I’ll leave you with this article from Business Achievers which goes a step further and claims that having core values can even lead to better wellbeing and innovation in a company.  They claim: “Science has proven that deeply held core values in a company can reduce stress in its employees. This is due to the fact that energy shifts in the brain from the emotional centre to the prefrontal cortex responsible for calm, rational thinking. This directs mental energy to more creative thinking, which can lead to innovation.”

Since the Essential Vitality strapline is “A Positive Impact on Wellbeing and Productivity” you can see why they hold their core values so close to their heart.