Branch is led by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs and business executives, which is a fancy way of saying that we have a ton of experience with making ridiculous mistakes, sleepless nights, and seemingly endless pots of coffee.

When we formed Branch, one thing was certain: we had to start with a solid foundation built on those learned experiences. So we embarked on a seemingly endless journey of internal exercises and workshops in order to ensure that the leadership team was completely aligned with the who, what, and why of our company.

In order to do the best possible work for our clients, we had to make sure that we were acting and presenting as our most authentic selves in every aspect of this company. So where did we start?

CORE VALUES.

I know what you’re thinking, “How boring and corporate.” and honestly, there was a time in my life when I would have agreed with you. When I started my first agency, we just wanted to be the cool rebels, so we decided to eschew any semblance of a foundation, which led to a lot of problems down the road.

The truth is that you can convey who you want to be through your tone of voice and ALSO have a set of core values to lean on. When you define your values early on, you establish a set of principles that leadership can align on, and eventually pass onto your team as your company grows, because culture starts at the top.

Early on in Branch’s journey, we had the opportunity to take on a client that would have funded our entire first year of operations and then some, but we very quickly concluded that aside from the fact that we wouldn’t be proud to have their logo on our website, we couldn’t do the best possible work for them if we didn’t believe in them as much as we believed in ourselves.

Core values alignment allowed us to easily make a hard decision by tracing it back to a really simple question: Does this client represent who we are and who we want to be?

Chris Savage, CEO of Wistia, summed it up really well: 

We began to view our company from a new perspective, asking ourselves: “If this weren’t our company, would we want to work here?”

As a company grows, the leadership team as a whole can’t be involved in every decision that has to be made. A proper set of core values will instill a sense of independence throughout the organizational hierarchy, and only work to propel your company forward. According to LeadershipIQ, employees are 115% more engaged when their organization has a well-defined set of company values, and I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a pretty darn staggering statistic.

We’ve accepted that Branch will continue to be shaped by personal growth, client engagements, and whatever else gets thrown at us. In fact, we’ve revised our mission, vision, tone of voice, and a number of other things a few times already, but the one thing that hasn’t changed? Our Core Values, which will always play a significant role in every strategic execution we make.

Take a good look at your company’s core values – do they mean something? Are they propelling your strategy forward or did you just come up with something quippy so that you could get some half-assed motivational posters up on your walls? The good news is that there’s no wrong time to develop a set of values that actually mean something, so schedule a strategy session with Branch, and we’ll personally come to your office and take down those posters for you, The Office style. 

Written by Paul Kettelle, Co-Founder & CEO