Small Business Stories: Let's Talk About Values in Business

hey everyone uh welcome to small business stories um i'm kim founder of beautiful thinkers and i am here today with helen tremethic did i say that correctly you did yeah um and so um today i we're going to talk about values in your business but before we even dive into that um i would like to ask helen hi helen can you um tell tell me about you your business um what you do yeah thanks kim i am glad to be here my name is helen tremasek i am a holistic business coach and co-conspirator which means i help small business owners and entrepreneurs grow their businesses in a way that doesn't lose themselves and who they are in that growth there are a lot of formulas and templates out there and often entrepreneurs find that when they start applying them they end up feeling really robotic or they feel distanced from the real love of their work and the work that we do together is to come back to that business foundation their real love their values and what makes their magic so attractive to their people so when i think about like you and your business your values come through so strongly which is why i wanted to have this conversation with you and i wonder um is that intentional and how did you get that clarity yeah thanks uh yes it's it's intentional and i would say it's intentional in a in kind of an underlying way and that i'll explain that through answering the second question which is i initially when i started my business over a decade ago i moved very quickly into writing copy for websites and i noticed at that time that there was a real trend the way that people engaged online the way that they connected with their audience regardless of those templates regardless of those trends it's always been really relational our values influence pretty much every major decision in our lives so it makes sense that our values would also influence the decisions in our business and it would make sense then that our values would be one of the key pieces of what caused us to have those positive relational moments with our potential clients so looking at that that our values influence our decisions that our values um reflect in our businesses and that our values often shared with our ideal clients make for good work together one of the ways that we can represent ourselves well is by highlighting those values one of the ways that we can structure our business as well so that it's aligned with our lives and our circumstances is to connect again with those values and so yes absolutely it's intentional but it's not intentional in this you know big flag look at me here are my values although i definitely recommend my clients to write manifestos and put the big flag up but it's more of an alignment piece than it is about lip service and we can talk about that a bit more as well about the how the difference between saying these are my values and the match being your values but that's ultimately it like yes it was intentional and that clarity came from you know noticing what was happening at throughout businesses online and how they were really connecting with their clients what that really looked like and i i think that when we like when you start a vid business many of us like go through the process of like what's what's important to me um what do i value how do i want to show up and we kind of like write that and make it part of our like business plan or business documentation or however you do it um but it can just sit there like i mean you feel it and you often we all live our values but sometimes it feels like it can be like a thing you do as you're building your business and you document it and then what um and so i think that like what release what really stands out for me and what you know i'd love to hear more about is with when when i think about you or when i talk to you um your values aren't just a thing that you wrote on a piece of paper like you express them in various different ways in your business um like maybe you can talk more about like how you came to that or like what are some of the interesting ways or different ways that make it more than just values that you wrote on a piece of paper yeah i think that's really important right and that speaks a little bit to what i was saying about you know the values that we say and what they actually are because when we've seen this over and over again there are these massive multinational corporations that say we have a real value of community but they're pushing pipelines through sovereign land you know i will take my political soapbox and put it back in my pocket now but we've seen that that that value of community doesn't actually have that action to back it up so is that a true value of theirs or is it just slip service i would say that it's just lip service or maybe they have other aspects like they give to charity or something like that yeah but the key thing about your values is that there are only values if there are actions behind them if there are only values if you can prove that this is something that you truly believe in and so my recommendation for people i mean you can hi you can have your values reflected in multiple ways throughout your business yeah they can be on on your copy they can be in your social media those are more more overt ways you can donate money to to charity and put that on your your website those are also more overt ways but they can also be placed inside your systems they can be represented in your services they can be represented in your payment plans or your alternatives for payment and they could be represented in your contracts in every area of your business there is opportunity for your values to shine and so what i would recommend to those of us who are starting out is to get clear on what those values are just to start off with and then look for examples where they're being exhibited in business or life because that grounds you in the truth of them being yours them being something that you're very passionate about or something that you believe in and then from there once we've done that brainstorm then we can start looking at where if you have a um if you have a strong value of community for example then perhaps you have scheduled your work days so that you can take fridays off and go and volunteer at a local agency or maybe you've priced your services such that you can take on a pro bono client every single year and so these are ways that that value of community that a reference to the multinationals can actually be more than lip service in our lives one of the ways that i highlight my values is that i have really strong value of transparency and honesty i put my prices on my website so that there's no wasting of your time figuring out whether it's a good fit financially because it's right there i also make sure all my prices end in zeros and fives because sevens and nines are manipulative and i am quite passionate about being transparent with my sales process and so that's one way and then you know i also create margin in my life so that i can lower my work output in the summertime i live on a permaculture farm and summers are for growing and for teaching and so i bring in guest experts to help with the love and badassery motorcycle club so that i can take that margin and give back to my community and give back to my family in a way that feels more whole and yeah and again more aligned and so that's a number of examples of like how you can you know integrate your values into your business and that's very personal it's very customized it doesn't always have to be and a check to charity yeah but it can be yeah and i think that that's the thing that's become challenging is figuring out like sometimes it's naming your values that's the first hurdle is naming like how what what name do i put on this thing that i feel um but then it's like how how do these values are something you just kind of live so like how do you demonstrate these that are beyond just saying these are my values okay good you've named them um and now what um and i think that it's um become really hard to find to like think creatively about how that weaves in and i think when when we were talking about this not too long ago and you were describing some of these ways um how your values have woven in and like community um you volunteer time off that was not the first thing that came to my mind when i'm like community i'm like okay i need to create space for community it becomes a very literal exercise and so like just listening to you i'm like oh i need to like mind back this or something like how are the ways that this can go beyond like that first gut instinct um well it could also be um a practice and possibility as well that and it can be iterative i i regularly say this you know this everything is iterative everything in your business is iterative everything in your life is iterative it's a beautiful thing change happens etc and and maybe you see the opportunity there for this particular value community as we're using as an example to be highlighted more in your business so yeah maybe it's a mind mapping opportunity or you know maybe it's really just a possibilities exercise so what could it be right now so maybe you give ten percent maybe you give one percent and then next month you say okay well how was that experiment how did it feel did it feel aligned you know maybe the way that community shows up in your life is that you open your house to a potluck on the weekends or maybe you give to a local food bank but there's there's so many ways that community could be defined so getting just getting really clear on what you mean by it why it's important what you would love to see in the world where you can start filling those gaps those are ways that we can highlight our values like in our lives and in our businesses and this can be done even just you know i mentioned payment plans earlier this can be done in payment plans as well giving your clients the opportunity to pay overtime is a way of providing accessibility something that i do with my brain days is custom payment plans so we have a conversation that says okay so how much can you afford upfront we do a deposit and then we work together to make sure that those that amount is paid yeah by the end by the time that we we start our brain day and and that allows me to provide some accessibility that's really important to me so there are ways that we can look at it like you say that it's it's a bit of a creative process and we can mind map it but we can also see what other people are doing and pick and choose from there as well we don't have to be super original with everything that we do and if there's something that feels important then why not yeah and i think the thing that i really want to underline um is like just listening to talk to you speak right now you're very much putting you the person back in the picture right like um if we take that again that example of community it doesn't have to be community in my business it could be my value of community shows up in my life because my life impacts my business and so i think when we start talking about values in business we start like narrowing in on business and somehow we fall out of that as a person as a human we fall out of that value like putting yourself in that picture of values and it's like how does my business display values um so that's the thing i want to underline is like your values are very personal and you have to be in there and even though we're talking about values in business you are there i mean this is part of why i call myself a holistic business coach because we are talking about business but we are also talking about you you the ceo you the founder you who drives this train that is your business and there there is some gray space in there ultimately if you're an entrepreneur of your small business owner if your fingers are still in most of the pots you may have a team that you outsource to but if you are working with your clients you are going to want to feel like you want to help them that connect and they are going to want to feel the same with you that they know you that they trust you that you like they like you and you know i'm not talking about like bff friendship like what i mean in a service professional kind of way and when you create that relationship you can do so by being genuine by being honest by being transparent and in doing that showcasing who you are why you believe in what you do why you think this work is important and transformational [Music] and that has a ripple effect so it ripples through your life it ripples through your business it ripples through your clients business and and then benefits your growth because when people see you online and then get on a consult call with you they say oh you are exactly who i thought you were and then it's not a matter of whether or not you're a good fit it's a matter of like when and how you're going to work together as a sales conversation that is good for growth so that's how it kind of connects i i really yeah i love how that all kind of comes together and like we started with values and we ended with like having an easy sales conversation the values are that they're the bare bones of the work you do in your life like this is why you do the work because you have you know you have a value of service or you have a value of like um you know i'm trying to think of you know some of if there's a client of mine who makes apparel and and one of their values is that they wanted to see size inclusive clothing out there so those values of wanting to like just disrupt the fashion industry which is very fat phobic and that was really important to them in this in the launching of the business so we don't want to lose that we don't want to lose that aspect of ourselves in fact we want to showcase it yeah so let's like take full objectivity here living in your values and being in business and your values isn't always the easiest sometimes it can get real hard so do you have any thoughts or advice to share um like when it does get hard when it does get hard to be like nope like the easiest thing that comes to mind is you know i really value my time and um i know i value my worth and so i'm not going to like a very simple example is i'm not you know i'm i'm not going to just continue to give away my services for free um i'm not going to be paid with exposure um can also feel conflicting sometimes because i'm like but i want exposure sometimes so do you have any thoughts or advice around that yeah i absolutely do um one i we live in a climate where people die from exposure though uh so in that particular circumstance i would weigh whether that exposure has benefits outside of financial ones um because sometimes that exposure is actually fresh air and and that is a you know and that is a good thing so what is what are the benefits there mm-hmm that particular example but you're right like living with your by your values is not easy uh especially if you happen to be a disrupter especially if you happen to look at the world different from the status quo and um and so sometimes it can feel like you're swimming upstream and that isn't easy especially when you want to help especially when you want to serve especially when you're sensitive and know that you need more time or margin or care in your life those boundaries can feel pretty leaky so so yeah so it can it can be total and and i want to honor that right like sometimes it's that's and that's just it um and there's no candy coating that changes it um the practice i would say is to notice oh i'm doing that thing with my leaky boundaries oh i'm feeling judgment where there isn't any or you know oh i feel like i'm swimming upstream notice without judgment and discern how do i want this to change how would i want how would i want to feel what can i do in order to change this just discern so like you were saying in like objectivity space notice discern and then practice like you're just human people trying to like help other human people yeah so so sometimes we're going to get it wrong yeah sometimes we're going to feel like we're swimming upstream sometimes we're going to get caught in the current and swept away from our alignment and that's just that's just part of it so we notice we discern and we practice and we just come back to where we can yeah and like again just highlighting that point of sometimes it's just hard yeah and like there's nothing to do about that it's just hard and so like how you the only way you get through hard is to go through it and keep practicing it um and so you know like the discernment might be this is hard but it still matters absolutely the discernment might be this is hard and like i'm really i mean this is where radical self-compassion comes in we need it for ourselves before we can offer it to others we need it for others as well because life is unusual and and and really personal so um so yeah so radical self-compassion for ourselves as we do this really cool thing of like running our businesses disrupting the status quo being these like values-based human beings in a world that wants us to work in factories that we are doing some really cool stuff and sometimes that's just hard yeah yeah um okay i want to make sure that i've like i had some good questions written down so i'm going to take a peek and make sure that i haven't missed any because this has been a great conversation i loved having this conversation um yeah i think like where i'm ending is like for myself even doing these having these small business conversations is because of my values i think i think that small business owners are just cool and have so many like so simplified but like everybody brings so much of something wonderful to the table and i just want like the whole world to see and so i'm like this small business owner this small business owner this small business owner and so in the spirit of that is there anything like about your business that you'd like to highlight like would you like to take it's not 15 seconds of fame it's like all the fame you want but is there anything that you'd like to highlight about your business and what's unique about you and your business thank you um sure i'll take 15 seconds one of the things i love about my business in its current iteration is how well honestly okay so i love the motorcycle club you know about it already the love and badassery motorcycle club is one of my favorite things that i've ever done in the history of my business and i i'm old in internet years like i've been around for over a decade and uh and so i've seen things come and go and the motorcycle club allows people to come to their work in a really human way and that feels like such a gift every single time and what's unusual about it is that it's it's not curriculum based yeah it's ongoing it's not a membership because there's a lot of real human to human support and it really meets you where you are and so that feels really special and it and it actually touches a little bit on my point about values in that your value can be hot values can be highlighted multiple values can be highlighted in one particular way and the motorcycle club supports my value of accessibility it supports my value of supporting entrepreneurs as they're growing it supports my value of diversity and equity this is a space where where no bullying or hate language is allowed it is a zero tolerance policy and so it it gives a really sacred container to this really beautiful work and so there's um there are a few values there that are then represented in this one offer and that is something that i love to do with my clients is find that kind of alignment that kind of streamlining because you know we're in this work because we want to be and if we can design it so that every day we still feel that way even when it's hard then that's the beautiful thing and i mean i'll add there's something really special i you know full transparency i'm in that space and there's something really special about you know showing up every other week as i don't show up there as like the first thing in my mind being i'm a business owner and i'm gonna talk with other entrepreneurs about our business stuff this week i show up there as kim's showing up today as a person and i'm doing things and i want to talk to other people who are showing up as a person first who are doing things um and it feels like it's a really it's a special place and so i think that that is one of you know that is why i was like values helen i gotta talk to heaven yeah it's about incremental work and the incremental work includes our feelings because we can talk about quantum leaps from here to there that's where i want to get you but to get there we need to do tiny tiny tiny little steps and that means coming holy yeah um so to kind of wrap all this up uh what is your best piece of advice that you would leave myself or other business owners that are watching this with um watching this video about either like weaving your values through your business living your values as part of your business or even just like where to start with all of that yeah that's a good question i would say your values aren't your values unless there's action behind it and sometimes those are subtle but find them define them write them down put them up on your wall if you have a manifesto or then put that up if you don't then write one because that's a really great way of getting into the real reason why you do this work why it's important and why you make magic in the way that you do and as you go forward really bringing back that radical self-compassion you are a human trying to do your best work in the world and best isn't a static mark best from day to day and so as long as you're doing that showing up doing the work you know you'll get there yeah and i'm just gonna repeat that that best is not a static mark um i'm probably going to write that down after this call and put it on my wall yeah it's a perfectionist for those of us who are high achievers best is not static yeah okay so as part of these uh videos i always get a question from another small business owner and so i have a question for you that came from some other another small business owner so the question is if your small business is your hobby is also your hobby then how do you find the time to balance between work and hobbies i love this question uh because i first i first want to say congratulations congratulations that you found something that that you love so much that it's your work is your hobby that you're getting paid to do something that you really enjoy i mean really like congratulations in a post-capitalist world this would be part of all of our lives or at the very least something that we didn't hate and and so congratulations and because both and um i hear in there [Music] the desire for more margin the desire for more spaciousness the desire for more flexibility around what work looks like often people talk about balance and they talk about it as this this very straight line but but true balance is a series of of checks you know there's a horoscope that was written by rob bresny many many years ago i'm talking like 20 years ago or something that i i kept because i loved it so much and um you know credit where credit is due this was rob bresny he said in that horoscope he said an airplane doesn't get from its origin to its destination by flying in a straight line it does so by calibrating against the wind and making these checks and these movements the entire way so that is what real balance is balance is you know a series of like trying to balance is ultimately checking every off balance so that's what i would say is that when work and hobby have been blended so much that it feels like you need a bit of space take some space and when it feels like you need to get back into work get back into work i don't mean to diminish by simplifying yeah like highlight by simplifying that maybe there are some guardrails needed hide your email app on your phone take it right off walk away from the work so that you can give yourself time to integrate and spaciousness away because even though in a post-capitalist world we would be allowing ourselves more time for things that we love and making money from things that we love we also won't need time away from that and so that would be recommendation yeah like yeah i like that the balance isn't like this level this thing that you try to get perfectly level that it's like when you talk about it i do this i imagine you know being this is like fully you know an 80s reference of being on a pogo ball of he was just a ball with a little platform you stand on it and it was always like whoa whoa whoa and that that is balance really like that tree and i mean what better way to end than like a great conversation [Laughter] so thank you truly helen for sharing all your thoughts with us today um i think this has been like a wonderful winding conversation with a lot of points that i'll probably go back to and like highlight for myself um and so yeah really truly thank you um yeah and for those of you watching um if you haven't yet subscribed please hit subscribe because there's all of these videos coming out all the time and i want you to hear about all these fabulous small business owners so thank you

2022-03-19 09:25

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