How to Expand Your Brand by Honouring Your Values

Have you ever thought how living in alignment with your values can expand your brand?

If you’ve had a 1:1 marketing chat with me, you’ll know that I bang on a lot about values when it comes to you, your ideal client and your brand. 

Amongst everything else there is to consider when it comes to marketing, understanding your values is essential in understanding what your brand is going to emanate, and the sort of person you are going to attract.

It’s not too hard to get to the crux of this. 

When we can identify and display our values clearly, we attract people with those same values… and when you do this very well, not doing business with you/your brand is actually going against your customer’s identity.   

Sure, knowing and exploring your values is a marketing tool… but really, it’s allowing you to build your brand from the core, and illustrate your purpose from that core knowing and vibration of who you are and what you are here to do. 

There’s nothing sleazy or salesy about that, is there?

When I first started doing this core branding work behind my business, I was considering my values pretty frequently – making sure I really had them right, y’know?  I was writing lots of lists and stories and remembering times when I’d made a decision based on a value. 

I was ensuring that these values were seeping through all of my work – and I was making more business decisions based on who I was and who I wanted to be.  I was spending time expanding on the values that I had already identified, like love for nature and generosity. 

Realising these things served me, and in turn helped me to serve others, meant they quickly crept up my list of priorities.   

As you grow and change and evolve, your values will as well.  And, if you know what your core values are, you will always grow and change and evolve in a positive and aligned way.

A few months ago, I was at a Mastermind event (yep, I proudly have a mentor because I value personal and professional development!)and we were going deep on our values (again).  I noticed two values that I had that were not being fulfilled. 

One was quality time in nature/holidays, the second was generosity/giving back. 

When I was asked why I wasn’t fulfilling these values, I replied, “I will, when I can give generously, and when I can take the time to go away”. 

Sure, I wanted to prioritise these things just like I had everything else on my value list, but I didn’t see how I could when I didn’t have the spare cash to throw at a charity or the spare time to spend that week at the Maldives I kept dreaming about. 

“Start where you are.  How can you grow in alignment when you are not in alignment?” 

This expanded my mind like a punch of psilocybin to the third eye. 

Was it imperative to wait until I could give $1,000 a month to charity before I started doing it?

Would that charity appreciate the $20 or $100 I could spare just as much as the $1,000?  If every person gave what they could each month to charity, and it was only $20-$100, would that not still make a huge difference?  Would I have grown into my value of generosity by the time that I could spare $1,000 a month if I hadn’t been practising that value consistently? 

And, holidaying… was it essential to take a week or more off, or to even go overseas to feel refreshed and restored?  Or, would it suffice to just go camping for a night or two regularly, so that I was actually in alignment with the values and integrity of someone that prioritises holidays/quality time in nature?  Wouldn’t I be gaining more if I started practising these values, however I could, now not later?

You know the answer, just as I did. 

I realised the limiting thoughts of “I’ll do this when I’m at X place or making X amount of money” meant that I wasn’t growing in alignment with my values.  I was not giving myself the opportunity to emanate the identity of who I am and who I wanted to grow into. 

So, I started where I was. 

I packed up my car and a bottle of wine and spent a night camping with my partner, swimming in the creek and making fires and breathing in the fresh air.  It was glorious, and just as rejuvenating as a week at the Maldives (and if you’ve been… don’t tell me anything different!). 

I started giving what I could spare to a different charity each month, and it felt so good to know that even when cashflow wasn’t amazing, I still stuck to this value of generosity and helping my community, and now it’s habitual.

Knowing how important these values are to my identity, of course they are also important to my brand and to my ideal client’s identity. 

So, I started sharing these values and how I was living them. 

I shared pictures of me in nature, slow videos of the water lapping the shores at the beach, and the views from the mountains.  I regularly showed my clients that I was out in nature, enjoying time out, and this was okay… actually, essential.  Some of my most engaging posts on social media are of a freakin’ flower in the bush. 

I also shared which charity I was giving to each month, and shared the message that we don’t have to give a lot for it to help. 

This speaks to the core values of my ideal client when they look through my business page, and when they come into our clinic.  We expanded this value and now run charity events, where all proceeds go to our chosen charity. 

Our tribe identifies with this.  Our tribe are the ones that might be choosing between us and a competitor, and see the fact that we openly share and encourage giving to charity, and will choose us because we tick that big ol’ box in their heart that they love people that give back.

So, what are your values? 

Are you living in alignment with them? 

Where could you start practising the big ones that you’re putting off?