There’s a lot to consider when starting a business. What industry? What’s your long-term goal? What’s the financial plan? All of these, and plenty more, are extremely important questions to ask. One area that shouldn’t be neglected, though, is your organizational core values. These values define your business and your staff’s mindset and must be carefully selected and carried out. How do you implement these values in your day-to-day operations?
My name is Carson, and as I’m writing, I am wrapping up my summer internship with Sharp Wilkinson. When you come to the office here, and walk into the primary office space, you’ll find 6 framed, beautiful posters around the walls that each list a core value and say a bit about that value (designed by our very own senior designer, Adam Roscoe). These posters set the scene for the team, and they certainly inspire me as a marketing specialist intern and as a person. In this blog, I go through each of these values, and how I’ve experienced them this summer with Sharp Wilkinson.
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But First… We Have a Vision!
Sharp Wilkinson has a vision for their clients, including long-term goals and the projects we do for them every day. With this vision, though, there is a need for effective communication to make sure the vision is clear to everyone on the team, and the clients as needed. We work together to have a shared vision.
We create a lot of content for our clients here, and when we make these blogs, graphics, or videos, we first create definitions, or plans, for these projects. When I’ve gotten the opportunity to define blogs or graphics, or even write scripts for videos, I always need to make sure I have a vision in mind for what the finished product should look like, whether I’m the one creating the content itself or not. Granted, sometimes the person making the piece of content takes things in a slightly different direction than you’d imagined, but it still works out great. What matters is having that vision and supporting it, which makes everyone’s lives easier, and gets the best product made.
Now, if I’m creating something, usually a business blog, based on someone else’s definition, sometimes I’ll have a few clarifying questions to see we have a shared vision. When I have these questions, I find having a short, 5-to-10-minute meeting about it is a positive approach.
1. The Details Matter
Being detail oriented as a team is a blessing. We recognize that the intricate details make a substantial difference in the big picture for our projects. Pretty important for a data-driven marketing and sales agency, right?
When I think about the details mattering in my role, one thought that comes to mind is our focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Whenever I define a blog, or anyone else on the writing team does, we find specific keywords and topics for the blog to focus on that’s relevant to the client’s customers. When we select these specific keywords, we check their statistics with SEO. These stats tell us a lot, but in essence, they tell us how likely people are to find the blog through a search engine like Google or Bing. We pay close attention to the details of these statistics, because what good is it to write a blog for a client if nobody ever sees it? The details matter.
Furthermore, regarding details, I think of how we deploy, or publish, content. We go about this extremely carefully, as a means of helping the post’s SEO, but also to make sure the client looks professional. Just in case, though, we always have these deployments reviewed. For all my deployments, it’s been Cayla, a web designer, who always makes sure all the details are in order when I deploy something. It’s excellent to have people like Cayla to hold us accountable for the details.
2. Focus on Growth
Having an organizational core value that specifically wants the team to have a positive, growth mindset goes a long way. This is one of my personal favorite core values today and is one I hold close to the heart. I personally really struggled when I started at Sharp Wilkinson. Our work is not easy, and I was overwhelmed at first. It took time and patience to get comfortable with the work, and to grow confidence to be myself around the office.
I still have a lot of room for improvement, but I’ve learned to focus on trying to be a bit better than I was the day before. This is in life as a whole, but in terms of work, my blogging work has needed the support from the Writing Team here, including Christian, Gabriella, and Megan, all of whom are marketing specialists, and have been instrumental in my growth this summer. Sometimes you need others to support you to grow effectively.
To be part of the Sharp Wilkinson team is to be part of a dynamic, collaborative environment.
3. Take Ownership
Sometimes in a job, things can get kind of repetitive, and you can lose the sense of importance you once had when you started. That’s what this organizational core value addresses. We recognize that the work we do matters, even if we do it in the shadows at times.
I have two anecdotes from the Sharp Wilkinson team that really exemplifies this. The first came from a talk I had with Kasey, our social media specialist. Kasey and I had a meeting discussing her process for running social media accounts for clients, and not only was I impressed by her system, but how she could get so absorbed by a client’s social media presence. Kasey spends so much time doing audience building on socials for clients, and she is so thorough in that work that you can plainly see how much she cares about the work she does.
The other short anecdote comes from a team brainstorming session we had about improving processes around the business. This session was led by Christian, and one of many questions asked from us was to briefly describe what it is we do. Nick, Sharp Wilkinson’s multimedia specialist, mentioned how we market small businesses to help keep their doors open. This resonated with me for the rest of the internship. I don’t just write blogs for a client, but I write blogs for law firms, manufacturers, interior designers, IT support businesses, and more, of all shapes and sizes, to help keep their lights on, and ensure livelihoods. It may sound over-dramatic, but it has inspired my work in a whole new way.
4. We Overdeliver
This organizational core value is very related to taking ownership in my mind, but it’s true that Sharp Wilkinson does everything possible to overdeliver. This effort, in my mind, is best exemplified by Chris and Jack, the owners, who keep things organized for the team, and work with the clients to see our services overdeliver.
Even as an intern, I can feel this culture of wanting to overdeliver in my work. Namely, it’s been to take a moment to think about what our clients—and their clients—want and need. They want high quality, tailored content to support their business. That’s how I try to overdeliver as a part-time summer intern!
5. Be Humble
Humility is a huge organizational core value at Sharp Wilkinson. It’s honestly extremely easy to get absorbed in the work, and attach myself to what I do, and feel kind of beat-up after a tough, thorough review process from Christian, Gabriella, or Megan, though the three of them are extremely helpful. The thing is, I’ve found that I need to humble myself and remove myself from my creations at times. This effort sees the content creation and revision processes run as smoothly as possible.
The other key to humility I’ve noted from Sharp Wilkinson is acknowledging that sometimes you just need to admit when you don’t know something. I can’t speak for Emily, our account executive, or Garrett, the multimedia specialist intern, who came on around the same time I did, but I know that I needed to ask for reminders on things. As mentioned, the work we do is not easy, and sometimes you just need to ask extra questions to make sure everything is as it should be.
Sharp Wilkinson’s Organizational Core Values
Finding your organizational core values can be challenging! What mindset and messages do you want to send to your team? How may those values be adhered to daily? For Sharp Wilkinson, these 5 core values of having a vision, caring about the details, focusing on growth, taking ownership, overdelivering, and being humble have been critical for our office culture.
At Sharp Wilkinson, you can find a talented, dedicated team that follows their core values and delivers for their clients. If you have questions about our services or our values, contact us today!
