In my 30+ years operating natural product businesses, I’ve discovered that many brand founders and owners often take core company values for granted. They assume that their values will permeate through the company and will automatically be adopted by their team members.

They assume that since they're operating an "organic" business then their team members will automatically "get it" and agree.

This, tragically, is not the case.

It takes dedicated effort to bring all your team on board with strong, bold, resonant company values, and it takes even more to identify and implement a company-wide purpose that creates a positive impact in the world.

Well-organized and engaging corporate training in core values and mission or purpose is pivotal for this to happen. A strong training session establishes guidelines and parameters that build company strength, devoted employees, and aligned (and loyal) customers.

Is Values Training Worth It?

Not all brands are savvy to the incredible transformation that sharing your company values with the team can bring. Many companies invest in training or coaching that covers supply chains, leadership, conflict management, and sales. But they are missing one of the most crucial types of training: core company values and purpose implementation.

Many companies think values will just happen… on their own. Or they expect un-trained team members to generate relevant values and just stick to them without any sort of guidance. Or, most often, the idea of a larger purpose seems daunting and companies ignore a larger mission in pursuit of profits.

Good corporate training goes a long way toward helping your teams do their jobs well. The whole point of a training retreat or workshop is to provide tools they otherwise wouldn’t have, or streamline a process that otherwise would be stagnant.

Values Enhance Company Culture

Core value coaching is no different and—in fact—values often become the cornerstone for every issue or challenge your employees face. Consider decision-making. We want our leaders and teams to make the best decisions...but based on what?

When leaders face a problem, they make smart decisions only when they have a solid framework of core values to guide them. When team members seek to design compelling marketing materials, they develop their best narratives and phrasing when centering it on core company values. And when a procurement executive searches for a new vendor, she develops the strongest relationships when she seeks suppliers who match the company’s core values.

In other words, establishing strong company core values is paramount to your team being able to execute their best work and move the company in the right direction. Value identification and agreement is the catalyst—the map--that moves every brand toward your north star.

Benefits of Core Value Training

Your team feels valued.

Employees who work within a structure based on commonly shared core values have a higher morale and loyalty to their employer. In fact, ProPurpose.org states that 90% of employees value greater meaning at work.

Attract and Retain Top Talent

A lack of meaningful values and purpose means teams dissolve. Team members feel lost and without unity, leading to costly employee turnover. In fact, Microsoft’s 2024 study shows 46% of professionals currently want to quit, and LinkedIn states that 85% of professionals are considering new jobs this year. There are many factors that contribute to employees wanting to leave – and a lack of commonly shared values, a lack of company purpose, and a dearth of company culture can be a significant piece.

Strong Values Guide Clear Decision-Making

When leaders have a structure based on values, they make smart decisions quickly and confidently. Values serve as a compass pointing leaders toward a north star, which is the company’s higher goals and mission. When decisions could lead away from this, the leader understands the ramifications and centers his or her decision based on agreed-upon values.

These values must be openly discussed, identified and adopted during corporate trainings and retreats where a facilitator guides the team members, executives, or board members through a carefully curated process of self-inquiry, learning, and strategic thinking.

Collaboration Increases

Employees who feel a common core purpose or set of values work together seamlessly, and for a longer duration. Company culture improves and supports team members through challenges and serves as a foundation to alleviate conflict, mismanagement, and other issues.

A shared belief system and set of aligned values is paramount to successful product development, supplier procurement, human resource development, marketing, leadership, and team growth.

Strategic Planning Is Relevant, Long-Term and Aligned

A strategic or business plan is your blueprint for the next 3-5 years, and it outlines what your company wants to do and how you’re going to do it. Today’s thriving companies know that a well-executed strategic plan includes not only sales metrics and goals but CSR (corporate social responsibility), ESG and data collection, impact measurement, and—increasingly—a solid path toward an environmental or social purpose.

Without established core company values (or a mission or purpose that drives force-for-good profit sharing and employee commitments), a strategic or business plan is full of holes. The best planning comes with an overview of beliefs, targets, and a past-profit vision that sets a company up for success.

A company’s board of directors and its leadership team are crucial in defining its north star and how to reach it. The most successful strategic planning retreats MUST include training in core values and purpose implementation.

Strengthen Customer Relationships and Alignment

The ProPurpose study mentioned earlier found that 72% of adults believe companies should be mission-driven. This means that in addition to establishing core company values, the company works toward an achievable external purpose, such as donating money, volunteering, or establishing active programs for environmental and social issues.

For Gen Z in particular, that number is even higher. Anthem found that 85% of Gen Z consumers believe that a brand’s social support of an issue positively affects their impression of that brand. Values are at the heart of a company’s mission and purpose—something that doesn’t naturally just happen.

Values and purpose must be carefully cultivated and developed through short- and long-term training, conversation, learning, and positive reinforcement. It must be integrated into your HR onboarding process and included in weekly (if not daily) communications in a meaningful and educational way.

Change Management Centers on Core Values

The next pandemic, economic downturn, supplier shuffle, or crisis could make or break your company. But core values and an established purpose at the heart of your brand serve as a beacon for team members and customers alike. Purposeful companies outperform the market by 42% and weather storms more successfully. And Anthem Awards notes that companies who utilize an ESG (environmental, social and governance)-focused brand experience 28% cumulative growth over a 5-year period, higher than companies who ignore ESG.

Strategy & Business Coaching

Author, herbal entrepreneur, speaker, and coach Holly Bellebuono provides powerful 1:1 coaching for natural brands and aspiring authors. Her work with natural and organic product brands, including herbal and aromatherapy, clean beauty and cosmetics, chocolate, tea and coffee, and organic food and beverage brands, can expand leadership skills, help you bounce ideas, formulate strategy, develop vision, assess your plans, review concerns and challenges, and implement innovative and profitable next steps for success. Holly provides strong business services for small to medium organic brands, including strategy and business planning, business coaching, customized course design and build, book proposal development, and speaking services for events.

With 30 years’ experience in entrepreneurship, finance, project management, strategy, and planning in both for-profits and non-profits, Holly is known as a discreet and powerful executive coach.

Holly’s business courses include the online Natural Brand Certifications which teaches the environmental and social commitments your business or brand can make, such as B-corp, organic, fair trade, WBENC, and cruelty-free. Holly’s Product Maker’s Business Bundle combines three essential courses at a 20% discount.