As a small business owner, I disregarded the importance of core values until we made our first hiring mistake.

At the time, we were a close-knit team of four employees. We hired a fifth employee that the team was split on as a candidate. I made the decision to proceed with hiring the candidate anyway because of a gut instinct. Three months later, I had to fire the candidate and another employee to help save and maintain our company culture.

After that experience, we formed core values to avoid future mistakes and base judgments on foundational elements. Five years later, the company experienced a successful acquisition. Establishing core values was one of the reasons why I think we were able to build a company worth acquiring.

Core values help guide the decisions, actions, and behaviors of a company. As workplaces have gone remote, hybrid, or remained in-person, a company’s core values have served as a North Star for employees and executives faced with tough decisions.

But what are some examples of small business core values, and how do they impact a company?

We asked CEOs, founders and company leaders for their best recommendations. From “sisterhood” to “dedication to customers,” these strategies may help you develop or add to your core values.

17 examples of core values in small businesses

1. Be the human your dog thinks you are.
2. Strength in numbers.
3. Go the extra mile.
4. We believe in family.
5. Dedication to customers.
6. Balance.
7. Confidentiality.
8. Team members always come first.
9. Enjoy the ride.
10. Sisterhood.
11. We embrace change.
12. Transparency.
13. Grit is powered by love.
14. Radical candor — care personally, challenge directly.
15. The company wins when the team members win.
16. Sense of adventure.
17. Be a radical giver.

1. Be the human your dog thinks you are

“Be kind, show care for your colleagues. And even if you’re an expert, give others context, reinforce the positive and help them understand. This ideology helps us create an inclusive environment where our employees are comfortable asking questions, and productivity is heightened as a result.”

— Joe Spector, Dutch

2. Strength in numbers

“Employees wear a lot of hats when working at an early-stage startup. There are always lofty goals and never enough resources to achieve those goals alone or working independently. Strength in numbers — which we define as utilizing all available resources — inspires us to rely on those around us to accomplish our work, together. One example of this is operating in an Agile environment and using Kanban workflows, where a team member can easily jump in on a bottlenecked area to make sure things keep moving.

“There’s a good quote behind the value as well: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ By working together and relying on the creativity of our community, a strength-in-numbers approach enables us to go much further as a company.”

— Adrian James, Terkel

3. Go the extra mile

“To highlight when a team member goes the extra mile for a client or another team member, we share kudos messages in our monthly internal eNewsletter — often in the form of verbatim praise from the client or a direct quote from a colleague. This newsletter goes out to our team across Canada and at our virtual quarterly meetings.

“Since we are mostly remote, it’s important to communicate those successes to the whole team and ensure people know their work is valued. We want to recognize when someone goes out of their way to solve a problem, puts in extra effort, and sees an initiative through beyond the typical amount of work required.”

— Colton De Vos, Resolute Technology Solutions

4. We believe in family

“Since 1977, our business has been owned and operated by commercial finance brokers, who also happen to be family. While there are many challenges to having a family business, there are also many benefits. As a family of commercial finance brokers, we are real people providing real solutions for our customers for generations to come.

“Family-owned businesses have always been the backbone of our economy, and we are proud to be a part of that.”

— Carey Wilbur, Charter Capital

5. Dedication to customers

“We always act in the best interest of the client. We are a customer-centric company and we go above and beyond to make sure that our client strategies and recommendations provide the most value based on their needs. Some companies focus more on sales numbers, but our dedication to our clients has been the hallmark of our success. We take the time necessary to build a rapport and understand our clients’ needs.”

— Chris Abrams, Marcan Insurance

6. Balance

“It’s so hard to choose one core value above the rest, however, our core value of balance is integral to the framework, functioning and philosophy of Miss Details. It permeates every aspect of the work we do, from balancing data and design to create effective sensory branding, to mapping out a marketing strategy fueled by both logic and emotion. Personally and professionally my goal is to have and promote a healthy work-life balance for my team — which is a little more difficult as an entrepreneur!”

— Tanya Gagnon, Miss Details

7. Confidentiality

“When talking to clients about their finances, they want to ensure that they are in a safe space where I will not share their personal information with others. At the onset of the coaching relationship, I guarantee that clients know that their conversations with me are treated confidentially. This lets them know that they can speak freely without holding back on their struggles with their finances or their relationships. Ultimately, clients can talk comfortably and start making strides in accomplishing their future goals.”

— Annette Harris, Harris Financial Coaching

8. Team members always come first

“I run a digital online company using a team of virtual assistants. Keeping employees happy across multiple geographies can always be a challenge. But one core value I use is a quote from Richard Branson which goes: ‘Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.’ This helps keep employees motivated, and improves retention and overall productivity — thus improving the business’s sales and revenue.”

— Mogale Modisane, ToolsGaloreHQ.com

9. Enjoy the ride

“I work at an IT solutions company called Electric, and although that product might not sound fun, working here certainly is. One of our core values is to enjoy the ride and I think the company does a great job of promoting it. We’ve done Drag Queen Bingo over Zoom, taken happy hour boat cruises on the Hudson and members of our team even met Dan Levy when he was a keynote speaker at our big annual event. There’s a culture of fun and excitement here and I think it energizes us to perform better and make work more enjoyable.”

— Ryan McSweeney, Electric IT Support

10. Sisterhood

“In a primarily female industry, sisterhood is a company value that keeps our culture supportive and empowering. This value helps share our passions and connects us within the company and to our clients. These deep connections are powerful in maintaining a positive employee experience and an exceptional customer experience.

— Vanessa Molica, The Lash & Sugar Company

11. We embrace change

“If the last decade has shown us anything, it’s that change is occurring faster than ever. To sustain your small business in the long run, it’s crucial that you embrace this change and learn to adapt to it. While many small companies hate change and want ‘business as usual,’ avoiding updates to their processes at every turn or having to pivot, our company embraces it. Learning to love change and embrace it makes us more nimble and flexible. This allows us to more quickly adapt to changing customer preferences and modes of doing business. To me, this core value has been especially pertinent and important during the last two years of the pandemic.”

— John Ross, Test Prep Insight

12. Transparency

“In this remote work environment, it can be easy to hide mistakes or feel the need to cover up why you weren’t at your computer. Fostering transparency as a core value ensures no one tries to cover up their mistakes or feels the need to fib. Being a 100% remote organization, this is something we make sure our team feels confident in from day one.”

— Alison French, Emerged

13. Grit is powered by love

“Being an entrepreneur takes grit. Grit is powered by love. You must love what you are doing or you’ll never ever have the strength to get through the challenges.

“This is our core value that drives everything we do. We work hard to develop recipes, engage with readers and maintain brand awareness, but it would be impossible without genuine love for cooking, interacting online, and having a vision for our brand. It is a grind, but because we love what we do and love our readers, it makes it so much easier to tackle inevitable challenges.”

— Sylvia Fountaine, Feasting at Home

14. Radical candor — care personally, challenge directly

“Radical candor is the idea that you should share opinions directly and openly with your team. With smaller, growing businesses there is not a lot of room to hide your thoughts or feelings, both in the sense of physical space but also in the sense of being able to scale and build effectively. Radical candor forces us to lay all of our cards on the table — even if it may be uncomfortable. It allows us to uncover things that need to improve, small issues that if left untreated will become larger problems at scale. By having your entire team practice radical candor you work together to build a better business and are constructively forced into looking at things from multiple perspectives and be more successful because of it.

— Sam Gallen, collystring

15. The company wins when the team members win

“At Mashman Ventures, one of our core values is to ‘Always chase after your vision.’ Everyone on the team is constantly encouraged to chase after their own goals in business and in life. When the team meets, we ask each other about recent wins at work and beyond to celebrate them. We ask each other if there’s anything we can do to help, offering our expertise to each other. We also emphasize personal growth for everyone on the team.

“Our founder, Isaac Mashman, likes to say that ‘At the center of all achievement is personal growth.’ When everyone on the team is eating well, the company must be doing well. In creating this culture, all of us on the team grow professionally and personally, have a great support system, and the company benefits as a result.”

— Eric Chow, Mashman Ventures

16. Sense of adventure

“My favorite core value is our sense of adventure. It’s what we built our company on, and we still live by it. Successful entrepreneurs don’t wake up one morning and decide to become one. They’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset. Don’t be shy if you have a business idea or project; try it. ‘You’ll always miss the shots you didn’t take.’ Without my sense of adventure, I would not be where I am today.”

— Ouriel Lemmel, WinIt

17. Be a radical giver

“On January 1, 2018, I made ‘giving’ my word of the year for 2018, and that decision has had ramifications in my business and ripple effects across the people I serve. My entire team approaches business from the perspective of serving more and giving more value to everyone in our audience. Although it’s not the reason we give, we’ve found that the more we give, the more we get. Giving is no longer my word of the year; it is the essence of my business.”

— Bobby Klinck, BobbyKlinck.com

Creating core values for your small business

As you can see from these examples, creating core values for your company can be a fun and incredibly impactful way to shape an organization and guide employees.

A perfect core value aligns with the beliefs of a founder and the employees who work within a company. If everyone can buy-in, understand, and get inspired by a core value, then you know you’ve found a winner.

Use these core value examples to get inspired and create the guiding principles for your small business.

As a digital entrepreneur — from selling products to customers online to providing services to global organizations — goal-setting is critical for your success. But digital entrepreneurs operate in a specialized arena that presents unique challenges and opportunities. Those considerations color the process of setting business goals — beyond revenue projections or client numbers — that truly will propel your digital venture forward.

Read on for ideas to help you choose business goals for digital entrepreneurs that will drive lasting success. But first …

What exactly is a digital entrepreneur?

Digital entrepreneurs are people who start online businesses and operate nearly exclusively online. An Etsy shop owner who sells crafts online is a digital entrepreneur. A software developer who creates apps or a consultant who helps clients optimize their online performance are all digital entrepreneurs — if you sell and run your business solely online, you’re a digital entrepreneur.

There are countless reasons why people enter digital entrepreneurship. Some want to travel the world while running their businesses; others want a flexible schedule to help raise kids and keep the home going.

Many digital entrepreneurs share an overarching goal: career control and fulfillment. They also have unique challenges in common that other business owners might not face — from online security to search engine optimization (SEO) to mental health concerns like burnout.

5 business goals for digital entrepreneurs

If you’re a digital entrepreneur trying to decide which business goals to set, focus on these five areas that pose unique challenges for you:

1. Secure your online presence.
2. Develop your SEO strategy.
3. Declutter your tools.
4. Address and mitigate burnout.
5. Grow your team.

By setting goals that address these obstacles, you’ll take a huge step toward turning them into opportunities for meaningful growth.

1. Secure your online presence

When your entire business is online, you can’t risk a digital threat. A seemingly innocuous phishing email or low-level DDoS attack could wipe out your system or result in stolen personal information — yours or that of your customers. Depending on how large the issue was, the attack could keep your business from running for an extended period of time. If the revenue from your business is your only income, this can be detrimental for your life as a whole.

That’s why this is an important goal to focus on in 2022, starting with yourself as the business owner.

When Aura surveyed 2,000 Americans, they discovered that most people know about the dangers online — but not how to protect themselves. Aura shared these 45 fraud prevention tips you can use to protect yourself, first and foremost. These tips range from storing sensitive information properly to clipping or shredding old credit cards.

The next step is to build healthy habits around your business’s data security. For example, set goals to:

• Set up two-factor authentication (2FA) for all the services you use, keeping your business protected from unauthorized logins.
• Set up quarterly audits of your systems to make sure you’re following cybersecurity best practices as our digital landscape changes and becomes more dangerous.

As a digital entrepreneur, the security measures you need to take will depend upon the type of business you run and products and services you use. Figure out what it is you need and then make a plan to implement the necessary action(s).

Remember: when it comes to digital threats, it is better to prevent an attack than to try and recover from one. Use this all-important business goal for digital entrepreneurs to keep your company safe and secure now — before anything happens.

2. Develop your SEO strategy

Search engine optimization is the process of making your brand more visible in search engines, from Bing to Google. A well-optimized website, where good SEO is implemented, can drive leads and traffic to your website long after you’ve done the work to optimize it. However, SEO is not a single, linear or one-dimensional process.

There are three SEO strategies to focus on when optimizing your site:

1. Technical/back-end: Including page speed, mobile optimization and metadata.
2. Content: Including keyword use, headers and content creation.
3. Off-site: Including links that point back to your website and business listings websites.

The best way to set a strong SEO foundation is to work with someone who understands how to do proper SEO. When done right, it can be invaluable to your brand. When done wrong, it can hurt your site more than help it.

Your first objective is to find someone who can do an SEO audit for your current website. When you know what’s working, what needs to be changed, and how you can improve, you can then set goals to implement those updates and find the right person for the job.

Related: How to perform an annual SEO audit

3. Declutter your tools

When the COVID-19 pandemic drove many companies to remote work, the average number of tools used increased dramatically.

According to Statista, in 2017, the average company used 16 SaaS applications, but in 2020, this number shot up to 80 and then climbed to 110 in 2021.

As a digital entrepreneur, you aren’t immune from the “app hoarding” mentality. While these tools can be helpful, as your business grows, you might be tempted to add more tools and software solutions to improve your productivity — yet this clutter can actually hinder your productivity.

Set a goal to evaluate your existing tools to determine which ones you actually need. A few questions to ask include:

• Have I used this tool in the past year? The past quarter?
• Do I have duplicate tools that offer the same service?
• Can I replace multiple individual apps with a single software service? Would I want to?

These questions will help you analyze the products that actually add value to your business versus the ones that create digital clutter. When you know what’s helping, your next goal is to get rid of the ones that aren’t.

Use this process to audit your tools annually, if not quarterly, to get rid of the services and products you no longer need.

4. Address and mitigate burnout

Starting your own business is exciting, empowering — and exhausting. Not to mention, COVID has affected mental health for nearly anyone, including entrepreneurs who are stressed about money and being forced to spend more time alone.

While stress and burnout are common among digital entrepreneurs, you don’t have to let these things take over. In fact, there are many ways you can mitigate them. Protect your mental health by setting goals around these key strategies:

• Set clear work hours. For example, always clock out by 6pm. Limit your work time during the weekends as well and don’t answer an email or take a call during off hours unless absolutely necessary.
• Take your lunch break. Use this time to reset by having a call with a friend, taking a walk, or simply breathing and getting away from your computer.
• Create a vacation policy. It’s easy to work all year round when you don’t have set vacation days. Create a vacation policy for yourself and put vacations on the calendar in January so you actually take them.
• Pick up hobbies that make you happy. Time away from work doing things you love personally can give you a much-needed mental health boost.

As an entrepreneur, you are the only person who can make sure you maintain a healthy work-life balance. Preventing burnout is as important for you as it is for your company — mental health affects every area of your business, so don’t let this one slide. Even setting a goal around one of these strategies can have an impact.

Related: 18 self-care tips to promote entrepreneur health and wellness

5. Grow your team

As your digital venture continues to expand, there might come a time when you need to grow your team. You don’t need a packed office full of employees, but you may want to take on a partner, assistant or contractors so you can focus on what you do best.

This is a key step in growing your business; however, Jeff Hunter, founder of VA Staffer, explains that entrepreneurs struggle to build out a team because of their fear of losing control. If this sounds familiar, how do you let go of that control? Hunter suggests:

“The trick to beat the fear of losing control is understanding that you need to focus on the most valuable use of your time. The only way to achieve that is to have a reliable, consistent and intelligent person or team of people to take over the activities that are not the best use of your time.”

When looking at team growth, you might want to set a few goals, the first being to simply to determine where you could use help. In marketing? In sales? In website management? Next, a goal might be to take the time to find people who can do that work for you, whether it’s a full-time employee, virtual assistant or contractor.

If you want to build a successful business, you have to be willing to build the right team along the way. Set goals so you begin that process this year, even if you only hire one person to start.

Best practices for setting strong yet attainable goals

Saying you want to achieve something will only take you so far. Taking steps to turn those ideas into a reality is another — that’s why you need to set business goals with intention and clarity. As a digital entrepreneur, use these strategies to set clear and actionable business goals that you can attain.

Give your goals a timeline

Set a clear date for when you’ll complete your goal. For example, if you want to implement a new security system, your goal might be: “Implement a new security system by the end of Q2.” This gives you something clear to work toward and helps you prioritize your time accordingly.

Create bite-sized goals

Don’t just set one big goal — that can be overwhelming and keep you from getting started. Instead, break your goals down into bite-sized goals that prompt you to take action. For example, if you want to implement a new security system by the end of Q2, a few smaller goals that will help you get there include:

• Schedule a security audit.
• Research security software.
• Create a security budget.

Find accountability

It can be hard to hold yourself accountable when you have a dozen other things on your to-do list each day. Find an accountability partner or group to keep you moving forward with your goals this year. This might be a good friend, a co-worker, or even a mastermind group. Tell that person, or group of people, what your goals are and when you plan to achieve them so they can hold you accountable to getting it done.

Be intentional with your goals

If you don’t really care about achieving something, you won’t make time for it. Don’t set goals just to set them. Have a clear intention and “why” for each one. In the security system example, your “why” might be to not only keep your company safe, but to keep your customers’ data secure. With this in mind, you have greater motivation to make it happen.

Thrive with clear business goals for digital entrepreneurs

To grow your business, you need to set goals. But what goals should you set? Where should you place your focus? As a digital entrepreneur, there are a few unique areas for you to consider — including online security, mental health, SEO, team growth and your digital workspace. Use these five ideas to set goals that will help you grow your business into the thriving and sustainable company that you dreamed it could be.

It’s no secret that the business world and working environments have changed drastically since 2020. With fierce competition in recruiting for skilled labor becoming a critical issue for businesses, having employees in varied locations around the U.S. or even internationally has become an increasingly common solution. It looks like this distributed work model is here for the long haul, so it’s time to get your business on board.

What is distributed work?

Distributed work is defined as a business that has one or more employees who work in different physical locations. This can range from having different in-person office locations, remote work or a blend of the two — often termed “hybrid work.” Large companies having a distributed workforce is nothing new, as having multiple locations allows companies to meet more of their customers’ needs.

The difference now, though, is the massive increase in remote work triggered in large part by the COVID-19 pandemic, ramped-up competition for skilled workers, and how those factors have combined to impact smaller businesses.

If you’re struggling to keep up with today’s workforce demands, take heart. Distributed work can provide some solutions.

Millennial and Gen Z workers strongly prefer flexible working environments and a distributed work policy fits into that preference nicely. Additionally, distributed work structures have the benefits of increased access to international talent, more productive employees and higher job satisfaction.

How to adapt your small business for distributed work

Making the leap to a distributed workforce can feel daunting, but it doesn’t need to be. Software solutions tailored specifically for supporting a distributed work environment can help ease the transition and make your business run efficiently.

In this guide, we’re going to take a look at important adaptations needed to bring your small business up to speed for distributed work and how to accomplish them.

• Get your business security up to date.
• Tap into global talent pools.
• Maintain quality communication between employees.

Let’s take a closer look at each point below.

Get your business security up to date

When remote work exploded in early 2020 due to COVID-19 office closures, it quickly became obvious that improvements to business security protocols were necessary. Now with many businesses planning how their company will operate going forward, security continues to be a crucial consideration.

What are some security considerations important for businesses with distributed work environments? Here are a handful of important security features you’ll want to think about:

1. Avoid losing business documents with automatic saves

The stress from losing hard work or entire documents altogether is something most people have dealt with at some point. Having to backtrack and redo lost work is tedious and unproductive.

The best way to avoid that ordeal? Automated saves.

With Microsoft 365, your Office documents are automatically saved for you. Whether it’s a document in the company Sharepoint or in your own OneDrive account, your hard work won’t go to waste.

Additionally, Sharepoint allows your company to collaborate on documentation without having to worry about whether the current document is the correct version. An average of 83% of the current workforce loses time daily due to document versioning issues. Microsoft 365 makes it easy to avoid lost time and frustration, with the added benefit of simplifying collaboration.

2. Maintain business security across all user devices

In the United States, 68% of organizations reported being hit by a public cloud security incident when polled in 2020. Attacks like these can cripple your business’ productivity and lower public perception of your company as a whole.

Both Sharepoint and OneDrive offer multiple layers of security to keep your business documentation safe on the cloud servers themselves, including:

• Virus scanning for documents
• Suspicious activity monitoring
• Password protected sharing links
• Real-time security monitoring with dedicated intrusion specialists
• Ransomware detection and recovery

With these built-in protections, you can keep your company safe no matter where your company’s distributed work happens.

3. Adopt company-wide security policies

Effective company security policies protect your organization’s data by clearly outlining employee responsibilities with regard to what information needs to be safeguarded and why.

Having clear guidelines set ensures that both your company information and your employees are safe from security threats.

Items to include in your security policy might include:

• Remote work policies
• Password update policies
• Data retention policies
• Employee training guidelines
• Disaster recovery policies

This list obviously isn’t exhaustive, so we’d recommend using a security risk assessment tool to pinpoint specific areas your business should address.

Note: Social engineering and phishing are major security threats for businesses of all sizes. To avoid becoming a target, your company must implement strong security practices for your users. For example, using a secure two-factor authentication setup can help prevent unauthorized users from accessing company documents.

4. Ensure communications are secured

Having a distributed work environment tends to mean that most (if not all) communications occur digitally. As such, keeping digital communications secure should be a top consideration.

If video calls are a major part of your business needs, Microsoft Teams offers robust encryption for your calls. Additionally, email through Microsoft 365 offers top-tier anti-phishing protection for your business.

To learn more about available tools for secure business communication, refer to the Microsoft documentation here.

Tap into global talent pools

The pandemic triggered a drastic reshuffling of how workers view their jobs, leading to what has been dubbed the Great Resignation. In the United States, more than 11 million jobs were sitting unfilled as of January 2022. With jobless claims on the decline, the domestic labor pool is small and competitive.

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed as a small company attempting to attract talent in the current labor market. You’ll want to ensure that you’re offering competitive wages and benefits, but it can be difficult to go toe-to-toe with large corporations.

However, this is another instance where distributed work can help. One solution? International talent.

The distributed work model makes employing remote workers worldwide more seamless than ever before.

A few considerations here to keep in mind, though.

• You’ll need to apply for certification from the U.S. Department of Labor to hire outside the country.
• Be aware of additional taxes that might result.

For more information, review the official documentation for this process.

Note: The same standards do not apply to international contractors, but there are special considerations for contractors as well. Read this guide for more details.

Maintain quality communication between employees

Successful businesses rely on open communication for everything from keeping employees up to date on company information to maintaining morale. Let’s go over a few ways to implement quality communication in a distributed work environment.

1. Cultivate a healthy work environment

Company culture can feel like an afterthought when your teams work separately from each other. However, cultivating a strong company culture is vital, especially for distributed work environments.

The first step here is to clearly define the company culture that you want. By setting the company standards early, your employees will be able to benefit from a solid starting point.

Second, reinforce the culture that you’d like to create. Setting goals, establishing performance metrics, fostering accountability, building trust with employees, and being open to feedback from workers all help reinforce a healthy company culture.

And third, it’s important to prioritize the mental and physical health of your employees. Encourage vacation time, allow for flexible working arrangements, and make mental health support a priority.

2. Foster open communication

Digital communication is key for distributed work environments, so keeping open and transparent channels for communication is imperative.

Email and chat tools are communication fundamentals, but fostering communication itself can feel a bit daunting.

Here are a few suggestions on building healthy communication for your distributed work teams:

• Make empathy a priority.
• Greet employees every day.
• Create a virtual water cooler to encourage socialization.
• Announce company updates directly.
• Give recognition and feedback regularly.

By encouraging clear, focused — but also fun — communication, your teams will grow to trust each other and interteam collaboration can flourish.

Distributed work is the ‘new normal’

Building your business toward a distributed work model is a solid investment in growing your company in the future. Tools like Microsoft 365 offer an all-in-one solution to take the pain out of transitioning your business, so take charge of your business’ future today.